Search giant becomes the evil enemy to net's little guys

A YouGov poll carried out last week among the UK's leading internet entrepreneurs revealed 44% of those attending thought the search engine was the biggest threat to their businesses' online growth. Only 6% felt traditional media, such as newspapers or radio, posed an equally serious threat.

According to the latest figures from internet measurement group Hitwise, Google has 74% of the UK search market. Its nearest competitor, Yahoo, has a market share of just 3%.

The YouGov poll, carried out at last weekend's Online Founders Forum event in Hampshire, is the latest sign of a growing backlash against the search engine.

In March, the company was heavily criticised for making businesses bid against their competitors for the use of their own trademarked names on the "sponsored links" section of the search engine's site. And last Tuesday, the Belgian newspapers group Copiepresse announced it was seeking 49.2 million from Google as the result of a copyright lawsuit it won in 2006, suing Google for using its newspapers' content .

With several Scottish traditional media companies, such as Sunday Herald owners Newsquest and Scotland's main commercial broadcaster, SMG, finalising the details of their new online ventures, Google's dominance of the search market has been increasingly being criticised as monopolistic.

Steve Leach, chief executive of Bigmouthmedia, one of Scotland's biggest search engine marketing companies, told the Sunday Herald: "The 44% figure is much lower than I thought it would have been. For anyone selling a product or a service related to the internet, the biggest threat is Google."

So what's the problem with the world's favourite search engine, a service valued by many users, including Leach, for its efficiency and its free-to-use business model?

"It's the oldest business trick in the book - undercutting the opposition," said Leach. He fears the search engine has become too big, labelling it a "classic corporate dinosaur." He said the free "tools" Google offers, such as maps and a device to personalise the news stories a user reads, are stifling innovation.

"You could have spent five years developing the software, and along comes Google and gives it away for free. They have people keeping their eye on almost anything you can think of."

Alistair Brown, head of digital at SMG, says he knows of one Edinburgh company who recently lost out after an idea for an online product they had spent years developing popped up on Google for nothing.

"I'm sure that's happened all over Scotland. But that's a risk you take - that somebody will come up with the same thing. They have got people working on things you can't even imagine yet. But when they do something, they do it so well it's difficult to compete with them."

Google makes most of its money from paid-search advertising. When a user clicks on a link - called an "adword" - the company pays Google a fee for directing the user in its direction. In 2007, the company made a profit of $4.2bn (£2.1bn), up 40% on 2006.

Paul Adams, head of paid search at Ambergreen, another of Scotland's leading search companies, says businesses are worried about the search engine only because they don't understand it.

"It seems a bit of a silly thing to say, because Google is the main way traffic is driven to most businesses' websites. I would see it more as an opportunity than a threat. As long as businesses have a competitive product they will do fine."

A Google spokesperson said the company was a supporter of business.

He said: "Google specifically develops products that are designed to be affordable and easy to use so that our partners can be as innovative and competitive as possible. Our products enable businesses of all sizes to store and share huge amounts of information at no cost and from wherever they are in the world."