Employment

Google is gearing up to launch its Groupon-killer, Offers , in New York. After talking with merchants who have signed up to provide deals through Offers, we've learned that Google's deals product provides merchants several key advantages relative to Groupon , advantages that could shake up the deals business. We've also learned that at least one Google Offers salesperson in New York is promising merchants that signing up Offers will provide "SEO benefits." Specifically, a merchant tells us, the Google salesperson promised that merchants who sign up for the program will become "No. 1 in Google." Given the investigations that have been launched by the FTC and others into whether Google is abusing its power in the search business to help itself and hurt its competitors, any suggestion that Google is "tying" the purchase of Offers to Google search rankings--natural OR paid--would trigger a firestorm. So we looked into this closely. Google spokes...