Taken in a vacuum, a fairly trivial thing happened a few days ago. The co-founder of Firefox, Blake Ross, wrote a post criticizing Google called “Tip: Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose“. He takes issue with a new Google search feature that promotes certain of their own products over organic search results. See Google searches for Calendar, Blogging, Photo Sharing and others and see Google pushing Google Calendar, Blogger and Picasa, respectively, above what is supposed to be the most relevant results - Google search. Even a search for Yahoo Calendar has these Google results above the obvious destination the user was searching for.
I say this is trivial incident taken in a vacuum because, quite frankly, Google has every right to promote their own products on their website. But I think Ross’ post may be a sign of a change in attitude towards Google that’s been percolating for the last year or so, and is beginning to manifest itself. The fact that a highly respected entrepreneur finally spoke out should be a wakeup call for Google.
Part of the problem is that Google has always held itself to a higher standard than other companies. We took them seriously when they said their corporate motto is “Don’t be evil“. It was the right thing to say when they were young and battling the hated Microsoft. But today, as they begin to put themselves before what’s best for their users, that motto is coming back to haunt them.
They can’t redact the motto, of course. They can’t take back those words. Google will forever be held to a higher standard than everyone else, simply because they asked us to.
This Google search misstep, aggregated with others, is taking a toll. People seem less willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt when they try something new. And with so many bloggers eagerly awaiting the opportunity to jump on any bandwagon that comes along, this subtle shift in public attitude could signal a tidal wave of negativity down the road.
We’ve seen this before. Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft were the darlings of the valley back in the late nineties. Just the fact that an entrepreneur got a meeting with one of them was something they brought up in their pitches to venture capitalists. The big three became very arrogant about their positions on the top of the food chain.
They had big revenue numbers to hit to keep the stock price soaring. Any kind of real business development deal took seven or eight figures just to get in the door. $10 million/year revenue guarantees became commonplace in deals. When the stock market crashed, and venture dollars dried up, so did the advertising market. Those big deals went away. Much of the revenue was never recognized because the companies promising it went bankrupt. Yahoo and the others were hit hard. Layoffs occurred and CEOs were fired. And the arrogance went away. Today, entrepreneurs tell me they are an absolute pleasure to deal with, and open to new and sometimes outrageous ideas.
Now Google is in the position of dominance, and they definitely have the arrogance that goes with it. But they are in a very difficult spot because of that damned motto, and perhaps right on the tipping point where public opinion could change. More and more, people are hoping for Google to stumble. And every time they do, the press pounces. And they always point to the motto.
Google needs to change. They can’t kill the motto, so they need to live up to it, permanently. They need to stop treating the outside world with disdain, and replace it with transparency and honesty. Users must always come first. Always. And they need to do it soon. Once the shift in public opinion becomes obvious, it will be way too late. And while Matt Cutts, the unofficial Google blogger, deals with the Ross post in a straighforward and honest way, I think he should be far more critical of his company. Even to the point of risking his job. Because that is exactly what Google needs right now.
Comments
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Wow, this has been a touch week for Google. And, your use of a Malcolm Gladwell reference is spot on. But, I don’t think there is a true tipping point until a real search alternative arises.
You’re right to be pointing to early-warning signs, but it’s certainly not a 3 alarm fire yet. They need to pause and reflect and come back reinvigorated.
This is exactly what I have been discussing with friends for a while now. Google is getting too big for its motto. With this many services, users and revenue goals, it’s quite difficult to live up to “not be evil”.
Google yanked my Adsense account and never paid what they owed me for over a year of hosting their ads. To this day I have no clue why they yanked it and they’re too arrogant to say. One can I was at $43.xx, the next it was yanked. I’ve written them, and their response was something along the lines of “We reviewed everything, and we’re still right”. I don’t even know *what* they’re right about.
I hope the company goes down quick.
I thought there was a ruling not long ago that said companies couldn’t purchase keywords related to their competitors. i.e. Pepsi couldn’t buy the keyword “Coke”. Isn’t Google pushing Google Calendar as a prime listing on a search for Yahoo Calendar the same thing?
Is is possible that they deserve to be there for those searches? When I do a search for “email” Yahoo comes up first - would have thought they’d be pushing gmail. http://www.google.com.au/searc.....&meta=
Google do seem to have lost sight of their desire to make the world’s information accessible and usable. Seems to me they need a refocus or they risk alienating their audience. But as others said above, until there is a viable search alternative you won’t see users voting with their feet by staying away.
Simon: I’m guessing ‘Yahoo Calendar’ isn’t a trademark otherwise it would be double standards for Google to position themselves above the natural results, when in paid search you can’t bid on a trademarked term… Guess the difference is this isn’t paid search and Google owns the real estate.
