The biggest concerns of the Center for Digital Democracy and Consumer Watchdog include decreasing competition in the mobile ad market and consumer privacy. The groups say that together, Google and AdMob would control most of the mobile ad market. AdMob is already the leader in the market, thought there’s lots of competition in that area. However, with backing from the search engine, it’s possible that AdMob could come to dominate their arena just as Google pwns theirs.

The second argument is based on the fact that Google and AdMob both collect considerable information about their users. Together, that information may be a threat to consumers’ privacy, with the two entities sharing everything from searching habits to location data. The groups’ full filing with the FTC is embedded below.

It’s easy to understand the appeal for Google, though—with AdMob “approaching a $100M business in the next three years,” as TC puts it, this could be the way for Google to stake their claim in the emerging mobile market.

CW and the CDD often make this type of filing on Google’s acquisitions, and it doesn’t always seem to have an effect. But with the FTC already taking a harder look, their word may have that much more sway with the regulators this time around.

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What do you think? How much influence will CW & the CDD have this time? Will the FTC ultimately okay the deal?

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He reports that he nearly tweeted about a delicious bass halibut he cooked this weekend—until he remembered he’d received the cookbook for free review 13 years ago. But the real issue isn’t restricting his free fish speech. It’s

the implication that online social media represent a separate class of communications channels with less Constitutional protection than corporate-owned newspapers, radio stations, or cable television networks is of particularly grave concern.

[We] are not arguing that bloggers and social media be treated differently than incumbent media. . . . Rather, we’re saying the new conversational media should be accorded the same rights and freedoms as other communications channels.

All of us would agree that false and deceptive advertising should be stopped, and penalized when it slips through and is caught. We agree that paid testimonials and endorsements should be labeled. But in taking business ethics and attempting to give it the force of law, the Commission is stretching the definition of remuneration to ludicrous lengths. (emphasis added)

Another interesting take against the FTC guidelines is the fact that book and product bloggers may not give guaranteed access. Unlike in advertising, where you pay for not only airtime but craft the message yourself, in product reviews, you often have no control over when (or even if) the review will be posted, and what the review will say.

(On the other hand, plenty of bloggers will guarantee access simply for shipping a product to them, and plenty of PR and marketing people sign up people for a blog tour slot before sending them a product to guarantee their participation.)

Personally, I’ve received things like books, diapers and paper towels for review on my blog. Not all of them have made it onto a blog, however. It’s hard to imagine Bounty (I can’t even remember if it was them who sent it, but close enough) being fined $11,000 for a review of two rolls of paper towels (you know, <$2 of merchandise).

On the other hand, the FTC is especially concerned with an ongoing relationship—like if you review one publisher’s (free) books a lot. (But at some point, doesn’t the fact that they’re free kind of diminish the impact on your review over time? I mean, after the fifth free book, is it even that big of a deal to get another?)

It’s not going to hurt a book review or a product review to disclose that you got a free one to read/try. It may influence how your readers think about your review—it may influence how you thought about the product, whether you’d like to admit it or not.

What do you think? Should there be some sort of lower limit on the value of products that bloggers must disclose? Should bloggers be more concerned with disclosing relationships? Should the FTC be more concerned with newspapers et al., even though the way they do things is well-established?

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Aside from the obvious anti-competition motive, AT&T is in a tizzy over Voice because GV really does prevent users from calling certain rural exchanges because the fees for phone companies for calls that end there are up to 100 times those of other areas. Google Telecom Counsel Richard Whitt posted on the Google Public Policy blog:

The reason we restrict calls to certain local phone carriers’ numbers is simple. Not only do they charge exorbitant termination rates for calls, but they also partner with adult sex chat lines and “free” conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic. This practice has been called “access stimulation” or “traffic pumping” (clearly by someone with a sense of humor). Google Voice is a free application and we want to keep it that way for all our users — which we could not afford to do if we paid these ludicrously high charges.

Google’s underlying argument is that their service is add-on to existing phone services, not a replacement. They say that they shouldn’t be subject to the same regulations as the phone companies that charge for service and build the infrastructure.

AT&T claims that Google is acting as a telecom (not, as they claim, an application), and should be subject to the same rules and regulations—specifically the neutrality rules. While it’s no surprise to see AT&T and Google on opposite sides of a neutrality battle, the roles they’re cast in this time are at least a little humorous—Google as the one trying to restrict access and AT&T as the fair-minded, open-access alternative.

What do you think? Should Google Voice be subject to the same regulations as other telecos? Or are they splitting hairs when they claim they’re exempt?

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