[LINK] Re: ACCC vs Google & Telstra [misleading results]

sylvano sylvano at gnomon.com.au
Fri Jul 20 07:03:19 AEST 2007


On Friday 20 July 2007 01:00, Janet Hawtin wrote:

<snip>

> I don't really understand why a consumer organisation is going to
> court in order to change this unless they are going to mandate that
> consumers are able to see all the alternative products. I can't
> imagine that would be easy to do so I can only assume if the ACCC wins
> I get to see less options.

<snip>

Only because the ACCC is commissioned to administer the Act, and so they 
assess particular contexts, see if the Act applies and determine the 
likelihood of legal action succeeding, priorities on acting given resources, 
etc.

Consider the case of "Louis Vuitton" who got a win in French courts against 
Google.  Type their name into Google.com and should notice something.... no 
paid advertisements. 

I agree with you that the variety of search results is important and expected, 
but the wrangling that is in play relates to specifically to paid ad 
placements and how different commercial entities are leveraging the use of 
Google's commercially based "sponsored link" results, which aren't search 
results.  They're advertisements.  

The sidebar adverts in Google have always been a fine thing that respect.  A 
distinct list of paid ads.  The top of search results advertisements muddy 
the waters, and *I think* that the thrust of the ACCC action with google and 
telstra relates to those adverts in that position and how that may constitute 
a misleading action.   

A regular Joe user, coming to google, and typing in "blah" may click on a paid 
link at the top of the search results naturally assuming that it was the best 
natural result, and not an ad. ie mislead. 

BTW, regarding misleading search resuls... consider google.com vs 
google.com.au

I find it annoying at times (depending on what I search for) that searching 
the web from the .au google domain, with the option of searching "the web" 
checked (not "pages from Australia") usually does diddly squat. It ain't 
actually an option or real worth.

You have to physically force google to operate from its .com or country 
specific domain to get a different view of content on the internet. 


Sylvano

-- 
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