Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is Google a monopoly? Serious question.
Google is not a monopoly, but it has enough market power to be a reason for concern.
Anti trust laws are written to protect consumers, not inferior competitors.
Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
531–540 of 748 posts
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now try advertising your business while avoiding Google. Keep in mind that if you don't buy ads under your Company's Name from Google, Google will allow your competitors to buy those placements and make them the top results anyone searching your company on Google will see.
Advertisement is immoral and totally unnecessary to have a profitable business.
I'm curious to know which profitable companies never advertise.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#533If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…
False dichotomy. They could also show 3rd party timer and flight widgets in the search results.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
Senator Herb Kohl: But you do recognize that in the words that are used and antitrust kind of oversight, your market share constitutes monopoly, dominant -- special power dominant for a monopoly firm. You recognize you're in that area? Eric Shmidt: I would agree, sir, that we’re in that area....I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of monopoly findings is this is a judicial process. From: https://www.businessinsider…
Being popular != Monopoly Having Market Share Dominance != Monopoly Being a monopoly means having sole control over the supply of a market (conversely, Monopsony is demand ). When people say Bing, Baidu, DDG, Yahoo, DDG, etc. are all a click a way, that means Google does not control the market supply. Just because the majority of people choose to use something on an open market doesn't mean that thing has a monopoly.
Schmidt seems concerned they are in that territory. Also, the document I linked to, presumably written by people with deep expertise on the topic, has several relevant sections. One excerpt:
===
A. GOOGLE HAS MONOPOLY POWER IN RELEVANT MARKETS
A firm is a monopolist if it can profitably raise prices substantially above the competitive level. [M]onopoly power may be inferred from a firm's possesion of a dominant share of a relevant market that is protected by entry barriers. Google has monopoly power in one or more properly defined markets...Staff has identified three relevant antitrust markets...
===
I think it's at least fair to say that some people with expertise in the space feel like Google could have monopoly control over one or more markets.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#535If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…
Or they could be allowed to show whatever but are required to allow users to opt-in/out.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#536Pretty hostile of Ohio. I feel like the governor and other state leaders are out of touch with tech. Don't know how this could help the state or Columbus attract tech. They should try to learn a lesson or two from Texas or Utah. Idiots running the state will continue the brain drain problem.
Agreed. This was my biggest reason for leaving Columbus as soon as I could. Most of the folks who "talk tech" have no idea what they're talking about. Just a sea of Professional Services Consultants configuring software for "clients".
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Google is stealing ideas and products, that they know are viable through the metrics they gather from the search data. Doesnt Walmart and Amazon do that as well, looking at the data and then making their own in house products?
Yes, and maybe they should be regulated too. They enjoy dominant positions in the market and blatantly rip off successful products down to the color and bottle shape.
But any idiot can figure out which are the successful products on those search engines. They are literally there trying to be found and broadcast their popularity.
The patent system is for protecting ideas which the law allows to be protected.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#538If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…
google could take over almost any business like this.
That didn't happen to travel companies. Google added flights, but Booking Holdings (aka Priceline) continued to grow each year to 15B in revenue for 2019. (Huge drop for 2020 obviously.)
If I type " weather" google will show me the weather, but which weather company has shutdown because of that?
Google news is in the search results, but there are a lot of news companies. Those info panels often come from wikipedia, but wikipedia is doing great.
This is something that sounds true, but I'm having trouble thinking of an example where it has actually happened. Examples appreciated.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
no one is forcing you to use google. you could always pick a different one if you want different results
No one is forcing you to use an electrical company. You could always power your house with a bicycle generator. Therefore, electrical companies shouldn't be regulated as public utilities.
You can make that decision in rural areas. It costs a lot of money to get wires run to a new house. You might use solar instead with a generator as backup.
In many urban areas you may not even be allowed to opt out of utilities meanwhile. I once delayed paying for the water bill in a new house for a month till I moved in and needed, got a big late bill finally because the fees are mandatory for the house.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#540If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…
Apparently, Google Flight Search is not even close to the best alternative.1 https://www.frommers.com/slideshows/848046-the-10-best-and-w... This is interesting because I always thought Matrix from ITA Software, a company Google acquired in 2010, was quite useful. Wonder if links to Skiplagged get subjugated in Google SERPs. If Google thinks it can replace other websites by providing better alternatives, that's great…
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