My background: I co-founded the largest online dating site in the Netherlands (sold to Match) as well as the largest housing platform (15 years before Airbnb :-). We leveraged the rise of Google to our advantage and the brands are still #1 in the Netherlands.
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Aside: Google raised the bar for the Internet. Heck, for the world. I think their offering is orders of magnitude better than the Excite, Lycos and AltaVista days, and the no-nonsense UI allows for a purer form if of information consumption.
A day without Facebook is a productive day.
A day without Google is a day lost.
Where Google is like water to the Internet, Facebook is like a sugary softdrink. Enticing, but unhealthy with no nutritional content.
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Google is the de-facto search on the Internet. This is reflected in their valuation, as well as the fact that to "google" something is now a verb written in lowercase.
As a result, Google is the lens through which the world finds its information.
Being in this position also implies that Google should be regulated to block advertisers (and Google) from using third party trademarks as keywords:
It has irked me for many years that Google can sell advertising to companies for keywords that are trademarks this advertiser does not own. E.g. Adidas showing up when searching for Nike. It's nothing short of extortion that I would be forced to bid up bidding on _my own trademark_.
It seems a trivial matter to me to query the USPTO and the EU database to make sure that any AdWords show up below the organic search results for the valid trademark owner (as verified inside AdWords).
In this case, Yelp is a trademark, and Google's own product should show up _below_ Yelp's trademark. Otherwise, I don't see how this could be interpreted other than abuse of market monopoly.
My background: I co-founded the largest online dating site in the Netherlands (sold to Match) as well as the largest housing platform (15 years before Airbnb :-). We leveraged the rise of Google to our advantage and the brands are still #1 in the Netherlands.
===
Aside: Google raised the bar for the Internet. Heck, for the world. I think their offering is orders of magnitude better than the Excite, Lycos and AltaVista days, and the no-nonsense UI allows for a purer form if of information consumption.
A day without Facebook is a productive day. A day without Google is a day lost.
Where Google is like water to the Internet, Facebook is like a sugary softdrink. Enticing, but unhealthy with no nutritional content.
===
Google is the de-facto search on the Internet. This is reflected in their valuation, as well as the fact that to "google" something is now a verb written in lowercase.
As a result, Google is the lens through which the world finds its information.
Being in this position also implies that Google should be regulated to block advertisers (and Google) from using third party trademarks as keywords:
It has irked me for many years that Google can sell advertising to companies for keywords that are trademarks this advertiser does not own. E.g. Adidas showing up when searching for Nike. It's nothing short of extortion that I would be forced to bid up bidding on _my own trademark_.
Here is Google's policy: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en
It seems a trivial matter to me to query the USPTO and the EU database to make sure that any AdWords show up below the organic search results for the valid trademark owner (as verified inside AdWords).
In this case, Yelp is a trademark, and Google's own product should show up _below_ Yelp's trademark. Otherwise, I don't see how this could be interpreted other than abuse of market monopoly.