I’ve been watching on the sidelines as the the Google-Yahoo! ad deal emerged and then suddenly fell apart. In a Google blog post,
“However, after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn’t have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement.”
It is interesting that Google’s business success has not carried over to public affairs. Clearly, this is an important area for Google as it continues to grow and become even more dominant in search and other categories.
Image Credit: maximumpc.com
I met Peter Greenberger, Google’s Team Manager of Elections and issue Advocacy, last week at a panel where we both spoke entitled, Politics 2.0. We had a great discussion about the impact of Google’s tools on untold races in the 2008 election.
But what about for Google’s own public affairs issues? Google’s success in helping others connect users with information is nowhere to be found to help shore up Google’s image and public affairs interests. A simple Google search using the terms, “google yahoo deal” does not even bring up ads pointing me to information Google would want users to read on the deal. Plus, the organic search results don’t even bring one of Google’s own pages with information on the deal.
And yet, from my own searching, Google has a very good presentation outlining the details of the ad deal and the benefits consumers would receive. There’s no question in my mind Google has a great case to make for this deal. The irony is the public affairs team does not seem to be using the company’s own brilliant tools.
I think it would help Google’s case with regulators if Google was to reach out to their publics and get their vocal support. Certainly Google has tons of brand evangelists. But, they’re not to be found on this important issue.
On the other hand, you can be sure privacy groups and other Google detractors are very vocal opposing the deal. Plus, they’ve built themselves around influencing legislators and regulatory bodies. So despite Google’s good intentions, they simply aren’t measuring up to their detractors’ organizational skills and public affairs acumen.
I think Google could have done a lot to shift the winds of this deal in their favor. By using Adwords and other search advertising and maybe even putting their presentation on their homepage for a few days, I think Google would have benefitted from this public outreach. Google has great tools, now THEY need to use them.
