Live data from Hacker News

CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

yelpblog.com

41–50 of 191 posts

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#41
Google recently started showing job postings in their search results (at least here in Canada). I suppose this will affect indeed.com, monster.com, and a site I had stake in. I love monetizing niche search engines and other data products, but it looks like Google will eventually get into any industry where the main source of traffic is organic search, I wonder what is next.

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#42

Yelp is crying sour grapes here. There are so many ways they could have innovated to stay relevant but has anything changed in years there? They could have hired professional reviewers. Yelp reviews are notoriously bad. They could have let you choose what you prefer, example (quality vs quantity) and given you custom ratings or only included reviews from people that share similar tastes. Following up on the last idea…

You might be right, but a company’s abuse of dominant position isn’t defined by the quality of their competitor’s offer.

Yelp has been horrible since day one. If google has or has not abused its position Yelp is not the standard we would use to determine that.

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#43

Yelp is crying sour grapes here. There are so many ways they could have innovated to stay relevant but has anything changed in years there? They could have hired professional reviewers. Yelp reviews are notoriously bad. They could have let you choose what you prefer, example (quality vs quantity) and given you custom ratings or only included reviews from people that share similar tastes. Following up on the last idea…

So one monopoly has been replaced by another. Bizarre to conclude from this that "the system works".

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#44

Mainstream media story about web company? Check. Nothing new? Check. Negative? Check. Of course Yelp participated...but Yelp angle aside, CBS is just following the news cycle patterns of their brethren. I'm mentioning this a lot these days, but feels like watching cattle being herded (albeit willingly).

There is a prevailing "tech can do no wrong" attitude in the tech community, and it absolutely needs to be challenged hard.

> There is a prevailing "tech can do no wrong" attitude in the tech community

Is there? I see the opposite in communities including the one we're on. The anti-big-web-company torches seem brightest within compared to the more accepting yet non-ignorant outside.

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not able to find a reputable source for this rumor.

What would be the bar for a reputable source here? An official court conviction?

Any source with any shred of proof, instead of a we-said-they-said blog post.

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#46

Yelp is crying sour grapes here. There are so many ways they could have innovated to stay relevant but has anything changed in years there? They could have hired professional reviewers. Yelp reviews are notoriously bad. They could have let you choose what you prefer, example (quality vs quantity) and given you custom ratings or only included reviews from people that share similar tastes. Following up on the last idea…

Google reviews are also pretty horrific as well. Completely untamed and unprofessional, by people that don't know anything about the subject.

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but there should be a strong presumption that if some company wants to spend their money on a product it’s up to consumers to decide if it’s a success or not rather than the courts. If Yelp gets destroyed because Google decides to give away their entire value add for free that’s no more something that’s no more an injustice to Yelp than Android was to Blackberry, Microsoft or Apple.

This comment is mildly funny. You say it should be up to the consumers to decide the success. But that's not what is being suggested is happening. It's being suggested that one company is trying to hide another. It's like if you have a shop selling something and Big Shop Corp comes along and puts up a bunch of trees and bushes in around your shop so it looks like there is only a forest there and no shop. No one is be…

It’s not really. It’s more like you sell a product in BigShop, and they come out with their own range, promote it and stop selling your product. As a consumer you’re still free to go to the other shops and get the product from them instead (in this case Bing, DDG)

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#48

CBS interview leaves out critical details. Initially, Google was scrapping Yelp reviews to show snippets in their Google Places product. Yelp CEO didn't liked that and demanded to remove all snippets. Google said it had right to show snippets like any other websites and if Yelp says their content is "private" then Google shouldn't be crawling them at all. That's what they did. This caused Yelp to disappear from Googl…

> Personally, I don't think Google should be obliged to promote all kind of crappy 2nd rate products out there 1. So you believe anticompetitive practices are okay when you "personally" don't like the competing product. 2. It is not promoting Yelp when it is the organic search algorithm. The point is that they are demoting Yelp in favor of their own evidently inferior product, as their own algorithm would have otherw…

In a fair world, there would be an option in Google for "Show me reviews from X" where users are forced to select X (i.e. no defaults provided). The problem is that Yelp is the one who wants to be monopoly and they would never agreed to this. They don't want Google Maps to show any reviews at all. Instead they insist that people must take an additional step to go to Yelp's own website for reviews. This is unworkable. Reviews and ratings decide the ranking in maps query. I as a customer should have an integrated experience in maps instead of having thrown 10 random results for each of which I have to go to Yelp website to figure things out. Lot of search results in maps are driven from review text, for example, names of dishes. The ratings and reviews are integral part of a map product. Yelp doesn't care about how much users would suffer as long as they can get their eyeballs. Google shouldn't be forced to work with these kind of people.

Yes, I do strongly believe that any website that harvests volunteers to gather the publicly accessible data must give away that data for free. I can never agree to the business model that a company has sole propitiatory right to that data by duppig millions of people in to labor who didn't cared to read legal T&C stating that all this is going to be behind the wall so CEO can get his billion dollar exit to buy private island while stagnating the company.

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#49
post #40

The problem is not Google. The problem is that the government is unable to get his head around an internet based monopoly. Google shouldnt be allowed to host more than 50% of searches by law. In any other industry enjoying a monopoly position in search as google has enjoyed all these years would have reason enough to break it up into smaller pieces.

What?!

How does that work? How does Google “host” searches? 70% of searches go to Google because 70% of people type in “google”. The other 30% open IE/Edge and use Bing to search for google. Are you suggesting that when someone types in “google.com” it redirect them?

Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance

#50

Yelp is crying sour grapes here. There are so many ways they could have innovated to stay relevant but has anything changed in years there? They could have hired professional reviewers. Yelp reviews are notoriously bad. They could have let you choose what you prefer, example (quality vs quantity) and given you custom ratings or only included reviews from people that share similar tastes. Following up on the last idea…

Google reviews are also pretty horrific as well. Completely untamed and unprofessional, by people that don't know anything about the subject.

Are these journal peer-reviews that I've missed? I don't know of any certificate courses that allows one to comment on the ambiance of a restaurant.
Post reply on HN