Twitter Is Under Federal Investigation

The Federal Trade Commission is actively investigating Twitter and the way it deals with the companies building applications and services for its platform, we've learned.

In Spring 2010, Twitter started making noises that it planned to provide users "official" versions of services that, until then, had typically been provided by third-parties – ads, photo-sharing, URL shortening and mobile apps.

Over the following year, Twitter followed-up on its promise. It acquired third-party Twitter clients such as Tweetie and TweetDeck, blessing them as "official" Twitter apps. Twitter also redesigned Twitter.com so that third-party video and photo-hosting sites no longer linked to off-Twitter sites, but kept users on Twitter. Twitter also banned third-party ad services.

Meanwhile, serial entrepreneur Bill Gross – best known for inventing search advertising – launched a company called TweetUp. The initial plan was some kind of Twitter ad network. Later, Gross started buying Twitter apps.

Eventually, his company got funding from Accel with the idea that the money would be used to buy TweetDeck. It sort of looked like Gross might be planning to launch a Twitter competitor – or at least string his Twitter clients into their own monetized network.

But then Twitter got aggressive with Gross – first by shutting down several of its apps for a week or so, and then by stepping in and acquiring TweetDeck for itself.

We reached out to the FTC and Twitter and haven't heard back.

A representative from Gross's company tells us: "We have been contacted by the FTC and are in the process of responding to their requests."

Another app-maker says: "Our lawyer has advised us not to talk about this particular topic."

Today, we learned that Twitter will soon create a site to "offer up as much information as possible to developers and partners." Surely, the news is related.

In a separate matter, Twitter settled with the FTC in March over allegations of privacy violations.

Related:

• Holy Cow Did Twitter's Top Investor Drop A Bombshell On Twitter App-Makers Today
• How Tech Legend Bill Gross Blew The TweetDeck Deal
• Here's Who Ended Up Getting Screwed By Twitter

 

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See Also:

• The Billion-Dollar Startup That Almost Never Was
• HOLY MOLEY: This iPhone App Scans Skin For Melanoma
• This Is How Facebook Was Supposed To Get Integrated Into Your iPhone

Twitter Is Under Federal Investigation

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GOOGLE: Yes, We're Under Investigation, But We Don't Know Why (GOOG)

Google has confirmed that it is now under investigation from the FTC for antitrust in a blog post. 

It says, "it's still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are," but it lays out a preemptive case against any charges.

Basically Google says, we're all about what's doing best for the users, and if people think we're up to no good they can go use Bing.

Here's the full post:

Supporting choice, ensuring economic opportunity

At Google, we’ve always focused on putting the user first. We aim to provide relevant answers as quickly as possible—and our product innovation and engineering talent have delivered results that users seem to like, in a world where the competition is only one click away. Still, we recognize that our success has led to greater scrutiny. Yesterday, we received formal notification from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it has begun a review of our business. We respect the FTC’s process and will be working with them (as we have with other agencies) over the coming months to answer questions about Google and our services.

It’s still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are, but we’re clear about where we stand. Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow. No matter what you’re looking for—buying a movie ticket, finding the best burger nearby, or watching a royal wedding—we want to get you the information you want as quickly as possible. Sometimes the best result is a link to another website. Other times it’s a news article, sports score, stock quote, a video or a map.



Instant answers. New sources of knowledge. Powerful tools—all for free. In just 13 years we’ve built a model that has changed the way people find answers and helped businesses both large and small create jobs and connect with new customers.



Search helps you go anywhere and discover anything, on an open Internet. Using Google is a choice—and there are lots of other choices available to you for getting information: other general-interest search engines, specialized search engines, direct navigation to websites, mobile applications, social networks, and more.



Because of the many choices available to you, we work constantly on making search better, and will continue to follow the principles that have guided us from the beginning:

• Do what’s best for the user. We make hundreds of changes to our algorithms every year to improve your search experience. Not every website can come out at the top of the page, or even appear on the first page of our search results.

• Provide the most relevant answers as quickly as possible. Today, when you type “weather in Chicago” or “how many feet in a mile” into our search box, you get the answers directly—often before you hit “enter”. And we’re always trying to figure out new ways to answer even more complicated questions just as clearly and quickly. Advertisements offer useful information, too, which is why we also work hard to ensure that our ads are relevant to you.

• Label advertisements clearly. Google always distinguishes advertisements from our organic search results. As we experiment with new ad formats and new types of content, we will continue to be transparent about what is an ad and what isn’t.

