Global Search Engine Marketing & Social Media News And Analysis » Christophe Bernigaud

Infographic – Who Is Using Google Analytics Worldwide?

Christophe Bernigaud — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:33:02 +0000

Data privacy is a trending topic at the moment. Regulations and laws on cookies technology usage is now key.

Most websites will run a cookies based web analytical tool or software like Google Analytics. Over 55 per cent of all websites in the world run Google Analytics, giving Google a comfortable 81 per cent market share of the web analytics software industry…

Check TargetOnlineMarketing.com infographic – ‘Who is using Google Analytics Worldwide in 2012? ‘

France – Abusive SEO Tactics – A Beer Story

Christophe Bernigaud — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:29:00 +0000

SaveurBière.com has been sentenced and fined a 10000euro fine by the Cour d’Appel de Douai, France (court of appeals of Douai) for abusive SEO tactics & techniques. Google did not think those techniques were outside its guidelines…

The story

2007, Julien Lemarchand bought Saveur Bière.com domain name – as well as fifty odd related domain names (misterbiere.com, esprit-biere.com, couleur-biere.com…). Each domain name had a unique page with unique content. Julien’s goal was to capture Google’s – and other search engines of course – attention around the keyword ‘biere’, and rank on top for all keyword variations on the SERPs via his chain of unique websites. Lemarchand ultimate goal was to launch a beer dedicated e-commerce website which he eventually did with Saveur Bière.com.

The issue came from his website selectionbiere.com. The owner of selection-biere.com thought Lemarchand’s website was too close to hers and lodged a legal complaint against Lemarchand back in 2008. Then, Julien was sentenced and he got rid of most of his websites and by consequence stop his ‘illegal SEO tactics’.

Yet, since the likes of Google never told him he did wrong nor penalized him, Lemarchand decided to appeal against the tribunal’s decision.

The Court of Appeals of Douai decided to dismiss him and fine him 10 000euros. The Judge said: ” buying so many domain names repeating extensively the keyword ‘biere’ and working at developing links directing towards those websites resulting being on top of search engines results, Julien Lemarchand and SARL Saveur Biere practiced unfair competition practices preventing Celine S ( selection-biere.com ) from getting visitors on her website”.

This is a school case which is now a precedent in terms of SEO techniques and practices in France and perhaps Europe?

How does Google Make Money?

Christophe Bernigaud — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:15:41 +0000

Today’s Infographics Mondays series looks at Google Adwords costs. Google set another record with its Q3 2011 revenue reaching USD9.72 billion (USD9billion in Q2 2011) representing a 33% increase vs Q3 2010. Around 70% of Google’s revenue is generated by Google Adwords and 27% by Google Adsense. See where Google is making its money, what industries are the most expensive to be promoting on the Adwords network.

Google Adwords Set To Launch On YouTube

Christophe Bernigaud — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:20:42 +0000

Video on adwords or adwords using images in Gmail, etc… Google has been testing various search engine advertising ad copy formats under the AdWords New Ad Formats Initiative.

Now, Google Adwords is set to launch on the world second largest search engine and largest video sharing platform – YouTube. The model will be an auction-based platform for online video ad campaigns. It will replace the already established ‘Promoted Videos’ section on YouTube.

How will it work?

the video ad serving platform is built on the adwords platform and will serve ads with the same pipeline, just serving videos first.
Advertisers can create a ‘video views’ based campaign – vs. impressions – using a suite of four ‘TureView’ video ads. TrueView in search and TrueView in display.
- click-to-play running model

YouTube also added in-slate and in-stream
- The in-stream option does not require advertisers to pay for the ad unless the viewer watches more than 30 seconds before skipping through

The AdWords video platform allows advertisers:
- to set budgets,
- to monitor impressions, views, average cost per views, total costs, and Web site clicks

Just like the keyword based adwords, Adwords videos allows advertisers:
- to enter a headline, description and thumbnails, display URLs, destinations and more
- to preview videos
- to target audience better
- to set bids for each of the four formats
- to search & set target keywords
- to set a call to action overlay
  - the overlay appears as a display ad over the TrueView in-search and in-display videos that play on YouTube
- to review and report on their campaigns performances via their adwords analytics dashboard
  - videos views
  - how long the audience watched the video
  - what action was taken watching the video
  - view through rate for campaign split testing

YouTube product manager, Lane Shackleton says: ” Buying video has traditionally been a difficult process, especially within AdWords. We made it so advertisers can link YouTube accounts. It allows advertisers to populate the list specific to the brand.”

