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The investigation is Europe’s fourth into Google, with Google-owned video-sharing platform YouTube catching the investigator’s attention this time around.
As part of the European Commission’s antitrust probe, the “obligation” to use Google services, such as the Good Ads platform to purchase online display ads, will be examined. The European Commission has also stated that it will assess the “obligation” to use Google Ad Manager. The platform facilitates the sales and purchases of ads across several ad networks, serving online display on YouTube. YouTube has a strong market position, with its ads constituting around $6 billion of Alphabet’s first-quarter profits this year. The figure is 11% of Google’s total income over that period.
Google has said it will continue to engage constructively with the European Commission whilst demonstrating the benefits of its products and services to businesses across Europe.
The Competition And Markets Authority (CMA) will launch a formal investigation into whether Amazon and Google have breached consumer law. Last year, an initial probe was launched when the CMA examined whether the online firms were sufficiently protecting consumers. The probe raised specific concerns about the two companies, with the main concern being whether or not Amazon and Google have been doing enough to detect fake and deceptive reviews on their platforms. In some reported instances, users reviewed the same products or sellers at similar times to each other, without there being any connection between the products or businesses. There have also been examples where it appears that a reviewer has received some sort of incentive, monetary or otherwise, to post a positive review to Amazon and Google's platforms.
The CMA will also investigate whether Amazon and Google look into and take down fake and deceptive reviews in a timely manner. The CMA will explore what penalties the companies place on users who post such reviews.
According to the watchdog, Amazon and Google could be subjected to enforcement action if they are found to have breached consumer protection law. This may involve securing formal commitments from the companies to change their systems for addressing fake and misleading reviews. However, if required, the situation could escalate to court action.
In reaction to the CMA investigation, a spokesperson for Amazon has said: "To help earn the trust of customers, we devote significant resources to preventing fake or incentivized reviews from appearing in our store. We work hard to ensure that reviews accurately reflect the experience that customers have had with a product. We will continue to assist the CMA with its enquiries and we note its confirmation that no findings have been made against our business. We are relentless in protecting our store and will take action to stop fake reviews regardless of the size or location of those who attempt this abuse."
On Tuesday, the EU launched a formal antitrust investigation into allegations that Google has abused its leading role in the ad-technology sector. The Europe Commission's investigation, which informally began in 2019, will assess numerous allegations of anti-competitive business practises surrounding Alphabet Inc’s brokering of advertisements and distribution of user data with advertisers across mobile apps and websites.
Last year, there was a similar case filed against Google led by the US state of Texas. The EU’s investigation is expected to examine the same issues covered by the Texas case, including Google’s alleged favouring of its own ad-buying tools in its advertising auctions. However, the Europe Commission will also explore complaints that are yet to be the subject of formal probing anywhere. The Commission look into allegations that Google has been excluding its competitors from brokering ad buys on video-sharing platform YouTube, which the tech giant owns.
On Tuesday, the state of Ohio filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming that the multinational tech company should be regulated as a public utility on account of its anti-competitive and discriminatory practices. State Attorney General Dave Yost asked a state court to declare Google a public utility as a means of ensuring that the company cannot prioritise placements of its own products above others in its search results. The civil action does not seek monetary damages. It instead asks that Google comes under oversight from a body such as Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission.
AG Yost has expressed his concerns over Google’s ability to create no click searches, a predicted query or phrase that leads users to other Google platforms, such as Google Shopping, Google News, and YouTube. The suit argues that Google has a responsibility not to prioritise Google services and links artificially.
However, representatives for Google have commented that the lawsuit will not succeed, arguing that the suit would only worsen Google Search results and make it more difficult for small businesses to connect directly with their customers.
Google has agreed to amend its global advertising business in a bid to prevent an abuse of power. The move nods toward antitrust pressures for the first time in a substantial settlement with French authorities. It is hoped that the deal could help to stabilise the power dynamic within advertising in favour of publishers who held influence over the business before the internet boom.
The antitrust settlement was announced on Monday and saw Google fined €220 million. It is the first time a U.S tech giant has agreed to amend its advertising business, which sits behind a monumental proportion of its revenue. In 2020, Alphabet (fundamentally a holding company for Google) generated nearly $183 billion in revenue. A whopping 80% of this revenue came from Google's ads business.