But Google does not belong to itself. It’s a public company and it has one main goal - to increase a profit for its shareholders. Sometimes, many years ago, when Google was a private company, it had ability to use any direction it wanted.
But now if Google wouldn’t promote it own services and if it wouldn’t winkle the last cents out of everything, its officiers will loose faith and the company will loose capitalization.
I think, it’s a common way for all companies that become public. They loose its own personality, face and than they loose their will and responsibility for an abstract good ideas that don’t make maximal profits somewhen in the future.
I have to disagree about the “tips” - Can Google do it? yep. Should they be? Nope. Because it does not level the playing field. Users will click those tips before an ad or an organic listing. And as Google expands its empire, we will see more and more tips. Click my name to read my full post.
I agree with sply - Google is public and will do everything it can to wring every penny out of that sponge. And remember that investors don’t care about users or employees. They care about their bottom line.
I searched for “yahoo calendar”, Yahoo was the first result, other than the tip. I searched for “calendar” Yahoo was the fourth result. I searched for “email”, Gmail is second after Yahoo. I tried these same searches on Live, AOL, and Yahoo and received similar results. If you don’t like Google, don’t use it. Google shows up second in a search for “search engine”. Any “for profit” company is evil. Get over yourselves, no one is making you search at google.com.
http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine
It sure does feel that Google has been changing its directions ever since it agreed to its censoring agreement in China. Google is hiring so many employees at such a rapid rate and getting so much publicity that the company is starting to get out of control. It will be interesting to see what happpends down the road.
I was a very early beta user of Google and have been a fan for a long time, as have so many others. But how the company can mature and stay true to core values at the same time pleasing investors and a vocal group of emplopyees will be interesting. A good read is “The Wal-Mart Effect”. Can a company get too big to “not be evil” simply through sheer size and market impact, much less a conscious straying from core values? Is tomorrow’s Google today’s MSFT?
Taken on a bit too much, making missteps.
Should pause for breath, put core values back on top of the pile.
They need to stop worrying about 757s and SpaceShipOnes and get back to earth before their stock price does it for them.
The risk Google has here is that their only real asset is their “good name”. This means that they are always one misstep away from destroying their value (a la Arthur Anderson). Unlike a bricks and mortar company where the assets bring most of the value, Google plays in a space where their value is in their brand name only.
I say this only because they have to be very very careful. They are approaching “predatory” behavior which could kill them and turn the technologists against them. You are right to call this out as a time for them to very very careful.
P.S. I would not hold stock in any company which only had a brand name as their asset. Yes, technically, I am sure their “search” is better but most people do not know that. As soon as they are seen as “duping” the public, they will be dropped like a brick.
I find myself using Wikipedia for fact related searchs now, Google got where they were from search but they have become so caught up with fighting spammers that there results are starting to suffer.
one point no one seems to have mentioned is anti trust issues etc. With such a high percentage of the search market they could get in trouble for pushing thier own services before others.
Mike, If you believe you make the best photo, email and calendar products is it evil to put them at the top of the list? Just like a mother picking their own child in a beauty contest. It is not evil to pick your own children but not necessarily an unbiased choice.
Mike,
Do you think that a search on “30Boxes Calendar” should yield a Google at the top? I don’t think so and other search engines don’t employ such a broad network promotion. It also seems to fly in the face of the trademark guidelines they subject adwords customers too.
Matt Cutts writes
>Q: But if Google thinks its (say) Calendar is the best, isn’t it okay to give that as a tip?
>A: In my personal opinion, not if the tip triggers for too many irrelevant queries.
what about when 3rd parties don’t think so?
ultimately, this isn’t a big deal because Google has already climbed the mountain. I guess it is more about hoping that they could stay innocent, hip, and irreverent. If they had real foresight, they would start a massive effort for software support and general goodwill building by forcing engineers to engage in “public” works online (coding and in forums)…
I think people have a problem with the fact that these “tips” are not labeled as “sponsored links.” However, the bigger problem people seem to have is that these tips are allegedly being displayed when competitors’ names are used in the search.
However, I have not been able to replicate the searches to display a tip for a competing product and have not seen any screenshots. Would anyone be willing to show me an example of Google doing this with a competitor’s name? A search for yahoo calendar does not display a tip, but Blake Ross’s original post claimed it does.
A search for calendar does display a tip.
My goodness, with all the moralizing going on this week (tippy Google, lap-toppy Microsoft), you’d think we were heading into Rosh Hashanna, not New Year’s.
