Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
But you can comment, and posts with many comments are penalized.
Google's response to the European Commission fine
191–200 of 237 posts
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd encourage you (and everyone) to read the comments in the other thread happening today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14643712 You'll see people baffled by this decision and generally happy with the service and products google offers. It's just a reminder to remember that what doesn't work for you may be pure bliss for other people.
I'm going to get down voted out the wazoo for saying it, but I will voice my opinion anyways. The EU has long used 'anti trust fines' as a way of levying tariffs against US companies.
Starting a post by saying "I'm going to get downvoted for this but..." is against the guidelines. It annoys me to no end.
Do you have anything at all to back up that claim? It seems to me the EU applies these fines fairly equitably between US and EU companies.
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You seem to confuse having never read PR releases with still being outraged by their BS. You seem to confuse having valid concerns vs. making assumptions. Calling a PR release BS without any fact is illogical at best and intellectually dishonest at worst. Google wants to give the best search results possible, and it obviously has hooks into it's own shopping database that allow it to show targeted results. A logica…
> Google wants to give the best search results possible Citation needed. Why would Google want to give "the best search results possible" over other concerns (e.g. manipulating tests results to boost paid advertisers or its own properties) as it has been known to do?
Maybe because they are in a competitive industry and they like having market share?
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#194Earlier 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.
When you come down from the cloud-land of capitalist heaven you will find this is not even remotely what happens.
Capitalism is inherently anti-competitive. Larger established companies have more power than the idealized "entrepreneur" that libertarians like to posit. If a competitor appears they can simply force them to shutdown, via dumping, via legal harassment, or simply by virtue of being much larger and being able to do everything more efficiently and with larger margins. Government regulation is needed to prevent monopolies. This is self-evident.
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd encourage you (and everyone) to read the comments in the other thread happening today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14643712 You'll see people baffled by this decision and generally happy with the service and products google offers. It's just a reminder to remember that what doesn't work for you may be pure bliss for other people.
Sure, and there were tons of people who were very happy with Microsoft's products, and if you think about it: they were seriously fined for having the gall to believe that web browsers should be free and that the web rendering engine should be a component that could be used for the UI of things like their file manager; in an age when every operating system comes with a free, first-party web browser that you can't uni…
Yeah that's not what happened.
People were very happy indeed with Microsoft products. Back when Netscape Navigator was better than Internet Explorer in all respects, people were very happy with NN too, and would have been happier if they could have bought Windows computers in which the software preinstalled by the OEM included Netscape. Do you know why they couldn't? MS told the OEMs "you put NN on your computers, you don't get any more Windows licenses at all".
People were also happy with the Java applets NN could execute, but MS made its own incompatible version of Java so that they wouldn't be cross-platform. Same with their version of web standards in IE.
All this is publicly documented by the courts, including the internal communications in Microsoft about it being a deliberate strategy to preserve Windows' monopoly. So, please, don't go up in arms to defend that cause, or imply that history made them justice.
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#196I think it would be worth adding these opinions of other US-based companies: "A number of US companies - including Oracle - published a joint letter addressed to Vestager this week in support of penalties against Google for “anticompetitive conduct.” It said: "As you near final decisions in the Shopping and Android cases, Google and its allies will no doubt continue to press through its lobbying and public relations…
Common origin does not disprove animosity or self interest. One wonders what NewsCorp or Oracle concerns are in ecommerce search, but then you remember that they had well publicized scuffles with Google. The last record fine was against a US company, as were recent tax related fines, patterns are harder to refute.
Can you show how you have established that there is a pattern? I was actually looking for a list of all the entities fined by the EU Commission. Seems like you have some data.
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#197Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not from the US so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the US had (and exercised) solid antitrust laws way before Silicon Valley developed? The case of Standard Oil in the early 20th century comes to mind.
What good are those laws when concerted lobbying and corruption means they never get enforced?
Are you trying to argue that Standard Oil didn't have much lobbying power? Or that politicians/courts were less corrupt back then?
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and there were tons of people who were very happy with Microsoft's products, and if you think about it: they were seriously fined for having the gall to believe that web browsers should be free and that the web rendering engine should be a component that could be used for the UI of things like their file manager; in an age when every operating system comes with a free, first-party web browser that you can't uni…
Yeah that's not what happened. People were very happy indeed with Microsoft products. Back when Netscape Navigator was better than Internet Explorer in all respects, people were very happy with NN too, and would have been happier if they could have bought Windows computers in which the software preinstalled by the OEM included Netscape. Do you know why they couldn't? MS told the OEMs "you put NN on your computers, yo…
Did you read the comment I was replying to? I ask, because it sounds like you did not. I am going to quote the entire thing to make this extremely blunt, as I don't trust you will read it otherwise :/.
> I'd encourage you (and everyone) to read the comments in the other thread happening today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14643712
> You'll see people baffled by this decision and generally happy with the service and products google offers.
> It's just a reminder to remember that what doesn't work for you may be pure bliss for other people.
Read that, then read my comment, and then read your comment... it makes no sense at all. The person I replied to was defending Google using what I consider to a bullshit argument: using the apparent benefits of the monopoly to defend its existence; this (bad) argument also applies to Microsoft.
In my post, I demonstrated that if that posted truly believed that, then they had better be prepared to defend Microsoft as well. Then you come out of nowhere and try to attack me, as if I was the one making the argument, rather than replying to it? WTF... I absolutely think that both Microsoft and Google are clearly abusive.
This is particularly interesting and annoying as you seem to be going around this thread making the exact same mistake in multiple contexts. As an example, in reply to this other comment from someone else trying to compare the PR spin from Google to that of Microsoft.
Re: Google's response to the European Commission fine
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? If something is advertising it is clearly labeled and green at the top, right? Or is there more going on?
Sorry to burst your bubble but all prices on pricewatch are paid for. "Tweakers.net brengt 24 uur per dag, 365 dagen per jaar informatie over technologie, consumentenelectronica en daaraan gerelateerde onderwerpen. De bezoekers van Tweakers.net hebben een bovengemiddeld groot budget voor de aankoop van hardware, software en consumentenelectronica. Om deze mensen te informeren over de laagste prijzen en beste aanbiedi…
That's just a sales pitch to have companies (proactively) push their current prices to Tweakers. Where do you see anything about paid listing there?