victoriayhul: Making Free Money Online

In the latest blow to Google’s ever-expanding online ambitions, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, has opened an antitrust investigation into Google’s practices in online advertising. According to allegations made by Microsoft’s German subsidiary Ciao.de, British price comparison site Foundem, and French legal search specialist Ejustice, Google has discriminated against competitors by placing their links lower in search results than its own services, thus abusing its dominant position in online search.

Google has allegedly lowered the ranking of competitive vertical search sites — mostly price comparison sites — in favor of its own in the main body of search results as they appear on a Google search results page. These results are “natural”, or unpaid search results as opposed to the paid ads which appear on the top and the right-hand side of the page.

Vertical search sites specialize in a specific kind of search, like travel, health, or shopping. Some appear designed to game Google’s algorithms and benefit from free traffic from the Web search engine rather than providing a genuine service to users, while others offer a legitimately helpful service.

The EC is also looking into claims that Google has manipulated its internal “quality score”, which determines the amount of money an advertiser has to pay for an ad that appears on Google’s search results page. And finally, the Commission is investigating whether or not Google is also trying to stop websites from accepting rival ads, making the company sound like quite the online bully.

While the EC has opened an investigation into the matter, it doesn’t mean there is proof of any wrongdoing on Google’s part–yet. The EC states simply that it will “conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority.”

According to various outlets such as the BBC, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times, Google responded with a statement saying that it has “worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry.” Google said it has marked ads clearly and has allowed advertisers export their data from its service to other services easily. Google also said there is always “room for improvement”, and the company will be working with the commission to “address any concerns.”

There is no legal deadline for the investigation, meaning that it is likely to take months, if not years for the EC to reach a conclusion in what will be a highly complex case.

The EU has a history of taking on giant companies before, hitting Microsoft with a fine of 497 million euros, or $794 million, in March 2004 over antitrust issues, and, more recently, the regulator fined Intel 1.08 billion euros, or $1.38 billion. It is apparent that the EU is not a pushover when dealing with multinational companies and therefore this could mean trouble for Google, should the company be found to be using anti-competitive practices.

[Photo credit: Carlos Luna]

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...he'll have fewer Democrats come January. And, hey, the only other things to be accomplished in the next two weeks are debt-spending resolutions and repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" and passing the Dream Act and ratifying the START treaty and wrangling President Obama's tax cut deal.

The Republicans' Mighty Mitch McConnell (see smiling photo, left) has successfully gotten congressional Democrats carping at Obama over giving the GOP an extension of all Bush tax cuts and a lower Social Security payroll tax and estate tax changes and business investment tax incentives in return for less than five dozen more weeks of unemployment insurance.

Such a deal, eh?

Well, truth is, as Obama reluctantly realized, it's a better deal for him now than next month when the newly Republicanized House would vote to extend the tax cuts anyway and Obama wouldn't get anything, including credit, for having to sign such a popular measure.

A new Gallup Poll out this morning finds the extensions of tax cuts and unemployment benefits are particularly popular among Americans, two out of three, in fact.

So, look at that: It seems the Republicans and Obama are together in sync with the American public. That must really annoy the other folks.

And since Obama wants this stealth stimulus plan so badly to possibly salvage his 2012 reelection, and since he pretty much left Harry and Nancy out of the December weekend deal-making, the Nevada senator figures to slip online poker into the much-coveted tax cut bill for a free ride during the ensuing hubub. Voila!

Will this Reid insert ignite more cramming in of pet projects that overload the bill with miscellaneous irrelevancies, stalling the all-important tax cut extension before the Jan. 1 deadline?

Republicans say online poker has zero chance.

But here's the beauty in wily Harry's cards: Even if he's bluffing with this hand, the Nevadan can't lose. Just attempting passage of online poker now earns him chips back home in Vegas, baby.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Making Free Money Online

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