back to article Foundem urges Brussels: REJECT Google's search biz offer

UK-based price-comparison site Foundem has urged competition officials in Brussels to reject Google's formal offer of concessions, which is intended to address the ad giant's alleged abuse of dominance in Europe's search market. Google commands a hefty 90 per cent share of the search business in the European Union. In April, …

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  1. nuked
    WTF?

    Would Google's own services not be at or very near the top of an organic search anyway? Why do they have to distort actual results to get greater visibility of their services?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    wah wah wah

    Seriously, you want to be more competative? Provide a better service or stfu. They're complainig because google are still putting paid for advertised results in prime locations? THATS WHAT ADVERTS ARE FOR!

    I mean honestly, this isn't about anti-competative, this is about hamstringing a superior service so their pile of tripe has a chance of making it into the market. I mean, who's even heard of foundem? Or half the companies who are complaining about this? It's just the little pissant companies nobody gives two turds about shouting because they think people actually care.

    Lets break down the complaints shall we? Google biggest rival who'd profit from seeing them hamstringed, and a load of startups nobody has heard of who want publicity. Who isn't complaining? The rest.

    There are far fewer complaints here than there are non complaints, it's just another case of the person who shouts loudest gets the attention they seek.

    AC because I don't normally rant like this, but seriously this court case is more pathetic than the crAplle Shamsung battles.

    1. Paul Shirley

      re:"who's even heard of foundem?"

      ...enough to trigger the Streisand Effect ;)

  3. Gordon Pryra
    FAIL

    " the proposals ignore the natural search results"

    The whole point being that they are natural search results.....

    This is the free stuff that Google gives users when they come to them.

    Asking them to change them utterly breaks the whole point and the whole value of their search engine, and therefore their entire business.

    And anyway, who the fuck are foundem? and whats their link with Government that allows them to make any demands. On the face of it they are just one more affiliate site adding an extra level of cost to any consumer.

    Even worse they bill themselves as "The UK's "Top" Price Comparison Site" and even worse, they have hardcoded IP addresses in the links to the various sections. That no matter the redirect, this is a massive issue of trust on this site for any user.

    Finally I see a whole lot of this kind of shit over their site "Temporary reduction in the breadth of Foundem's service"

    "In common with many of the World's leading vertical search services, Foundem's traffic has been severely impacted by Google's recent "Panda" update"

    Panda, for those that care, is a change rolled out to Google, reducing the placement of low quality sites and those that contain much duplication that can be found elsewhere.

    So yet one more person trys to make an easy buck as an affiliate, puts +1 shitty comparison site up, then crys when they realise there is competition for the top 3 spots.

    Good job here Google

  4. ratfox
    Devil

    I think they found out

    That they would not be one of the three top competitors to which Google would display a link.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Way to go

    Google should be allowed to dominate the Internet to the point where they can start charging users to query their "search" engine and at the same time, charge companies to display what ever results they like, regardless of the original query. That will really help boost the effectiveness of the Internet.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    F'dem...

    If Google are managing to keep Foundem and their ilk out of the search results listings then I would say Google have got something right.

    At one point you did a search for a product and you would get pages of Price Comparison sites all with links through to other price comparison sites which eventually linked through to someone you didn't want to be going through to.

    I want to search for Sites not search for Search engines.

    Sites like F'dem, and actually F'dem in particular, should just sod off and leave the rest of the Internet community alone. The only time you ever hear about them is when they whinge about this and that and life is unfair.

    If Google didn't try to stop these sort of sites flooding the search engine pages you can bet that there would be hundreds of other 'Price Comparison' sites above F'dem and they'd then complain that Google were allowing 'low quality' sites to be above them.

  7. MrXavia
    WTF?

    Google are popular, they don't lock you into their ecosystem, your free to choose an alternate browser & search engine, even chrome lets you choose which search engine you use, so how can the EU complain?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "how can the EU complain", it's the competition that complains About Google and as Google commands a hefty 90 per cent share of the search business in the European Union, The EU has to look into it, and that is exactly how it should be.

      1. Dan Paul
        Devil

        AC Must be from Found'em

        And yet, no other search engine can come close to Google...because they don't have as good of a product dipwad. The EU does not need to do anything, they just want to screw with Google for the blackmail value.

        The EU should take their BS investigations and look up their own ass. They will find a biased useless agency that has no value making decisions about viable companies that HAVE VALUE.

        EU=Oxymoron

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmmm

    And yet, 'price comparison' sites don't list the prices for all suppliers (and they definitely promote ones from which they earn the most) - so under F'dem's logic should F'dem themselves be forced to list ALL comparisons based on price (regardless of any fees they may get to include sites in their lists or in referrals to promote certain sites)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmmm

      I don't think that is true of all price comparison sites. Many will list the results of any and all supplier they are able to search / screen-scrape in order to provide a comprehensive service.

      Would love to see if you have evidence of Foundem promoting search results but I think that

      is pretty unlikely!

      1. Gordon Pryra

        Re: Hmmmm

        Even sites like Money Supermarket will only list those products it does NOT receive an affiliate fee if you do an advanced search. Others wont list them at all.

        Price comparison sites are generally NOT YOUR FRIEND, they make money by pushing you to company's that pay for the introduction.

        They dress themselves up as being champions of the consumer, but take a second to think about their business model and you can plainly see they are just adding an extra layer of costs to a purchase, as well as selling your personal details on to anyone who will pay. Compare the Meerkat for example, I used a unique email address, click the "do not hand out my details" button and then got that address spammed by PPI lies and other useless shit.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Monopoly

    The point isn't that users can go elsewhere, it's that when users do go to Google they should be aware that the results are manipulated. Google is deciding which results are "best" and funnily enough Google thinks it's own applications are. It's clearly a monopoly and should therefore be closely monitored to ensure it's being anti-competitive. No?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Am I allowed to link to this friendly explanation of what the fuss is all about? http://vimeo.com/66306915

  11. Dan Paul
    Devil

    No! You have many other search choices including using your own mind (but that's too hard!)

    Only the mentally incompetent, who are completely unredeemable anyway; would not understand the search results are skewed for EVERY SEARCH PROVIDER.

    Google is no different but not any worse. In my mind, price comparison companies like Found'em are far worse than Google.

    Anyone with half a brain already knows that the top few rows of search results are generally ad's, not results.

    Google should sue Found'em for libel just for the fun of it.

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