See the official clicking the link - AdWords for video (beta)

PPC War: Interflora Vs. M&S – The Come Back

Christophe Bernigaud — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:35:29 +0000

The war between Interflora and Marks & Spencer has been on-going for some time now, here is a quick wrap up of the situation:

Interflora sued M&S in 2009 for bidding on its trademark in the UK (when a user would search for Interflora in the UK, the M&S ad would appear).
The High Court of Justice of Wales and England refers the questions to the ECJ
2010, the ECJ ruled that Google was not liable for trade mark infringement by selling the advertising service to rival companies.
March 2011, ECJ‘ Niilo Jääskinen - the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – advised for Marks & Spencer to be found liable for trade mark infringement by using ‘Interflora’ as a Google AdWord keyword.

Last week, the ECJ ruled in favor of Interflora which needs to be applied by the High Court in the UK in order to appreciate M&S’ liability.

The ECJ said that trademark owners can stop companies using their brands as triggers for adverts for competing products if that use “substantially interferes with the proprietor’s use of its trademark to acquire or preserve a reputation capable of attracting consumers and retaining their loyalty”. The interference is yet to be defined though…

Interflora’s marketing director, Michael Barringer, says: “This judgment backs all the hard work and effort we have put in to defending the Interflora brand. People searching the internet for “Interflora” want “Interflora, the flower experts and no one else. Our brand stands for quality and service and together with our network of independent florists, we have spent the last 80 years building this reputation.”

AdWords Goes Graphic In Gmail

Christophe Bernigaud — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:08:22 +0000

Google Adwords has seen many developments lately: from the adwords video to adwords express.

If you check your Google mail account you see adwords ads in gmail on top of the menu bar and on the right hand side of your opened message. Up until very recently, those ads were only text based. Well this has now changed. Adwords has now gone graphic in Gmail.

The new AdWords image format appearing above the text ads in the right sidebar includes

an image,
a headline
lines of text,
next to an envelope icon, the advertiser’s name
clicking the ad will take the user to an e-mail message.

A Google spokesperson said, “the ads are designed specifically for Gmail and look and function a little differently from regular text ads and the ads are being shown to “a small number” of users in the U.S. and testing began in July.”

We are yet to be informed on:

which advertisers are testing this new feature – we read that Groupon is part of the test group -
how do advertisers pay for these ads
how these ads are targeted

It will surely increase adwords click through ratio in Gmail

Google AdWords Express

Christophe Bernigaud — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:20:17 +0000

Google has officially launched AdWords Express, a new, easy Pay Per Click service for local businesses.

Initially launched as Google Boost in October 2010, AdWords Express is an faster and easier way to start advertising online via AdWords:

five minutes set up
aimed at local businesses
campaign automatically managed
basic business information required and
create an ad
the campaign is ready to go

Google AdWords Express: Local online advertising made easy

It’s All About The Love! What Do You Love?

Christophe Bernigaud — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:19:45 +0000

Google has launched a new crossover search portal called ‘What do you love?’ under the http://www.wdyl.com domain name.

It aggregates in a non Google conventional way your search query results:

books
news
Google groups based discussions
product search and shopping
classic search results
photos linked to cloud images hosting and sharing service Picasa
Blog results linked to blogging platform solution Blogger
Video search results via cloud based social video sharing platform YouTube
location via Google maps & Google Earth
translation service via Google Translate
etc

Google, Google, Google, Google, lol… Have you had enough yet?

I quite like the navigation joystick on the side!

