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How did Google get so big?

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Re: How did Google get so big?

#201

Post by fjsolwmv »

zjaffee wrote: post #156
ur-whale wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Say you do a search for a particular location, the first thing that pops up to the the top of the page is a box with some information pulled from wikipedia and a link/image of it on google maps. You're saying Google provided you with exactly the information you were looking for in the first place. And for free, btw. That clearly can't be allowed to stand.

Whats good for consumers isn't whats good for the broader market, we wouldn't see mega billionares with net worths close to that of previous captains of industry if we forced them to allow others to compete (where the only viable way to do so from my perspective is to not let them compete at all). In every other industry you see far less vertical integration due to the history of how companies have been regulated aga…

Society doesn't really care whether there are 10 megabillionaires or 100 minor billionaires.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#202

Post by ocdtrekkie »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #197
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you mention this: I've discovered that Google is injecting an ad above searches for "mapquest" that leads users who make the mistake of clicking on a Google ad to install a browser hijacker plugin before they can get the directions they're looking for. This hurts MapQuest's brand, gives people malware, and of course, conveniently, makes Google a lot of money. They've been doing it for at least a number of…

That's a strong accusation. Can you provide any more information (URLs) to investigate?

The URL is pretty self-explanatory: https://www.google.com/search?q=mapquest

Specifically, in every test I've ever run, Google puts http://www.mapsanddrivingdirection.com/Maps as the ad run above the official MapQuest link. It's a company out of Cyprus that repackages OpenStreetMap data with a big giant "Download to Continue" button when you try to get directions.

I can tell you the download requests admin privileges on your machine to install (aka, is not just an extension alone), and overrides your New Tab page and changes your search provider. I will admit I didn't have the courage to actually install it anywhere to confirm the extent of it's behavior, but placing the registry key that disables Chrome auto-updates is pretty par for the course on these type of infections.

Here's a screenshot I took on July 18th: https://twitter.com/ocdtrekkie/status/1019593753227681793

Re: How did Google get so big?

#203

Post by HillaryBriss »

eftychis wrote: post #104
izzydata wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be implying it is inherently a bad thing. Is trying to stop innovative companies also a hindrance to technological progress?

Innovative companies on their own are not really innovative really. A monopoly enforces their opinion and product in the world. If you don't like their price or approach too bad for you. You are kept out of the game (it is a monopoly right). As has been mentioned a bunch of times here, Google and Facebook have all too naturally embraced Microsoft's (and prior monopolies' ) approach of embrace, extend, and extinguish.…

> If you don't like their price or approach too bad for you. You are kept out of the game

yes, basically true, i think. the article says Google spent more money on lobbying last year than any other corporation...

why does Google think that spending money in this way is useful? what does Google get in return? how does Google explain to shareholders that this is not a waste?

Re: How did Google get so big?

#204

Post by yodacola »

refulgentis wrote: post #59
Alupis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's Android, YouTube, 510 Systems, and the constellation of acquisitions made to create Google Apps, at a minimum. Buying Android hardly would have triggered anti-trust investigations given Apple's significant market share at the time, and the many other significant competitors (BlackBerry and Nokia just to name two). Same goes with YouTube - Google bought it before it was a smash success, and before people tho…

nit: Android was purchased long before Apple entered the market. Doesn't change your argument, no one was expecting vendors to rush to a new OS because of the iPhone revolution.

But Google was already aware of the iPhone the time they purchased Android. This has been their strategy for competition.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#205

Post by pimmen »

A good investor gave me this little nugget;

You can tell how mature a company is by how much they talk about their competitors. Startups and players who are really struggling never talk about competitors and try to steer the subject away from them, lest the customer finds another deal. Monopolies often talk about their competitors, because it hides that they're monopolies. Google likes to say that they compete with Microsoft with their Docs suite, with Apple in mobile OS and with Tom Tom on the navigation market. If they were anything like your local startup the only thing they would say is "we're a digital advertising company focusing on search ads, we have 90% of the market and are among the oldest still in the industry".

Re: How did Google get so big?

#206

Post by turc1656 »

andbberger wrote: post #184
turc1656 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not complicated. But for some reason everyone misses the obvious. You go after the people responsible for taking these actions, not the "company" itself as an ethereal creation. If someone (or multiple people, as here) are in violation of Title 15, they are committing felonies according to the law. These felonies happen to be punishable by up to 10 years in prison, in addition to steep fines. However, the fines…

You've got it backwards, and I find that way of thinking quite dangerous. You have to go to the root of the problem to solve it, and the root is that corps are fundamentally driven towards monopolistic practices by competition. If it's legal, and it improves the bottom line corps __have__ to do it. Not should or will, __have__ to. Because if they don't someone else will and they'll die. Need to treat corps like the o…

