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United States vs. Google

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Re: United States vs. Google

#21

Post by fnord123 »

solipsism wrote: post #7
coder1001 wrote: post #2

Correct me if I am wrong, but is there anything stopping anyone from starting a new (better) search engine, and promoting it like crazy? Maybe even pay users a portion of the ads revenue for using the new search engine? I understand there are economies of scale here, but if a few investors got together what's to stop them from achieving this?

The part you chose to put in parentheses is the hardest part. No matter what you did to improve the search experience, Google could match it at lightning speed because of their scale.

aiui they still return results for pinterest and quora so it can't be that good.

Re: United States vs. Google

#22

Post by jeffbee »

macintux wrote: post #15
jeffbee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making the same flawed argument that the DOJ complaint is making: that Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, some of the largest companies Earth has ever seen, somehow can't afford to compete in search, which is plainly ridiculous.

They could compete, but it would be a money hole. You’d have to spend billions and years to reach some level of parity with Google to persuade enough people to switch, and even then the marketing spend necessary to reach any significant level of switching would be another massive investment.

"wah, this is hard" is not an antitrust case. Anyway it's clearly not all that hard since Bing exists. The fact that Apple sells iOS users' attention for six billion dollars a year is strong evidence of Bing's strength. Market prices are set by the 2nd bidder, not the highest bidder. The price Google pays to Apple is what those eyeballs would have been worth to Microsoft, not how much they are worth to Google.

Re: United States vs. Google

#23

Post by Osiris »

waterside81 wrote: post #12

So if every phone/browser etc. asked you to pick your default browser at setup time - would that placate the DOJ? Wouldn't most people stick pick Google?

I believe your comment is a bit tongue in cheek about Microsoft's settlement over IE.

The concern here is that government, especially lawyers, are not good at coming up with remedies. If the court rules Google is a monopoly, then what? What changes will be demanded, and will they "fix" the issue that the government is trying to solve?

Re: United States vs. Google

#24

Post by Shivetya »

xxpor wrote: post #13
crazygringo wrote: post #6

Most interesting part IMO is at the end (emphasis mine): > That, though, is why it is a mistake to read the report as some sort of technocratic document... it is exceptionally difficult to make the case that any of these companies are causing consumer harm, which is the de facto standard for antitrust in the United States. Indeed, what makes Google’s contention that “The competition is only a click away” so infuriati…

I agree with the populism idea, however the issue to me is that the US government has lost credibility. And I don't just mean under Trump, he has made it a lot worse though. Is this lawsuit an honest attempt at knocking down the big guy everyone hates? Or is it Google's competitors using the power of the state to knock it down for them because they know they can't win honestly ( cough Oracle, see also TikTok cough )?…

Well I would not be so fast in condemning the US as this issue is also occurring in Europe with regards to these very large technology oriented companies. If anything these companies are some of the largest accumulations of wealth and governments want a piece of it. Oh there may be some break ups involved but what is coming down is regulation which will funnel more of the money back into government under the guise of "for the people".

US wise, the threat isn't the money in politics or where it goes but that two parties have near exclusive say on what is allowed and what is not. It took someone with the fame and money of Trump to defeat both of them and that extreme of an example should have made it obvious to people the real issue; that for any other party to gain traction is impossible and every attempt to limit how people may assemble and spend money only needs to looked at when it is done through the two established parties. As in, they need reigned in, not political movements looking to get into the game

Re: United States vs. Google

#25

Post by ankit219 »

One key insight I found from the article is the distinction between European Commission and US approach when it comes to innovation and investment in tech.

> Third, Google will argue that its deals for Android distribution and the tying of search defaults to Google Play Services (including the Play Store) (...) but is also Google’s just reward for having invested in the creation of Android. This last argument didn’t work in front of the European Commission, but it may be more effective before a U.S. judge. The Justice Department, meanwhile, probably has the strongest case on this point: sure, Google created Android, but it also made the choice to open source it, and if its attempts to re-seize control through blatant tying aren’t illegal then it’s hard to imagine what could be.

This argument did not work with EU presumably because they look at it from the current stage perspective and hurting of choices vs just rewards for innovation. Android is open source, but very few manufacturers fork it because they are incentivized not to. There are customizations, and something better could come up if more people work on it. (slightly cheeky, but then maybe Google would not look to Apple to decide what features to add). I remember one time when Samsung was trying to create an OS for its smart TV based on android but decided against it and signed an exclusive MADA with Google years ago (and renewed in 2019 as well).

The question I have here is: what if Google decides to take android private and claim ownership? It wont be well received in the dev community, but are they even allowed to do it? What would be the repercussions of the same?

Re: United States vs. Google

#26

Post by Osiris »

macintux wrote: post #15
jeffbee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making the same flawed argument that the DOJ complaint is making: that Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, some of the largest companies Earth has ever seen, somehow can't afford to compete in search, which is plainly ridiculous.

They could compete, but it would be a money hole. You’d have to spend billions and years to reach some level of parity with Google to persuade enough people to switch, and even then the marketing spend necessary to reach any significant level of switching would be another massive investment.

See Bing

Re: United States vs. Google

#27

Post by commandlinefan »

coder1001 wrote: post #2

Correct me if I am wrong, but is there anything stopping anyone from starting a new (better) search engine, and promoting it like crazy? Maybe even pay users a portion of the ads revenue for using the new search engine? I understand there are economies of scale here, but if a few investors got together what's to stop them from achieving this?

> is there anything stopping anyone from starting a new (better) search engine

Nothing, but that's always been the case, with every monopoly. There was nothing stopping anybody from running telephone lines and competing with AT&T in the 80's except for AT&T's massive incumbency head-start.

Re: United States vs. Google

#28

Post by freewilly1040 »

crazygringo wrote: post #6

Most interesting part IMO is at the end (emphasis mine): > That, though, is why it is a mistake to read the report as some sort of technocratic document... it is exceptionally difficult to make the case that any of these companies are causing consumer harm, which is the de facto standard for antitrust in the United States. Indeed, what makes Google’s contention that “The competition is only a click away” so infuriati…

The harm is pretty trivially demonstrated in the privileged search rankings Google gives its own products. This drives down competition in these other verticals and leaves consumers with winners that won because they are Google's products, not because they are the best.

I also really dislike the use of the word "hatred" here, which is a loaded word deployed when a writer wants to make those they are arguing against seem overly emotional and irrational.

Re: United States vs. Google

#29

Post by jcfrei »

coder1001 wrote: post #2

Correct me if I am wrong, but is there anything stopping anyone from starting a new (better) search engine, and promoting it like crazy? Maybe even pay users a portion of the ads revenue for using the new search engine? I understand there are economies of scale here, but if a few investors got together what's to stop them from achieving this?

As described in the article: It's a chicken and egg problem. More people using a search engine, leads to more data for analytics, more analytics lead to better results and again more people using it.

Re: United States vs. Google

#30

Post by AnimalMuppet »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #8
ffpip wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Google is because of their AI. And the reason their AI is good is because of the massive amount of data they collect by violating privacy. No other company can start right now. Their search engine is years of efforts of collecting every user's data in Chrome for determining 'freshness', page rank and other related stuff.

How is this different than Coke and their brand?

Because Coke doesn't collect massive amounts of data from their customers to feed AIs?

I think you may have replied to the wrong post, because your post doesn't make a lot of sense as a reply to the parent.

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