Highlights Of The FTC Staff Report On Google & Antitrust Issues

The Wall Street Journal has released the 2012 FTC staff report it received investigating Google on antitrust allegations. By “full,” that is half the actual report. The FTC mistakenly sent it every other page out of a report meant to be private.

Google’s statement on the report, given to the WSJ, was:

“We understand that what was sent to the Wall Street Journal represents 50% of one document written by 50% of the FTC case teams. Ultimately both case teams (100%) concluded that no action was needed on search display and ranking. Speculation about consumer or competitor harm turned out to be entirely wrong. On the other issues raised, we quickly made changes as agreed with the FTC.”

To translate, as we said, the WSJ received half the pages of one FTC staff report, by the FTC’s competition unit. The other report — which hasn’t been released — was by the FTC’s economic unit, the WSJ explains — and that didn’t recommend legal action. The case was eventually settled.

We’re still going through the report ourselves for follow-up stories. But the live tweet of the highlights I did earlier are rounded-up below:

https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/580629929584361472

Facebook may have raised antitrust concerns Google+ results came ahead of Facebook. See also http://t.co/njYO4H9fOB pic.twitter.com/WpvLti7KSU

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google confirms watching clicks to evaluate results quality. FYI Google still won’t say if clicks used as rank signal pic.twitter.com/jzNGc5reQk — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Scale comes up as issue for improving search. FYI Microsoft has far more scale than when Google started; has plenty pic.twitter.com/agzFwnbjyy

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

More on scale & results. Google says at some point you have plenty; Microsoft agrees but unclear if has enough yet pic.twitter.com/6OsMUp3qli — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC staff found it a “close call” if Google violated antitrust laws with vertical search but decided it didn’t pic.twitter.com/PHILD4ekDQ

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google sounded pretty paranoid that aggregators would develop vertical search properties & leave it weak pic.twitter.com/uc3qaQfVrA — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Fascinating footnotes cite internal Google emails about the vertical threat, from FTC report http://t.co/SgOF6Lr15Z pic.twitter.com/sAZrJwCmEX

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google pushed own vertical listings via Universal Search not just to give better answers but to boost its verticals pic.twitter.com/xsIqCPPbLL — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Footnote covering mandate from Larry Page that Google should be #1 in verticals pic.twitter.com/4ZpFzawgqx

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Important internal Google email arguing that the best answer shouldn’t always be a web page but maybe local or other pic.twitter.com/BaKi6ozYzs — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Why’s Google pushing vertical search & direct answers? Blame Bing. Email on Bing “decision engine” pitch as worry pic.twitter.com/l6PWtGouSw

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Smoking gun on why Google made product search pay for play. Putting free product listings at top cost ad revenue pic.twitter.com/L4dJKBYKrA — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

A signal why Google might decide to show its own vertical results? If a competitor was in its listings pic.twitter.com/PLWzU01lU9

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Footnote details Google using “blessed sites” (IE competitors) to determine if should show its own vertical results pic.twitter.com/FAMF0T5oI1 — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Awesome footnote on internal debate to demote Google Product Search to improve search quality & ad revenue pic.twitter.com/X4o5YnIiUt

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Get to know a Google algo: “Aggressive Demotion to Middle for Product Universal” pic.twitter.com/eKBz5pzQhW — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC staff blames Google for poor SEO of verticals, not realizing SEOs yelled if Google took web listings for them pic.twitter.com/uURwsiJuVX

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Putting Google Product Search directly in main web results boosted it from 7th to 1st in pageviews in one year pic.twitter.com/RqFXtOFrHi — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google demoted competing shopping sites for results “diversity” http://t.co/W6REeHJ8vF & calculated their losses pic.twitter.com/5gaB1MElfe

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google wrote of taking traffic from other shopping sites despite results with “pretty terribly embarrassing failures” pic.twitter.com/qUgizw3HL3 — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

How much the Google Panda algorithm http://t.co/vDA4PBaV6X hurt some shopping sites, which in turn hurt Amazon pic.twitter.com/CPm5VxdWgz

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

You might be a scaper site if you’ve authored less than 15% of your content. At least, was once Google’s definition pic.twitter.com/jTh1Ke3QS1 — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google, which complained about Bing scraping its results for rankings, scraped Amazon to help rank product search. pic.twitter.com/Z1N9F5ULw2

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google Local managers said please, buy us Yelp. But Yelp said no, so Google went the build it ourselves route pic.twitter.com/LJIpDlpd5U — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google email confirms it was Yelp that walked away from purchase. There was some uncertainty: http://t.co/ttGCLPU2b8 pic.twitter.com/UnzEmjOJ3K

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

When Google tried to do own local, Yelp asked for its reviews to be removed. Google did this but saw its product fail pic.twitter.com/7wQPfBO3ew — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Emails covering Google agreeing to drop Yelp & Google concerns that it couldn’t do local without them coming true pic.twitter.com/UzmspCgCFX

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Amazing quote from someone at Google worried Facebook, Twitter & Yelp would become the sites for local pic.twitter.com/CGqUlHfqpF — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