Of course it works a lot better with generic terms such as ‘Peace’ or ‘Love’ but have fun What do you love searching your own name, your brand, your company or whatever bad word you can think of

European Consumer Rights: A New Directive

Christophe Bernigaud — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 05:53:44 +0000

One hundred and fifty million European citizens shops over the internet. Thirty million of them shop cross border online in the EU. European cross border shoppers spend on average € 800 a year, i.e. a total of 24 billion €uro. What rights do European consumers have?
Thursday June 23rd, European delegates have deeply changed online European consumer rights adopting by 615 votes to 16, with 21 abstentions a new European Consumer directive.
This new law is to be enforced within two years in the 27 European member states.
What are the good news, what are the bad news?
The following are the 10 most important changes for consumers in the new Directive [text from the directive]:

The proposal will eliminate hidden charges and costs on the Internet – no more getting caught into getting a free horoscope that you have to pay for in the end
Increased price transparency – this means the online retailer will now have to tell you about all costs, for instance a UK online store shipping goods from Singapore will have to tell you about customs duties before you finalise your payment
Banning pre-ticked boxes on websites – no more imposed insurance fees when booking a ticket an online, no more imposed newsletters, no more imposed extra warranty terms when buying a camera online, etc
14 Days to change your mind on a purchase, goods or services – a key point i will detail:
- Extra protection for lack of information: if the buyer was not fully informed of the withdrawal rules pre-purchase, the buyer has up to a year to cancel his/her order
- Consumers have a right of withdrawal for solicited visits, such as when a trader called beforehand and pressed the consumer to agree to a visit (no more foot in the door sales people!)
- The right of withdrawal is extended to online auctions – such as eBay but the right is only applicable in the case of a professional seller (define professional seller?)
- The withdrawal period will start from the moment the consumer receives the goods, vs. right now the sales contract date! – bad news for retailers, as it means a Greek buyer can receive the shoes he ordered online from an online irish retailer and will have 14 days to return the shoes from the date he received the shoes…
  - Very important fine print – The rules will apply to internet, phone and mail order sales, as well as to sales outside shops, for example on the consumer’s doorstep, in the street, at a Tupperware type of party or during an excursion organised by the trader.
Better refund rights- retailers will refund consumers in full for the product within 14 days of the withdrawal. This includes the costs of delivery. In general, the trader will bear the risk for any damage to goods during transportation, until the consumer takes possession of the goods.
Introduction of an EU-wide model withdrawal form – ease and speed to to withdraw, wherever you have concluded a contract in the EU.
Eliminating surcharges for the use of credit cards and hotlines - no more extra charge if you book your flight ticket online paying with a Visa for instance… And no more Expensive hotlines when ringing your computer manufacturer tech support cente or when ringing your insurance company to follow up on a car accident claim!
Clearer information on who pays for returning goods – the trader will have to pay for the returned goods transport costs unless the trader has clearly told the buyer and before the agreement of the sales contract, meaning before you pay for it. for bulk items, the seller must provide an estimated transport cost.
Better consumer protection in relation to digital products- this means that a seller must tell its buyer about the limits of copying a music / video file for instance. The seller can withdrawal from that purchase solely up to the downloading process begins.
Common rules for businesses will make it easier for them to trade all over Europe
- A single set of rules for distance contracts (sales by phone, post or internet) and off-premises contracts (sales away from a company’s premises, such as in the street or the doorstep) in the European Union
- Right of withdrawal standard forms
- Specific rules will apply to small businesses and craftsmen, such as a plumber. There will be no right of withdrawal for urgent repairs and maintenance work. Member States may also decide to exempt traders who are requested by consumers to carry out repair and maintenance work in their home of a value below €200 from some of the information requirements

Good news all over for all of us really as we all are buyers…

But bad news for the online retailers…

PPC War: Interflora vs. M&S – the return

Christophe Bernigaud — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:42:18 +0000

Following up on our previous article on the legal fight between Interflora UK vs. M&S on the Google Adwords UK network, here is the latest, the fight is raging on!

Here is a quick wrap up of the situation:

M&S bids on the ‘Interflora’ brand of the Google Adwords network
Interflora starts legal action vs. M&S for trademark infringement
High profile brands follow suit vs. Google – LVMH / Louis Vuitton, Portacabin
2009, The High Court of Justice of Wales and England refers the questions to the ECJ
2010, the ECJ ruled that Google was not liable for trade mark infringement by selling the advertising service to rival companies.

Last week, Niilo Jääskinen – the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – advised for Marks & Spencer to be found liable for trade mark infringement by using ‘Interflora’ as a Google AdWord keyword. The ECJ ruling, which may follow Niilo Jääskinen recommendation , will follow shortly.