• Be transparent. We share more information about how our rankings work than any other search engine, through our Webmaster Central site, blog, diagnostic tools, support forum, and YouTube. We also give advertisers detailed information about the ad auction and tips to improve their ad quality scores. We’ve recently introduced even more transparency tools, announcing a major change to our algorithm, providing more notice when a website is demoted due to spam violations, and giving advertisers new information about ads that break our rules.

• Loyalty, not lock-in. We firmly believe you control your data, so we have a team of engineers whose only goal is to help you take your information with you. We want you to stay with us because we’re innovating and making our products better—not because you’re locked in.

These are the principles that guide us, and we know they’ll stand up to scrutiny. We’re committed to giving you choices, ensuring that businesses can grow and create jobs, and, ultimately, fostering an Internet that benefits us all.

To learn more about our business, please visit google.com/press/competition.

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See Also:

• Google Is About To Be Hit With An Antitrust Probe From The FTC
• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Google Buys Place-Shifting Software Company To Enhance Google TV
• CHART OF THE DAY: A Tale Of Two Smartphone Companies

GOOGLE: Yes, We're Under Investigation, But We Don't Know Why (GOOG)

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Here's What Google Can Expect With EU Investigation, Says Microsoftie

The European Union has slowly started turning the antitrust crank against Google, announcing that it's launching an investigation into the company for unfair business practices. The EU is investigating complaints from small niche search engines that Google has systematically lowered rankings for those sites in its search algorithm, and it will also look to see if Google gave its own Web services preferential placement.

Microsoft famously went through the EU wringer earlier this decade, and ended up paying more than a billion dollars in fines. It was also forced to reveal more information about technical protocols used by Windows and other products, and to offer an alternate version of Windows without the Windows Media Player, which nobody bought.

A Microsoft manager who worked on the digital media team during this period explained what Google should expect. (He asked to be quoted anonymously, as all official comments about legal cases are supposed to come from Microsoft's lawyers or public relations groups.)

Here were his nuggets of wisdom:

• The EU will listen to your competitors, but not to you. In the digital media case, the EU seemed to believe what RealNetworks and other competitors told it: that there was a dynamic market for software-based digital media players, if only Microsoft would stop shutting them out. When Microsoft tried to respond by explaining the realities of the market--for instance, PC makers don't want to give customers too many choices of default software because it raises support and manufacturing costs--the EU didn't listen.

• You're dealing with regulators, not techies. The EU seemed to believe that removing the Windows Media Player was as easy as uninstalling any other application. When Microsoft tried to explain that the Player had deep ties within the guts of the OS, and asked specific questions like "which DLLs would you like us to remove?" they were met with meaningless answers or silence.

• You're subject to new rules now, but you can't know what they are. Software development at Microsoft is always subject to limits: processor speeds, development time, finances, and the laws at physics. When the EU--and the U.S Department of Justice before it--declared Microsoft a monopoly, the company suddenly was subject to new rules. Unfortunately, until the legal cases were finished, Microsoft employees didn't know exactly what those rules were. And there's no way to find out except to be sued and lose.

• You'll have to make unexpected adjustments. During the EU and DoJ investigations, Microsoft employees had to learn all kinds of things they could previously ignore, like the ins and outs of attorney-client privilege in email. You can't just put a signature file saying "this email is covered by attorney-client privilege" and make it so, as some employees seemed to think. Eventually, Microsoft made all sorts of legal information available to employees, but it took time.

• The EU will impose a remedy to save face. This employee wasn't close to the EU's reasoning, but the order to ship a version of Windows without the Media Player was never going to work--and he thinks the EU knew it. But after spending years and millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, the EU couldn't just say "pay a big fine and nothing else has to change." It had to impose a behavioral changing remedy, even if it turned out to be ineffective.

• Don't take your eye off the competition. The EU investigation did change how Microsoft does business in some critical ways--the rulings gave the company certain new rules which it now abides by, such as "you must offer consumers a way to remove Windows features" and "no integrating formerly separate products (like Bing search) with Windows without talking to the lawyers." It also showed Microsoft that it needs lobbying power with governments, and couldn't afford the faux-naive "we're just a little technology company" stance that it took in the 1990s. But in the end, competition in the digital media market was restored by competitors, not the EU. One big competitor in particular: Apple. As this employee said "we didn't stop doing PlaysForSure because the EU made it, we did it because we kind of got our asses handed to us."

