Anti competitive advertising policy?

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Anti competitive advertising policy?

Trade body preventing businesses from listing on my directory

zulu_dude

9:08 am on Mar 18, 2015 (gmt 0)

I'd appreciate a quick bit of advice... I run a UK based directory of a certain type of business and have done for many years.

Recently I've been contacted by several of the businesses listed requesting that I remove their listing because the trade body they belong to (kind of like a franchisor, so a little more power than a classic trade body) has a new policy prohibiting them from advertising on any sites other than their own.

My first thought was that this smacked of anti-competitiveness, but upon doing a bit of research I couldn't find anything to factually back up this gut feeling.

In normal circumstances you could just say that I should remove listings if people don't want to be listed, but I get quite a lot of long-tail traffic from them. Additionally, the site will be less beneficial for visitors if I remove lots of listings.

Has anyone experienced the same sort of situation? And/or does anyone have knowledge of UK/EU legislation that should prevent this?

graeme_p

10:08 am on Mar 18, 2015 (gmt 0)

Firstly, are they paying you for listings, or are they free listings? If they are free listings I would definitely keep them. If I

It sounds like it is anticompetitive in strict legal terms (although if it is really more like franchisor and does not have too much market power it may not be), but whether there is a practical path for you to do something about this is another matter.

You probably need to ask a lawyer.

zulu_dude

10:30 am on Mar 18, 2015 (gmt 0)

Thanks... they are free listings, so I can keep them up but that would make live difficult for the owners of the listings (they would get a hard time from trade body). Having said that, it's really the trade body making life difficult for them, so I guess it's not really my problem. Also, I don't reckon that they expect Google to remove all references to them from the SERPS, which is a similar principle.

Think I'll check with a lawyer friend for interest sake, but I think you're right, there's not likely much I can do on a practical level.

One option I was considering was the ability to mark their listing as "Closed due to policy by ### to prevent advertising on 3rd party sites", but that may be too much work for no real reward!

Barbados

12:48 pm on Mar 18, 2015 (gmt 0)

If your website is set up to compete directly with the Trade body it would make sense for them to stipulate this but I'm assuming you do no such thing. In which case it seems both short sighted and unhelpful for them to have this policy in place.

Perhaps someone needs to point out to this 'franchisor/trade body' that restricting their members advertising to just their own site means that they will miss out on most of the trade that's out there.

I wonder how Yell.com will feel about advertisers withdrawing ads and revenue on this basis?

LifeinAsia

12:53 pm on Mar 18, 2015 (gmt 0)

Have you verified that the requests actually come from the owners and not a competitor?

I've gotten a few requests to remove links or listings that ended up being from competitors.

graeme_p

1:01 pm on Mar 18, 2015 (gmt 0)

LifeinAsia makes an excellent point. Even if you have verified that the trade body/franchisor has a "no independent advertising" clause, I very much doubt it applies to free listings, so someone may be making use of the opportunity to take down a few competitors.

Another thing is that refusing to take them down will let them say "we tried to take the listings down but he refused" and everyone will be happy.

I am very curious about this: can you Stickymail me who it is?

zulu_dude

8:09 am on Mar 19, 2015 (gmt 0)

Yes, I've been in touch directly with the trade body and they've said that their policy applies even to free listings... thankfully it seems that the vast majority of businesses listed with me are completely unaware of this change in their policy, but I wonder whether they may start taking a firmer stance at some stage in the future, which is why I'd like to get my approach firmed up now.

Yes, checked that delisting requests have come from the business owners... I very rarely give in on the first request, so it usually takes them several back and forth emails to get me to take it down!

graeme_p

9:09 am on Mar 19, 2015 (gmt 0)

In this particular case (zulu_dude shared the specifics with me) I would just refuse. It is essentially a franchise (they use the term franchisees, not members) so they are entitled to control advertising and, in general, have a set of rules franchisees have to agree to, BUT they are not entitled to control what information people publish about them (unless you breach copyright, misuse trademarks, libel them or something like that). You ARE entitled to publish information helpful to site visitors.

In general, organistions can set rules for their members, but they cannot compel outsiders to follow those rules.