Google under fire from all sides

Legalbrief reports that it is not the first time Google has been accused of anti-competitive behaviour and the issue is currently in the spotlight with the new Google initiative. Mocality is now seeking legal advice in SA, raising the spectre of Google being sued. If the case does end up in court, it will join a long list of legal battles the giant search engine is facing with companies such as Apple and Microsoft and Oracle over its Android platform. The Kenyan drama began three months ago when Google attempted to lure businesses into its Getting Kenyan Businesses Online programme (GKBO). With GKBO, Google gives businesses free Web sites and a domain. In an effort to list such businesses, Google has hired agents who call up businesses with the offer of a free Web site. PC Advisor reports that Mocality claims Google has been calling businesses in its database and claiming that it is offering the firm's free Web sites in partnerships with Mocality. Mocality's general manager, Stefan Magdalinski, said the firm stumbled on to Google's shoddy tricks when they received calls from a few businesses who were seeking help with their sites. Full PC Advisor report

Mocality has now referred the dispute to its legal office in SA, raising the spectre of the search giant being sued for claiming to be in partnership with the company. According to a report on the allAfrica.com site, Mocality said it had referred the matter to the legal team of SA media giant Naspers - leading local lawyers to believe that Mocality is preparing for a legal battle with Google. 'I cannot preempt what step we will take as the matter is now being handled by our legal team in South Africa,' said Joshua Mwaniki, the country manager for the directory company. He added that heart of the dispute is not Google searching for information on Mocality's data base, but the fraudulently soliciting for business from its clients with claims that the twin IT firms are partners. Full report on the allAfrica.com site

Google's sub-Saharan Africa office has reacted with dismay at the allegations. According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, Nelson Mattos, vice-president for product and engineering, Europe and emerging markets at Google sub-Saharan Africa said: 'We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality's data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new sites. We've already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. We're still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we'll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved.' Full Mail & Guardian Online report

It's become a rite of passage for the world's biggest technology companies. As soon as you've fought your way to the top and become the darling of both stock markets and customers, regulators begin to cry 'monopoly', Alistair Fairweather notes in a Mail & Guardian Online report. In June 2011 the US Federal Trade Commission notified Google that it was being investigated for anti-competitive behaviour in the search advertising market. According to the report, by December 2011 European regulators were preparing a similar inquiry into the way Google pushes its own services (such as maps and shopping services) at the top of search results. Neither of these cases is particularly strong, says Fairweather who notes that unlike Microsoft, Google does not lock its primary customers (people who search the web) into its network. He writes: 'Changing between search engines is quick, easy, largely painless and completely free. Changing operating systems from Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows to anything else is none of those things. And in Microsoft's case the iniquity was obvious: by bundling its own web browser (Internet Explorer) with Windows, it sought to use its market power to distort and control an entirely new market - the internet.' According to Fairweather, this is less clear in Google's case. 'The low cost of switching is a compelling argument against most accusations levelled at the giant. But Google is doing itself no favours with announcements like the one it made (last) Tuesday. It introduced three new features into its flagship search engine, all of which integrate Google+ (its own social network) into search results.' To Google this makes complete sense, says Fairweather. 'What better way to make its search results more socially relevant? And why not give a nice boost to its burgeoning social network? Everyone wins. Its competitors naturally take a different view. The management of Twitter, clearly furious, have warned that the move will hurt 'people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users' - all of whom benefit from seeing tweets prominently displayed in search results.' Full Mail & Guardian Online report

In a Business Week column, Mathew Ingram notes that the big problem for Google is that the social signals occurring in Twitter and Facebook's networks are obscured by those companies. He says Facebook's history with Google is fraught with tension and mutual backbiting, including a botched PR campaign by Facebook aimed at making Google look bad for scraping its content - so that avenue is likely closed off for good. 'Twitter seemed like a different story, since the two sides had a deal for more than 18 months that saw Google get access to the ''fire hose'' of Twitter data. But that deal expired after Twitter reportedly asked for too much money to renew.' Ingram says Twitter last week took the unusual step of making a public statement about Google's new features, saying it's 'concerned' that promoting Google+ content will damage the search experience for users, as well as make things more difficult for publishers and the news industry in general - a statement clearly intended to pique the interest of antitrust investigators. Full Business Week report