The French watchdog revealed that Google's ad management platform for significant publishers (Google Ad Manager) promoted Google's online ad marketplace (Google AdX) over others. AdX was reportedly provided with calculated data and given access to requests made by advertisers via Google's ad services. Successively, the data exchange between AdX with Ad Manager was far smoother than that with other advertising management platforms. Platforms such as these are vital for publishers to effectively manage and sell advertising space.
The terms of the settlement assert that Google must improve the way Ad Manager services work with rival ad spaces and servers. The watchdog has stated that a number of these changes will come into effect in the first quarter of 2022, while Google has additionally promised to make the use of its data and tools easier for publishers.
The claimants are represented by Hausfeld & Co LLP, and Gerry Facenna QC and Nik Grubeck of Monckton Chambers. Foxglove serves as co-counsel.
The claim – brought in the UK High Court on behalf of more than 5 million British children aged under 13 and their parents – alleges that YouTube’s methods of targeting underage audiences constitute major breaches of privacy and data rules, including the UK Data Protection Act and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), both of which were designed to protect citizens’ control over their own private information.
It is alleged that YouTube has systematically broken these laws by harvesting children’s data without obtaining prior parental consent, with the website having no practical user age requirements and makes no adequate attempt to limit usage by youngsters, according to the legal action.
Bringing this representative action is Duncan McCann, a father of three children aged 13 or under and a researcher into the emerging digital economy. A representative claim is a claim brought by a person on their own behalf and on behalf of other individuals who have the same interest. Mr McCann’s children’s personal data has been collected and processed illegally by Google while they viewed video content on YouTube, in the same way as Google processes the personal data of all children watching videos on YouTube in England and Wales.
“My kids love YouTube", explains Duncan, "And I want them to be able to use it. But YouTube needs to comply with the law. It isn’t ‘free’ – our kids are paying for it with their attention and private data. Like many parents, I am conscious of what’s happening with my kids’ data online, but even so, it’s just impossible to combat Google’s lure and influence, which comes from its surveillance power. There’s a massive power imbalance between us and them, and it needs to be fixed.”
YouTube hosts huge volumes of content clearly aimed even at the youngest age groups, including nursery programmes, toy reviews, cartoons, unboxing videos and other child-specific activities. Its owner, Google, reported revenues of $162 billion in 2019, although the technology giant has never revealed how much money it makes from underage audiences and they claim not to target underage viewers, but its popularity with British children is unrivalled, even by mainstream TV channels. The class size of 5 million children has been identified using Ofcom’s recent finding that 50% of children in England and Wales aged 3-4 years old and 90% of children aged 12 years old use YouTube’s main service. If the representative action is successful, then Google could owe affected children and parents more than £2 billion.
This lawsuit follows successful punitive action brought by US authorities against YouTube for allegedly collecting personal information from children without their parent’s consent. This information was allegedly collected in the form of persistent identifiers, including “cookies”, which are used to track users’ internet browsing habits for the purposes of targeted advertising. Last year, Google was forced to pay a record $170 million to settle a claim by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the New York Attorney General that YouTube had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Leading this lawsuit are Hausfeld & Co LLP. Commenting on the case, Lesley Hannah, Partner at the firm said, "Privacy and data protection laws are there to protect everyone; not least children, who, unquestionably, deserve a higher level of protection. Yet, YouTube operates in a way that breaks those laws. Google needs to be held to account and pay compensation to all families who use YouTube in England and Wales.”
“Schools, charities and millions of small businesses have to comply with data protection laws and the GDPR every day. There is no reason why a company with the power and financial resources of Google should not also respect the law.”
Acting as co-counsel, Cori Crider, Director of Foxglove, a tech justice group, added: “The law is clear – it’s illegal to data-mine kids under 13. But this case isn’t just about ads. The cost of YouTube’s so-called free service is kids that are addicted to online content and influenced by large tech companies that have stolen their privacy. Google won’t clean up its act until it’s forced to do so by the courts.”
Children who have used YouTube in the period since 25 May 2018 and who were throughout that period (i) resident in England and Wales and (ii) under 13 years old, and their parents, will automatically be included within the class.
Affected children and parents, on whose behalf the claim is brought, will not pay costs or fees to participate in this legal action, which is being funded by Vannin Capital, a global litigation funder. The claim is insured, which means that claimants have no financial risk in relation to the claim. Parents who are interested in registering themselves and their children as claimants should visit https://www.youtubedataclaim.co.uk/, which also contains further information about the claim.
The news that Sonos is suing Google for allegedly stealing its wireless speaker technology is not entirely surprising.
