Comments on: Google prefers Google

By: Mike Malone

Mike Malone — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t have any issues with Google marketing their own products. What’s wrong with them pushing Google spreadsheet on GMail? Can someone explain what the issue is here?

The stuff about RSS is completely hypothetical and pretty rediculous. Even if they did transform RSS feeds into some other format, nothing is stopping people from dropping Feedburner. In fact, Google has made it dramatically easier for people to use Feedburner while still “owning” their feed by making the MyBrand feature free.

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mike, I agree with you that there should be no reason why Google can't market Google while using Google. I am guessing at some point, unfair competition practices might come into play.

Remember, Google is all about the shareholders now.

By: Matt A

Matt A — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Google hardly controls every bit and byte of data on the Internet. I can skip Google for a day and not really notice – Yahoo for search (9 times out of 10 with the same results as Google), Facebook for social interactions and messaging, my own pop3 mail (or Hotmail or Yahoo mail) on Zimbra for mail, and originalsignal.com for reading blogs. Our startup recently moved over to Zoho for collaboration and it’s even better for us than Google docs was. The only place where it’s hard to avoid Google is YouTube – because there aren’t many other mature video sites – but eventually there will be, and I try to stay away from YouTube anyway because you can waste a lot of time there.

By: Noah

Noah — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Is Google wrong for giving preferential treatment to its own services. As much as I want to say Yes, I must say No. Why shouldn’t they try to keep you in their network? It makes perfect business sense.”

You’re hitting the key concern about regulation in general — how much do you balance human nature while still supporting free choice? I’d love to say No, too, but we know the majority of people out there don’t know or care enough to take a position on lock-in or market fairness or anti-competitive behaviors if it’s “just a search engine” which will only encourage and reinforce those behaviors until it is checked by the informed and vested.

Yes, it is wrong for Google to give preferential treatment. It makes perfect business sense for Google to *promote* their own services over others, but all services must be *treated* equally for their search to be ethical.