It's a topsy-turvy world when it comes to customer service. I've written before about the subversive shifts in business/customer relationships. For example, I wrote about what it implies when a business stops calling a customer a customer and instead calls him a "guest." Social norms say customers are always right, but guests should be acommodating and grateful. I'd rather be a customer.

Today, I'm offering another report from upside-down world. This is the Alice in Wonderland world in which landlords agree to rent their property through a third party (broker) who holds auctions for the lease but won't tell the landlord what the winning rent bid is or what percentage of the rent the broker is charging as a fee. In addition, the landlords must agree that they won't share the statistical information they get from the broker that might provide insight into how their cut of the rent is being determined. They let the broker unilaterally determine how much money has to accrue in the landlord's account before the broker has to release the money to the landlord. And, last but not least, the broker doesn't have to retain that money in an interest bearing account for the landlord's benefit; the broker can invest the money and reap the benefit.

Perhaps it's just because I've been exposed to the laws that regulate real estate brokers for physical property that I find all this quite odd. These sorts of practices are generally not permitted in the United States if the real estate in question is physical real estate (real land, real buildings). But, it appears to be the norm in the Wild West of the internet. Owners of websites are owners of virtual real estate. Allowing other people to place ads on their website's pages is essentially granting an incredibly short-term lease (a fraction of a second to a few seconds). Why, then, are those landlords agreeing to rent through a broker who won't tell them what rent tenants will pay, are paying, or the size of the broker's cut? As I understand it, that's what Google Ad Sense does. Here's what they tell a landlord (a website owner considering renting out space through Ad Sense):

"How much do I get paid?
How much you earn depends on a number of factors including how much an advertiser bids on your site -- you'll receive a portion of what the advertiser pays. The best way to find out how much you'll earn is to sign up and start showing ads on your web pages."

(https://www.google.com/adsense/login/en_US/)

Google says nothing in particular about what they're earning or what the landlord will earn despite Google's significant influence over how many potential "tenants" bid on the lease and some of the best analytics around. Interestingly, Google goes even farther than not telling the landlord what they know; they prohibit others from providing some of the most telling information (see the confidentialy section of the terms & conditions).

Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things I love about Google. I regularly use all their basic services - search, maps, map search, news, images - and some of their mobile services - .mobi, 411, my location, etc. Against my own best judgment, I even let them data mine my gmail account. I admire much about their technical prowess and even their hiring decisions -- they've hired two of my favorite people.

All the happy stuff said, I understand that Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. And, I understand why they'd want to use their dominant market position to take the highest advantage of both buyers and sellers. What I don't understand is why people let them.