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Improving quality isn’t anti-competitive
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Google has always worked to improve its services, creating new ways to provide better answers and show more useful ads. We’ve taken seriously the concerns in the European Commission’s Statement of Objections (SO) that our innovations are anti-competitive. The response we filed today shows why we believe those allegations are incorrect, and why we believe that Google increases choice for European consumers and offers valuable opportunities for businesses of all sizes.
The SO says that Google’s displays of paid ads from merchants (and, previously, of specialized groups of organic search results) “diverted” traffic away from shopping services. But the SO doesn't back up that claim, doesn't counter the significant benefits to consumers and advertisers, and doesn't provide a clear legal theory to connect its claims with its proposed remedy.
Our response provides evidence and data to show why the SO’s concerns are unfounded. We use traffic analysis to rebut claims that our ad displays and specialized organic results harmed competition by preventing shopping aggregators from reaching consumers. Economic data spanning more than a decade, an array of documents, and statements from complainants all confirm that product search is robustly competitive. And we show why the SO is incorrect in failing to consider the impact of major shopping services like Amazon and eBay, who are the largest players in this space.
The universe of shopping services has seen an enormous increase in traffic from Google, diverse new players, new investments, and expanding consumer choice. Google delivered more than 20 billion free clicks to aggregators over the last decade in the countries covered by the SO, with free traffic increasing by 227% (and total traffic increasing even more).
Moreover, the ways people search for, compare, and buy products are rapidly evolving. Users on desktop and mobile devices often want to go straight to trusted merchants who have established an online presence. These kinds of developments reflect a dynamic and competitive industry, where companies are continuing to evolve their business models and online and offline markets are converging.
But our central point is our consistent commitment to quality -- the relevance and usefulness of our search results and the ads we display. In providing results for people interested in shopping, we knew we needed to go beyond the old-fashioned “10 blue links” model to keep up with our competitors and better serve our users and advertisers. We developed new ways to organize and rank product information and to present it to users in useful formats in search and ads. In 2012, as part of that effort, in addition to our traditional ads, we introduced the Google Shopping Unit as a new ad format:
We don’t think this format is anti-competitive. On the contrary, showing ads based on structured data provided by merchants demonstrably improves ad quality and makes it easier for consumers to find what they’re looking for. We show these ad groups where we’ve always shown ads -- to the right and at the top of organic results -- and we use specialized algorithms to maximize their relevance for users. Data from users and advertisers confirms they like these formats. That’s not “favoring” -- that’s giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful.
The SO also seeks a peculiar and problematic remedy, requiring that Google show ads sourced and ranked by other companies within our advertising space. We show in our response that this would harm the quality and relevance our results. And, in a report submitted with our response, former President of the General Court Bo Vesterdorf outlines why such an obligation could be legally justified only where a company has a duty to supply its own rivals – as where it controls an input that is both essential and not available anywhere else (like gas or electricity). Given the many ways to reach consumers on the Internet, the SO doesn't argue that standard applies here.
Our search engine is designed to provide the most relevant results and most useful ads for any query. Users and advertisers benefit when we do this well. So does Google. It’s in our interest to provide high-quality results and ads that connect people to what they’re looking for. The more relevant the ads -- the better they perform in connecting potential buyers and sellers -- the more value they generate for everyone.
Throughout the almost 17 years since Google started, our engineers have been developing innovative approaches to search and ads that are valuable for both users and advertisers. In the video below you can hear from our engineers about how our services have evolved to give people better results and ads. We are proud of their work and eager to tell their story.
We believe that the SO's preliminary conclusions are wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics. We look forward to discussing our response and supporting evidence with the Commission, in the interest of promoting user choice and open competition.
Posted by Kent Walker, SVP & General Counsel
Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network arrives in Ireland
Thursday, August 27, 2015
When Google first started in Ireland, we opened an office with just five people. Today we have more than 5000 people in our Dublin office and as we have grown, so has Dublin’s tech community. The city is now home to some of the biggest global tech firms as well as some of the most promising startups in Europe. This community is creating jobs and opportunity with two thirds of all new jobs in the Irish economy being created by startups.
We have always been committed to supporting the startup community in Dublin to help the next generation of companies succeed. So we are especially pleased that today the Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network announced a partnership with Dogpatch Labs, one of Ireland’s leading startup organisations. The announcement was made by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton T.D at an event at Dogpatch Labs today.
