Company / division: Google
Google Debuts New Native AdSense Ads for Third Party Sites (Jul 6, 2017)
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★ EU Fines Google €2.4bn ($2.7bn) Over Favoring Google Shopping in Search Results (Jun 27, 2017)
The EU has three open antitrust cases against Google, and has just announced its final decision in one of those cases, which concerns Google Shopping. Very briefly, EU law doesn’t punish dominance in a market per se, but does place limits on certain behavior by dominant companies, specifically those which give their other products and services an unfair advantage. The EU has concluded firstly that Google search is dominant in the EU, and secondly that Google abused that dominance by favoring its Google Shopping feature over other “comparison shopping services”. It has therefore set a €2.4 billion ($2.7bn) fine based on revenue from Google Shopping in 13 countries where it’s available since as long ago as 2008, with a threat to levy an additional 5% of Alphabet’s total revenue going forward if Google doesn’t comply with its directives within 90 days. Other than the fine, the directive says Google has to stop favoring Google Shopping over other comparison shopping services, presumably either by eliminating the Shopping box that appears at the top and merely allowing Google Shopping results to appear with the other blue links below, or by featuring every available comparison shopping service in that box at the top and letting users choose. Predictably, Google has said it feels the decision is wrong and may appeal.
On, then, to what this all means. Firstly, this is just the first in three separate cases, and I’ve previously written in depth about the one that concerns Android here and here. In its decision, the EU explicitly says that this case sets a precedent, which certainly suggests it’s likely to find and act similarly in the other two cases. Secondly, the fine is substantial, but ultimately not the biggest punishment for Google here. Rather, the most significant outcome is restrictions on promoting other Google services in search, which applies for today onto to Shopping but by implication would also affect other linked products that get prominent promotion in search results, whether Maps, News, or potentially other categories too. Put that together with the precedent point, and we’re very likely to see similar restrictions on bundling and promoting other services in Android and possibly other areas too. Thirdly, the decision is notable for a very European approach to defining markets, which I mentioned in one of those earlier pieces on Android: the EU tends to define markets in ways normal people probably wouldn’t, because that allows it to make findings that otherwise couldn’t be made. In this case, it’s defining Google Shopping as a comparison shopping service rather than just a more useful way to present shopping-related search results and/or ads, which is how Google sees them. Once you define Google Shopping in that way, then of course Google is unfairly promoting Google Shopping over other comparison shopping services – can you even name any others? Google’s own algorithm, which benefits only from being as good as possible, rarely ranks any others above the fourth page of organic search results, suggesting their limited relevance. But as long as the EU is determined to take that approach, I see very little Google can do to fight against this decision, because it’s based on a market definition the EU gets to decide on, and which Google is essentially powerless to change. Overall, this feels like something of a watershed moment in Google’s relationship with the EU – I think any appeal is very unlikely to succeed, and at most will push back the implementation of the decision and the forced unbending of Shopping from search. But there’s lots more to come here, and Google is going to end up operating very differently in the EU from the rest of the world as a result. See a recent case in Russia for a small sense of some of the possible implications of the Android case.
One quick note: I’ve used the term “EU” throughout for simplicity’s sake, but it’s worth noting that technically it’s a specific part of the EU organization, the European Commission, which is taking this action.
via Bloomberg (see also the EU announcement and Google’s blog post)
Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube Create Forum to Counter Terrorism (Jun 26, 2017)
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Gmail Will Stop Scanning Emails to Target Ads Due to Enterprise Confusion (Jun 23, 2017)
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YouTube Makes Series of Announcements at VidCon (Jun 23, 2017)
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Some YouTube Advertisers Still Staying Away (Jun 21, 2017)
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Google Launches Jobs Search Vertical Announced at I/O Last Month (Jun 20, 2017)
Google announced its Jobs search vertical last month at its I/O developer conference, but it’s now actually launched the feature live for users (this is a good example of how launch announcements are often vague or completely silent on the point of timing, and it’s always worth checking that detail). The search feature works pretty much as you would imagine, for now at least merely aggregating search listings on existing big job search sites, though there’s no guarantee Google won’t eventually seek to disintermediate the legacy players and do more of the heavy lifting itself. After all, if users are already coming to Google for search results, why not encourage employers to list directly on Google over time? It’s also worth noting that Google has been reported to be working on a recruitment service for companies, for now decoupled from the Google search engine, but clearly a potential fit with it in time.
