EC sharpens long Google probe

Disingenuity at its best

The company said: "we are confident that our business operates in the interests of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law."

Did you spot what they did there?

Tossers. The complainants are saying that Google treated their listing unfairly. As entries on a list that Google created, they are neither "users" nor "partners". So the comment has nothing to do with the complaint. In fact, with the way they deal with user's information, one could argue that the aren't operating in the interests of users. So that's another problem they've created for themselves whilst in the process of giving a non-answer.

"I didn't read that report" (Geoff Hune) does *not* mean the same as "I was not aware of the contents of that report."

People need to learn to listen to what is being said and ask themselves why lawyers, politicians and other dodgy mouthpieces either don't answer a question or answer it *very* specifically.

Italian decision

This and the Italian decision to convict Google managers over YouTube videos of bullying, things are not looking so good for the chocolate mountain mob!

Proof

Google don't publish their ranking algorithms. It's going to be hard to prove they deliberately modified them as no one external knows how they work now or have worked. If you don't like their results, use Bing or Yahoo.

There is no monopoly on search, there are competitors but, for some reason, people like Google. If Bing had better results I'd use it - the interface is similar.. perhaps Microsoft need more servers (their servers are throttled with their own OS).

This being the EU...

... there is a hidden fourth ground of complaint that weighs more heavily than the rest: being a US firm with no EU-based rivals

Italian decision

I am split over the Italian decision.

On one hand I like that Google has taken a massive blow for their Youtube service. On the other hand I think the Italians somehow have gotten the wrong people. Shouldn't they have been gone after the filmers and uploaders in the first place? Then again, Google could have prevented this by manually checking the content. Obviously, they don't want to do this for several reasons (manual labor being one of them).

Paris, because Rome has a Hilton Hotel, too.

Foundem

this just garnered more indirect advertising than any google search result.

hadn't heard of them until they popped up on the various media recycling portals this last 24 hours. they even got airtime on radio four..

you can't buy that from google..

and lo..

they did ascend the lists and appear at the top when searched upon.. and there was much rejoicing.