The chances of infringing on someone else's intellectual property (IP) - such as copyright or trademark - are increasing. Hundreds of new businesses and products are created every day. And with that comes the risk of claims raised for infringement of a logo, business or product name, even colours (see Deutsche Telekom’s dispute with Lemonade), symbols and fonts. Businesses can also face problems for using stock images, music and sounds, if they haven't bought the necessary licenses.
Although tech giants and large Enterprises like Google will be able to battle these disputes out in the courts, and absorb any costs, for a smaller SME, such an event could cripple their business before it even gets off the ground. They therefore need to ensure they have the processes in place to protect their operations.
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The best way to avoid a challenge and potentially expensive rebrand/product recall or legal dispute is to ensure that before any design takes place names/branding/logo are decided that there’s no clash with existing market players. This may mean hiring a patent attorney or lawyer or at the very least looking for similar company or product names, web domains, as well as checking the online register of patents, trademarks, copyright and designs. Even if a business isn’t trading cross region, they could get caught out further down the line when looking to expand overseas.
Also, a key requirement is to take out professional indemnity (PI) policy to protect against trademark and copyright disputes. It will help cover legal costs defending or settling a claim of infringement and ensure the business is fully protected.
Authored by Ben Rose, Chief Underwriter of Digital Risks
Following recent reports regarding the tech conglomerate’s handling of sexual misconduct among executives, and for claims that Drummond may have had inappropriate relationships with other employees, the top legal executive of almost 20 years, will be .leaving alphabet behind him.
A spokesperson for the company also added that Drummond would not be receiving a leaving package as part of his exit, unlike Android creator Andy Rubin, who received a $90 million exit package, despite Alphabet investigations finding sexual assault claims against him credible.
David Drummond, now 56 and a key part of Alphabet since its inception, said in an internal memo to colleagues that he is retiring after “careful consideration.”
“With Larry and Sergey now leaving their executive roles at Alphabet, the company is entering an exciting new phase, and I believe that it’s also the right time for me to make way for the next generation of leaders,” he wrote.
Ranking organically for keywords can help to reduce your advertising spend without losing valuable traffic and leads, which means having a strong search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy is key to standing out from the thousands of other solicitors in the UK.
Holding 92% of the global market share, Google is the natural choice when implementing an SEO strategy. Jimmy McCann, Head of Digital Strategy at Search Laboratory is here to explain the importance of SEO being integrated into your digital strategy to ensure holistic online visibility for your firm.
Organic search is a huge part of most business’ website traffic, as well as a critical component of the sales funnel. From top-level queries in the awareness phase, to high-intent long-tail queries when they are ready to buy, search engines are used by potential customers at every stage of the customer journey.
SEO is the collective steps taken to get your website in front of your target audience, with the goal of increasing traffic and, ultimately, online revenue. When a person searches for something online, the search engine aims to deliver the best possible website that will answer their query. They do this through a series of algorithms which identify what website content is relevant, and high quality. The pages are then presented in the order that the search engine deems to be most relevant.
SEO is the collective steps taken to get your website in front of your target audience, with the goal of increasing traffic and, ultimately, online revenue.
By optimising a website, we make it easier for search engines to identify whether the content is relevant, and trustworthy; the most authoritative websites from this list will then be displayed in the search engine results pages (SERPs) to the person searching. The higher up in the SERP, the more likely it is you will get traffic.
There are multiple factors that help search engines decide if a website is trustworthy, including but not limited to:
With so many websites out there for competing law firms, it is highly unlikely that you will appear in the first page of the SERPs without SEO. You may be able to gain traffic from PPC, but this is an expensive way to try and acquire new customers. Ranking organically through SEO is a long-term strategy that has a low cost per acquisition, and unlike with paid media, reducing budget in the future will not see an immediate drop in traffic.
SEO is a proven way to increase brand visibility and drive traffic to your website. Appearing higher up in the SERPs can increase brand awareness, drive qualified traffic, and generate leads, and compared to paid digital strategies, it’s a cost-effective way of generating these leads in the long term.
In addition to ensuring your law firm is easy to find when someone is specifically searching for you, SEO ensures your brand is visible to users searching for specific keywords that suggest they intend on hiring a law firm. Being present in these searches helps to cement your firm as a contender, especially if your website contains informative and useful information that helps push the user down the sales funnel.
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It is likely that competitor law firms are investing in SEO to improve their organic visibility. If you want to gain a competitive edge, ensuring that your search strategy includes technical SEO, content marketing and online PR, and is closely aligned with your business objectives and wider marketing activity, is crucial.
