Google Pleads Innocence Over Suspected Fixed Search Ranking Results

By: EW News Desk Team   Date: 22 September 2011

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22 September 2011

Google Inc.'s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has rejected charges made against the search engine giant of “cooking” its search engine results to favour its own subsidiary services online.

Speaking before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights on Wednesday, Schmidt defended his company’s practices, asserting that Google "does nothing to block access to any of the competitors and other sources of information in Web searches.”

The former chief executive of the company added that the company had learnt from the mistakes of its predecessors – in an obvious, but unspecified, reference to Microsoft who faced similar charges during the 1990s – and was determined not to go along the same path.

"Many of us in Silicon Valley have absorbed the lessons of that era," said Schmidt. “That company lost sight of what mattered and Washington stepped in…. We get it.”

During his one and a half hour testimony, Schmidt repeatedly stressed that Google's search algorithms were designed to return the best results for users rather than giving preference to its own products or services.

"I'm not aware of any unnecessary or strange boosts or biases,” said Schmidt in response to repeated questions on the search algorithm.

The senate hearing was heated at times as senators continued to probe Schmidt on Google’s practices. Pulling up a chart that showed a study comparing the success rate for shopping-related key word searches, Republican senator Mike Lee questioned how search rankings for price comparison sites such as Nextag, PriceGrabber and Shopper would vary while Google's own shopping site consistently came in third position.

"I see you magically coming up third every time," Lee said. "I don't know whether you call this a separate algorithm or whether you've reverse engineered one algorithm, but either way you've cooked it, so that you're always third."

Schmidt curtly responded: "Senator, may I simply say that I can assure you we've not cooked anything."

Though Schmidt appeared confident and relaxed throughout most of his testimony, some senators remained sceptical of Schmidt’s claims. Democratic Senator Al Franken called Schmidt’s responses as "pretty fuzzy” while Lee added that he was “troubled by what we've learned today about Google's practices."

"Google is in a position to determine who will succeed and who will fail on the Internet," said Lee. "In the words of the head of the Google's search ranking team, Google is the biggest kingmaker on Earth."

Some of Google’s rivals also prepared testimonies for the subcommittee hearing accusing the company of abandoning its principles of “don’t be evil”, as it expanded into more and more new businesses.

"Today, Google doesn't play fair," said Nextag Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Katz. "Google rigs its results, biasing in favour of Google Shopping and against competitors like us. As a result, Nextag's access is more and more discriminated against. Not because our service has gotten worse...but because we compete with Google where it matters most, for very lucrative shopping users."

Jeffrey Katz added that while Google was initially a huge help in building innovation, “what Google engineering giveth, Google marketing taketh away.”


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