海角大神

Google has touted itself as the once and future king of search, but that doesn鈥檛 mean it鈥檚 free of controversy. A alleges that the company manipulates search results, improperly favoring its own services over accurate search data.

The report, led by crowdsourced review company Yelp and co-authored by Harvard Business School鈥檚 Michael Luca and 鈥渘et neutrality鈥� champion Tim Wu, analyzed Google search results for content displayed and click rates. It found that Google manipulated search results to prioritize the company鈥檚 own services, rather than information that might be more relevant to the user.

Google asserts that it doesn鈥檛 tamper with or manipulate search results, and instead leaves it up to its PageRank algorithm. The report, however, found that results would first display links to Google services, such as shopping, maps, and reviews, rather than those that may be more popular, such as Amazon or Yelp. For non-Google content, such as history, biographies, dates, and calculations, Google pulled from what it deems a reputable and popular source.

Because of the context, the Yelp researchers believe that Google is degrading some information to better sell its products.

These findings are published right as . The assumption for many has been that Google, as the largest Internet search company, is able to act as a 鈥済atekeeper鈥� to other services and products. Now that it offers consumer services of its own, many feel the company may be violating net neutrality practices 鈥� denying the open use and freedom of the Internet.

To Mr. Wu and the research team, Google is actively degrading the information it gives to consumers. Wu says this is 鈥渢he closest I鈥檝e seen Google come to the Microsoft case鈥� in an , referring to Microsoft鈥檚 bundling of Internet Explorer into Windows despite the prevalence of other, better Web browsers.聽With IE bundled into Windows, many critics felt that Microsoft was reducing consumer choice. When the ubiquitous operating system comes with a Web browser, other Web browsers are at an innate disadvantage. When one company holds the key to consumer technology, it can essentially play kingmaker with software. Eventually, the US government in 2000, finding that the company violated antitrust regulation.

Recently, Google was brought to court over similar concerns. Though cleared in the United States, the company is now being met with antitrust regulations in Europe. If Google displays only its own services, what happens to its competition? Is that honest?

The report, titled 鈥淚s Google Degrading Search? Consumer Harm from Universal Search,鈥� focused on 鈥渓ocal intent鈥� searches, or those focusing on information within the user鈥檚 immediate area. Instead of just searching for 鈥淏eyonc茅 Concerts,鈥� users are more likely to search for 鈥淏eyonc茅 Concerts Boston鈥� or whatever local region is most apt. Local intent searches account for more than a third of all Google searches.

While this report was only recently published, it should be noted that Yelp has been working on it for quite some time, with preliminary research documents to TechCrunch.

Yelp also has faced accusations聽聽and the company has much to gain from the findings in this report. As the in the United States, Yelp may appear at the top of search results if Google is forced to remove its own services鈥� banners from results.

Some have also raised concerns about the methodology behind Yelp鈥檚 study. ZDNet鈥檚 that the study, which used to measure user engagement, may have conflated user engagement as directly related to clicks. The report, however, did seek to discover whether users were more likely to click on content that used Google鈥檚 highlighted content versus those that did not, and found that they were. The researchers created a 鈥渉eatmap鈥� of where users clicked on each page, and found they were 45 percent more likely to click on a Google-owned service when the company鈥檚 large infoboxes were displayed.

鈥淭his suggests that by leveraging dominance in search to promote its internal content, Google is reducing social welfare 鈥� leaving consumers with lower quality results and worse matches,鈥� the report says.

Despite the possible biases, the paper鈥檚 co-authors give it some heavy clout. Wu is a legal scholar and former advisor to the Federal Trade Commission, regularly lauded as the 鈥渇ather of net neutrality.鈥� He says that, although Yelp paid him for his research, 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 be doing this if I didn鈥檛 think this new evidence was a game-changer.鈥