No, not at all.

The statement was mostly about Google scraping data and not linking back.

One case: They post a review about a restaurant on Yelp!

Soon later Google Places displayed the same review text, but did not link back to Yelp!

When Yelp! complained, Google suggested Yelp! should just use robots.txt to unlist their site complete, or put up with the scraping.

In return, Yelp! and other companies went to the EU and complained.

> No, not at all.

> The statement was mostly about Google scraping data and not linking back

That's been somewhat the narrative around here, but that doesn't appear to be true at all:

> The Statement of Objections takes the preliminary view that in order to remedy the conduct, Google should treat its own comparison shopping service and those of rivals in the same way. This would not interfere with either the algorithms Google applies or how it designs its search results pages. It would, however, mean that when Google shows comparison shopping services in response to a user's query, the most relevant service or services would be selected to appear in Google's search results pages.

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4781_en.htm

I didn't realize this. I thought it was more wide ranging.

There is a separate formal investigation on Android currently: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cf...

Additionally, the EC currently looks into Google's "copying of rivals’ web content (known as 'scraping'), exclusivity in its agreements with advertising partners and undue restrictions of advertisers' ability to use competing advertising platforms" (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-15-4785_en.ht...) but that hasn't reached the formal stage yet.

So the answer to my question is still "yes", the statement of objections was only about comparison shopping :)

> but that hasn't reached the formal stage yet

and it may never, considering the changes made for the FTC.

I tried to replicate the results of the BBC article to see what the fuss was about, but the search results did in fact list 'rival' price comparison shopping sites. It took me a while to realize that this was because I had adblock turned on.

If that's what this specific set of objections are about, then the article does a spectacularly bad job of explaining the issue.

This seems simple enough to be handled by a site AUP. If Yelp's AUP said their content could only be used be aggregators in the case where it was clearly linked back, then it would be up to Google to comply or not use the data in an infringing manner.

If Google attempts to strong-arm Yelp, it's up to Yelp to capitulate or buckle down, but a case on what someone "threatened" to is different than a case on what was actually done. In the U.S. laws often take a while to challenge in court because they have to actually be exercised before they can be challenged.

Yelp, in the end, after trying to complain to Google (and still only getting referred to using robots.txt) then called the EU commission and asked them to do something about it.

That’s how the whole thing started.

Google – with their new statement – isn’t trying to explain or answer, but to win a PR victory: Tell everyone the EU is doing some new crazy regulation, and hope the EU stops it.

If that's the real issue, then I'm in support of regulation that keeps Google from ignoring attribution in data it shows, but I would be interested in more specifics. I've heard enough horror stories about Yelp! to not take their word for what happened without a grain of salt. The memo you linked makes no mention of this type of issue though, it's about placement of comparison results AFAICT.

Additionally, the first portion of "The Statement of Objections outlines that the markets for general search and comparison shopping are two separate markets. In the latter market, Google faces competition from a number of alternative providers." is something I think is widely debatable. People have comparison shopped with search results from the beginning, Google as been iterating on it steadily and this is the result.

This is interesting: "Google does not apply to its own comparison shopping service the system of penalties, which it applies to other comparison shopping services on the basis of defined parameters, and which can lead to the lowering of the rank in which they appear in Google's general search results pages." I'm not sure what system of penalties they are referring to. The only ones I know of are for blackhat SEO, and if that's what they are referring to that's an interesting argument to make. I wonder how it will go.

That is why we shouldn’t just jump to conclusions, but wait for the investigation, and then we should read what both sides have to say.

Google has shown before that they are very good at using extreme PR to get a benefit, while the EU surely is also influenced by local companies.

That ! cracked me up. I was yelling mentally.

That’s the intention of the Yelp!™ trademark. Not that I agree with it, but I like to, at least, quote properly.

Nobody cares about those trademarks, and just by "obeying" them by writing the marks how they want us to, we are making idiots out of ourselves.

> Wait, was the EU statement of objections only about comparison shopping?

Yes, the Statement of Objections at issue was.

Fact sheet: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4781_en.htm