*Florist “Renamed” her Competitors’ Businesses on Google Maps; Act of Unfair Competition through Keyword Advertising II

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“The Early Bird Is For The Worms.” This might be especially true in the case of the florist, who renamed her competitors’ businesses on Google Maps (e.g. changing her competitor’s firm from “Forest Gump” to “Forest Gimp“) in my opinion this case only caused so much publicity because she is an pioneer in abusing this service and thus on the long run, will help Google to improve the quality and the reliability its service.

The Dominion Post reported that:

Anyone who uses Gmail or has a Google account can access the “edit” details. People can have multiple Gmail accounts. Police allege [the florist] accessed the sites, using various names, [...], and giving her location as Canada, UK and China. She allegedly altered addresses, phone numbers and website details of businesses, in an apparent bid to divert potential customers. [A competitor], said it was frightening how easy it was to alter details. It was a matter of simply clicking “edit” on the company’s details on Google Maps.

Manipulating Wikipedia entries to e.g. hide unfavourable passages of politicians etc. is a common and broadly accepted practise. So, when looking at the case at hand were a person has manipulated information in a business directory to divert traffic to her business I wonder if that person should be treated that differently. Sure, while the first leads (only) to the misinformation of the public and does not require any deception of identification systems, the second leads to economical harm on the side of the competitor and requires deception of identification and validation systems.

Still, I think the issue here lies deeper as:

a: there are no or little standards concerning the origin and the quality of the data and apparently in the case at hand the competitors had not used their chance (I might even say that there is a responsibility on the side of every business owner) to update his/her information ong Google Maps.

b: users still place people place an enormous amount of thrust into the data provided by search engines while not even caring where the data actually comes from. More about this trust issue here.

After reading the news on this case I was wondering if it were really that easy to edit business information. Well, actually no, but maybe Google has implemented different procedures for different countries or the validating options recently got changed after the incident I’ve just reported about.

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However, in case you are a business owner you might be interested in how to change your business information, so just follow the instructions below:

a: Locate your business on Google Maps.

Locate your business on Google Maps

b: Next to the entry, click on the option “more info” and …

Click on "more info"

c: when seeing the detailed view of your business click on the option “Business Owner“.

Click ob "Business Owner"

d: After logging on (into Google’s Local Business Center) with your Google Account you will have the chance to edit your business details (location, contact details, upload pictures, etc). After having finished, validate the changes.

Validation options on Google Maps

*Merging Online Price Comparison & Local Search & Navigation All On Your Mobile

Google is about to close the last gaps in its services for users which plan to purchase a product off-line.

Imagine you are desperately trying to tick the last boxes on your X-mas shopping list but the new camera your son has asked you gives you a headache as you have feeling you that your trusted camera dealer is selling the desired article at disproportional price. Unfortunately you’ve forgotten to check online on your favorite product comparison site at which price the product is sold normally. So what do you do?

You either take your mobile phone and search for the product on Google Product Search (still a BETA) “manually” or your use the Barcode Scanner of your Android Phone and wait for the phone to tell you which store/retailer is selling the product at the lowest price.

To find the desired store just use Google’s Local Search which, once supplied with the GPS information from your mobile will show you the best buy close to your phones location and will supply you with additional information such as the opening hours of the respective shop/retailer. And in case you’ve got problems reading maps, Google Maps Navigation will be pleased to guide you to the shop.

(For more information about Google Product Search please click >>here<<)

It is, however, very interesting to note that Google prominently and expressively states that (you will now see why I am so interested in this topic):

“Google’s product search results are automatically generated by our ranking software. Google does not accept payment for inclusion of products in our search results, nor do we place sellers’ sites higher in our results if they’re advertisers or offer to pay for that placement.”

and

“Google Product Search does not, however, sell products, nor are there preferred sellers who always show up as the first result regardless of what search you enter. Our job is to find the product you want and point you to the store that sells it based on our assessment of what’s most relevant to your search. We don’t accept payment for inclusion in our results themselves, and all advertising that appears on Google Product Search is clearly labeled as “Sponsored Links.“

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Please see below for a sample “web” Google Product Search” SERP:

Please note that the Top Ad is clearly labeled ad "Sponsored Link" and that the ad itself is place on a yellow-brown background

Here a sample of the “mobile” SERP:

Please note that the mobile SERP does not contain ANY ads etc.

It has however to be pointed out that Google Maps, which is also the basis for Google Local Search and Google Maps Navigation does accept payments to supply user with extra information about businesses (“Ad Extensions“). For the issue of consumer confusion on mobile devices please refer to my previous post.