Europe widens antitrust probe into Google’s ad business

The European Commission is doubling down on its efforts to dig into whether Google has broken rules around restriction of consumer choice with its search and price comparison products. It maintains that the company abused its search position to promote its own products ahead of others’.

That’s not the end of the complaints from Europe, however. Margarethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, said today that Google abused its position by restricting third-parties from displaying search advertisements.

“Today, we have further strengthened our case that Google has unduly favoured its own comparison shopping service in its general search result pages. It means consumers may not see the most relevant results to their search queries. We have also raised concerns that Google has hindered competition by limiting the ability of its competitors to place search adverts on third party websites, which stifles consumer choice and innovation.”

The announcement follows objections lodged earlier in the year, and if upheld by Vestager and the commission could require significant changes to how Google’s AdSense and comparison shopping results work within Europe.

As the commission points out, holding a dominant position within a market isn’t a problem, but abusing that to restrict competition would be. It also notes that, following the Commission’s initial complaints, Google has made some changes to Adsense contracts with partners to give them more freedom to display competing ads.

For Google’s part, it (unsurprisingly) says that it’s not restricting competition with its products:

“We believe that our innovations and product improvements have increased choice for European consumers and promote competition. We’ll examine the Commission’s renewed cases and provide a detailed response in the coming weeks.”

Nonetheless, with 90 percent of general internet searches in Europe, it’s going to need to be pretty convincing. Google and Alphabet have 10 weeks to respond to the objections. Previous claims have suggested that if found guilty of abusing its search position, Google could be fined nearly $3.5 billion.

Via: NY Times

Source: Europa

Google defends its anti-piracy efforts

If you believe Trent Reznor and a good chunk of the music industry, Google (particularly YouTube) is a giant piracy machine — it’s allegedly doing little to block stolen content, and knowingly profits from it. Google isn’t having any of that talk, though. The search firm just published an updated report detailing its anti-piracy efforts, and it maintains that it’s doing a lot to fight bootleggers. It’s adamant that its Content ID system (which can automatically claim copyrighted material for licensing or takedowns) does wonders for the media business. The technology has paid over $2 billion to copyright owners since launch, and about 98 percent of copyright action uses it — just 2 percent comes down to formal copyright removal notices.

Google adds that its copyright notice system takes care of “millions” of web links every day (it downplays sites that get a large number of complaints), and that it has blacklisted over 91,000 pirate sites that used Google ads. The company also sees the very existence of its services as “legitimate alternatives” to piracy, much in the way that Spotify discourages pirates by letting you legally play millions of songs for free. YouTube has paid a total of over $3 billion to the music business, and notes that half of revenue comes from fan uploads. In other words, a lot of that cash might have been lost if viewers had simply turned to pirate sites instead.

It’s important to remember that this is Google’s take — it has a vested interest in portraying itself as tough on pirates and a boon to artists. In practice, it may be more complicated. While Google is catching a lot of pirate activity, how much of it is slipping between the cracks? Why only demote a site if there a lot of copyright complaints, rather than hide it completely? Also, there are concerns that YouTube doesn’t pay artists enough for free plays. Its Content ID licensing may beat making nothing from ripped tracks, but that doesn’t mean that the status quo makes artists happy. Although the media industry can be overly aggressive about cracking down on pirates (see: its frequent contempt for safe harbor protections), it’s not being completely irrational, either.

Source: Google Public Policy Blog, Google (PDF)

The Google Play Store family plan is reportedly ready to launch

Late last year, Google took its first step towards letting users share their purchased media with family members. The initial foray was a family plan for Google Play Music, which let multiple family members stream music for $14.99 a month. But now, it seems that Google is going to let users share movies, TV shows, book and apps as well. According to Gizmodo, Google’s family plan will let you share all media purchased from the Play Store with five other family members, though purchased music isn’t part of the deal. The family “manager” will be able to control what other members can access and what they won’t be able to see.

It’s worth noting that while Gizmodo says this feature is live today, we haven’t actually found it available on any of the Google accounts we’ve tried. Of course, the company often rolls out features slowly so we’ll have to see when the switch is flipped for everyone. But it’s not a big surprise that this feature is about to go live — it’s been rumored for several months now.

Regardless of exactly when it launches, this will put the Google Play Store more on par with Apple’s App Store, which introduced family sharing a few years ago. iOS users can currently share apps, movies, TV shows, books — and purchased music, the one big difference between Apple and Google’s implementation.

