Yelp and Google — a tech giant that Yelp often criticizes — probably have another thing to quarrel over: the defection of a top executive.
Shannon Eis, the now-former head of corporate communications at Yelp, left the company to go work for Google as part of their ad sales team, specifically internal and external communications for its Global Business Organization (GBO) arm, Google confirmed Thursday to The Daily Caller News Foundation. Eis, like the company she then worked for, has for quite some time accused Google of being “anti-competitive,” among other criticisms.
“Consumers used to have through Google, which owns 90 plus percent of all search, access [to] the entirety of the web with the highest ranked organic search as other web users have voted in,” Eis said in a March 2016 interview with Cardwell Beach. “And now what you primarily are getting especially in mobile is Google’s own preferenced products and assets … [and] it is not in the interest of the user.”
As the most powerful search engine in the world, Google’s competitors in the field argue that it prioritizes its own content over others’, such as their own. Yelp, which is used for search in certain areas of interest like businesses, is one of the most vocal critics on this point of contention.
And some governing bodies agree, as the European Commission levied a $2.7-billion fine against Google, alleging the U.S.-based tech company altered search results so that its own shopping service would be presented higher up on its pages in comparison to competitors.
The precise date of Eis’s departure is not explicitly clear. Sources familiar with the hiring process, however, told TheDCNF that she left Yelp in March and was brought on by Google most likely sometime in May or June.
Either way, it shows that an opportunity to work for one of the country’s (and even world’s) largest, most powerful corporations is appealing — whether for financial or influence reasons, or both. Business Insider was the first to report on her job switch and TheDCNF was able to to confirm it. (RELATED: Snapchat Lures New CFO From Amazon With $20 Million In Stock)
Yelp did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s inquiry in time for publication, and Google declined to add on-the-record comment.
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