The partnership will provide co-working space along with new resources including funding, training and mentorship opportunities. Members will also get access to Google programs and products throughout the network including:
Mentorship from Dublin Googlers (in 2014, over 200 Googlers mentored Irish startups)
Eligibility for Google product offers relevant to startups; and
The Google for Entrepreneurs Global Passport, where entrepreneurs from each hub can work for free at spaces designated at any other hub in the network including London, San Francisco and Tel Aviv
With Dogpatch Labs and our
Google for Entrepreneurs program
, we hope Dublin’s world-class startup community will grow that much faster, building transformative products and companies that will take the world by storm. We can’t wait to see what new ideas come out
Posted by Paddy Flynn, Startup engagement at Google Ireland
Google pays tribute to Belgium’s inventors
Sunday, August 23, 2015
In the late 19th century, Belgian lawyer Paul Otlet created the Universal Bibliography in Brussels, a repository of more than 12 million searchable index cards that later came to be called the Mundaneum. With today’s
Google Doodle
on the French, Belgian and several other versions of Google, and new online exhibitions by the
Mundaneum
on the Cultural Institute website, we pay tribute to Otlet's pioneering work in making information accessible and useful.
Throughout history, prolific thinkers and innovators have had the vision to see what the world might look like in the future. Often, they dreamed up today’s most advanced technologies long before it was even possible to create them.
Paul Otlet belongs to that group of thinkers. He had a clear vision for the Mundaneum: a universal system of written, visual, and audio information that people could access from the comfort of their own homes. Just a few decades later, engineers planted the technological seeds that brought electronic information sharing to life.
Created by Googler Leon Hong, today’s Doodle pays tribute to Otlet’s vision. The collection of knowledge stored in the Mundaneum’s wooden drawers form the foundational work for everything that happens at Google and much of what happens across the world wide web.
Today’s Doodle also coincides with the launch of new online exhibitions about Otlet’s work on the
Google Cultural Institute
website. The modern day Mundaneum museum in Mons, Belgium has curated the exhibitions, which give insight into Paul Otlet’s life and achievements, and the Nobel Prize won by Mundaneum co-founder Henri La Fontaine. You can view the exhibitions on
the Cultural Institute website
, and in a dedicated
mobile app
that our engineers developed together with Mundaneum staff. We especially recommend you to check out these three new exhibitions:
Towards the Information Age
Paul Otlet (1868–1944), founder of the Mundaneum
Mapping Knowledge
The Visualizations of Paul Otlet
The 100th Anniversary of a Nobel Peace Prize
Henri La Fontaine (1854-1943), Nobel Peace Prize in 1913
Posted by Pierre Caessa, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
See through the clouds with Earth Engine and Sentinel-1 Data
Monday, August 3, 2015
This year the
Google Earth Engine
team and I attended the European Geosciences Union General Assembly meeting in Vienna, Austria to engage with a number of European geoscientific partners. This was just the first of a series of European summits the team has attended over the past few months, including, most recently, the
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society
meeting held last week in Milan, Italy.
Noel Gorelick presenting Google Earth Engine at EGU 2015
We are very excited to be collaborating with many European scientists from esteemed institutions such as the
European Commission Joint Research Centre
,
Wageningen University
, and
University of Pavia
. These researchers are
utilizing the Earth Engine geospatial analysis platform
to address issues of global importance in areas such as food security, deforestation detection, urban settlement detection, and freshwater availability.
Thanks to the enlightened free and open data policy of the European Commission and European Space Agency, we are pleased to announce the availability of
Copernicus Sentinel-1
data through Earth Engine for visualization and analysis. Sentinel-1, a radar imaging satellite with the ability to see through clouds, is the first of at least 6
Copernicus
satellites going up in the next 6 years.
Sentinel-1 data visualized using Earth Engine, showing Vienna (left) and Milan (right).
Wind farms seen off the Eastern coast of England
This radar data offers a powerful complement to other optical and thermal data from satellites like Landsat, that are already available in the Earth Engine public data catalog. If you are a geoscientist interested in accessing and analyzing the newly available EC/ESA Sentinel-1 data, or anything else in our multi-petabyte data catalog, please
sign up for Google Earth Engine
.
We look forward to further engagements with the European research community and are excited to see what the world will do with the data from the European Union's Copernicus program satellites.
Posted by Luc Vincent, Engineering Director, Geo Imagery
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