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Attacking an increasingly popular Internet business practice, a consumer watchdog group Monday filed a complaint with the Federal TradeCommission, asserting that many online search engines are concealing the impact special fees have on search results by Internet users.CommercialAlert, a 3-year-old group founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, asked the FTC、to investigate whether eight of the Web’s largest search engines are violating federal laws against deceptive advertising.

The group said that the search engines are abandoning objective formulas, to determine the order of their listed results and selling the top spots to the highest bidders without making adequate disclosures to Web surfers. The complaint touches a hot-button issue affecting tens of millions of people who submit search queries each day. With more than 2 billion pages and more than 14 billion hyperlinks on the Web, search requests rank as the second most popular online activity afterE-mail.
The eight search engines named inCommercialAlert’s complaint are. MSN, owned by Microsoft; Netscape, owned byAOL Time Warner;Directhit, owned byAsk Jeeves; HotBot and Lycos, both owned by Terra Lycos;Altavista, owned byCMGI; LookSmart, owned by LookSmart; and Iwon, owned by a privately held company operating under the same name.
Portland, Ore. -basedCommercialAlert could have named more search engines in its complaint, but focused on the biggest sites that are auctioning off spots in their results, said Gary Ruskin, the group’s executive director.
"Search engines have become central in the quest for learning and knowledge in our society. The ability to skew (扭曲) the results in favor of hucksters (小贩) without telling consumers is a serious problem," Ruskin saiD、By late Monday afternoon, three of the search engines had responded to TheAssociated Press’ inquiries about the complaint. Two, LookSmart andAltaVista, denied the charges. Microsoft spokesman Matt Pilla said MSN is delivering" compelling search results that people want."
The FTC、had no comment about the complaint Monday. The complaint takes aim at the new business plans embraced by more search engines as they try to cash in on their pivotal (关键的) role as Web guides and reverse a steady stream of losses. To boost revenue, search engines in the past year have been accepting payments from businesses interested in receiving a higher ranking in certain categories or ensuring that their sites are reviewed more frequently.
The primary aim of some companies’ sponsoring the search engines is to ______.
A、cash in on their important role as Web guides
B．boost their avenue
C．reverse a series of losses
D．have their sites visited by the internet users more