On day 3 of my new job as an SEO copywriter, I heard that Google had acquired a major search engine optimization company, Performics Search Marketing, as part of its acquisition of Double Click in 2007. (Did I mention it was a ‘ newbie’ to SEO copywriting?) That tea dominant search engine would operate a major SEO firm suddenly felt like “déja vu all over again,” to quote the great sage, and former Yankees wide receiver, Yogi Berra. (Berra was enlightened, so he lived up to his nickname, or was he a man who was very, very confused about things. In the end, is there much of a difference?)
When I practiced law on Bay Street (the Canadian equivalent of Wall Street, or ‘the
City’ in London), I witnessed the demise of Arthur Andersen, one of the so-called ‘Big Four’ accounting firms. Famously, gold infamously, the Andersen accountants that Enron had hired to audit its books approved a series of then “novel and innovative” but now “discredited and illicit” accounting practices involving offshore business accounts. The problem was that Arthur Andersen made more profit from his investment work with Enron than from the audit side. In helping Enron issue securities and procure equity financing, the better Enron did on his books, the more securities and equity financing Enron could access, and the better Andersen would do as an investment adviser to Enron.
Andersen served in two roles at Enron and had a fundamental conflict of interest between them. The better Enron’s books were, the more profit Andersen would make working on the investment side of Enron. So Andersen, as Enron’s auditor, willingly or blindly signed off on Enron’s incomplete offshore business accounts. The accounts turned out to be nothing more than an elaborate financial shell game. Essentially, Andersen helped or allowed Enron executives to prepare the books for him. The resulting consequences saw the demise not only of Enron, but also of Arthur Andersen himself. (At the time of his demise, Arthur Andersen was one of the oldest and most respected multinational accounting firms in the world. The fallout of an accounting giant was felt from Wall St. to Bay St. to Main St.)
So it was a huge relief that on Day 4 of what is fast becoming ‘SEO Grade School’, my new boss told me that Google had indeed announced their intention to sell Performics. Google management sensibly recognized not only their company’s inherent conflict of interest, but also the growing concern in most parts of the online marketing community about that conflict. Even to my novice eyes, having a major search engine with the ability to drive online traffic to sellers who are clients of its own optimization company looks bad.
As a lawyer, he knew what is known as “Chinese Walls”. That is where a group of lawyers dealing with a client who has a conflicting interest with another of the firm’s clients is identified and prevented from having any contact with the lawyers involved with the other conflicting client. Those lawyers are said to be “in conflict.” It is not uncommon for an entire business law firm, and these are large firms, to be separated from a small group of their own conflicting attorneys. (And, really, once you get to to know them, which lawyers don’t already seem deeply conflicted?)
However, Chinese walls work well in a legal setting. But you must remember (a) that lawyers are highly regulated by outside professional bodies and regulatory agencies, and (b) they are well-educated professionals trained to detect and avoid such ethical conflicts. (I know… I know… To some of you, the idea of legal ethics may seem as much of an oxymoron as the concept of jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, or the cordless screwdriver; after all, doesn’t it? They are? everyone cordless screwdrivers in the first place? But, in this case, legal ethics generally prevail and conflicts of interest are routinely avoided. This is just meant to show that Chinese walls can and do work in some settings. Legal ethics almost always prevail when it comes to inherent conflicts of interest within a law firm. In my opinion, however, neither the search engine operators, nor the major SEO companies, nor their technology sector employees are sufficiently regulated or necessarily sufficiently trained to ensure that voluntary compliance with such quarantine measures is effective. They don’t have to be either!
For one day, as I contemplated both this article and my new future as an SEO copywriter, things looked bleak. be disastrous for all parties involved, particularly the end user who relies on the network’s global, national, and local search capabilities for the best information or offer available on the market. Markets, in theory, are supposed to be free.
For the business that relies on online marketing, the entanglement between a search engine and a search engine-controlled SEO company could leave an advertiser vulnerable to pay-per-view extortion schemes like the ‘payola’ scandals. that rocked the radio and the music. world in the 1950s. Optimization firms, particularly local SEO firms for small and medium business clients, would be severely handicapped by the pre-eminence enjoyed by Google, Yahoo and MSN in the search engine market.
Finally, the possibility of such patent conflicts of interest could compromise the search engine companies themselves, particularly the Big Three. Where before consumers voted with their feet, now they vote with mice (mice? meese?). Since the Internet is nothing but democratic, practices that could bias the market would inevitably lead users to use new providers or technologies that would not frustrate their attempts to gain access to the best and most relevant information with the least hassle. This is why the Big Three penalizes ‘black hat’ SEO practices. They must not leave themselves vulnerable even from the perspective of being perceived as capable of engaging in such practices themselves. Optics alone are bad for your business and the entire industry.
In announcing its intention to sell Performics, Google has made it clear that it is against its own interests to leave open even the possibility that it may be seen as having the ability to engage in its own form of “black hat” practices, even if Performics ’employees and business operations must be strictly and effectively quarantined from Google’s. Hopefully, in this case at least, Microsoft will follow Google’s lead and ditch the Avenue A/Razorfish SEO business they acquired when they bought aQuantive.
