And this ain’t just going to be a love tap either, Google!
Watch as Google takes an uppercut to the chin.
From Bloomberg News Site today:
“U.S. Federal Trade Commission has begun a review of its business practices, kicking off what’s likely to be a broad antitrust investigation.
The company received a subpoena on June 23 “relating to a review by the FTC of Google’s business practices, including search and advertising,” according to a regulatory filing today. Google said it is cooperating with the probe.”
Is it wrong that I was doing the happy dance in my office when I read this?
Monopolies, benevolent dictators, religious fanatics, right- or left-wing zealots, bankers in collusion with mortgage companies that crippled our economy…I’m not a fan of any of them.
But Google? Why Google? Aren’t they the tech darlings with the only good ideas left? Or at least don’t they want us all to think so? The only other company with that much hubris these days is Facebook.
And they’ll get their’s as well as they get cockier.
I’m not a fan of anyone who will shut you down without notice and a vague non-explanation: You violated our terms of service.
Okay, how? Let’s fix it. Tell me what to do.
Heeeelllloooooo! Anybody in there?
Talking to Google is like putting a message in a bottle and pushing it out to sea in hopes that someone who can do something about your situation picks it off the beach on the other side of the world.
I absolutely believe in the every business’s right to do business with whom they want unless it violates our basic equal protection laws.
But, there’s basic decency laws too. (More like laws of nature.) And pompous, all powerful companies who become moral arbiters are way out of line.
Google, Facebook, PayPal, others: Listen UP!
My dad used to call it getting to big for your britches. Monopolies, by definition, are the only game in town. Yes, there’s Yahoo and Bing and 1000s of smaller search engine and advertising providers.
And they’re hungry. Read that as more customer friendly. But they’re also inconsequential – relatively. Google is the big dog. If you want to maximize your profit, you have to play with Google.
Until they take their ball and go home.
Yesterday, I saw an open letter from my friend Jeff Herring to Google because they shut down his Youtube.com account. They did that to Kevin Riley as well last year. Both are outstanding business educators and trainers.
In Jeff’s case, he lost about 125 videos over night, and tons of traffic from those to his sites. Google lost tons of traffic to Youtube and their advertisers. Jeff had 550 subscribers; that’s a really respectable number of subscribers who want his videos and want to be notified when he delivers another. Maybe it ain’t Britney Spears, but with that audience, it still seems to indicate a real following.
Gone.
No explanation.
Okay, I’m getting a little guilty pleasure out of this rant because Google banned my Adsense account 5 years ago. And I still don’t know why. The form letter was just that, and there’s no way to talk to anyone who can help you. I did notice that it was two days after I received my first check.
Part of me feels like I’m driving through my ex-wife’s neighborhood. I really hope and pray I don’t run into her, but I sure wonder what she’s doing sometimes. After all, I loved her once.
And I still love Google. They are incredibly innovative. They make tools like Google Analytics, Adwords and the External Keyword Tool. And they keep getting better and better.
They’re incredibly smart. I know a lot of people who are incredibly smart – many of them come to the NAMS workshop as students and instructors. No one, no matter how smart, is authorized to run my life. To me, that is abhorrent in the extreme.
So, what’s next for Google? At this point, it’s pretty predictable and costly.
The answer is lots of lawyers.
This paragraph from the Mashable.com article predicts the future pretty well based on the Microsoft experience many years ago.
“It’s inevitable that people will compare this investigation to the famous Microsoft antitrust investigation of the late 1990s. That case, United States vs. Microsoft, ended with a settlement that stopped Microsoft from using Windows to push its other products and lock out its competitors. Microsoft’s growth came to a halt after the case, and the company has never fully recovered.”
The Wall Street Journal also reported that the FTC fought the Justice Department for the right to handle this case. Yikes! This can’t be a good sign: Two mega government watchdogs with teeth wanting to take the first bite out of the fresh meat…
Google, it’s now time to eat a little humble pie. Take it like the mega giant you are Google.
A few months ago Google closed my Adwords account without allowing so much a true indication of what they thought was wrong with my promotions.
I had not spent a cent with them in months and had nothing active at the time.
Contrary to what they advertise, they didn’t even give a warning or even help with my campaigns.
Similar to Paypal – who seem to shoot first and don’t allow to ask questions later – there seems to be this superiority complex that both organizations do to Internet marketers.
If you have any services with Google Or Paypal then consider it a privelidge. It can be revoked or removed at any time.
Sorry to hear that Brad, but it doesn’t surprise me. One of the scariest things about online business to me is our dependence on companies like PayPal and Google.
I have a really hard time allowing the government to get involved in any kind of commerce oversight, but without some intervention, the banking situation would be the kind of chaos we’d come to expect from everyone. And we’ve got too much riding on it.
So, don’t misread this. I’m not FOR government intervention. But I’m also not for a return to the robber barons of the early 1900s.
I have been looking forward to this – I knew it was just a matter of time, and I can only hope that Google will be forced to segment all their interests. There is definitely a conflict of interest when it comes to Adwords, Search and many more, especially when they have all the data they need for their own power plays, but my gripes are far beyond this after being affected by their recent adjustment which took a drastic toll on our personal revenue. We even contacted Google who stated that our website was not affected, but it was and still is, for reasons we are not aware.
