My Scholar or Yours?

A lawsuit filed in 2004 by the American Chemical Society claiming that Google Scholar infringed its trademark for its SciFinder Scholar service, a service quite similar to Google Scholar but which charges a fee, was settled out of court. One would think that "scholar" would qualify as a generic term and thus outside the scope of trademark protection and, given that one is free and offered by Google and other is not, there doesn't appear to be much confusion.

ACS had also claimed unfair competition in its suit, arguing it was unfair for Google to provide essentially the same service for free.

However, neither side is talking (non-disclosure agreement) so its unclear what the deal was. Google Scholar is still up and nothing appears to have changed. So, both sides are pleased, but with what? Perhaps ACS for merely going through the motions required to fortify their mark against future attacks?

KinderStart Case Dismissed

The judge overseeing the KinderStart lawsuit over PageRank has dismissed all of the company's claims against Google. KinderStart was given some hope a little while ago when the judge ruled that its antitrust claims might have some merit, but the judge decided that KinderStart was unable to state its case sufficiently, warranting the dismissal. However, the judge has also left the door open for KinderStart to sue Google for defamation over its PageRank being demoted to 0. That a search engine ranking could be considered defamatory seems unlikely, but don't be surprised if KinderStart takes a stab at this argument.

A Dose of Healthy Competition or Malpractice?

Google Blogoscoped mentions a rumor that Google is setting up a new health info service in addition to its Co-op health page. This rumor has been bouncing around for a while and perhaps has something to do with the KinderStart lawsuit. Afterall, the judge recently ruled that KinderStart's suit against Google could proceed because of the antitrust issues raised, which makes one wonder whether Google's foray into the health business has anything to do with its sandboxing of the KinderStart health search engine. There may be no connection or just a matter of coincidence - and KinderStart could justifiably be sandboxed for numerous reasons anyway - but it would be especially evil if true.

More on KinderStart

One aspect of the KinderStart lawsuit against Google that seems especially sticky is the first amendment claims on which both sides rely. Google asserts that the first amendment protects its editorial decisions to rank sites as it wishes, while KinderStart argues that Google violates its first amendment right to be heard by relegating it to the rumored "sandbox." Critics suggest that since KinderStart relies on Google for 70% of its traffic, it suffers from a bad business model more than anything else and that such a reliance on Google shows that it is unable to attract repeat visitors, a sign that its content isn't very useful to begin with.

An apt comparison would seem to be Nielsen and its TV ratings system. In fact, Nielsen might be in a larger monopoly position than Google since its ratings data are the basis for nearly all TV advertising rates, while Google serves up barely more than 40% of internet searches. Nielsen has faced its share of lawsuits, some based on minority discrimination and antitrust/monopoly violations, but it has so far been successful in defending itself.

TV stations rely on Nielsen much the same way KinderStart relies on Google. If my favorite TV show gets poor ratings, it gets canceled and one shouldn't go and sue Nielsen over that. If your favorite website is no longer relevant, it gets demoted to a lesser result page and one shouldn't go and sue Google over that either.

The difference would seem to be that Google retains a bit more editorial discretion over its results than Nielsen does in that it will demote websites based on deceptive practices (such as link farming). However, when Nielsen rolled out its new local people meter system that would account for minority viewership more accurately it was sued because it would disrupt conventional wisdom about which shows people were actually watching. Thus, there one can see the tension - and inevitable lawsuit - whenever a data company that is central to a given business changes its measurement system, regardless of whether the new system is more accurate, because it disrupts traditional revenue streams.

Is it possible to view increased accuracy in data reporting as a first amendment violation? In defamation, truth is an absolute defense. To think that this principle does not apply to information brokers accused of an antitrust violation, such as Google and Nielsen, would be an outrageous proposition. So in looking at KinderStart and how it blatantly appropriates information from other websites, as I've mentioned before, the question is whether this kind of behavior should be favored over Google's efforts to return relevant results. With the increasing amount of plagiarized material online, one would hope that such accuracy would be a major benefit not only to users, but to other businesses that actually bother to provide useful content.

Google's Home-Brew Approach

The NYT looks at Google's practice of building its own servers and infrastructure out of cheap materials. Most have heard of Google's signature approach, holding stacks of servers together with velcro, but the article highlights other advances such as a possible Google microchip and different kinds of software designed to make the most efficient use of Google's computing power. It's suspected that the do-it-yourself approach saves Google more than 50% of its computing costs versus its competitors. That's a lot and tough to compete with.
While Google is able to beat its competitors with homemade solutions, that is also the same ability that Google provides to the average user: the ability to create and compete from home because of all the access to information that Google provides.

KinderStart Case May Proceed

Back in March, I wrote about KinderStart.com and how it was suing Google over being demoted in its search rankings (read the suit here). Now it seems that that the US District Judge handling the case is sympathetic to KinderStarts' antitrust allegations against Google. KinderStart claims that it is a search engine and, as such, that Google engages in anticompetitive behavior when it dropped KinderStart from its rankings. Regarding this line of reasoning, one of Google's lawyers said:

What would prevent Microsoft from coming to us, saying Google is not adequately promoting Microsoft?

That's a good point. To say that no search engine could demote the ranking another search engine in its listings because to do so would be an antitrust issue seems a bit extreme. Especially in this case where KinderStart's claim to being a search engine is dubious.
Rather than a search engine, it would be more fair to consider KindStart as a link farm, which would be a violation of Google's policies. And not only does KinderStart offer pages and pages full of links to other sites, but they rip off the content of those pages. Usually when you click on a link that a search engine provides, it takes you to that page, rather than just pasting that page into the search engine's own.
Is it really anticompetitive for Google to disapprove of another search engine that engages in shady business like this by removing it from the Google listings? Isn't Google the dominant search engine because it has been successful in filtering out the bad websites while leading us to the best?