Google faces landmark lawsuit
Rating: big implications for mobile further down the line
By Annie Turner
An article written by Richard Waters in today’s Financial Times should be reverberating round the mobile advertising industry right now like a gong.
This is why.
“An Australian government agency has filed what is thought to be the first trading standards lawsuit against Google …The allegations take direct aim at the design of the results pages Google returns in response to a search request, accusing the company of failing to create a clear enough distinction between its “organic” search results and the adverts that run alongside them.”
“The regulatory body said that, among other things, it was seeking an order “restraining Google from publishing search results that do not expressly distinguish advertisements from organic search results”.
“In a statement, the Australian agency said that while the search engine had faced action in the US and elsewhere on trademark issues, it “understands that it is the first regulatory body to seek legal clarification of Google’s conduct from a trade practices perspective.
The case also takes aim at Google and its advertising customer for using the names of rival dealers to try to attract customers.”
This could have big implications for mobile search further down the line; lots of business models are relying on stitching advertising and search together very closely without necessarily revealing to the user that the answers they get (in response to their search for a restaurant or hotel has been paid for rather than based on recommendation, for instance) and few people have raised this thorny issue as a problem. I’m relieved to see that it certainly could be.
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