via TechCrunch
Storage Required for Top iPhone Apps has Increased 11x Since 2013 (Jun 19, 2017)
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EU Reportedly Facing Possible Billion Euro Fine in First Chunk of EU Antitrust Case (Jun 16, 2017)
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Google Announces Backup and Sync Service to Back Up PC Files and Folders (Jun 15, 2017)
To my mind, this announcement illustrates just how tough it will continue to be for standalone storage and backup companies to establish viable businesses over the long term, because their key features will continue to be embraced and absorbed by the big ecosystems. I still use Dropbox for backing up my various files and syncing them between machines, but I just know that a point will come when Google or Apple will simply build those features into their broader service offerings, and then I’ll ditch Dropbox. There’s simply very little true differentiation in this area – storage is storage, and at a certain level backup is backup. Once you get the table stakes around simplicity and universal access, it mostly comes down to trust and pricing, where the big guys are likely to have a significant edge. To get to this specific announcement from Google: it’s going to be providing an easier way to backup and sync files from your PC to Google Drive, which doesn’t require you to keep your files in a special Google Drive folder on your computer, unlike Dropbox. And although free storage maxes out at 15GB, Google will be pretty competitive beyond that on pricing.
via The Verge
Google Pixel Launcher User Numbers Cross 1m Mark, Suggesting 1m Pixel Sales (Jun 13, 2017)
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Streaming Music Boosts Indie Label Payouts by 52% (Jun 8, 2017)
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Some Advertisers are Moving Spend from Google and Facebook to Amazon (Jun 2, 2017)
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Tech CEOs Respond Negatively to Trump Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord (Jun 1, 2017)
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Google Confirms Plans to Block Some Ads in Chrome in Future (Jun 1, 2017)
There were reports a while back that Google was planning to incorporate some limited ad blocking features into its Chrome browser, and Google has now confirmed those reports and explained exactly what it’s planning. As the reports suggested, Google isn’t planning to implement a broad ad blocker but rather will block just those ads deemed annoying by the Coalition for Better Ads, of which Google is a member. It sounds like Google has started reaching out to publishers to explain the forthcoming change and will be providing detailed guidance on how they can ensure their sites are in compliance. As I said when the earlier reports surfaced, it’s smart for Google to be part of the push for limited ad blockers even if that may seem counterintuitive, because if it can focus that activity on egregious ads rather than all ads indiscriminately, it has a much better shot at protecting its own massive ad revenue than if others take more of a blanket approach. We can be certain that none of Google’s own sites or ad formats will be affected by this filter, but we can also guess that there will be something of an outcry from publishers feeling that Google is favoring itself while disadvantaging others. It’s going to be fascinating to watch this play out over the next few months.
via AdAge
YouTube Clarifies Content Policies for Creators and Advertisers (Jun 1, 2017)
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EU Reports that US Internet Companies Have Improved Removal of Hate Speech (Jun 1, 2017)
Back in December, four big US Internet companies signed a voluntary code of conduct with the EU under which they agreed to improve and accelerate the removal of hate speech from their platforms. Now, the EU is reporting good progress on those goals, with twice as high a percent of offending content removed, and Facebook and Twitter removing substantially more content within the first 24 hours, while YouTube slipped a little in this regard for reasons that aren’t clear. As Facebook has discovered, policing content is an expensive and labor-intensive task at the best of times, but having external standards set like this raises the stakes even further. The big risk in the EU and specific European countries is that this moves from voluntary codes of conduct to actual laws with significant consequences for non-compliance, so the big US companies are wise to do what they can to play nicely to try to ward off such outcomes.
via Reuters
IDC Predicts Slightly Faster But Still Modest Growth in Smartphones in 2017 (May 31, 2017)
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★ Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski for Refusal to Cooperate in Lawsuit (May 30, 2017)
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★ Andy Rubin’s Essential Announces Yet Another Phone Claiming to Change the Market (May 30, 2017)
The Verge seems to have secured the first of two exclusive looks at Android founder Andy Rubin’s new phone, from his company Essential (Recode’s Code Conference will have an interview with Rubin tonight where I’d expect him to share more). So far, there’s nothing about the software, beyond the assumption that it’ll run Android. So the focus is entirely on the hardware design, including the materials, connectors, and a theoretical ecosystem of modular add-ons (for now, there’s just one: a 360° camera). The reporting on this is all a little breathless – Andy Rubin has quite a reputation and anything he launches will be accorded a fair measure of respect. But the pitch here feels so much like almost every other new entrant in the market, a mix of straw man arguments about the current state of the market, grandiose claims about how all that will change, ambitions to build an ecosystem without any evidence that any other player is interested, and nothing at all about distribution, which continues to be the key question in the US smartphone market. We’ll hopefully know a little more by tonight, but I’m extremely skeptical that this phone will do any better than any other recent attempt to change the smartphone market. In the meantime, that won’t stop this project from getting tons of positive media attention in the run-up to an actual launch sometime later this year. It’s worth noting that beyond the phone there are some other bits and pieces too, including a smart home OS and speaker with a screen, but again the details are so short and claims so grand that I’m inclined to ignore them until we actually know something specific about them.
via The Verge