In Google's case, that means staying focused on Facebook and--yes--Microsoft. Indeed, Microsoft seems to have learned at least one lesson very well: one of the complainants to the EU is a shopping search engine called Ciao, which Microsoft acquired in 2008.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Google Is Now Officially Evil
• Google Suing U.S. Government Over Refusal To Consider Google Apps Over Microsoft
• Google Embraces And Extends Microsoft Office

Here's What Google Can Expect With EU Investigation, Says Microsoftie

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/z6A9FdpeQnM/heres-what-google-can-expect-with-eu-investigation-says-microsoftie-2010-11

Here's What Google Can Expect With EU Investigation, Says Microsoftie (GOOG, MSFT)

The European Union has slowly started turning the antitrust crank against Google, announcing that it's launching an investigation into the company for unfair business practices.

Microsoft famously went through the EU wringer earlier this decade, and ended up paying more than a billion dollars in fines. It was also forced to reveal more information about technical protocols used by Windows and other products, and to offer an alternate version of Windows without the Windows Media Player, which nobody bought.

A Microsoft manager who worked on the digital media team during this period explained what Google should expect. (He asked to be quoted anonymously, as all official comments about legal cases are supposed to come from Microsoft's lawyers or public relations groups.)

Here were his nuggets of wisdom:

• The EU will listen to your competitors, but not to you. In the digital media case, the EU seemed to believe what RealNetworks and other competitors told it: that there was a dynamic market for software-based digital media players, if only Microsoft would stop shutting them out. When Microsoft tried to respond by explaining the realities of the market--for instance, PC makers don't want to give customers too many choices of default software because it raises support and manufacturing costs--the EU didn't listen.

• You're dealing with regulators, not techies. The EU seemed to believe that removing the Windows Media Player was as easy as uninstalling any other application. When Microsoft tried to explain that the Player had deep ties within the guts of the OS, and asked specific questions like "which DLLs would you like us to remove?" they were met with meaningless answers or silence.

• You're subject to new rules now, but you can't know what they are. Software development at Microsoft is always subject to limits: processor speeds, development time, finances, and the laws of physics. When the EU--and the U.S Department of Justice before it--declared Microsoft a monopoly, the company suddenly was subject to new rules. Unfortunately, until the legal cases were finished, Microsoft employees didn't know exactly what those rules were. And there's no way to find out except to be sued and lose.

• Don't pretend you're a lawyer. During the EU and DoJ investigations, Microsoft employees had to learn all kinds of things they could previously ignore, like the ins and outs of attorney-client privilege in email. You can't just put a signature file saying "this email is covered by attorney-client privilege" and make it so, as some employees seemed to think. Eventually, Microsoft made all sorts of legal information available to employees, but it took time.

• The EU will impose a remedy to save face. The order to ship a version of Windows without the Media Player was never going to work--and this employee suspects the EU knew it. The regulators weren't stupid. But after spending years and millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, the EU couldn't just say "pay a big fine and nothing else has to change." It had to impose a behavioral changing remedy, even if it turned out to be ineffective.

• Don't take your eye off the competition. The EU investigation did change how Microsoft does business in some critical ways--the rulings gave the company certain new rules which it now abides by, such as "you must offer consumers a way to remove Windows features" and "no integrating formerly separate products (like Bing search) with Windows without talking to the lawyers." It also showed Microsoft that it needs lobbying power with governments, and couldn't afford the faux-naive "we're just a little technology company" stance that it took in the 1990s. But in the end, competition in the digital media market was restored by competitors, not the EU. One big competitor in particular: Apple. As this employee said "we didn't stop doing PlaysForSure because the EU made us, we did it because we kind of got our asses handed to us."

In Google's case, that means staying focused on Facebook and--yes--Microsoft. Indeed, Microsoft seems to have learned at least one lesson very well: one of the complainants to the EU is a shopping search engine called Ciao, which Microsoft acquired in 2008.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Google Is Now Officially Evil
• Google Suing U.S. Government Over Refusal To Consider Google Apps Over Microsoft
• Google Embraces And Extends Microsoft Office

Here's What Google Can Expect With EU Investigation, Says Microsoftie (GOOG, MSFT)

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/z6A9FdpeQnM/heres-what-google-can-expect-with-eu-investigation-says-microsoftie-2010-11