I’m not as worried about their tips and Gmail worries as I am about the downward spiral of the quality of their search results. They had a blip a year or two ago where splogs and ‘index’ type sites were jamming up the results, which they resolved quickly, but it’s been particularly nasty for the past month or two now. There are absolutely tons of “Supplemental Result”s appearing above valid results, good sites crashing down the ratings, and it seems unless you’re searching for either something ultra-generic or ultra-specific, the quality is miles below what it used to be. If anyone else is interested in this topic, check out the Google News forum at WebMasterWorld where it’s getting discussed at length.
I am looking for alternatives to use. Yahoo has okay results, but their pages are more spammy than Googles, alas.. I am hoping Jimbo Wales and Wikia are going to provide the solution.
http://ralphdagza.com/2006/12/.....or-domain/
Alexander: I just used the “Yahoo calendar” link in the article above and got the tip showing.. here’s a screenshot.
#4 - you gotta be kidding me. I browsed around your site for few minutes and let me understand this: you’re hosting pirated ebooks among other things? I can’t say for sure but that’s some solid ground for google to suspend your account.
Google Certainly Had their Share of problems
One thing you haven’t mentioned is the vast amount of pirated content on Google’s network
http://webiztoday.com/wordpress/?p=68
Tips that never made it to the search page
“Cigarettes”
>> tip: Smoking can kill you!
” Software Developer”
>> tip: U.S. immigration attorneys
“Monkeyboy”
>> tip: Looking for Steve Ballmer?
Its sad to see people just ripping off Google for small things like tips and their motto. If people don’t like tips then go to alternatives like yahoo and ask.com or whatever. I think its a good idea to keep techcrunch original. There are zillions of blogs outside, we just can’t analyze them on other blogs too.
I see a techcruch banner on the frontpage promoting advertising on this site and I see posts about crunchgear on this site.
Promotion of your own products and services is the most logical thing todo for anyone trying to make a living or am I from an other planet?
They present it very low profile in one view with other solutions, no problem at all if you ask me. If you have a problem with it than just stop using all the free products google provides for you, plain and simple.
Wim
I will take the shallow approach and say its all about envy…envious of Google’s success and there is no end in sight…………
What is a little self promotion and by the way, can anybody speak definitively about the algorithm that brought Google’s product results to the fore….are you telling me that Google just this once tinkered with there search apparatus just to skew the results….
Do we think that even if it did skew the results that something like this would bring the mighty Google to its knees…methinks not!!
One reason Google promote their products on search result pages is so that they don’t have to turn their front page into a Yahoo-like explosion of links.
The “ad” is clearly identified with an icon and the word “Tip:” so you’d have to be an idiot to mistake it for a search result. Hence, I don’t see it as any more evil than including ads on search result pages in the first place.
And frankly, it’s a bit late to be predicting a Google backlash–people have been writing articles about Google’s imminent demise for years; a quick search reveals “Google backlash” articles in 2002.
Well it looks like Google listened already and took down their own ads for those keywords you mentioned … Funny.
Mike, you said:
Google needs to change. They can’t kill the motto, so they need to live up to it, permanently. They need to stop treating the outside world with disdain, and replace it with transparency and honesty.
What’s weird is that nothing you mentioned in this post seems to want for transparency or honesty. Nor do I see any hint of “disdain”. Perhaps there are other indicators of these failings you’re NOT mentioning in this post. Maybe you’re alluding to personal interactions we can’t be expected to understand. But frankly the post seems conclusory rather than explanatory. I’d like to know more about Google’s disdain. Or failing that, I’d like to know what exactly they need to be doing. What are YOUR ideas?
The failures you’ve alluded to in this post are significant, but I don’t think they’re systemic. Also, Google’s response was measured and apologetic, AND admirably restrained considering your characterization of 60 account deletions as a MASSIVE problem.
Based on your recent posts, I’m less inclined to think Google has a problem and more inclined to think you simply can’t wait to turn their next molehill into a mountain.
“Even to the point of risking his job”
When it comes to firing people for what they blog, you’re the master!
Why, O Why am I still reading you??
What is it going to take for people to realize that for google, not being evil means delivering information to you and i which THEY deem relelvant? They have no intention of making all information available to everyone all the time. Their intent is to make their information or information they deem relevant available. And another thing, if they are succcessful in buiding out an access side isp via wifi or whatever, this will only get worse. Google may have had do gooder intentions way back when but now it appears their influence is far too deep for anyones good.
Well all of here have to realize here that…google is no more the startup it used to be..it is now a multi-billion dollar corporation…and it is now into the business of making money..whatever it takes
This is definitely not the tipping point. The tipping point is perhaps when Google Search stops working or a competitor comes along with a better offering. I use Google Search, Notepad, Reader, Gmail, Desktop, Docs, etc. because they work. The masses don’t care about the ethical side to Google just as most people don’t care they get Microsoft XP preinstalled on their computer.
