The announcement yesterday of court action against Google and the Trading Post by the ACCC has shocked many. The case appears to centre around the names of businesses which compete against the Trading Post appearing in the title of sponsored links (ads) for the Trading Post on the Google website. In plain English, people using Google might see, say, company A, click on that expecting to get to company a and find them selves at company B.
How does this connect to newsagents? Earlier this year, as I blogged here previously, RSVP, the Fairfax owned business, paid for a campaign with an affiliate of Commission Monster which targeted my 3loves site. Here is how it looked on a Google search:
3loves is a social networking site connected with Find It, the online classifieds model created to provide newsagents with revenue from online classifieds.
The scam against 3loves appears to be similar to what Google and the Trading Post are charged with.
People searching for 3loves were presented with what appeared to be a link to the site. When they clicked that they were taken to Google. Now I don’t know if Fairfax had any knowledge of this. What I do know is that they were the beneficiary of the action – or at least their RSVP site was. Fairfax approved the use of Commission Monster. Commission Monster manages its affiliate relationships. Each of the companies involved ought to have known about campaigns like that which benefited Fairfax by targeting my 3loves site.
My question is, if the ACCC can take Google and the Trading Post to court, why not Fairfax and the other parties involved – plus the scores of others who have engaged in similar tactics? I doubt that the Fairfax press would out their involvement in something similar to the current ACCC action.