Key Internet Search Engines Accused of Misleading Users

Eight major search engines commonly used to find information on the Internet are misleading consumers by not disclosing the influence of paid advertising on search results, a consumer watchdog group charged Monday.

In a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission, Commercial Alert said that search engines--once relatively objective--have turned deceptive during the dot-com downturn in an attempt to bolster their bottom lines.

“During the last year . . . some search engines sacrificed editorial integrity for higher profits and began placing ads prominently in the results, but without clear disclosure of this practice,” the Portland, Ore.-based group said.

The group cited eight Web sites on which operators did not clearly disclose that search results included paid ads. The sites are iWon.com, Lycos, MSN.com, Netscape, Altavista, Direct Hit, HotBot and Looksmart.

Commercial Alert’s executive director, Gary Ruskin, likened the search engines’ practice to the deceptive TV infomercials that the FTC targeted in the late 1990s.

Mary Engle, assistant director of the FTC’s advertising practices division, said although she had not seen the complaint, search engines constitute “an area that could use some consumer education.”

The accuracy and objectivity of search engines, which attempt to identify and index the more than 1 billion pages on the Web, have long concerned consumers as they try to track down information.

Meanwhile, times have grown tough for search engines. Though they remain highly popular, a decline in traditional online banner ads has hurt revenue.

In addition, search engines are struggling to index even a fraction of the globe’s Web pages--increasing the chances that search results will not be accurate or complete. That has encouraged many Web sites to blanket their pages with hidden computer code containing popular search terms such as “sex” and “MP3,” in hopes of improving their rankings in any search result. Other Web sites--including Dell Computer Co., Amazon.com and Sears--are paying for top billing by some search engines.

Still, industry executives and Internet analysts don’t necessarily think a government crackdown is the answer to alleged advertising deception.

“I don’t think . . . you need to call the feds in to issue more red tape,” said Whit Andrews, research director at Gartner in Stamford, Conn. “If consumers think they get bad results when they click through a paid ad, then they will abandon the search engine that gave them poor results. If they think they got good results, then maybe it’s not such a bad idea” to have paid listings.

None of the search engines named in the complaint had any comment. But Andrew Littlefield, chief strategist for Inktomi Corp., a Foster City, Calif., Internet software firm that provides search engine services to Looksmart, MSN.com and others, defended the practice.

“Traditional ad banners aren’t really generating that much money,” Littlefield said. “I think there is a middle ground in the search space that the industry needs to move toward” that would encourage publishers to pay for listings without affecting their rankings in search results.

Inktomi has its own program, called index connect, under which small companies pay as much as $30 for Web listings. Littlefield said the payments let Inktomi extend its reach and update its databank more frequently, without having to rely on banner ads.

One of the Internet’s most popular search engines, Google, was not named in the complaint. It is among a few search engines, mostly specialized sites, that don’t allow advertisers to buy listings.

“We try to deliver very relevant results, [because] when you start having paid results or rankings, that starts to influence rankings and affect your relationship with customers,” said Cindy McCaffrey, a spokeswoman for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google.

Yahoo, another popular site for finding information on the Internet, is not technically a search engine. Rather than combing the entire Internet, Yahoo has an editorial staff that compiles a relatively small list of what it considers useful Web sites.

Apart from Google and Yahoo, the complaint filed at the FTC said advertiser-sponsored search links are widespread. It singled out the practice of “paid inclusion,” under which a search engine guarantees to list pages from a Web site that pays for the privilege, though it does not necessarily guarantee a prominent position in the search results.

Some Web sites, such as Goto.com, prominently disclose this practice, even listing how much the advertiser paid for the link. But many other Web sites do not make such disclosures, Commercial Alert said.