Taking a user-first approach is also important. Your website should provide a favourable user experience – from easy navigation to genuinely informative content. Understanding who your audience is, so that you can create an SEO strategy which takes into consideration the customer journey and user intent, will yield the best results.
It’s important that SEO is included as part of your long-term digital marketing strategy, rather than something to invest in as a one off. Because search engine algorithms are constantly updating, and new content is being uploaded to the internet daily, any increase in rankings delivered by a one-off campaign or tactic is likely to diminish over time. Ongoing SEO activity will ensure that your law firm continues to be at the top of the SERPs and in front of your target audience.
It is worth noting that it can also take months for the full effects of SEO activity to become apparent; this is particularly the case if your website has ever received a Google penalty. Looking at SEO as a one-off tactic undersells the value of SEO activity and prevents your brand from reaching its online potential, and ultimately law firms should be looking at including SEO within digital marketing strategies for years to come to ensure online visibility and drive growth.
With reports of 40% of adults using it at least once per day, Managing Director of Marketing Lawyers explains how this trend is about to hit law firms.
“Voice search is ready to change how law firms market themselves online, because it’s already changed the way consumers and businesses search for information. Global Web Index reports around 1 in 5 adults use mobile voice search at least once a month and Location World reports that 40% of adults use voice search at least once per day.”
So how does this actually impact the marketing aspect in a law firm?
For those responsible for marketing law firms, whether this is in-house or in partnership with an agency – it may feel as though there is always some new ‘game changer’ coming into the market and it can be hard to keep up or even get around to implementing such changes. This time however, it’s different because of the rate of adoption by consumers and how it’s being integrated into our everyday lives. In a matter of months, ComScore predicts that 50% of all searches will not require a screen.
By 2020, Alexa device installations could reach 128 million
Why are we using voice search?
A couple of reasons but fundamentally and perhaps most obviously, it’s quick - we speak three times faster than we can type, not to mention the fact that it’s free to do and via a device that we generally have with us all the time. We know the main platforms include Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana and the Google Digital Assistant, each with their variations and levels of sophistication. Apple reports more than 500 million people use Siri on a monthly basis and RBC Capital Markets suggests there could be 128 million Alexa-installed devices by 2020. With the ‘on demand’ culture we’re living in, voice search saves people time and delivers the same result for less effort.
Ben Trott, Managing Director at Marketing Lawyers explains, “Voice search will be the next major marketing force in the legal industry. It’s not expensive for firms to start getting on board with the changes and adapting their marketing strategies now to stay ahead of the game on a trend that certainly looks like it is here to stay.”
How will it be used in relation to law firms?
By way of example, Trott commented that, “It’s easy to imagine potential clients asking their chosen voice search device - What do I need to do to update my will? How do I claim compensation for an injury at work? What’s the best way to negotiate a commercial lease? Or how do I decide whether I can fire someone for gross misconduct?”.
The difference with voice search is that searches are more natural in language which is different to traditional keyboard-based searches and people tend to search for more local service providers. Essentially, they will say what is on their mind and act in the moment.
With the ‘on demand’ culture we’re living in, voice search saves people time and delivers the same result for less effort.
Furthermore, in relation to voice search from the legal industry to date, Trott said, ‘Law firms traditionally haven’t got banks of this type of information available online or if they do it might not be accessible by various platforms. With voice search on the rise, it makes sense that firms should be looking ahead and adapting their strategies accordingly. Those who move the quickest will inevitably benefit from getting to grips with voice search marketing as it will majorly disrupt the market.’
Estimates by Alpine AI in early 2018 stated that the number of voice searches per month to be over one billion and Trott believes that it’s only a matter of time before search engines and devices will monetarise this area, potentially introducing voice adverts in the near future.
About 1 in 5 adults use mobile voice search at least once monthly
Ben Trott is the MD of Law Firm Marketing Agency, Marketing Lawyers.
About Marketing Lawyers:
Marketing Lawyers are full-service marketing agency specifically working with Law Firms & Lawyers, specialising in digital marketing (SEO & PPC), social media, copywriting, sales training, PR and graphic design. They also offer other complementary services to the legal sector with their partnerships. The founder, Ben Trott, worked for a large national law firm in the UK taking their marketing department from turning over £250,000 pa in legal work to well over £2,000,000 pa. Further details available at Marketing Lawyers.
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