Marks & Clerk Solicitors comment: “Interflora will be the victor if today’s recommendations are followed. The Advocate General considers that use of a rival trade mark as a Google AdWord constitutes trade mark infringement where the consumer is unable to determine whether or not the advert is for the brand they originally searched for.

“Last year’s Google case established that purchasing a rival’s brand name as an AdWord is not trade mark infringement per se. But while online consumers are much more informed than fifteen years ago, rivals should shy away from using each other’s trade marks for their own commercial purposes where doubt or ambiguity as to the origin of the goods or services could arise.

“This opinion is based heavily on the particular facts here – namely that the trade mark ‘Interflora’ denotes a commercial network of florists providing certain services and products. However, it will bring some comfort to brand owners that in such situations where members of the public could believe that the competitor is a member of their commercial network, they can prohibit the use of their trade mark as an AdWord.

“After last year’s ruling in its favour, Google will have to wait for the Court’s decision in this case before declaring a decisive victory. Although not represented in this legal battle, it is still directly affected – the AdWord service is a major source of revenue for the California-based corporation. With this opinion, Google’s customers may well reconsider how extensively they want to use a competitor’s mark as an AdWord.”

Suite au prochain épisode…

Video Google Adwords: Exciting Times Ahead!

Christophe Bernigaud — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:49:42 +0000

Adding to some of the educating posts from Gemma Birch on Video Marketing, my post today is about Google’s evolution of Google Adwords model into rich media: video PPC.

Back in 2009, Google introduced the AdWords New Ad Formats Initiative . The goal was to generate relevant ads and volume.
Under this initiative umbrella, Google has been testing various search engine advertising ad copy formats…

Today, Google announces the most recent ad format initiative: the media ads. The targeting is fully automated and not keyword based & it offers new payment options using video advertising.
Differently from the current adwords video ad model, Adwords Media Ads is a standalone ad format.
How will it work?
Joe Searcher enters a query on Google.com. Google will match the search query with a video title (exact match and variations). The ad will then be then displayed on top of the SERP, above the organic result (how will it affect the organic ranking if you add local search results and Google Places?)

As for the payment model, it will be based on a flat fee, unlike what we are all used to with Adwords. Google reckons it will make video PPC budget forecasting easier… tbc

Google is now introducing the Lightbox player to display the ads, the theater experience…

Media Ads release is limited to some chosen motion pictures studios for now….

Yahoo! & Bing Search Allaince News

Christophe Bernigaud — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:38:14 +0000

taken from http://www.searchalliance.com/europe/en/home

The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is a major initiative between our companies to create a competitive choice in search for advertisers and consumers. The combined scale will assist both companies in speeding the pace of innovation to improve the search user experience, as well as help advertisers get better results, and help improve monetisation for partners.

Already implemented in the U.S. and Canada, the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance enables both companies to maintain their own search brands and differentiated consumer search experiences, while the back-end technologies for algorithmic and paid search results on both Yahoo! Search and Bing are powered by Microsoft platforms.

Yahoo! and Microsoft will each provide customer support to different advertiser segments: Yahoo!’s sales team will exclusively support high volume advertisers, large agencies, resellers and their clients. Microsoft will support self-service advertisers. In addition, Microsoft Advertising adCenter will be the platform for all search marketing campaigns.

More volume, less effort.
Search ad inventory from Yahoo!, Microsoft, and their respective partners will be combined into a new, unified search marketplace, giving advertisers of all sizes access to a combined audience of 557 million unique searchers worldwide¹. In the UK and France, Yahoo! and Microsoft will combine their existing marketplaces. In other markets throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America, this transition will be seamless as Microsoft is already an existing Yahoo! partner, drawing from the Yahoo! marketplace.

Timing
We anticipate starting the organic and paid search transitions in select markets in Europe in early 2011, and plan to complete the transitions with quality in all European markets by early 2012. We intend to start with the UK, France and Ireland, with other markets to follow. Please note that if we feel that it would improve the overall experience, we may adjust the timing of the transitions.

So Long Content Farms!!!

Christophe Bernigaud — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:24:34 +0000

Following up on last week’s Google search algorithm update, Sitrix benchmarked a range of websites analysing how their organic ranking was affected…
In order to do so, Sitrix created the Sistrix Visibility Index which is calculated using the traffic on keywords, ranking and CTR on SERPs position.

