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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

#171

Post by scottlocklin »

annabellish wrote: post #112
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…

>if you don't like the results Google's service provides, you'll choose a better service provider In the real world, this isn't always a clear option. If I run a restaurant I cannot cause everyone who might visit it to switch to a different maps provider. For the users, there _isn't_ a comparable service to Google Maps. The competition is fairly incomparable. This is a scenario which is only going to keep happening m…

Power companies are regulated by PUCs; Google probably should be.

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

#172

Post by tomjakubowski »

mehrdadn wrote: post #57
maccard wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What do you mean by "proof", if your bar isn't a court conviction? [1] Lots of businesses have filed lawsuits over this over many years... here's just a few of the gazillion I find on Google. [2] [3] [4] [5] It's practically absurd to think these are all over nothing and there's no foul play going on. How many stories do you need before you believe it's possible that maybe not everyone who is suing the same entity is…

There is no "conviction" for a civil case, and the standard of proof is far lower in civil court than criminal. Has Yelp ever lost one of these lawsuits? Mostly they seem to get thrown out of court.

Anecdotally, I knew a business owner who complained about Yelp hiding negative reviews on a competitor's page, presumably because the competitor was an advertiser and his business was not. Reading the negative reviews, though, they were _obviously_ shams; it wouldn't be surprising if the complaining businessman had left them himself.

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

#173

Post by dalbasal »

camillomiller wrote: post #120
dalbasal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, at least in the traditional anti-trust-ish legal sense as I understand it. In a wider more pedestrian sense, there is a some kettle-pot-black involved here, at least in my opinion. Yelp's a little monopolistic middle man. Everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp because everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp. Market dominance today is the main ingredient for dominance tomorrow. Everyone uses Google…

I agree that the matter is multi-faceted, of course. I just wanted to point out that we can't use a competing service's quality to assess whether market dominance was exerted or not. Neither I think it can be an extenuating factor. One isn't any less a murderer if they kill another murderer. Should a different case (maybe a class action) be brought against Yelp for abusing its position and momentum to force restauran…

I suppose, I just don't understand where that line of thinking heads, in terms of an even theoretical resolution.

Yelp sues google for monopolistic practice. Restaurant federations sue yelp. We sue fb for giving us the willies. The lawyers do very well and there's a legal bubble. Peter Thiel automates lawyers, funded by google who by 2026 are sitting on the largest horde of cash ever stashed but technically bankrupt, pending legal appeals and fully tallied lawyer bills. Legal event horizon in 3.. 2.. shoes.

I don't think I speaking besides the issue (apart from the obvious bits). Are either of these companies accused of anything, formally? Murder may be a bit strong.

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

#174

Post by mmt »

jryle70 wrote: post #93
hueving wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>wouldn't you also want to know if they are still open,

Yes, but my experience is that, especially for the case of later (or earlier) than peak business hours for an area, I can't trust a second- or third-hand source like a mapping service for this kind of information.

Even if it weren't for the GIGO problem, I still have the UI problem in that there's only an "open now" boolean filter, which is horrible if I'm searching at 9:48 for places open after 10.

>what kind of food they offer,

Sometimes, but there's often at least a hint in the name of the restaurant. Often, though, the later it is, the less importance the kind of food holds.

>how people rate them?

Honestly, not even a little, since, by this point, it's a "beggars can't be choosers" situation. Plus, even if I had the inclination to dig into the reviews, I wouldn't care what people thought of, for example, the service during the dinner rush.

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

#175

Post by hueving »

jryle70 wrote: post #93
hueving wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

You don't need user ratings to tell if they are open or what type of restaurant it is. That's basic business information that Google has allowed businesses to provide forever.

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

#176

Post by KozmoNau7 »

majewsky wrote: post #86
kodablah wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think it's not quite "tech can do no wrong", but "all problems can be solved with tech" is definitely prevalent. I guess it's because we're all tech guys here and "if you only have a hammer...".

Yeah, that's a better way of putting it. Way too many people in tech are completely blinded to its limitations and inherent problems.

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

#177

Post by [deleted] »

dazc wrote: post #100
madads wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#178

Post by jacksmith21006 »

ec109685 wrote: post #138
jacksmith21006 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Not how it works. There is an algorithm. It is why even though Amazon is a big competitor they have one of the first links when buying something.

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

#179

Post by ec109685 »

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #178
ec109685 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not how it works. There is an algorithm. It is why even though Amazon is a big competitor they have one of the first links when buying something.

They can feature what they want above the organic search results.

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

#180

Post by jacksmith21006 »

Do a search for a product and Amazon is #1 or #2 result and chief competitor of Google and will not allow Google products to be sold by anyone on their market place.

This entire thing is ridiculous. Google is obviously not gaming results.

Yelp sucks so lower down. Make it better and be higher like Amazon.

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