Sunday, 25 September 2011

Google : Under the Spotlight

If you didn't know, Google has recently been under intense scrutiny all over the world for unethical practices. Last year in November they came under investigation through a anti-trust probe launched by the EU in order to ascertain whether Google abuses its market position, similarly in June this year, US federal regulators issued a anti-trust probe in order to investigate the same thing, and then 4 days later, a French search engine 1PlusV issued a court action towards the search engine giants, suing over allegations that Google uses its dominant market position to guide users towards sites that are involved within their adsense programs, and through their sponsored links that appear down the side. Effectively, Google are able to eliminate sites and search engines that are legitimate within the search, in order to promote sites up the list that are involved within their advertising program. Of course, these allegations remain to be proved but have been increasing in their seriousness despite Google's claims for legitimacy. Depending on who you believe, this could be a legitimate use of large market share in order to push consumer towards you products, or an illegal use of power to restrict consumer choice in the search for more revenue although Google claim their ranking system is legitimate. Will marketers continue to use Google adsense capabilities despite the negative media attention they are receiving at the moment? I believe yes, because if you translate this into a real world example, companies with huge market share have capabilities to steer consumers towards their products, be it through large recognition through previous brand building or through extensive use of IMC a company that has taken large market share can rely on those who are part of their market share to use and be directed towards their products, why then cant Google do the same? 
what do you guys think? 




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1 comment:

  1. Wags5 October 2011 at 03:13

    An interesting post - thanks for raising this issue. There's a line there, but I'm not sure whether Google cross it. Is it appropriate to use market dominance in one industry to build strength in another? I loved the way Google used their search page to promote G+ last week - did you see the big arrow pointing to the G+ link in the top left of the screen?

    What do others think?

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