Google Goes Tit For Tat With Microsoft

EVERGREEN, COLORADO-Several days ago, I came across another example of evil in the media regarding the big Federal Trade Commission investigation that recently concluded. This time the piece was a pro-Google op-ed written by Thomas B. Leary, who is associated with Google. (Know more.)

USA Today published the post on Jan. 12 and notes at the bottom of the piece that Leary served as a commissioner at the FTC from 1999 to 2005 and is of counsel to the law firm of Hogan Lovells, which does work for Google.

Does that seem like a conflict of interest to anyone else? This is just one more example of sponsored side-taking articles from the media.

In December, a Microsoft lawyer wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that lauded Microsoft and attacked Google, and Google appears to have resorted to tit for tat behavior with this new article from Leary, who does the exact opposite.

Leary’s opening paragraph summarizes the FTC’s 19-month investigation into potential violations of antitrust laws first, then launches into his true agenda. He writes, “Those laws should not be construed to handicap companies that have become conspicuously successful by offering products or services that appeal to customers, simply to make life easier for their less successful rivals.”

The article takes on a condescending tone toward Google’s competitors, intimating that their “vociferous complaints” about Google’s success in the marketplace are less about antitrust violations and more about their inability to find a way to compete.

Google’s competitors accused them of using its Internet search dominance to unfairly favor its own services over rivals in search results like passing off Yelp consumer reviews as their own and pulling data from Wikipedia for their Knowledge Graph.

Search engines have the right to collect the data it wants from the consumers if they opt-in into giving it the data. Most marketing companies or advertising agencies thrive on consumer data, so there shouldn’t be a double-standard when it comes to Google or Microsoft. They are simply practicing the same techniques on a larger scale.

The agency’s findings were that Google’s practices were similar to online search competitors and that they were attempting to improve search results rather than demote competitors in search ranks. On Jan. 3, the same day the results of FTC investigation was published  , Google announced two voluntary product changes:

• “More choice for websites: Websites can already opt out of Google Search, and they can now remove content (for example, reviews) from specialized search results pages, such as local, travel and shopping;

• More ad campaign control: Advertisers can already export their ad campaigns from Google AdWords. They will now be able to mix and copy ad campaign data within third-party services that use our AdWords API.“

Google and Microsoft are engaging in unethical-albeit not illegal-behavior. We’ve discussed that before, but what’s worse is that they cover it up by paying the media and attacking each other. The fact that these massive companies are more or less sponsoring major media outlets to defend them and attack their competitors is appalling. Frankly, I’m getting sick of our media’s blatant bias and lack of journalistic integrity.

All the media does by taking sides in this issue is distract people from the real problem and prevent a meaningful dialogue about solutions.