Sitrix’ Johannes Beus takes Mahalo.com as an example:

Pre Google’s update, Mahalo.com was indexed on 33875 keywords
Post Google’s update, Mahalo.com was indexed on 9799 keywords
Two third of those 9799 keywords are on SERPs number 8 and after…

Below is Sitrix listing of the 25 websites that got hit the most by Google’s update in the US market:

Google Search Is Going Social

Christophe Bernigaud — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:13:50 +0000

Google has once again implemented a new search criteria, adding social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to SERPs.

The updated functionality will be rolled across the English language search engines when a user is logged in his or her Google mail account.
This is not a new feature for Google Search but an update of what was developed in 2009. Back then, social networks links only appeared at the bottom of the SERP but they will from now on be included in the organic result according to their relevancy.

So what are those key social networks to start having a proper link marketing strategy with?

Twitter
Facebook
FriendFeed
LinkedIn
Websites linked in user’s Google Profile
Contacts list in Gmail
Google Buzz
etc

Google explained in its blog that ”natural search results are not just about factual information but also about relationships, so if a search result is relevant to your social connections, we’ll bump up that post with a note and a picture. We’ve written algorithms designed to surface social results when relevant to your search.”

2010 USA Search Engine War: Google is King!

Christophe Bernigaud — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:08:11 +0000

Search Engine Marketing industry web statistics key reference comScore’s recently issued its ‘2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review’ report
comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni says ‘2010 was a very positive year for the digital media industry, highlighted by a strong rebound in e-commerce spending , significant innovation and increased demand for online advertising, and an explosion in digital content consumption across multiple platforms. As we embark on a promising 2011, marketers must have a sound understanding of the digital media landscape and how it is changing if they hope to capitalize on key trends that can drive their business into the future.’

Some raw facts:

Tthe overall U.S.A e-commerce spending was $227.6 billion in 2010, up by 9 percent versus 2009.
The USA travel e-commerce spending increased by 6 percent versus 2009, reaching a healthy $85.2 billion, while non-travel retail e-commerce spending rose by 10 percent to $142.5 billion for 2010.
Social networking continued its rise to stardom in 2010, 90 per cent of U.S.A. Internet users now visit a social networking site once a month, and their average time spent on those social networking sites is greater than 4 hours. Fact: 1 out of every 8 minutes online is spent on Facebook.
Compared to 2009, the U.S.A. Search Engine Marketing market grew 12 percent in 2010.
The U.S.A ad display market totals 4.9 trillion display ads in 2010 with a DAI – display ad impressions - increasing by 23 percent in December 2010 versus December 2009. Social networking websites, now represent more than one third of all display ad impressions, those social networking sites drive the ad display market up.
In December 2010, the average American spent over 14 hours watching online video, a 12 percent growth versus 2009, and streamed 201 videos, an 8-percent increase compared to 2009 figures.
Smartphones reached 1 in 4 mobile subscribers and 3G penetration crossed the 50 percent mark. Over 47 percent of mobile subscribers are interactive Internet media users, growing by 8 per cents versus 2009.

Bing is the big winner of the 2010 search engine industry, growing by 29 per cent more searches in 2010 versus 2009. As for the King Google, leader of the search engine industry in 2009, also grew its search queries by 13% in 2010.
The number of people using search engines was up by 4 per cent and the number of searches per searcher rose by 8% versus 2009. Bing’s market share is on the up, but not at Google’s expense.

Naturally, the search engine industry has changed drastically in 2010 with Bing powering search on Yahoo, and Google providing search results to AOL and other network partners.
End of 2010, comScore valued Google’s total share of the USA search engine market to 70%, while Bing was at 24%.

Internet Trade European School

Christophe Bernigaud — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 11:02:47 +0000

French Internet pioneer Jacques Antoine Granjon, founder of Ventre-privee.com, has now set up alongside with Xavier Niel, Marc Simoncini – a.k.a Mr Meetic – & Alain Malvoisin the Ecole Européenne des Métiers de l’Internet (EEMI) – Internet Trade European School: http://www.eemi.com/ .

This is a private school set to kick start in Autumn 2011. The fee structure and location have not yet been confirmed but private schools in France can cost as much as €10 000 per year. The tuition will be based on a 3 year program.

