Nice Blog Piece on Google Taking Advantage of its own Ad System

[mouser]

Insightfull short blog post on why google's answer about how they use their own ad system to place ads is misleading..

How many times have you searched for something on Google and found, in the shaded "Sponsored Link" box at the top of the list of results, an ad for a product offered by ... Google?
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A couple of days ago, Isaac Garcia, the CEO of CentralDesktop, a maker of online collaboration tools for businesses and an AdWords customer, wrote an angry post about Google's advertising practices.
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Garcia's conclusion: "Google cheats." He says, "What this tells me is if you are trying to advertise a product that is competitive to Google, then you'll never be able to receive the Top Ad Position, no matter how much money you bid and spend."
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But Garcia's charge, and the subsequent discussion of it in the blogosphere, got under Google's skin, and, yesterday, the company responded.. "Our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser. "
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I'm sure that's all true, but it's also disingenuous. Even though Garcia overstated his case, he's right to be concerned. There's something fishy here. Whether Google bids "fairly" or "unfairly" in these auctions, the fact is that it's playing with the house's money. Whether it bids a buck or a hundred bucks on a keyword doesn't make much difference to it, because the cash is just going from its back pocket to its front pocket. And if the auctioneer can bid as much as he wants without actually incurring any cost, that has to distort the prices being paid by all the other bidders, who are paying real money.
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http://www.roughtype.../when_the_auctio.php

ps. the roughtype blog, written by nicholas carr, is consistently good.

[jgpaiva]

Interesting... and unfair situation.
I wouldn't like to be on the skin of people who pay for advertisement, as said in the article, those are the ones who are most decieved. They put their money in, and don't get what they deserve.
But it's also bad for consumers, instead of getting the stuff that would really be of interest to them, they might get a lower quality google product, only because google is the one hosting the advertising.

On the other hand... This is what we get for allowing google to get this humongous empire.

Honestly, i like google for its fantastic search results, and for taking out a big part of those intrusive ads we used to see. This doesn't mean i don't understand the people who pay for advertisement, it only means i prefer it like this than the old times.
Yes... Call me selfish..

[mouser]

Another follow up:
http://www.roughtype.../googles_remarka.php