> The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“

I think it would be interesting to see legal action here. I’m not a lawyer, but I feel like there should be at least three ways to go after this:

1. Trademark infringement. If Amazon is using someone’s search that is clearly searching for a specific product, possibly trademarked, it seems inappropriate for them to serve up an ad for a competitor at higher priority than the actual result.

2. Fraud. If I search for a product that Amazon sells and Amazon shows me an ad for a different product first and hides the product I searched for below the fold, they are effectively telling me that they don’t have the product I searched for and possibly that it doesn’t exist. It seems to me that this is deceiving me for commercial gain.

3. Fraud again. If I search for a specific book and Amazon shows me an ad for that book, I think they’re trying to trick me into clicking that ad so they get extra revenue even if I don’t intend to click an ad. (And they’ve defrauded the ad buyer too. Those clicks are bogus. Seth Godin should not be charged for a click when the clicker was searching for the book by a good approximation of its name!)

Someone should file the multi-hundred-billion-dollar class actions :)

▲

levocardia 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The reason this is a thing is that other people can bid on your product (Amazon has an entire sponsored product category for this reason). So the reason for Seth Godin to bid on ads for "Seth Godin The Knot" is to try to crowd out other people bidding on the same term (eg another book on the same topic). Can be smart but you don't have to play this game if you don't want to, and the ACOS will tell you if it's worth playing. Even if you don't bid on those ads your own product will be the first result. It's just whether you want to bid up the price for competitors -- if you don't bid on your own product someone else can come in and buy the ad spots cheaply.

Hopefully Seth's publisher knows this?

▲

ndiddy 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It reminds me of an analogy I read a while ago in an article critiquing keyword based online advertising (can't find the article unfortunately). A restaurant wants to drum up new business, so the owner tasks three employees with handing out flyers with coupons attached. The coupons are marked to identify which employee passed them out, and each week the owner gives a bonus to the employee whose coupons get redeemed the most. Week after week, the same employee keeps getting the bonus. The other two get more and more suspicious. Is he some kind of marketing genius that's able to get tons of people to use his coupons? Finally, they ask him how he does it. He says, "I stand in the waiting area of the restaurant".

This guy's publisher is paying Amazon $1/click to show the book to people who are already going to buy the book. It's basically the same thing.

	▲	throwaway2037 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You raise a good point. This phenomenon is well-documented for at least two decades now on Google search. It is common for brands to buy keywords for their own product. Why? If not, competitors will by the same keywords to direct customers away. As I understand, this has existed for more than 20 years and Google has never been sued for it (that I know). Maybe this is just part of a highly competitive online search market. To be clear: I am not saying that I like or agree with this market outcome as a consumer, but I am merely saying it has existed for a long time and gov't regulators don't seem to really care.
	▲	cortesoft 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This is what I wonder… the author says that: > The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“ But that doesn’t mean the ad is a good investment. It isn’t just about the yield from the ad, but about the DIFFERENCE in yield between having the ad and not having the ad. It is really simplistic thinking to just look at conversion rates.

▲

ryandvm 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Burnt myself on this in Google Maps just this week. I had an appointment in my calendar with the location set to "Dr Firstname Lastname, 123 Main St, 12345". I clicked through it into Google Maps and since it had the full address specified I just trusted it. Well, it turned out that the first result was actually an ad for a competing doctor 20 minutes in the wrong direction.

To Google's credit, they did drop the "Don't be evil" slogan many years ago...

	▲	foamswimsuit 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Same! I searched a local pizza place to pick up a pizza I had ordered and took the first result. I searched for the exact name, I saw a picture of pizza, and I hit directions. Halfway there it didn't feel right and I checked. It was Dominoes. I was furious and my pizza sat for an extra 7 minutes.
	▲	qwerpy 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		This is egregious. I would be livid if I drove 20 minutes to an ad buyer's location instead of the actual address, after putting in the actual address to google maps. This is completely the opposite of what a map should be doing for you. If you can, use Apple maps for now, although Apple has proudly proclaimed that they will be serving ads in maps soon. I also refuse to use the maps.app.goo.gl short links that google maps always wants to send. They will trap you in the compromised google search ecosystem. Insist on using raw addresses. I will paste in the raw address every time someone in a group chat sends a goo.gl link.
	▲	saulpw 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		"to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

▲

eh_why_not 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Someone should file the multi-hundred-billion-dollar class actions

Incidentally, last week Amazon changed their TOS [0] and now all disputes with them are to be resolved via Arbitration; class action waiver when you use their services, etc.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/amazon-reinstates-b...

▲

andy_ppp 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

1. If you get banned from Amazon largely this is very bad for business. They can find a reasonable excuse I’m sure!

2. Fraud is a stretch, these things are labelled even if it’s deliberately designed to be difficult to understand. The discovery on this would be fascinating though because I can guarantee you there’s records somewhere of a ticket to make things more deceptive…

3. I don’t think the fraud thing will get you the results you want (I guess this is a slightly ironic statement given what we’re talking about). According to Claude it’s more likely deception under “FTC Act §5” but you can’t directly do this anymore and apparently “Amazon reinstated binding individual arbitration with a class-action waiver in its Conditions of Use, effective 14 August 2026.” So even taking them to court got much much more difficult.

I think unfortunately until a different administration (maybe one less motivated by billionaire donors) comes in, we are stuck with this type of practice.