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Google's response to the European Commission fine

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Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#181

Post by coverband »

I thought the combined fines given to Microsoft by the EU Commission were larger than this amount, but I was wrong. It seems Microsoft paid something like 2.2 billion euros between 2006-2013[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp_v_Commission

(On a side note, I was employed by MS for a couple of years during that time, and remember clearly how every new feature was being inspected to ensure whether it followed EU requirements, on top of compliance requirements imposed earlier by FTC in the U.S.)

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#182

Post by nemo44x »

rini17 wrote: post #10
VMG wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the EU legitimately complain that tech companies prefer to operate outside then?

> tech companies prefer to operate outside Any examples please?

The company that powers search for this very Website:

http://www.impact-north-america.com/french-search-api-startu...

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#183

Post by AsyncAwait »

Firebrand wrote: post #157
izacus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find comments like yours baffling. The basic tenement of capitalism, as worshipped in US, is that it needs competition to function. If a monopolist prevents competition from functioning (either by hiding their products on the largest search engine on earth, lowering prices under profitable margins or other tactics used by such entities) capitalism degenerates into socialism led by a corporation instead of state. It…

>So why the heck would you not support an action that stops a giant corporation from stiffling the most important mechanism of capitalism? Because it's not the government's job to unclog the market. It's the entrepreneur's opportunity to disrupt the market and kick Google's ass.

So if a private company skips regulations, it's not the government's job to enforce them?

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#184

Post by socrates1998 »

From my limited knowledge of the situation, this seems an appropriate fine.

Google claims that the success of Ebay and Amazon prove that they haven't been anti-competitive, right?

But I think Google just couldn't help itself.

How could you not?

You have the consensus, world dominating search engine, and you just have to slightly tweak it to every so slightly support your shopping platform.

It just seems way too easy to do.

One small adjustment means $4 billion more next year, I mean, how could you not do it?

As an anecdote, I have never trusted Google's product results in the top bar. It just all seemed to easy to fudge the results to me.

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#185

Post by unknownsavage »

lgl wrote: post #107

"We think our current shopping results are useful and are a much-improved version of the text-only ads we showed a decade ago. Showing ads that include pictures, ratings, and prices benefits us, our advertisers, and most of all, our users." Really Google? I personally remember the advent of adsense and their initial ultra simple text-only ads being a huge revolution in advertising as a whole and a huge improvement in…

Google already pushes animated ads through adsense, but not yet on their own pages.

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#186

Post by polishTar »

RandomBookmarks wrote: post #159
Ajedi32 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only been 5 hours since it was posted, and the story has ~450 upvotes. In contrast, I see another story on the front page right now that was posted 18 hours ago and only has ~250 upvotes.

It could be the algorithm: Maybe the original EU story got many downvotes from HN users that work at Google?

You can't downvote posts

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#187

Post by Zenst »

fixermark wrote: post #120
geodel wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So either EU is grossly incompetent to stop such thing at EU members level or they just think acting against individual companies will generate more fireworks and public support.

It's more that the EU doesn't have the political will to do what is perceived as the common good here. Ireland has a selfish interest in attracting tech companies, and the rest of the EU can't bring enough political leverage against them to change the legal structures that make Ireland preferable for headquartering.

Equally Luxemburg is another EU location abused by corporations for TAX reasons. Ironically it was set up By a Mr Junker ages ago, who then went on to run the EU and has made much rhetoric about TAX avoidance and yet managed to do nothing to fix, in-part a situation he created. Which given his knowledge and experience in the matter, you would of thought he was ideally placed to fix now. He has not alas.

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#188

Post by euyyn »

pweissbrod wrote: post #115

"Our data show that people usually prefer a built-in browser on their start menu by default, not browsers they need to download/install/configure manually" -Microsoft 20 years ago

Of course everybody prefers a browser to be pre-installed, but Microsoft did way more than that. They strictly harmed users to protect their Windows monopoly from the threat of Java apps.

Java applets distributed via the web (executed by Netscape Navigator) had the potential to displace Win32 as a preferred API, thus making Linux and other OS's able to compete with Windows in terms of application offering.

Some OEMs wanted to sell Windows computers with Netscape Navigator preinstalled, because it was way better. Microsoft told them they wouldn't sell them any Windows license at all if they did it, forcing their hand.

Microsoft further preinstalled their own incompatible version of Java, to try and make Java apps non cross-platform. They did the same with Internet Explorer's own incompatible version of web standards, when web apps started to gain popularity.

Windows' monopoly was maintained in part by Microsoft purposefully spending resources in actions that only harmed Windows users (and consumers in general).

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#189

Post by gervase »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #155
HerraBRE wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say it was censored and removed? It's dropped down to page two, but that's perfectly normal once something has been on the front page for a while.

It's only been 5 hours since it was posted, and the story has ~450 upvotes. In contrast, I see another story on the front page right now that was posted 18 hours ago and only has ~250 upvotes.

A big factor of the ranking algorithm is related to the number of comments; as the number increases, the ranking of the article goes down. This is intended to penalize controversial articles that may result in flame wars.

This article has 400; this is likely a significant factor in the falling ranking, in addition to the age.

I also believe that upvote velocity is weighted more heavily than upvote quantity, but I could be wrong there.

Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine

#190

Post by [deleted] »

rndmio wrote: post #12

The response from google fails to really address the point from the EU Commission, that they used their monopoly position in search to drive business through their product price comparison service. The utility of the service and the "value of those kinds of fast and easy connections" are immaterial to the reasoning behind the fine.

[deleted]
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