Calling 1-800-goog-411 in the United States provides both free directory assistance to businesses and a free connection to the found phone number.
Prior to today I had not noticed any advertisements.
Today prior to being connected I heard the following message:
"Calls connected by bandwidth.com".
I tried a few different numbers, but did not get such a message.
I repeated the request that produced the message and the same message was repeated.
This was a short sponsor message.
Using a competing service, 1-800-free-411, which does not provide a connection, gives longer advertisements and sometimes offers to connect to the advertiser. |
Oh yeah, I heard that too! |
But are you sure this is a real ad? Maybe bandwidth.com helps Google to make the phone calls. If Google included ads, they would be contextual and clearly delimited from the rest of the information. |
Haochi's example was from Columbus Ohio.
My example was from Westlake Ohio. |
Yes, but "calls connected by bandwidth.com" clearly means that the calls are actually connected by a company that happens to be called bandwidth.com. It can't be an ad for many reasons:
1. it's unrelated to your query – Google only does contextual ads
2. Google should've said "sponsored message" and offered more info about the advertiser
3. Google can't have a single advertiser: bandwidth.com
etc. |
Snippet from a page on bandwith.com:
"The deal is the third this month
that MFN Internet Solutions has
struck with a marquee customer, the
other two being Google Inc. and
CNET Networks." |
