Marketing Pilgrim

The Australian consumer watchdog has broadened its case against Google—while they have dropped the case against Google Australia and Google Ireland, they are going full steam ahead on the parent company Google Inc.

The ACCC claims that sponsored links are not clearly distinguished from organic results, alleging Google’s practices are misleading. The shaded area at the top of results was their original complaint, but now they have broadened the accusations to include the right-hand links too, claiming that they look the same as the organic listings.

The ‘sponsored links’ text is barely visible, they claim, and the shaded area is too subtle, and dependent on the screen angle. I tried this out, and it’s true – at certain angles the shaded area pretty much disappears.

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Google Australia and Google Ireland are probably feeling a little smug after recent events in the courtroom. The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has suffered a setback in their case against Google.

Claiming that Google’s sponsored links are not clearly distinguished from organic listings, the ACCC brought a case against the search giant (a world first) in July alleging misleading and deceptive conduct.

Apparently, however, the ACCC prepared the court documents poorly, and were not able to convince the judge that there was a case at all. Though a decision has not been made (the ACCC have been given time to clarify the case and summarise the allegations), it is not looking too hopeful for the Australian watchdog commission.

When this case was first announced in July, Google remained confident that there had been no deception on their part, and some critics warned that the ACCC would get bitten on this.

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Last week I traveled ’south of the border’ to Melbourne for Barry Smyth’s latest Search Engine Bootcamp conference. Another great show was put on by Barry, with all speakers giving good information. Even Search (guru??) Bruce Clay turned up for the keynote speech.

Bruce gave a very nice presentation on SEO but I think everyone got a little more from his ‘off the cuff’ comments on Google Universal. Nothing too provocative was said, but I think the concept of multiple sources hitting the Google SERPS has not really been fully understood here..

It was really great to also see some large companies stand up and openly allow their websites to be critiqued by the local SEO panel. I am always amazed at how willing some of these larger companies are now to receiving open critism about their high six figure websites. (However, I am even more amazed at how badly built some of these monster e-commerce sites still are!) E-commerce definitely has a long way to come, Downunder.

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Many people are concerned that the Internet and Social Media are difficult to control, and an Australian woman, who was a victim of identity theft and harassment online, has spoken out this week.

When men started calling, emailing, texting, and even turning up at her door, Cathy (not her real name) became aware that a bogus MySpace profile had been set up in her name. The site detailed her personal information, alongside suggestive photographs and explicit text, asking anyone interested to contact her.

It’s not clear how often this kind of thing happens (she thought is was her ex boyfriend), but with 3.8 million profiles in Australia alone, it’s likely that there are many more cases like this, though MySpace insists that it does not tolerate this kind of behaviour.

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The Australian competition watchdog dropped a bomb this week on the online search marketing industry. The ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) has filed an action against Google – a world first – alleging that Google have broken Trade Practice laws by using the names of certain businesses in unrelated sponsored advertisements – directing searchers who click on a particular business name to their competition.

The case specifically revolves around a local car dealer who was allegedly targeted by a large classified website the The Trading Post. The Trading Post site listed sponsored links directly naming a smaller local car dealer. …fairly straight forward.

However, the implied ‘stretch’ stems from the ACCC’s belief that Google are implicitly involved as it was their system which allowed this to happen. Specifically, the ACCC now claims that the way Google’s sponsored links are displayed, particularly for the top paid ads appearing in the left column of the SERPs (above the organic results), are “misleading and deceptive.”

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With a nation-wide Federal election coming up this year, we thought we’d track Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s online reputation and find out what’s being said about him online.

We tracked online references of both Howard and the opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, over a three week period, and the results are not looking so good for the PM.

Though most of online references come from news sites, and are mostly neutral, the more freely expressive bloggers sometimes had quite nasty things to say about John Howard, and there were not many on his side at all.

Rudd, on the other hand, though he had his fair share of nasty comments, actually had more backers than critics. This is a particularly positive response for Australia, where a common attitude, particularly from the younger generations, towards politicians is fairly negative (there were, in fact, quite a few bloggers with that opinion).

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This week I flew across ‘the pond’ (or ‘ditch’ as the Kiwis call it) to speak at Search Engine Boot Camp NZ in Auckland. This was the first conference Barry Smyth from Search Strategies has run in NZ and it turned out to be a great success.

Barry seems to have a thing about water views – I’ve been to two of his conferences now (Sydney & Auckland) and they both have been held at absolutely great water frontage locations. This conference was held at the Hilton which sits right on Auckland Harbour. (Barry told me afterwards that passing ships kept interferring with his recording equipment during the day).

Search Engine Bootcamp is usually aimed at the beginner end of the market. However, the Kiwis are obviously hungry for good search information as many of the ‘big hitters’ in NZ search such as Fairfax Media and Kiwi Bank also attended.

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Australian politicians are following the US example and going online in an attempt to win votes in this year’s federal election. This nation-wide election could see a new Prime Minister as head of state, and politicians on all sides are looking for innovative ways to speak to a “younger generation”.

We have watched the US politicians go online with blogs and other social media with interest. The high profile Aussie politicians have finally recognised the potential of social media as a tool to engage with potential voters – they are expecting to make a big impact online this year. The use of various Web 2.0 interactive elements, such as videos, messaging and music is expected to draw a younger voter base.

It will be interesting to see how the Australian public responds to this new way of communicating with their potential leaders, and how much impact this will make on voter’s decisions.

The recent concern surrounding privacy laws is now making waves in Australia.

The European Union announced last week it was investigating whether Google has breached European privacy laws, and now the Australian privacy experts have added their opinion, as reported in the Australian Financial Review:

“Australians using US-based internet search engines are exposing themselves to privacy laws that are routinely bypassed by the US government and opening themselves to invasions of privacy that would never be allowed in other countries”

The issue here, the Aussie experts say, is that US privacy laws are different to Australian ones, and that Google could at any time be forced to give up the information they are holding to the US government. Of course, Google maintains that they have legitimate reasons for collecting information about internet users, but Australians are now being warned that US-based search engines, particularly Google, may be breaching their privacy rights.

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It looks like Google is getting serious about the Australian market…

This week the Australian Financial Review reported an interesting development: Google has bulked up its Australian operation and is continuing to expand.

When Google opened its Australian offices in Sydney one year ago, they were working well below their capacity with only a few dozen employees occupying a huge space that could fit well over 100. (perhaps in anticipation of a new Google cafeteria?)

Since then…

The search giant has increased its Australian staff to more than 100, and is seeking at least 80 more. It needs employees in all areas, from technical gurus focused on operations IT and engineering to advertising sales and marketing types. However, the company said it had no ceiling for talented engineers in particular.’

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