Jul 16 2007
The ACCC and Google
You probably heard last week about the ACCC* taking the Trading Post and Google to Court. Briefly
The ACCC is alleging that Trading Post contravened sections 52 and 53(d) of the Trade Practices Act 1974 in 2005 when the business names “Kloster Ford” and “Charlestown Toyota” appeared in the title of Google sponsored links to Trading Post’s website. Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota are Newcastle car dealerships who compete against Trading Post in automotive sales.
The ACCC is also alleging that Google, by causing the Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota links to be published on its website, engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.
The ACCC is seeking …injunctions restraining Google from publishing sponsored links of advertisers representing an association, sponsorship or affiliation where one does not exist
Google are pretty vigilant when it comes to protecting trademarked terms. But the thought that they’d have to vet all sponsored ads to ensure there was in fact an “association, sponsorship or affiliation” is ludicrous. I’d suggest the responsibility should rest with the advertiser, not the medium.
And where would it stop? If someone writes a page about a business that they have no affiliation, sponsorship or association with, would Google then have a duty to ensure it DOESN’T get indexed? Or is it just because money exchanged hands? Would Google displaying what I wrote about the other day constitute engaging in “deceptive and misleading conduct” by allowing that page to be displayed? What about 3Loves?
Further, the ACCC is alleging that Google, by failing to adequately distinguish sponsored links from “organic” search results, has engaged and continues to engage in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.
The ACCC is also seeking “…injunctions restraining Google from publishing search results that do not expressly distinguish advertisements from organic search results”
While people might scoff at the suggestion that Google don’t adequately distinguish between organic and paid searches, there’s one thing to consider. If you’re reading this, chances are you are a “high end user” of the internet. We can’t fall into the trap of assuming that our experience of the internet is the same as everybody else’s (or even the majority).
While demonstrating one of my websites to an extremely educated, highly paid, and I would have assumed “tech savvy” executive (who was extremely familiar with the website, and using a laptop with a wireless connection), I asked him to go to the website on his computer.
I watched as he went to Google and typed the name in the search bar (see is Google the new address bar?). Then (to my horror), despite the relevant URL coming up first organically, he proceeded to click on the sponsored ad! He was genuinely surprised when I told him he’d just cost me about 10c, as it was a paid ad.
The moral here is that we can’t take our knowledge of the internet as being representative of the whole population.
What does “Sponsored Links” even mean? 
Let’s look at one definition
- One who assumes responsibility for another person or a group during a period of instruction, apprenticeship, or probation.
- One who vouches for the suitability of a candidate for admission.
- A legislator who proposes and urges adoption of a bill.
- One who presents a candidate for baptism or confirmation; a godparent.
- One that finances a project or an event carried out by another person or group, especially a business enterprise that pays for radio or television programming in return for advertising time.
So if we look at the number 1 suggestion, could it perhaps be argued that “sponsored links” in fact mean that Google are assuming “responsibility” for these advertisers during a “probation period” or that Google are (number 2) “vouching for the suitability” of these links/advertisers?
The hearing is set down for August 21 – no doubt there will be a lot of interest in the outcome.
Links
* Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Trade Practices Act 1974 Section 52
Update 17/7 – Google Australia’s Response
10 Responses to “The ACCC and Google”
Well, the Trade Practices Act applies in this case because their is a monetary transaction taking place by a company; whereas indexing a page is not a sale of the website to gooogle.
Hi Bryce
Nice to see you
Yes, I suspected that might be the case…
Long Zheng posted about this a few days ago http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070714/google-accc-make-changes/
It’s good for a laugh anyway.
As for Google’s choice of “sponsored links” as the text to describe advertising – perhaps a poor word choice, as it can be interpreted that either Google is (as one of the definitions says) vouching for the suitability of the link, or that (as I view it) the advertiser is vouching the suitability of the link.
The issue comes back, however to how it’s displayed. In your example, the client clicked on the ad – which was probably the first thing that stood out, and looked like what they were expecting.
Google’s simplicity in the search “experience” is one of the things that makes it great (the other is that it actually delivers good results). You have very little distracting crud – the entire focus is on the text box in the centre of the page.
The problem comes after you hit that enter button. Before AdWords – it was just a list of links and their summary. Very little to distract a user from what is really important – their actual search results.
Compare that with what happens now. The user is presented with all sorts of additional things depending upon what they searched for. Stock Quotes, News, Images, Maps, Weather, Youtube Videos, not to mention traditional links and (the key point here) the nicely coloured, and bolded “Sponsored Link” – right up the top of all those search results. For some keywords, there might be several links in that coloured box.
What are most users going to do? What they’ve always done when presented with a whole bunch of options – click the first thing they see that looks like it fits. Which is probably going to be one of those brightly coloured and handily positioned AdWords sponsored links.
The solution? Well… that’s a bit more difficult (and I’m not going to give away all my secrets in just one comment! ;))
Amazing how many people don’t “get” online advertising.
My dad thought the Google Sponsored Links were just the “most relevant sites that Google found”
Hi Will
“Long Zheng posted about this a few days ago” – sight I’m so behind in my reading. I like the mock ups!
I think “paid advertisements” would be really obvious.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Google search, and rarely use anything else. I firmly believe it’s revolutionised the internet experience.
But I do agree that there is a lot more clutter in the results now. Search for “online directory” and you get 2 sponsored results, 3 top results for “online directory”, then 3 results for “online dictionary” . If I wanted an online dictionary, I would have typed it in.
Similarly yesterday, while looking for a particular cemetery in Australia, I got 3 whopping ads for Google Maps for a cemetery in the US – despite selecting “pages from Australia”. Simply NOT relevant.
I’d love to hear your secret solution sometime
Andy
“BINGO” – exactly the point I was trying to illustrate.
Why were you running a sponsored link if you were #1 organically?
How long have you had nested search results for? Got any tips for achieving a similar result?
Hi David
“Why were you running a sponsored link if you were #1 organically?”
Because so were the competition. There’s a lot of debate as to whether it’s necessary when you appear at number one for a given keyword, but if you’ve got an audience who isn’t particularly “search savvy”, it’s probably important to be there. Of course, it does cost more, but it’s a risk / benefit trade-off.
I’m actually going to experiment this week (with that website), turning off keywords that appear organically at number one, and monitor the difference in traffic. It’s pretty consistent each day of the week.
“How long have you had nested search results for? Got any tips for achieving a similar result?”
I’m assuming you’re referring about dLook here. Basically just time, traffic and back links. Can’t really offer specific words of wisdom, sorry.
When did dLook launch, how long have you had nested results for, how many back links do you have and what are your traffic levels?
Feel free to answer these questions via email, or ignore them completely if it’s information you don’t disclose.
David
dLook launched in April last year. I don’t remember how long we’ve had the nested results – it’s been maybe a few months? Back links – Google Webmaster tells me thousands of external links.
As to the traffic – Ranking.com has us at number 30 in Australia, and Alexa (today) at 213 in Australia. Of Australian Sites, in Australia, Alexa has us at 77. That should give you an idea…