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As part of the ongoing Mashable Awards, we’re taking a closer look at each of the nomination categories. This is “Most Influential Social Good Champion” supported by Yahoo!. Be sure to nominate your favorites and join us for the Gala in Las Vegas!

Social Good is a brand new form of online giving that draws both from small non-profits and large brand cause-marketing campaigns. But like any burgeoning movement, social good requires champions to bring it to the public and promote its growth.

While “social good” and “influence” may not have absolutely concrete definitions (is influence based on Twitter followers? Raising the most money?), it is easy to see when an individual has taken on the cause of social good to create some real change.

Even though the exact parameters are a subjective call, we scoured the web for three social good activists who are using their skills to create change. We’ve highlighted three individuals who are utilizing social media and online campaigns to shape the way that we think about activism.

1. The Free Agent

Beth Kanter and Allison Fine defined the concept of the “free agent” this year in their book, The Networked Nonprofit. A “free agent,” as they defined it, is a “person who is passionate about a social cause, but is working outside of a nonprofit organization to organize, mobilize, raise money, and engage with others.” Using social media tools, free agents are able to make an impact that was once only capable within the infrastructure of an organization.

We’ve covered a number of free agents who had influence this year. Individuals like Shawn Ahmed, who posts YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube videos about poverty in Bangladesh; Mark Horvath, who gives homelessness a voice through his We Are Visible and Invisible People projects; and even Dan Savage, who launched the It Gets Better Project in September to support gay teens who face adversity.

Kanter, a free agent herself, has played an influential role in helping non-profit organizations accept and cooperate with these social media-powered activists. Among her efforts, she facilitated a conversation at the State Department’s Tech@State Civil Society 2.0 event about how non-profits and free agents can work together.

2. Ben Rattray, Founder and CEO of Change.org

There are two hurdles that almost every cause campaign struggles with. The first is making the complexities and realities of its cause understood. The second is mobilizing people effectively. Change.org, which was founded by Ben Rattray in 2006, helps solve both.

The site has more than 100 writers who contribute in-depth reporting on 15 different causes. When people come to the site to read about a cause they’re passionate about, they also have the opportunity to take action toward that cause by signing petitions. While these cumulative actions lack the drama of a protest, mobilizing a large network toward one specific action has proved a lot more effective than a hodgepodge of independent actions.

Change.org has partnered with thousands of non-profits, and together the community has accomplished more than 100 “victories,” in which they’ve changed an unjust practice, law or policy. The organization connects activists with similar passions, and by doing so it gives them power as a cohort that they would never have as individuals.

3. Scott Harrison, Founder of Charity: Water

Charity: water uses 100% of public donations to fund water projects and is transparent about how donations are used. Both of these qualities make it somewhat of an oddball in the non-profit world — which might be exactly what the non-profit world needs.

When people donate money to most organizations, they’re not sure what happens to their donation or how efficiently it was used. When they give to charity: water, they can look up a picture and GPS coordinates of the project they contributed to. Since the organization relies on private donors for the money that makes it run, there’s no doubt about whether your donation ended up paying for somebody’s flight instead of funding a water project. The organization even covers its PayPal fees on donations.

This model of transparency and accountability has created trust and helped raise more than $20 million for 3,196 projects in the past four years. We hope that its success will influence other non-profits to do the same.

What’s Your Pick?/>

Who were your social good champions this year? Let us know in the comments or nominate them for a Mashable Awards.

The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas)/>

In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances.

Date: Thursday, January 6th, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)/> Time: 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. PT/> Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas/> Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations/> Socialize: Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook, Foursquareclass="blippr-nobr">Foursquare, Meetup, Plancast, Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter (Hashtag: #MashableAwards)

Mashable Awards Category Sponsor:

Yahoo! is an innovative technology company that operates the largest digital media, content, and communications business in the world. Yahoo! keeps more than half a billion consumers worldwide connected to what matters to them most, and delivers powerful audience solutions to advertisers through its unique combination of Science + Art + Scale. Yahoo! is proud to sponsor this Mashable Award because Yahoo! is focused on connecting individuals to a community of millions so they can change the world together. That’s How Good Grows at Yahoo!. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal.

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, RichVintage

For more Social Good coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Goodclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Good channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

In the latest blow to Google’s ever-expanding online ambitions, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, has opened an antitrust investigation into Google’s practices in online advertising. According to allegations made by Microsoft’s German subsidiary Ciao.de, British price comparison site Foundem, and French legal search specialist Ejustice, Google has discriminated against competitors by placing their links lower in search results than its own services, thus abusing its dominant position in online search.

Google has allegedly lowered the ranking of competitive vertical search sites — mostly price comparison sites — in favor of its own in the main body of search results as they appear on a Google search results page. These results are “natural”, or unpaid search results as opposed to the paid ads which appear on the top and the right-hand side of the page.

Vertical search sites specialize in a specific kind of search, like travel, health, or shopping. Some appear designed to game Google’s algorithms and benefit from free traffic from the Web search engine rather than providing a genuine service to users, while others offer a legitimately helpful service.

The EC is also looking into claims that Google has manipulated its internal “quality score”, which determines the amount of money an advertiser has to pay for an ad that appears on Google’s search results page. And finally, the Commission is investigating whether or not Google is also trying to stop websites from accepting rival ads, making the company sound like quite the online bully.

While the EC has opened an investigation into the matter, it doesn’t mean there is proof of any wrongdoing on Google’s part–yet. The EC states simply that it will “conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority.”

According to various outlets such as the BBC, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times, Google responded with a statement saying that it has “worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry.” Google said it has marked ads clearly and has allowed advertisers export their data from its service to other services easily. Google also said there is always “room for improvement”, and the company will be working with the commission to “address any concerns.”

There is no legal deadline for the investigation, meaning that it is likely to take months, if not years for the EC to reach a conclusion in what will be a highly complex case.

The EU has a history of taking on giant companies before, hitting Microsoft with a fine of 497 million euros, or $794 million, in March 2004 over antitrust issues, and, more recently, the regulator fined Intel 1.08 billion euros, or $1.38 billion. It is apparent that the EU is not a pushover when dealing with multinational companies and therefore this could mean trouble for Google, should the company be found to be using anti-competitive practices.

[Photo credit: Carlos Luna]

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