Agree with you on your main point, but the conclusion you draw is strange. Yes, they are driven towards monopolistic practices and if something is legal, it will be done. Totally agree. But that's precisely why Title 15 exists. The government/society sets the rules of what is deemed acceptable and allowed to be done in pursuit of profit. If you violate those rules - rules which everyone else follows and is expected to follow, you have committed a serious offense according to the law. Why would/should that not result in prosecution? Because it's an "organism" that acts as a separate entity from a regular person? Fine, Title 15 allows for the prosecution of the entity itself so you can charge the entity but it also includes the ability to charge the individuals within the entity that acted in violation of the law". Make no mistake, in basically every one of these examples I have ever seen, there is most definitely a person or group of people that discussed the company's action/policy and decided to break the law. You think the decision at Google to promote their own products and put competitors on page 4 just magically happened? No. A person (i.e. product manager) or a group of people sat in a room and discussed how to increase profits and actively made that decision. They deserve to be individually charged for their actions and the company should be charged because they were all acting on behalf of the firm. The lawyers for these companies aren't stupid. But they know these laws are not being enforced...from the article: "Some were investigated, but only superficially, the government just really isn't enforcing our antitrust laws." That quote from the article was in reference to challenging the mergers, but the same larger body of law includes Title 15. And if they aren't even challenging these mergers properly, you know for damn sure they aren't enforcing the rest of Title 15 properly because that takes much more work on their part. These laws exist for a very, very good reason. As soon as you start strongly enforcing these laws, this problem will go away. These aren't obscure laws we're talking about. These are part of the bedrock of our laws regarding competition and fair practices.

EDIT: It is precisely because the rule of law barely exists regarding Title 15 for certain companies that we have this problem. The issue isn't that we are approaching the problem incorrectly - it's that this is a consequence of lawlessness and a lack of enforcement. All the tools to properly address this exist already and don't really require adjustment, just enforcement.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#207

Post by TomMarius »

eftychis wrote: post #113
TomMarius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No technological progress is bad. Sometimes this progress is used badly, but knowledge is definitely not bad.

Well, I disagree. Partial knowledge and technology can be bad and extremely dangerous. In the 19th- early 20th century they were treating radioactive substances like they were chew toys (making toys etc). The worst nuclear accident happened near lake Karachay, because they had the technology to create nuclear weapons, but did not understand, or knew the danger and how to manage the waste. (Russians were trying to cat…

I'm not sure I understand you. You're saying that we will solve lack of knowledge with stopping the pursuit of knowledge?

Re: How did Google get so big?

#208

Post by joshuamorton »

mirimir wrote: post #196
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > [Google] denied it was a monopoly in search or search advertising, citing many competitors including Amazon and Facebook. > That's a joke, right? I don't think they're joking. There are a lot of people, whole countries of them, for whom Facebook is literally the whole of the Internet.

OK, so I don't use Facebook. But can one search the Internet via Facebook? Or wait, are you saying that they don't realize that there's anything except Facebook? And yes, I can vaguely remember when all I knew was CompuServe and Econet. And AOL, which only idiots used ;)

He's likely referring to this: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/

I can't remember if this was discontinued or not, but there's been varying levels of outcry about it.

(Disclosure: I work at Google)

Re: How did Google get so big?

#209

Post by BRAlNlAC »

tills13 wrote: post #93
zjaffee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much they are hurting anyone, since they have made it virtually impossible to compete with them. Say you do a search for a particular location, the first thing that pops up to the the top of the page is a box with some information pulled from wikipedia and a link/image of it on google maps. Search for a band, and you see the same with links to youtube and google music. Search for online storage and you se…

if they're _purposefully_ ranking their own services above competing services, then yes, I agree they should be fined until they stop. _however_, more often than not, their own service is _exactly_ what I'm looking for - be it GPM/YouTube/Maps/etc. It's not really their fault they're head and shoulders above the competition/the de-facto provider for most of the content people search for every day (well, maybe it is t…

>well, maybe it is their fault, but it's not a bad thing

I'd argue that having a single entity have such power over something so critical as being bad by nature. Concentrated power is the root of evil.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#210

Post by samsonradu »

mirimir wrote: post #196
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > [Google] denied it was a monopoly in search or search advertising, citing many competitors including Amazon and Facebook. > That's a joke, right? I don't think they're joking. There are a lot of people, whole countries of them, for whom Facebook is literally the whole of the Internet.

OK, so I don't use Facebook. But can one search the Internet via Facebook? Or wait, are you saying that they don't realize that there's anything except Facebook? And yes, I can vaguely remember when all I knew was CompuServe and Econet. And AOL, which only idiots used ;)

> Or wait, are you saying that they don't realize that there's anything except Facebook?

Something like that. Maybe they realise but they don't care. Want to read the news? You check out CNN's Facebook page for latest posts. Want to sell something? Use the marketplace.

For whatever website most of them would like to visit for information there is a Facebook page available.

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