Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#341

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

ABCLAW wrote: post #335

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the search result and some ads were provided by Google, requiring exclusivity for search adverts was too much. Which completely ignores why ad networks have those restrictions. At one point it was common for crummy web pages to sign up for every ad network. All of them. Because every one you signed up for was more money. Then the whole side of the page would be ads from different networks. The obvious probl…

If an ad network wants to put restrictions on the volume of ad space in comparison with content on the page, they can do so, but requiring exclusivity isn't the same thing as that.

Measuring the "content on the page" is hopelessly ambiguous and easy to scam.

Even trying to price just based on how many other ad networks there are is problematic. For each additional ad network the value of each ad goes down. Even adding a second one may cut the value more than in half compared to exclusivity, because if the user sees the other network's ads first and they don't appear relevant they may not even look at yours, and a user who sees a larger number of ads may not look closely at any of them.

If the price offered for any non-exclusive placement is more of a reduction over the price offered for exclusivity than the amount gained from the other ad network(s), how is that any different in practice than requiring exclusivity?

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#342

Post by int_19h » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

utopcell wrote: post #303

dmitriid wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to go down the slippery road of analogies, a better one would be: Google is Walmart, offering all kinds of products. Carrying Kellog’s cereals (and many others). Recently it started producing its own brand, Cerealify. Once it started producing its own brand, it’s the only brand you can now buy at Walmart. It’s also the only brand featured in marketing materials (catalogs, flyers, posters). Kelloggs, and o…

The Google Search page is not a market place and the original argument against Google is absurd. For instance, if I search for "The Art of Computer Programming" on Google, the first result through which I can actually buy the books is Amazon, arguably one of the largest competitors of Google. I understand the desire of playing Devil's Advocate here, but it's difficult to stomach. Google has been such a force for posi…

Does Google being "such a force for positive change globally" requires it to abuse its dominant position in the market to promote its unrelated products?

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#343

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

j16sdiz wrote: post #313

dmitriid wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to go down the slippery road of analogies, a better one would be: Google is Walmart, offering all kinds of products. Carrying Kellog’s cereals (and many others). Recently it started producing its own brand, Cerealify. Once it started producing its own brand, it’s the only brand you can now buy at Walmart. It’s also the only brand featured in marketing materials (catalogs, flyers, posters). Kelloggs, and o…

Except the search engine business is not profit making without ADs. Google is like yellow page, not Walmart.

Replace Walmart in my example with Yellow Pages. Same argument still stands.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#344

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

utopcell wrote: post #303

dmitriid wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to go down the slippery road of analogies, a better one would be: Google is Walmart, offering all kinds of products. Carrying Kellog’s cereals (and many others). Recently it started producing its own brand, Cerealify. Once it started producing its own brand, it’s the only brand you can now buy at Walmart. It’s also the only brand featured in marketing materials (catalogs, flyers, posters). Kelloggs, and o…

The Google Search page is not a market place and the original argument against Google is absurd. For instance, if I search for "The Art of Computer Programming" on Google, the first result through which I can actually buy the books is Amazon, arguably one of the largest competitors of Google. I understand the desire of playing Devil's Advocate here, but it's difficult to stomach. Google has been such a force for posi…

@gamblor956 explained it way better than I could ever hope to here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19444072 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445447

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#345

Post by mfoy_ » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #314

hellllllllooo wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're stealing $50 then a $150 fine is a deterrent even if you're a billionaire, because the expected value if you're caught is -$100, which has nothing at all to do with how much money you have. This is not true if you see $50 and $150 dollars as basically the same amount when compared to your overall wealth. Would you care about a 2 cent fine for overrunning you time on a 1 cent parking space?

> This is not true if you see $50 and $150 dollars as basically the same amount when compared to your overall wealth. Would you care about a 2 cent fine for overrunning you time on a 1 cent parking space? At which point you can be happy that the rich person is voluntarily paying the 3 cent fine instead of the 1 cent parking fee. If you made it a $1000 fine vs. a 1 cent parking fee then they would pay the parking fee,…

A normal fine simply becomes "the cost of doing business". The point is to deter Google, not to simply add a cost to its activities.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#346

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:04 PM UTC

mfoy_ wrote: post #345

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not true if you see $50 and $150 dollars as basically the same amount when compared to your overall wealth. Would you care about a 2 cent fine for overrunning you time on a 1 cent parking space? At which point you can be happy that the rich person is voluntarily paying the 3 cent fine instead of the 1 cent parking fee. If you made it a $1000 fine vs. a 1 cent parking fee then they would pay the parking fee,…

A normal fine simply becomes "the cost of doing business". The point is to deter Google, not to simply add a cost to its activities. Related links: https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine... NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomi... NPR: https://www.npr.org/2008/03/31/89233955/dan-ariely-takes-on-...

A fine is a price -- exactly. So why are you trying to deter them from doing something which they're willing to pay you more to let them do than it costs you to let them do it?

Or if the fine would be lower for some other company with less money, then why are you willing to let that other company pay less to do it than it costs you to let them do it?

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#347

Post by rhizome » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:08 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #325

andrepd wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At which point you can be happy that the rich person is voluntarily paying the 3 cent fine instead of the 1 cent parking fee. No, because the issue here is not like a fee, it's about breaking the law and how you should be punished for it in order for it to deter you. A more apt comparison would be "you can be happy that the a rich person is voluntarily paying 500$ to park on top of a crosswalk. In this case you want…

Nope, deterrence is still only required proportionally. If someone parks on a crosswalk and the cost of that to society is $200 and the fine is $500 then the fact that they're paying $500 means you're still coming out ahead. And if the cost to society is more than $500 then you've set the fine wrong regardless of who is paying it.

Nope, deterrence is still only required proportionally

Cite?

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#348

Post by rhizome » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

leesalminen wrote: post #337

wnevets wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there aren't countries where that exist.

Right, but should we? Probably not. That’s what I’m getting at.

Arguments by analogy are not worth anybody's time.

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#349

Post by robocat » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:22 PM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #97

amelius wrote: post #28

With 500 million EU citizens, that's about €3 per person. This makes me wonder, how much does Google make from showing ads to one person?

About $8 billion revenue per quarter for EU + Middle East, let's say roughly 60% of people in Europe use the internet and > 90% of them use Google. Therefore: 8,000,000,000 / (500,000,000 * 0.9 * 0.6) = $29.63 per person revenue per quarter. Could be as much as +- $10 given how arbitrary (research based, but still guesswork) my inputs were... Somewhere around $100 per person per year seems insane but I guess how much…

> P.S. please feel free to correct my figures!

Presumably the value of advertising is highly correlated to the amount of money you spend (on things you have some choice over).

Disposable income is a strongly skewed distribution (across countries, within most countries).

An average won't help you much if you want too know how much Google makes off you!

Re: Google hit with €1.5B fine from EU over advertising

#350

Post by nige123 » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #59

buboard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more like a part of the wrist itself. They are racking up $7B in fines at the moment

- "Let's make rules that cripple our competitors and see how long we can get away with it." - "What can we earn?" - "Billions." - "What's it going to cost?" - "Less than what we're going to make." - "Let's do it!"

Yep - 'don't be evil'