"Google abandoned these core principles [of fair play] when they started interfering with profits and profit growth," said Nextag CEO Jeff Katz today before a Senate antitrust hearing on the search giant. "Today, Google doesn’t play fair. Google rigs its results, biasing in favor of Google Shopping and against competitors like us."

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman joined the firing squad and told senators that "Google is no longer in the business of sending people to the best sources of information on the Web. It now hopes to be a destination site itself for one vertical market after another, including news, shopping, travel, and now, local business reviews."

Stoppelman said that Google had licensed Yelp's content, then tried to buy the company after the license ended. When that failed, Google simply scraped Yelp's local review results and incorporated bits of them into its local search products. When Yelp sent Google a letter demanding that it stop this practice, Google "informed us that it would cease the practice only if we agreed to be removed from Google’s Web search index, thereby preventing Yelp from appearing anywhere in Google Web search results." (Google's outside counsel said Yelp was "micromanaging" where its content would be used and that "extra engineering" was needed to allow Yelp result to appear in general search but not in location search.)

Thomas Barnett, the former Department of Justice antitrust head (and now counsel to Google opponents Expedia and TripAdvisor), blasted the company. "Google won't even admit to reality," he said. He added that TripAdvisor's CEO had gone to Google and asked for its results to be excluded from Google Places; again, Google said that doing so meant the site would not appear anywhere in Google search engine results. It was a "coercive tactic," said Barnett.

Up on the dais, senators like Mike Lee (R-UT) also ripped into Google for tactics like including its own maps and other data above traditional search results. "Either way, you've cooked it!" Lee said during one exchange with Google chairmen Eric Schmidt.

"I can assure you we've not cooked anything," said Schmidt, but it was clear that the knives were out for Google.

A clear mistake



Google has come under enormous scrutiny of late for its business practices, and today's Senate hearing provided a chance to air all sorts of complaints about its corporate practices. Google had its defenders—Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Klobuchar (D-MN) both asked Schmidt to consider wiring their state for Google fiber—but it came under criticism from both parties.

Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-TX) admitted to being a "frequent user of your products," but wanted to know why, if Google was such a terrific corporate citizen, it has just agreed to pay a $500 million fine for "helping online pharmacies illegally sell hundreds of millions of dollars" of drugs.

Schmidt couldn't express enough contrition, saying, "We regret what happened," "It was clearly a mistake," and "We certainly apologize."

Sen. Al Franken, who is "admittedly skeptical of big companies that simultaneously control information and distribution channels," pushed Schmidt on whether Google privileged its own services, like maps. When Schmidt hesitated in answers or used words like "generally," Franken pounced on him. "If you don't know, who does?" he asked.

Sen. Lee described himself as "a conservative Republican who favors free markets," but added that he also supported antitrust law to preserve competitive markets. After hearing Schmidt's testimony, he said, "Some of my fears, I have to say, have been confirmed."

Schmidt opened his remarks with a comment about Microsoft, although he never named the company directly. After seeing Microsoft's antitrust battles with the US and the EU, Schmidt says he "absorbed the lessons of that era." At Google, "we get the lessons of our corporate predecessors," he said, noting that the company had actually held strategy discussions years ago about ways to "not be evil" as it grew ever larger.

Google certainly has made efforts in this regard. Schmidt pointed to the company's Data Liberation Front initiative, which lets people easily export their data from Google services, as a good example. And he gamely made the case that Google has been a positive force for small business, providing ad opportunities and visibility hard to get before the Web era.

But Schmidt didn't sound as convincing on key questions about how Google's promotion of its many services was fair given its huge reach. His company now faces mounting opposition from every quarter: certain business segments like the Fairsearch.org alliance; senators who actually understand the basics of what Google is and how it works, a rarity on tech issues; the US government, which has reached huge settlements with the company (DOJ) and is currently investigating other practices (FTC); and consumer groups like ACT and Consumer Watch, which has already deployed the mimes in opposition.

Given the forces now taking the field against Google, Schmidt's regret and his apologies will only count for so much. Google has deployed its own "guide" to the antitrust hearing, pre-butting common complaints against it, but the hearing was a reminder of just how many groups are no longer prepared to give the "don't be evil" info-organizers at the Googleplex a free pass.