By the way, the URL that was placed with this comment is not the one I’m referring to, and I am not placing it here because it has no relationship with the topics discussed on this blog.
The affected website I am referring to has been up for over 4 years, has over 1800 pages of genuine content, new articles added daily, and our content is stolen often and placed on e-how and other sites. Even though I’m an expert in my field of over 38 years with links to state licensing, Google takes no interest in recognizing the contribution we make to thousands of people on a daily basis thereby saving them one heck of a lot of money.
I can go on and on about this, and I know others will be glad to see that Google is now under investigation. I will defiantly be contacting the FTC and registering my own complaint. I have been looking for an attorney who would begin a class action suite against Google because I feel so strongly about this, and I believe this is the right time for so may others who have been affected by Google as well.
Good luck with that Dave. Keep us posted.
Thank you Dave,
One thing that I would highly recommend is that if anyone has had their Google account shut down, they should contact the FTC and register a formal complaint. The lack of accountability, misrepresentation and self-interest must stop. When we lost about 50% of our ad revenue from Google, I could not help to wonder how a Google employee would respond if they received a 50% pay cut. I would feel that an explanation would be required. The same goes for all of you who had their accounts terminated, which is the same as firing someone from their position, there must be accountability and an explanation.
Yes, Google has created some very helpful back office tools, however they totally miss the mark by not going just one step further where they can create a simple score card or summary based on the latest crawl report and their algorithm. I would compare this to attending school and never getting a report card. The teacher and student needs to have a measurement tool, and they definitely need to have communication and feedback. Again, this is not offered by Google, it’s a one sided issue from a dictatorship organization that has special interests in mind.
The solution to the problems between our website and Google can be solved very simply by giving us a little more control and representing our website more directly. All it would take is a business agreement between Google and us where we allow them to place advertising on our website, and they would allow us to control the types of ads that appear and how much is charged. As it is, they populate our pages with crappy ads that pay very little. Display ads are a total waste of space because they do not get clicked and they end up being free brand recognition for the advertisers, which is extremely powerful for the advertiser, but sucks for the site publisher. Along with this business relationship with Google would be the agreement that they produce a score card with direct indications about where the website strengths and weaknesses are, which would enable focused attention where it is needed.
The bottom line is that no one knows their website and their audience better than the web publisher, no – not even Google. Google’s strength is search indexing and advertising, even though they are in direct conflict of interest. However if these two business entities were allowed to have full control and be fully represented with full communication then it would be an incredibly powerful thing, unfortunately this is not case at this time. Perhaps it will be in the near future.
Dave
I mostly agree with your comments about Google that they have grown too big for their britches. When they remove parts of a business’s means of getting customers they should be held accountable at least as to giving the reasons for the action and more than a one line form letter. That said, what do you have against benevolent dictators? If they truly are benevolent then this is a viable form of government for developing societies.
Sorry Bob, benevolent or not, I’m never for dictatorship. Benevolent dictators (or anyone protecting me from myself) have too much power. If they can’t be voted out, who’s to say their benevolence will remain so?
There is no easy answer to any of this. To me, it’s always a compromise.
One cliche. absolute power corrupts…absolutely.
It’s inevitable that those who are at the top, want to remain at the top. Any threat to the position will be dealt with harshly.
Anybody in business wants to squash competition, whether it’s gargantuan Google and the internet, or the corner stores duking it out in your small town. As the business gets bigger, they have more means at their disposal to do that.
And as time goes on, they are less inclined to give a rats ass about what the consequences are. When a business starts, there is a line drawn by the owner about what he or she will and will not do. Morals. Yes. Morals, and principles and ethics.
It’s funny. As the business grows, the lines get pushed back a little at a time. Every day, they redefine what their principles include.
*sigh*
Such a bad attitude. Well, that’s out of the way and I can enjoy my Sunday.
Although the big G has become so indispensable to so many people, it always amuses me at the sense of entitlement people place on the service. Without it, where would you be? Without the Internet, where would you be?
This argument might sound a little strange, coming from someone who literally pays the bills thanks to the very existence of Google, but let’s get this clear – having access to something and having ownership are two very different things. So when Google does some things that may upset (ie close accounts for no reason), sure it’s disappointing, there was a lot of work involved, many hours, blood, sweat, tears etc. But let’s not forget, it’s THEIR platform. They reserve the right to do whatever the heck they please, with their service. May not make some people happy – may downright annoy many people, but at the end of the day, it’s THEIR platform, not yours.
Until you come out with your own world changing service or product, make sure you have a clear understanding of the difference between “access” and “ownership”. In the meantime, do yourself a favor – learn to not take ANYTHING for granted, and become flexible. The Internet you know today will not be the one you spend time in 5 years from now….
Jeff – great reminder.
We should all be so innovative, right? Like I said earlier, this is a very tricky situation.
I truly believe that “having access to something and having ownership are two very different things” is a key principle of doing business in our country. And I also believe that in most cases, the marketplace determines the health and wealth of a business.
But there are some businesses which slip over into the utility mode like the local power companies… I really wonder where that line is. Google is probably not close, but I don’t know. Companies that have that much impact have to be scrutinized through a more focused lens.
Great comment.