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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

#131

Post by frockington »

potatote wrote: post #130
mark_l_watson wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60 Minutes lost me as a viewer 25 years ago. They did a hit piece on someone who I worked with that was flat out untrue. Many people at work knew the details and agreed. That one experience made me view anything I see on TV with a healthy dose of scepticism.

I agree with you about not trusting anything we see on TV/Newspapers (even if it is from 60 Minutes; NYT; whatever-is-reputed-to-be-reliable). I grew up in Myanmar and after reading a lot of one-sided coverage about the refugee issue there (labeled as 'genocide'), I realized it's impossible for news organizations to be almost always impartial and accurate. They have to obtain information from some source. Almost alwa…

Especially since now sources are "someone familiar with their thinking". Why the media thinks that is a reputable source is beyond me and is why I've completely stopped watching television news

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

#132

Post by randcraw »

andegre wrote: post #124

I didn't see the majority of the piece because the kids were acting up, but I must be missing something. Why is this a big deal when it's the SAME company's browser that the user is using that is showing products/services at the top for the SAME company's products? Why can't google have their own products'/services' links at the top of all search results?

For the same reason the courts broke up the stranglehold robber barons had in railroads and banking back in 1900... it's monopolistic and anticompetitive.

This time, much of the anticompetition will be totally invisible, since nobody but Google knows how they bias their search results. Do they collude with Microsoft Bing? Nobody knows but the e-robber barons.

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

#133

Post by grey_earthling »

telltruth wrote: post #91
gregknicholson wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 effe…

Yes, this is precisely the problem.

Capitalism does not produce good quality products and services without genuine competition.

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

#134

Post by ocdtrekkie »

frockington wrote: post #131
potatote wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you about not trusting anything we see on TV/Newspapers (even if it is from 60 Minutes; NYT; whatever-is-reputed-to-be-reliable). I grew up in Myanmar and after reading a lot of one-sided coverage about the refugee issue there (labeled as 'genocide'), I realized it's impossible for news organizations to be almost always impartial and accurate. They have to obtain information from some source. Almost alwa…

Especially since now sources are "someone familiar with their thinking". Why the media thinks that is a reputable source is beyond me and is why I've completely stopped watching television news

The challenge is that when you're reporting on companies with legendarily strict NDAs and entire security teams dedicated to finding leaks and snuffing them out, news is going to come predominantly from confidential sources.

For example, in the Theranos segment that followed the Google segment on this week's 60 Minutes, the Theranos employee who first ratted them out stated that he used a fake name when he first contacted the government because he feared reprisal.

Presumably, reporters are supposed to seek adequate proof or confirmation of what they hear from "sources", and we are supposed to be able to trust that they did that job adequately or at least, they are reporting the news as they believe it, until confirmation is available in the form of an official investigation.

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

#135

Post by samfisher83 »

epc wrote: post #89
telltruth wrote: post #19

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…

The problem with IE was not that Microsoft developed IE, the problem with IE was that Microsoft used its ownership of the operating system and MS Office as well as contracts with PC manufacturers to give IE an overwhelming advantage over the competition.

Isn't google doing the same thing. They are using their search dominance to get people to use their other services. If DOJ hadn't forced MSFT to stop making IE the default browser would google be as big. Most people don't ever change the defaults on their browser. If MSFT had been left alone are you sure google would be as big as they are today? I mean they took netscape from 90% market share to like 5% marketshare.

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

#137

Post by dazc »

mijamo wrote: post #123
dazc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say Google reviews are ideal but I've found them to be a lot more reliable than the alternative. For example, Booking.com, etc.

Completely the opposite for me. At least booking.com allows reviews only when you booked. And when I read the comments most point out real problems or benefits of the different housings. AirBNB reviews on the other hand are painfully useless. And Google is the worst, with a shitload of review from people that look like that probably didn't even went to the place, or just disliked being denied on a discount of somethi…

My experience is mainly limited to Hotels though and I've found 1 star reviews on Google tend to match my actual experience with bad hotels very closely.

I am based in Europe though so maybe this isn't a universal experience?

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

#138

Post by ec109685 »

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #115
kolleykibber wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's results are better than yelps. As soon as that isn't true, I'll download yelp again.

Exactly and why Yelp is lower down. Where it should be. Instead of Yelp b*tching on 60 minutes they should fix the service and then they would be higher on search. It is how it works.

No it isn’t. Google can chose to put anyone’s reviews in first position arbitrarily (as a featured result).

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

#139

Post by ocdtrekkie »

scarface74 wrote: post #71
realusername wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of browsers are still defaulting to Google, you used almost the only example (IE/Edge) which does not do that.

Microsoft could easily outbid Google to be the primary search engine on iOS and they could pay carriers to make Bing the primary search engines on the Android phones they sell.

I don't think Google still permits Android phones to select a different default search. They used to, several Verizon phones used to ship with Bing as default, before Google locked it down via the MADA. (And this is true even of Android phones Microsoft sells, if they have the Play Store, which Microsoft's own Android apps depend on, they must follow MADA terms.)

They could on iOS, but it's likely outbidding Google would make Bing unprofitable. (Currently, it turns a profit, and has for years.) Satya Nadella doesn't seem to be a big fan of keeping products or services that don't make money on their own, hence his willingness to chop off entire arms of Microsoft's prior strategy.

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

#140

Post by kinsomo »

camillomiller wrote: post #39
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…

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

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

And the assumption that Yelp's offer is of poorer quality is debatable. Google's own algorithm apparently often ranks its content lower than its competitors in organic search results.

The second video shows this: they created proof-of-concept plugin that uses Google's own organic search results to power a clone of Google+ local: https://youtu.be/k9UqqmIJW4g

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