Source: Gizmodo

Island dwellers map their country with Sheep View 360

Google has captured all kinds of places on cam for Street View, from the Batcave to Mt. Everest, but it hasn’t had the chance to visit the Faroe Islands yet. The tiny and remote archipelago in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean has almost twice as many sheep (80,000) as people (49,188). So when one of its residents decided to take matters into her own hands, she enlisted the help of five fluffy ruminants for a project that’s aptly called Sheep View 360.

Since Durita Dahl Andreassen and her fellow islanders didn’t have access to Google’s Trekkers and cars, they attached 360-degree cameras to harnesses and strapped them to the animals they chose. The cameras have solar panels to harness energy from the sun, and they send pictures with GPS coordinates back to Andreassen who then uploads them to Street View. The result, as you can see below, gives you a chance to explore the islands through the eyes of a sheep.

Despite the success of Andreassen’s project, she’s very much aware of its limitations. A sheep, after all, wouldn’t be able to film Faroe Islands’ roads or the peak of its mountains. She’s still urging Google to drop by and map their nation in an effort to encourage tourists to visit, as well.

Source: Visit Faroe Islands

Google Fiber is rolling out new plans for small business owners

Google Fiber knows its “superfast internet” is an important commodity, and one that businesses of all shapes and sizes can utilize. The company wants to make sure there’s a plan for Google Fiber that fits all those shapes and sizes too, with three new plans that allow for flexibility and choice among small to large business clients.

The plans start at $70 for 100 Mbps upload and download speeds to $100 for 250 Mbps and $250 for 1,000 Mbps. There’s also been an increase in the number of static IP addresses a business can have, up to 13. Small businesses that are eligible for these plans, like those in Charlotte can go ahead and sign up for the new plans, but if you’re not located there you can check and see Google’s list of upcoming Fiber areas to see when it might be coming to you.

Small business owners in Kansas City, Provo, Austin and Nashville can sign up until July 31st as part of the Early Access program for Google Fiber, and starting on August 1st they can take advantage of Early Access pricing for a year or one of the new plans available to them. Hopefully these rollouts continue for the foreseeable future for residential users as well!

Google helps you find deals on flights and hotels

Planning a vacation often revolves around the delicate art of booking flights and hotels at just the right moment to get a great deal, and Google knows it. The internet pioneer is rolling out a slew of updates that, for the most part, are focused on getting you the best possible bargain. To start, you’ll see automatic “deal” labels in searches whenever a hotel rate goes below the norm, and tips when tweaking the dates of your stay could save you some cash. You can also filter hotel searches for very exact criteria — if you want to look for four-star hotels in Chicago that allow pets, you can. The tips and filters are only now rolling out (filters are limited to the US at first), but they’ll be available worldwide over the course of the year.

You also won’t have to worry that you’re missing out on a low-cost flight. Google Flights is getting price tracking that can tell you when prices change for date and destination combos or specific flights. You’ll only have to wait for email or a Google Now card to know when it’s time to take action. This tracking will only be available in the 26 countries where Google Flights is available, but it’ll reach all of them in a matter of weeks.

Most of Google’s other updates today are more helpful for advertisers (such as a companion banner that lets you browse their wares while watching YouTube). However, there is one big user-friendly upgrade in the works: it’s testing a shopping tweak that shows currency conversions in results, so you’ll know just how expensive that Canadian sweater would be if you bought it in the US. The feature should be widely available in the weeks ahead.

Source: Google Inside AdWords

Google’s futuristic campus closer to reality after land deal

In a surprising real estate move for two Silicon Valley giants, Google and LinkedIn just traded nearly 3.5 million square feet of existing office buildings and future development space in Mountain View, California. As Silicon Valley Business Journal reports today, exactly zero dollars changed hands in the deal, but the “grand bargain” will clear a path for Google’s futuristic new campus design.

That design, from star architects Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick, was announced last year to much fanfare – at the time, Bloomberg Magazine called it “the most ambitious project unveiled by Google this year.” But all that hype was effectively quashed when the Mountain View city council voted to take the land Google was proposing to develop and give it to LinkedIn instead. With the land swap, Google can now go ahead with the visionary plan that includes adaptable canopies and custom robot cranes that can build and reconfigure the layout on-site.

Although LinkedIn had big dreams of its own for the North Bayshore site, a rep for the social network told the Business Journal those plans would have taken too long to build out and would have split up the company across two sites in the meantime. Instead, they will acquire additional property in Mountain View and Sunnyvale next door that will keep the campus in one piece — and probably stretch those Microsoft billions a little bit farther as well.