I don’t resent their success, but with power comes responsibility. And my biggest gripe against them is the lack of any real appeals process. There is no-one to turn to at Google, and no higher authority to appeal to, like there is in other media and sectors.

Have a look at this graph showing Econsultancy’s referrals from natural search from Google over the last months: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3397/3418180052_734500d008_o.png

You can see that at the beginning we were getting around 5,000 referrals a day. This nosedived towards the end of December 2008 before picking up again 10 weeks later in late Feb 2009. Last week you can see the referrals falling off a cliff again…

This massively affects our business, of course. To a scary degree, Google dictates our business success or not. And this is increasingly true of all businesses. And yet, when *bad things happen* like our recent nosedive, we have absolutely no recourse to anyone, no insight, no right to appeal, nothing.

I can’t see that it can go on like this if Google is to continue to control much of the economy and people’s livelihoods.

Ashley Friedlein
CEO
Econsultancy.com

Lots of people here have tried, through various analysis, to argue that this guy did not try to ‘cheat’..

This is simply not true…
He provides a bad service for advertisers
He provides a less-than-the-best experience for users
He is clearly performing ad-arbitrage

Sure, you can run the numbers and try to turn his case around, but the truth is we dont need these “services”…. ONLY THEIR OWNERS NEED THEM!!

I call a con-man…

http://the-anti-google-baloney.blogspot.com/2008/09/try-googling-con-man.html

Through expert marketing, Microsoft has foisted on about 90% of the computer users in the world a series of increasingly bloated, error-ridden pieces of software. (If only Gates had had the good sense to steal from Unix rather than from CP/M…) Most of us can’t change because, well, because almost everybody else uses the same junk and the cost of conversion is simply too high. MSFT has never invented anything and usually takes at least 3 tries just to come up with a match to the then-former leader in the field.

But Google is both useful and inventive. At least a couple times a year, something new & useful & interesting comes out of Google. Further, there are other search engines on the web and the cost to me of using them is negligible. There are, in fact, several add-ons to Firefox that let me use multiple engines at a time or let me easily switch from one to another.

When a new search engine, like CUIL, gets announced, I don’t have to buy new hardware or new software or worry that I’m going to trash my computer if I try it. I can try it and switch or stay with Google.

Chrome is a case in point. I tried it. It lacks just about everything I depend on from Firefox. I did, however, find one use for it: a web site that has defeated (crashed or failed to work properly with) 4 different browsers on two operating systems on two different computer works in Chrome. So I fire up Chrome when I need to go to that web site. Firefox remains my main browser. Similarly, I am not a fan of GMail but use it for one particular purpose because of its storage capacity.

In brief, the cost of conversion for me, the end user, is very low where Google & its various products are concerned. I assume, from Google’s perspective, that it is to the company’s advantage to make attractive products so that people like me will use them and help them generate ad revenue. But the products have to be attractive because, again, the cost of switching from or to them is low.

As long as that remains true, I think any comparison between Google & Microsoft is bogus.

Yes it did. (Noting the Good DOJ of the Clinton administration , not the the Evil DOJ of GW Bush which loves torture, pardoned Microsoft, but goes after Google.)

Microsoft has 90% of the operating system market (77% profit margin) … because it behaved illegally … which was determined to be the case in a court of law … and the judge, having heard the FULL STORY … ordered Microsoft be broken up … (before being PARDONED by the GW Bush DOJ shortly before 9/11).

MEANWHILE in the European Union, Microsoft got a very big fine earlier this year … for acting criminally. I.E., Microsoft is a criminal organization. Evil. (Duh:)

BOTTOM LINE: If the DOJ (under Clinton) HAD NOT been breathing down Microsoft’s neck DURING the rise of the web (1993-2000) … Microsoft would have “bought the internet” and shut it down. There would have been no Google. (only slight hyperbole)

COMMENT: You want to keep paying TAXES to Microsoft? Good for you. Bad for the world. Evil prevails. (“Don’t be evil.”:) (P.S. Hurry up and install Vista or buy a new computer with it installed, and save us from more terrible Seinfeld/Gates ads. Resistance is Futile.).

P.S. I like the idea of Google as marketplace. I’ll keep thinking about that for awhile. Thanks.

Any company can raise prices without explanation or appeal. That in and off itself does make a company a monopoly. Besides being a monopoly is not illegal.

“That raises fears that it can and will act as a monopoly.”

And here is the crux the issue. That being a monopoly will make Google anti-competitive. Complaining that you don’t like how Google acts does not mean that it is abusing its dominant position in the online search market.

Ken Leebow: It is irrelevant if Google is becoming a monopoly. It’s how it uses it’s dominant position that is relevant. A few complaints about how Google charges prices hardly means it is abusing its dominant position.

bob: Exactly how is Google “fast becoming an evil monopoly”? How are they abusing their dominant position in the online search market?

And, on another note: Wikipedia ain’t far behind. Do a search on almost any subject and there will Wikipedia. Like Lemmings, we link to Wikipedia articles without thinking about it.

There’s so much information on the Net, that we rely exclusively on Google and Wikipedia.

Sites like lifehacker so blanently favour google and dis Microsoft. Look at their rss titles for the past 2-3 months and you can see that around 10% have the word google in the title – thats not even including gmail, etc