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

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

#91

Post by telltruth »

gregknicholson wrote: post #84
telltruth wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In a fair world, there would be an option in Google… In a fair world, if you don't like the results Google's service provides, you'll choose a better service provider. Google's search service has always used a business model like “give us your query; we'll apply our proprietary algorithm and return results”. If you don't like those results, you don't like Google's service. You can ask them to change their service s…

One can argue that Microsoft may put whatever they want as default on their OS and customers always have choice to vote with their wallet. In real world, most of the population is too naive to change default or learn something new just because of technology ideology differences. Furthermore, if I want to switch over to something else, I would lose other dozens of apps that are not available there. So customer is effectively tied up with dominant product and accept it as benevolent dictator. The apparent choice in theory is not really a choice in reality.

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

#92

Post by modi15 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #54
modi15 wrote: 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.

> 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. No, it wouldn't. Formation of monopolies is not illegal or grounds for breakup. Anticompetitively leveraging market power in one market to monopolize another market is illegal, and a variety of remedies, including breakup, may be available for that.

Firstly, It doesnt have to be illegal. Monopolies decrease choice for the customer and hamper innovation. That reason should be good enough and has been good enough in the case of telecom.

Secondly, if there is enough competition than why has Google enjoyed overwhelming market share for such a long time ? This doesnt happen in any other industry, not with any other company and definitely not in any industry as lucrative as search ads.

Thirdly, Search is critical infrastructure. Google is known to hire lobbyist to supress research unfavourable to it. How do we know that publishers do not self-censor content critical to Google lest they get bumped from search.

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

#93

Post by jryle70 »

hueving wrote: post #69
telltruth wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>The ratings and reviews are integral part of a map product. No they are not. I and many others I know just use the "map product" for directions to get to places. Google maps was useful long before the integration of the cesspool of crowd-sourced reviews. You might want a map of top 10 whatever voted by the democratic people of Gmaps/Yelp busy-bodies but there is no reason that needs to be in the core. Google maps ha…

If you search for places to eat at 10pm, wouldn't you also want to know if they are still open, what kind of food they offer, how people rate them?

Google Maps is such a dominant service that a competing company like Yelp will be at a huge disadvantage. No wonder Yelp complains. But you can't say what Google does doesn't make sense.

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

#94

Post by k_bx »

greggman wrote: post #38

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…

They could also launch worldwide.

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

#95

Post by ghaff »

deanCommie wrote: post #74
mozumder wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is completely Anecdotal, but, as a foodie, I find the Google reviews have a higher aggregate "crowd wisdom" than Yelp. I am constantly shocked by the lack of correlation between rating and quality in the restaurants I look up on yelp. Before it died, UrbanSpoon was better than Yelp too. TripAdvisor is the worst because it's 99% tourists, so you never get a local's opinion of what's good in their area. Just my 2…

I don't know if any of this is carryover from Zagat but I tend to agree. Zagat was quirky in its own way with the brief summations of crowdsourced (before that was a term) comments on restaurants--but, because it was definitely oriented toward foodies, I found it very reliable.

I do find Yelp better than throwing darts at a dartboard. But especially if reviews are thin or the restaurant caters to the sports bar crowd or whatever, it's not much better.

I honestly don't think any of the crowdsourced sites are great. But it's hard to get much from other sources outside of some major cities, especially if you're just looking for something simple.

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

#96

Post by notyourday »

obelix_ wrote: post #72
camillomiller wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense. Yelp could be the worst company ever created, but if they had market share and Google worked to seize that market with unfair practices, that counts as abuse of dominant position. There is a dangerous conflation of two very distinct categories in your line of thought.

If think the point being made is Amazon didn't suffer the same fate as Yelp wrt to book reviews because Amazon had a better product than whatever Google produced.

You mean Amazon actually has a product. Until yelp started doing deliveries, order now and cashback its product was a content farm.

I know a few people in the restaurant industry (owners/managers). They all say the same thing: at best engaging yelp ( and advertising on yelp ) is a non-negative. It does not bring enough new customers to justify its expense.

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

#97

Post by notyourday »

ghaff wrote: post #95
deanCommie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely Anecdotal, but, as a foodie, I find the Google reviews have a higher aggregate "crowd wisdom" than Yelp. I am constantly shocked by the lack of correlation between rating and quality in the restaurants I look up on yelp. Before it died, UrbanSpoon was better than Yelp too. TripAdvisor is the worst because it's 99% tourists, so you never get a local's opinion of what's good in their area. Just my 2…

I don't know if any of this is carryover from Zagat but I tend to agree. Zagat was quirky in its own way with the brief summations of crowdsourced (before that was a term) comments on restaurants--but, because it was definitely oriented toward foodies, I found it very reliable. I do find Yelp better than throwing darts at a dartboard. But especially if reviews are thin or the restaurant caters to the sports bar crowd…

Zagat had enormous grade inflation. There were even studies done on it - unfortunately the name of the paper currently escapes me and googling only provides explanation of why it is happening rather than the data source.

Yelp's biggest issue is Yelp Elite crowd. It wields sufficient power in local markets that people want to belong to it and in order to belong one does not just need to review lots of places, one needs to review them quite well i.e. lots of positive spin ( look at distribution of 4-5 stars vs. 1-2 stars in ratings given to restaurants by Yelp Elite ). So either all the places are amazing or as the group Elites have a collective hive mind.

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

#99

Post by soup10 »

greggman wrote: post #38

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…

I’m bullish on yelp still, they have the highest quality community sourced reviews, a forward thinking engineering team, and energetic management. I think they will pull through and continue to be competitive with Google, but they need better marketing!

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

#100

Post by dazc »

madads wrote: post #82
dazc wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Eg Pinterest' A classic example of a business that Google should be using their dominance against, but aren't.

In a roundabout way Google are more like Pinterest than you think. Both utilising other people’s content. All just glorified databases with different UI really. Yelp kind of has original content in people’s opinion of db entries. YouTube however is slightly different since people post short and long form video on which is mostly original. Interesting.

'In a roundabout way Google are more like Pinterest than you think. Both utilising other people’s content.'

True, which makes me wonder why Google don't just add a bit of Pinterest-style functionality and then start applying search quality guidelines against Pinterest?

I know there are copyright issues but I expect Google would do a better job of linking to the original source - something Pinterest seem unable to do at all?

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