To get needed local reviews, Google made “policy decision” that if not provided, local sites dropped from web search pic.twitter.com/pEUZ2fEDlG

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Footnote suggests some at Google thought review sites should be able to opt-out of inclusion of local but not web pic.twitter.com/FyB8nlrt3E — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Amazon gave Google limited feed to protect against Google building competitor. So Google crawled to get more pic.twitter.com/bvPOO7Fa1K

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

As of 2012, Google apparently still relied on scraping Amazon data to rank products within its own Google Shopping pic.twitter.com/eKa66fUsI1 — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Amazon email to Google to stop using its content in Google Shopping http://t.co/SgOF6L9qer pic.twitter.com/J8Hg5nLovq

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC Staff: Google scraping competitors to patch weaknesses harmful because competitors have little reason to invest pic.twitter.com/oEvmjdhpib — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

By restricting AdWords API, Google helped block clients from building tools that would work with other paid search pic.twitter.com/fba4pmG7oh

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Microsoft seemed to claim its advertisers didn’t optimize campaigns much because of Google somehow but gave no proof pic.twitter.com/7caKjzR6nJ — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

2007 email where Google says opening up so advertisers could easily buy Google & others would boost CPC for others pic.twitter.com/j64lrM7YL7

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC staff believes idea more advertisers means higher CPCs. Shh, let’s not mention those dropping CPCs Google having pic.twitter.com/PlTxHQvMdK — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Googler in 2009: “Better for customers & industry” to drop AdWords API restrictions. Larry Page said no, it seems pic.twitter.com/0kxqIVXpuB

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Just 10 web sites generated almost 80% of Google AdSense revenues in 2011, FTC report reveals http://t.co/SgOF6L9qer pic.twitter.com/rxlvAon529 — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Amazon, Best Buy, ISPs seem to be among the biggest search partners for Google, at least in 2012 pic.twitter.com/jvzxFw1tZ3

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Woes of Bing trying to win search partners: seen as inferior, where you go if Google kicks you out, doesn’t call back pic.twitter.com/ho0XfUHS2y — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Some have exclusive search deals with Google; some don’t & wouldn’t use others for various reasons pic.twitter.com/NIOQcZCz0n

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Amazon made $175 million off search deals in 2011, it seems, $169 million of that from Google pic.twitter.com/6Ae214Rt5D — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

All this work to push verticals, but Eric Schmidt didn’t name any verticals as chief competitors to the FTC staff pic.twitter.com/Bxb4vgYRod

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Even Google doesn’t know what market share figures to believe. Brin says he mainly looks for trends pic.twitter.com/tDVVKS8bVW — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

When Chevrolet closed paid search for two weeks & went display only, it lost 30% of clicks to its site pic.twitter.com/HOP8qpr4no

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google’s Brin & Schmidt testifying that search ads rule over display. Shh, don’t tell the brands pic.twitter.com/reQlZg09Ro — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC discovers advertisers can’t easily answer what would you do if Google upped rate card because don’t work that way pic.twitter.com/jkllgzoXzy

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC can’t make Yahoo’s reported search volume match comScore, “phantom” searches when hovering over words an issue? pic.twitter.com/wTMU4w9k5B — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Bing cost Microsoft $4.5 billion, the FTC says. They says that’s for 2010, but I think they mean spend to that point pic.twitter.com/sjDuVCLLH2

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

The FTC sure seems to think clickthrough rate is a component of Google’s ranking algorithm pic.twitter.com/45yNHCx0Hs — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Brin explaining why you don’t want to do a search that take you to a search (and he’s right) pic.twitter.com/lQzz2WN2xh

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

But Google didn’t give any evidence users don’t want to search to click to more search, so FTC wasn’t buying it pic.twitter.com/bz49rLlSks — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC staff summarizes that with vertical search, Google’s been both good & bad – but not bad enough for action pic.twitter.com/IqXwv5Ad6X

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

On scraping, FTC staff wanted action taken. Settlement solved this. But Google should have allowed opt-out earlier pic.twitter.com/DleXTpb0Y5 — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Important section on Google using monopoly power to threaten vertical publishers to cooperate on sharing reviews pic.twitter.com/hAd8Ih0Ucj

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC staff finding restricting the AdWords API to be noncompetitive — another issue resolved by the settlement pic.twitter.com/CXNpirUo7k — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Google on why it’s better to earn little or nothing & grow AOL versus letting Bing power it pic.twitter.com/cSPnZ2Yu6W

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Amazon throws Bing some queries even though it loses money as what I’d call “Google insurance” pic.twitter.com/KgXYUdkcmI

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC staff wanted exclusive search deals dealt with; never came up in the settlement at all pic.twitter.com/vRcP8UiSYO

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

FTC staff outlines the strongest challenges Google might (have) raised in antitrust litigation pic.twitter.com/IsHvCwxoq4

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015

Conclusion! FTC staff recaps three areas it sought antitrust action against Google; two issues ultimately resolved pic.twitter.com/Pfss9nSa7t

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 25, 2015