

Google found guilty of misleading advertising with Adwords - hartror
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-03/accc-wins-case-against-google/3930456

======
hartror
IANAL but it appears to me that Google lost because the court has taken the
position that Google does more than publish the advertisements because Google
uses algorithms to match advertisements with searches. In the original ruling
Google won with the position that they were like a newspaper, simply taking
someone else's copy and publishing it on their site.

It is a very interesting case and I am not sure where I personally stand on
it.

Either way I'm sure we will hear more from Google on the matter, they still
have an avenue for appeal. They can apply to the High Court which may or may
not accept to hear their appeal, I am not sure on what grounds this is decided
however.

~~~
cheath
The article says, "Google's conduct involved the use by an advertiser of a
competitor's name as a keyword triggering an advertisement for the advertiser
with a matching headline,"

I interpret that as, the advertiser defined the competitor as the keyword and
that is Google's fault for not preventing it.

Isn't that the end goal of most advertisements (overtly or not)? Tempt a
captive audience away from the alternative? Clearly I'm not familiar with
nuances of advertising laws (particularly abroad). Interesting article
nonetheless.

~~~
hartror
Not discussed in the article but I have read elsewhere that advertisers also
used the competitors name as the title of the advertisement. This is I believe
the "misleading" part of of the breach of the laws.

~~~
chrsstrm
It would be misleading if the ad attempted to fool users that they were about
to click through to the site they were looking for using the trademarked name
of the intended site. Searching for "Honda" and clicking on a link to
Honda.com that redirected to another site is very shady. However, all ad units
in Google search results are marked as such and I would say at this point 99%
of the population knows the difference between an ad and a genuine result.
Buying a competitor's name as a keyword gets you exposure to people looking
for options and i dont see anything wrong with it assuming you are not
impersonating someone else's brand. I can think of a certain billboard right
here in LA that advertises an organic market and is placed directly above the
Whole Foods on Santa Monica and Fairfax. Whole Foods might not be happy about
it, but it is clever ad placement.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I think you are far over-estimating the size of the set of people who know the
difference between ads and organic results on Google. I would also bet the
percentage of people who can differentiate sites by URL is is very small. If
the link text says "Honda", many (most?) will believe they are going to a
Honda sanctioned site.

I would _love_ to see real user research on this topic. Google showed pretty
well there are a lot of people who are confused, to say the least[1].

1\.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ&sns=em](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ&sns=em)

~~~
chrsstrm
Sure, 99% is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but I do think most people are
pretty savvy to the difference. It seems like in this case the advertisers
were going after the people who were searching for the URL rather than just
typing it in, which in my opinion, is the less savvy percentage of the
population. It brings to mind the blog post that took the number 1 spot in
search for "facebook login" and caused outrage by people clicking through
thinking they were going to log into Facebook, landed on the blog post, then
complained that Facebook had changed designs - off the top of my head I don't
have a citation for that case. But I do think its safe to say the majority of
people know the difference between ads and results.

------
DanBC
([http://www.news.com.au/technology/accc-wins-appeal-
against-g...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/accc-wins-appeal-against-
google-over-false-and-misleading-advertising/story-e6frfro0-1226317505295))

([http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/03/oukin-uk-google-
aus...](http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/03/oukin-uk-google-australia-
court-idUKBRE83206020120403))

> _"It is Google's technology which creates that which is displayed," said the
> judges, who examined four cases of misleading search results._

([http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/ACCC-
wins...](http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/ACCC-wins-court-
ruling-against-Google-pd20120403-SZMSV?opendocument&src=rss))

> _“Google's conduct cannot fairly be described as merely passing on the
> statements of the advertiser for what they are worth,” Chief Justice Patrick
> Keane and Justices Peter Jacobson and Bruce Lander said, according to the
> AFR. “That it happens to headline a keyword chosen by the advertiser does
> not make it any the less Google's response.”_

([http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-03/accc-wins-case-
against...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-03/accc-wins-case-against-
google/3930456/?site=newcastle))

> _"Although the key words are selected by the advertiser, perhaps with input
> by Google, what is critical to the process is the triggering of the link by
> Google using its algorithms."_

------
robryan
Australia is already one of the only places in the world where Google allow
companies with trademarks to block keywords matching their trademark. This
result just sounds like it pushes Google further down this path which doesn't
apply to any of the other major markets.

It makes like had as an affiliate or merchant where a supplier can block
trademarks and make it much harder to effectively advertise your business
based off their products.

~~~
pyre
I wonder how fast laws would change if Google decided that Australia just
wasn't worth it anymore, shuttered all Aussie operations, and blocked
Australian ISPs from accessing any Google domain.

edit: Didn't see DiabloD3's comment before posting this.

------
jjcm
I'm still confused - why is having ads linking to a competitors site illegal?

------
gojomo
The 'above natural' results are an amazing fountain of profit for Google
driven by searchers who don't realize those are paid ads, or think that those
are especially Google-endorsed. A company that is already the top natural
result for its own name may still find it profitable or necessary to be the
top paid result as well, to catch that traffic.

In some e-commerce contexts, even if the top natural result is the _direct
source_ of a certain product, selling at the _best price_ , a significant
amount of traffic will go to a _reseller_ who has _higher-prices_ , but
appears in the first paid position.

For those categories, Google and the reseller are a tag-team distribution-
power middleman siphoning value from both the searcher and the target site,
compared to the 'platonic ideal' of just giving the searcher what they want.
It's not quite 'evil', given that it subsidizes other Google benefits on less
economically-valuable categories, but it's not Google being a White Knight for
the searcher's best interest, either.

------
DiabloD3
What stops Google from just pulling out of Australia stating Australian laws
are anti-free speech and unworkable for American countries, and then
blacklisting all .au TLDed sites from the index?

~~~
talaketu
American countries?

~~~
rfrey
DiabloD3 probably meant American companies.

That correction doesn't make the comment less inane though. I'm pretty sure
that getting into a pissing match with a sovereign Western nation would be a
no-win situation for Google - lose and, well, you lost; win and you've got
every other government (including the U.S.) painting a target on your back.

~~~
hartror
Especially when they admit it is a problem and that it is against their TOU.

