For many startup founders, launch day is a nerve-wracking mix of pleasure and fear. However for Shivaun Raff and her husband, Adam, that day in June 2006 changed into a nightmare they hadn’t seen coming.
Their new enterprise, Foundem—a singular worth comparability web site they’d left secure careers to create—was lastly reside. However quickly after launch, Foundem virtually vanished from Google. Marked as spam by Google’s algorithm, the positioning was buried deep in search outcomes for phrases like “worth comparability” and “comparability buying.” With out Google visibility, Foundem struggled to generate income, and the couple’s enthusiasm changed into dissatisfaction.
In keeping with BBC, Shivaun and Adam believed initially that the problem was brought on by a glitch. Foundem ranked frequently on different engines like google, so that they contacted Google within the hope of resolving the problem. However as months glided by, their repeated appeals met with silence. In the meantime, the positioning remained on the backside of search outcomes, regardless of its excessive relevance. By 2017, after years of attempting to achieve traction, Foundem was considered one of round 20 corporations—together with Kelkoo, Trivago, and Yelp—that had filed complaints. That yr, Google was landed with a €2.4 billion tremendous for anti-competitive practices.
Adam had first dreamed up Foundem whereas working in supercomputing, envisioning a comparability instrument that may cowl all the things from flights to clothes, not like the category-specific choices obtainable on the time. Little did he know that his startup would turn out to be entangled in a authorized battle with one of many world’s largest corporations.
Foundem noticed a surge in site visitors in late 2008 after Channel 5’s The Gadget Present topped it the UK’s high comparability web site. Regardless of the publicity, Google’s rating algorithm continued to push Foundem to the underside of SERPs (search engine outcomes pages). Realising their choices have been restricted, Shivaun and Adam turned to the media, and finally regulators, in the UK, the US, and the European Fee. In 2010, the EC opened an antitrust investigation.
When the ultimate ruling got here, Google was hit with a document tremendous, however the Raffs weren’t in a celebratory temper. They noticed this as just the start, decided to make sure the choice was enforced.
Though Google’s appeals dragged on, the European Court docket of Justice upheld the decision in 2024. In the meantime, new investigations beneath the EU’s Digital Markets Act are inspecting whether or not Google’s personal merchandise proceed to dominate search outcomes. Google claims it has been compliant since 2017, citing billions of clicks for different comparability websites.
Shivaun and Adam are nonetheless combating. After closing Foundem in 2016, they’re now pursuing civil damages in a case set for 2026. Reflecting on their journey, Adam admits that in the event that they’d recognized the street forward, they could have thought twice—however their resolve stays.
(Picture by AS Photograpy)
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