Exxon Mobil is perhaps the largest polluter of the world. Did that stop us from buying gas for our cars? No. We have a tendency to not care unless an alternative comes along. There hasn’t been a visable alternative to Google yet.
- Jawad Shuaib
How can asking you to use thier calendar be considered “evil”.
The motto is fine, It’s peoples definition of “evil” that is sliding.
Let’s face it, Googles “tip” is hardly charles manson, is it…
Get over it, and get over yourselves.
Thats what I said, Techcrunch isn’t the informational site anymore it used to be, it’s million dollar corporation…and it is now into the business of making money..whatever it takes.
Wim
“quite frankly, Google has every right to promote their own products on their website”
I agree in principle, but promotion should be separate from search i.e. not in the regular search results. If someone is looking for “Yahoo Calendar” as a search term, that’s what they should get at the top of the results. If they just looked for “calendar” I think it’s fair game to list Google products first.
If you used a search engine to find “blue car” and it came up with “red car” as a result, you’d assume either the search engine (a) was broken (b) was bad or (c) was being bribed to answer certain questions favorably.
Search should be like Switzerland — no allegances. You should get what you ask for based on (a) what you asked for and (b) the best result that meets those search terms.
Google’s revenues come from advertising, but that’s driven by search. Undermining their own search results to push free (i.e. non-revenue generating) products seems both short sighted and rather foolish.
Why anyone would need a “search” to find Yahoo Calendar is a whole other question…
It’s time to look at alternatives - Kosmix, Snap, Quintura, etc. They are up and coming.
#37
You sir are an idiot. Live.com. Yahoo. IceRocket. Ask. The alternatives are out there and they’re getting BETTER everyday. Live.com is particularly good.
I always thought the “not be evil” motto was simply a great way TO BE evil. It’s like the “Clean Air Act” - which is about… polluting the air MORE. Best ’spin’ I’ve ever seen…
The trend of hating and mistrusting Google is not new. Their most recent failures, however, have injected the mostly fringe-paranoia group with new energy. Check out http://www.googlewatch.com/ and get an idea. Google is held to a higher standard than any other company, which is why I am personally more forgiving of their mistakes than most. I also don’t use much beyond their search engine and their email, though. Although SketchUp is danged fun…
My mistake: http://www.google-watch.org/
If you do a search for “calendar” in Yahoo, you will get a link to Google’s calendar as # 1. How ironic !!! Searching for “calendar” in Google, Google’s calendar comes up as #2 and Yahoo’s as #3.
Google’s Calendar has a Page Rank of 8 and Yahoo’s Calendar has a page rank of 7.
Please please please, people, let go of “don’t be evil.” It was never the least bit true and nobody with a brain ever thought it was. Google is a publicly traded corporation (and always aspired to be). Their legally mandated top priority is to deliver shareholder value. That requires them to be “evil”, as silly as that word is. Anything they say to the contrary is just marketing. Please get back to work on your own shareholder ploys.
The biggest tipping point for Google will be when more advertisers realize that a significant portion of the AdSense program is being gamed by websites, low-level crooks and organized crime. In theory Google has no accurate way of detecting the most sophisticated fraud attacks involving zombie computers which look like legitimate users. What’s worse, Google’s interests are directly aligned with those of the fraudsters. Because Google splits revenues with AdSense participants, when the fraudster makes money with click fraud, so does Google. In other words, from a purely economic perspective, Google has no financial incentive to deal with the problem. In fact, their incentive is exactly the opposite. They cannot let people know the extent of the problem because it would their one revenue stream under jeopardy. Don’t believe this? Look at the recent announcement that a would-be extortionist had charges against him dropped. He developed software to carry out click fraud and wanted Google to pay him $150,000 to not release it. He actually went to Google’s headquarters and met with them. Apparently they had all of this on tape and it was a “slam dunk” case. Anybody want to guess why they dropped the charges? When this thing comes crashing down it’s going to be ugly.
It will be hard to see when Google jumps the shark in real time. From an end-user perspective, is it really so different from Altavista back in the day?
From an advertiser perspective, it continues to accelerate away from the pack. The ROI on Adwords vs. Yahoo or Microsoft is dramatically superior. Combine that with its greater reach, and it goes from strength to strength.
I search for “get paid to blog” in google and get a
Tip: Want to share your life online with a blog? Try Blogger
what a joke!
Anyone who contributes to or cares about this post has WAY too much free time. Go get a hobby or a girlfriend.
Seriously. Google just added a tip to the top of search results. Who cares. They can do whatever they want. Just because they said “don’t be evil” doesn’t mean they can’t be evil. What are you going to do? Sue them?
Google is doing great. Please shut up and go get a life.
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