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Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

nytimes.com

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Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#161

Post by anindha »

AznHisoka wrote: post #29
redm wrote: post #9

"Mr. Stoppelman feels he has no choice. Like a lot of small internet companies, Yelp lives in a world where one company, Google, accounts for an outsize share of its business, and could destroy it at any time." That sums it up for Yelp and many others, myself included. Combine that reality with the black box that Google is, in many ways, and you have an inaccessible behemoth who's decisions decide the fate of many. G…

It would help if Yelp allowed new, emerging search engines (potential google competitors) to crawl their site. But their robots.txt only allows Google, Bing and a few others to crawl them ( https://yelp.com/robots.txt ) allow all crawlers and I would have at least a little sympathy for Yelp.

There are probably food delivery and restaurant reservation startups complaining that Yelp has a monopoly position on restaurant search.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#162

Post by gumaflux »

edoceo wrote: post #130
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a large percentage of Internet users, entering something into the Google search bar IS how they go places. (The address bar is a very strange mystery to plenty of people.) That's a big part of why Google is not permitted to act the way they are. They have become more or less the front door to the Internet, and hence, cannot unfairly prioritize their own products over others'. A big part of why tech users don't und…

And in chrome the address bar is hijacked to be a Google search

Simple setting to change the search engine.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#163

Post by rb666 »

gscott wrote: post #159
rb666 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail is actually an amazing alternative over Gmail. Have been using it for half a year now and will never go back. I use my own domain with it, so even if Fastmail disappears, I am still in control.

You are... until gmail decides not to accept mail from your mailserver.

I don't run my own mailserver, as I said, I use Fastmail with my own domain. Two very different things.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#164

Post by ocdtrekkie »

oh_sigh wrote: post #153
ekianjo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, but by default you get Chrome, which is about the same thing people were fighting Microsoft over in the Netscape-IE days, but this time on Android.

The difference being that Apple has a huge percentage of the market share and Android isn't the only game in town.

"Huge"? In the EU, where the current investigations are going, Apple is barely a blip on the radar. Windows Mobile has had better traction in some parts of Europe than the iPhone.

Android has over an 85% global market share. And for OEMs, there is NO other game in town, since iOS isn't licensable.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#165

Post by ocdtrekkie »

themacguffinman wrote: post #94
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Search for a start. Youtube is effectively standing alone in the space. Google Maps is completely dominating the space (in particular there is nothing that replaces the Earth product or the parts of Earth in maps). Gmail is taking over the world over here. Most local mail solutions are irrelevant at this point and the only real alternative to gmail even intentionally is outlook now. Chrome effectively took out…

Right, but unless you are accusing Google of foul play, their market dominance is just evidence of the superior consumer value they provide. In other words, they are doing what is best for its customers. The question of this thread is: did Google unfairly push out their competition. If you can't argue that, then this is just pointless Google hand wringing.

This is actually untrue. It's not illegal to become a monopoly. It's illegal to be anticompetitive once you have that market dominance.

Google may have achieved it's dominance legally, however, it's conduct since then is illegal.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#166

Post by naskwo »

2 cents here:

My background: I co-founded the largest online dating site in the Netherlands (sold to Match) as well as the largest housing platform (15 years before Airbnb :-). We leveraged the rise of Google to our advantage and the brands are still #1 in the Netherlands.

===

Aside: Google raised the bar for the Internet. Heck, for the world. I think their offering is orders of magnitude better than the Excite, Lycos and AltaVista days, and the no-nonsense UI allows for a purer form if of information consumption.

A day without Facebook is a productive day. A day without Google is a day lost.

Where Google is like water to the Internet, Facebook is like a sugary softdrink. Enticing, but unhealthy with no nutritional content.

===

Google is the de-facto search on the Internet. This is reflected in their valuation, as well as the fact that to "google" something is now a verb written in lowercase.

As a result, Google is the lens through which the world finds its information.

Being in this position also implies that Google should be regulated to block advertisers (and Google) from using third party trademarks as keywords:

It has irked me for many years that Google can sell advertising to companies for keywords that are trademarks this advertiser does not own. E.g. Adidas showing up when searching for Nike. It's nothing short of extortion that I would be forced to bid up bidding on _my own trademark_.

Here is Google's policy: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en

It seems a trivial matter to me to query the USPTO and the EU database to make sure that any AdWords show up below the organic search results for the valid trademark owner (as verified inside AdWords).

In this case, Yelp is a trademark, and Google's own product should show up _below_ Yelp's trademark. Otherwise, I don't see how this could be interpreted other than abuse of market monopoly.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#167

Post by ViViDboarder »

nradov wrote: post #154
putlake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when publishers have a good brand, it doesn't change user behavior. How often do users directly go to Wikipedia to look something up? Google search is integrated into Chrome, Android, Google Home. Google is a monopoly. Yes, publishers should find non-advertising revenue models. Yes, they should find non-Google sources of traffic. But that's blaming the victim. The fact is that Google has started stealing more an…

Content isn't stolen when it's given voluntarily. Websites can block the Google crawler, or remove their pages from the search index.

As has been pointed out, so many users have gotten in the habit of using an omni-box to go to all URLs via a search. Staying its a choice to block Google is a false choice as that would mean death. The analogies are spot on. Google is in a position of power due to search dominance and content creators have very little unless every content creator decided to all drop off together. This is unlikely.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#168

Post by ViViDboarder »

nradov wrote: post #154
putlake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when publishers have a good brand, it doesn't change user behavior. How often do users directly go to Wikipedia to look something up? Google search is integrated into Chrome, Android, Google Home. Google is a monopoly. Yes, publishers should find non-advertising revenue models. Yes, they should find non-Google sources of traffic. But that's blaming the victim. The fact is that Google has started stealing more an…

Content isn't stolen when it's given voluntarily. Websites can block the Google crawler, or remove their pages from the search index.

As has been pointed out, so many users have gotten in the habit of using an omni-box to go to all URLs via a search. Staying its a choice to block Google is a false choice as that would mean death. The analogies are spot on. Google is in a position of power due to search dominance and content creators have very little unless every content creator decided to all drop off together. This is unlikely.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#169

Post by kahkeng »

nindalf wrote: post #128
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a large percentage of Internet users, entering something into the Google search bar IS how they go places. (The address bar is a very strange mystery to plenty of people.) That's a big part of why Google is not permitted to act the way they are. They have become more or less the front door to the Internet, and hence, cannot unfairly prioritize their own products over others'. A big part of why tech users don't und…

This behaviour is encouraged by Chrome. The address bar prefers to suggest searches over the user's own history, ensuring that even a website they visit every other day will likely trigger a Google search. Firefox, on the other hand, has a strong bias towards history, allowing the user to go straight to their destination.

Yes I've noticed that this has become a worse experience over time. I used to be able to find previously visited sites easily but now I can't because suggestions take precedence over even exact substring matches of urls.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#170

Post by themacguffinman »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #165
themacguffinman wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but unless you are accusing Google of foul play, their market dominance is just evidence of the superior consumer value they provide. In other words, they are doing what is best for its customers. The question of this thread is: did Google unfairly push out their competition. If you can't argue that, then this is just pointless Google hand wringing.

This is actually untrue. It's not illegal to become a monopoly. It's illegal to be anticompetitive once you have that market dominance. Google may have achieved it's dominance legally, however, it's conduct since then is illegal.

I know it's not illegal to be a monopoly, that's actually my point. I was responding to the_mitsuhiko's complaints of Google monopoly in certain areas, to which I argue that Google's monopoly status isn't inherently a problem.
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