The school will be backed up by Kima Ventures and Jaina Capital.

Facebook Becomes Most Visited Mobile Site In France Beating Google

Christophe Bernigaud — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:05:12 +0000

Médiamétrie has just released for the second time the number of mobile internet users in France in 2010.

The figures represent traffic on websites, portals and apps from a mobile phone.

France’s 2010 last quarter – Q4 2010 – accounts for 43.4million internet users of which 15.5million use their mobile phone to go online (+3.3mllion vs. 2009 figures).

Mobile internet users are mostly men – 60 per cent – mainly aged between 16 to 49 years old.

Google Boost Brings Another Attempt to Tackle “Local”

Christophe Bernigaud — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:44:46 +0000

In October 2011, Google launched Google Boost in order to tackle the SME advertising market. It is, of course, not the first try from Google at this, if you remember previous attempts such as Jumpstart, GBBO and current Adwords Vouchers up to 500 €uro.

So what is Google Boost?

Google Boost is a network of automated and simplified paid search listings. The sponsored links appear on Google.com (and search partners network), Google maps in the sponsored links sections and mobile phones. Ad campaigns are triggered when the right combination of vertical keyword (e.g., “pub”) and location keyword (e.g., “Dublin”) is met.

The ad copies contain basic information such as:

the location information – address, business name and phone number
customer targeted data – a.k.a. the description line where the advertiser promotes its business
star ratings
number of reviews received
and a special Google Maps marker

This is a very aggressive move by Google combining various products to tackle the local search market as well as the SME market:

Google Local Business Centre / Google Boost
Google Hotbot – Google’s rating and reviews solution
Google Tags – add photos, videos, coupons, menus to the business listings

This also now means that the first organic result will now fall ”below the fold”, a.k.a ”below the scroll” by online strategists and marketers.

Let’s sit back for now and watch how those do in the USA for now.

Genius: The Google Job Experiment

Christophe Bernigaud — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:05:50 +0000

Search Engine Advertising, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, a.k.a Adwords for most users is one of the strongest online communication channel.

You need to market a service, a product or even yourself worldwide? Well don’t go too far, don’t wreck your head, be creative with a PPC platform with large audience and you shall be rewarded accordingly.

Alec Brownstein is an advertising copywriter, and a good one…

Alec bought the following Google adwords keywords: Gerry Graf, David Droga, Tony Granger, Ian Reichenthal and Scott Vitrone. They are ‘la creme de la creme’, as close as it comes to royalty when it comes down to advertising creatives and directors.

When the above gentelmen did a “vanity google” of their own name, an ad appeared in which Brownstein asked them for a job. The result? After investing a total of $6, Brownstein is now working for Y&R .

Watch the Google Job Experiment on YouTube – Click Me

France: La ‘Google Tax’

Christophe Bernigaud — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:03:02 +0000

According to yesterday’s Le Figaro article, companies advertising online will have to pay a tax – the infamous ‘Google Tax’ – equalling 1% of the yearly ad spend from January 1st 2011.

This tax creation was proposed by french ‘député’ Philippe Marini who also requested to tax french companies e-commerce revenue by 0.5%. France has a tradition of taxing revenue generated by advertising but this is a first where the advertiser is taxed. Some say this is a hidden way for the French government to tax ‘ad revenue giants’ such as Google that based their EMEA heaquarters in ‘fiscal & tax heavens’ such as Ireland…

L’Union Des Annonceurs – french advertisers association - says ” [...] it will slow down developments and productivity. Google and other advertising platform giants will not suffer from this tax. But indeed the French SME, sole traders, charities, not the large corporations…”

Online advertising market reached €uro 2 billion in 2008, France online ad spend in the first half of 2010 passed €1 billion ($1.4 billion), according to several sources…

Some say that Google’s recent investment in France ($ 10 million investment in a French cultural center & R&D center to be opened in France) was a hidden failed attempt to soften France and forget about that nicknamed ‘Google tax’. It did not prevent anything!

YouTube campaigns & FaceBook Groups have been created to rally companies and individuals to the cause, but the buzz did not take…

The french Finance Minister -a.k.a Bercy – is in favor to postpone the ‘Google tax’. Will it be the likes of Google, Apple, Yahoo! etc salvation?