Google is running not only an ad and link for users to install the company's Chrome Web browser, but an ad for the Google Nexus One smartphone. These ads comes four year after Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, said there will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or Web search results pages. That Google is leveraging the premier piece of Web real estate -- its popular Google homepage -- to hawk its products isn't sitting well with critics of the company.
Ads for Google products are coming fast and furious on
Google's homepage, the place a Google search executive famously declared would
be forever ad free.
People have
noticed that Google is running not only an ad and link for users to install the
company's Chrome Web browser, but an ad for the
Google Nexus One smartphone. This ad is accompanied by a photo of the Nexus One
and a link to Google's new
Webstore, where users can buy the Nexus One and, eventually, other Android
smartphones.
These ads comes four year after Marissa Mayer, vice
president of search products and user experience at Google, famously wrote in a
blog post: "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or Web
search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying
and popping up all over the Google site. Ever."
While the current ads for Chrome and Nexus One are not
flashy, they are
prominently placed. Chrome is in the top-right corner, while the Nexus One
promotion sits right under the search box.
One can't miss them, provided they appear at the moment a
user navigate to the page. Sometimes just the Chrome ad shows, sometimes just
the Nexus One ad is on display. Others see the full monty of Chrome and Nexus
One on display.
A Google spokesperson was unapologetic about the homepage
plug in a statement e-mailed to eWEEK:
"We are currently showing a link on
our home page for the Nexus One. From time to time we include a link on the
Google home page that points users to exciting and important information,
whether it be awareness about an important cause or information about a new
product or service. We've run similar promotions for the T-Mobile G1 and the
Motorola Droid."
Indeed, Google in November advertised the Motorola Droid smartphone,
sending users to Verizon Wireless to buy
the device. And why not? As the
New York Times noted, Web traffic
analysts at Compete said Google.com currently reaches 146,063,379 unique
visitors each month, and delivers 2,636,325,410 new page views in a month.
That's a lot of eyeballs to learn about Chrome and Nexus
One, products Google desperately needs to succeed to expand its Web
services reach through its browser and search purview on the mobile
Web, respectively.
Still, the fact that Google is leveraging the premier
piece of Web real estate -- its popular Google homepage -- to hawk its products
isn't sitting well with critics of the company who wait for Google to misstep
and then pounce.
Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson, who regularly
challenges Google on its privacy practices,
noted in a blog post Jan. 6:
"How long do you think it will be before Google
starts to sell ad space on its homepage? Or do you think they'll just use it to
tout their own stuff? And here's an idea. If privacy is so important to Google, and its privacy dashboard is so
helpful to consumers, why not feature a privacy banner ad in the upper right corner
of the home page for the rest of the month?"
Google's answer to that last question could fairly be
that it's in the business of selling ads and Web services, not privacy.
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