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Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

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Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#91

Post by netcan »

streamofdigits wrote: post #89
netcan wrote: post #83

The whole structure of antitrust regulation is, by negligence or design, weird and weak. #1 Why does there need to be a plaintiff? A trust affects consumers and society broadly detrimentally, not some specific competitor. The competitor google is likely trying to suppress is some theoretical startup anyway, they probably don't exist to sue. #2 Why the focus on specific damages? The specific harm of such a trust are i…

the "market" seems to be betting that these monopolies will persist more or less exactly as they are (see eg the 3 trillion apple valuation that is really an unfathomable number unless you condition that basically the entire US economy will be co-controlled by those entities) so it seems to me that disastrously bad regulation has created self-sustaining monsters. which market worshiping politician would dare burst th…

Good question.

Reminds me of the "housing affordability" question. If politicians had a magic wand that turns a city with $1m median house prices into a $250k one...

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#92

Post by amelius »

bni wrote: post #75
onion2k wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative option seems to be that Apple is for some reason required to use their position to enter the search market. Why is that the alternative? No one is saying Apple have to provide their own search engine; people are suggesting Mac products should give the user a clear choice. A much more obvious alternative is that Apple (or any OS provider for that matter) shouldn't be able to sell the default search eng…

It is easy to change, it a dropdown in Safari settings, very easy to find. I agree though that Google pays Apple billions to be the default stinks. Even though in this case Apple greed aligns perfectly with user expectation.

It still makes me wonder: if Apple had their own search engine, would they be allowed to not have the option to change it?

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#93

Post by hnlmorg »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #26
laumars wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there is already precedence regarding their App Store. So if Apple defaulted to their own search engine and didn’t allow a way of changing that default then the courts might well find that anti-competitive too.

You don't need to disallow changing the default search engine because the average user doesn't even know or bother how to change it. That is the reason Google pays everyone (Apple, Mozilla, Android OEMs through GService allowance) a buttload of money to be the default.

While that is true, offering the option to change the default might still be enough to avoid any anticompetitive claims (which I think was the point the GP was making).

That said, Microsoft were still forced to present a randomized list of browser options to the user upon first install so there is also precedence of changeable defaults not being enough to satisfy complaints of anticompetitive business.

This is all hypothetical though because it's still far from clear that Apple have ever wanted to enter the search market, let alone got paid not to, let alone what might happen to the iPhone if they did.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#94

Post by Closi »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #81
Closi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is using Google’s API to provide the search result.

No it isn't: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204683

Instant answers are provided by Apple, but when search answers are provided these are Google. Apple needs to still crawl to provide instant answers.

Statement from Apple in 2017 when they switched to Google from Bing:

> Switching to Google as the web search provider for Siri, Search within iOS and Spotlight on Mac will allow these services to have a consistent web search experience with the default in Safari.

(https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/apple-switches-from-bing-t...)

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#95

Post by [deleted] »

bni wrote: post #75
onion2k wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative option seems to be that Apple is for some reason required to use their position to enter the search market. Why is that the alternative? No one is saying Apple have to provide their own search engine; people are suggesting Mac products should give the user a clear choice. A much more obvious alternative is that Apple (or any OS provider for that matter) shouldn't be able to sell the default search eng…

It is easy to change, it a dropdown in Safari settings, very easy to find. I agree though that Google pays Apple billions to be the default stinks. Even though in this case Apple greed aligns perfectly with user expectation.

[deleted]

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#96

Post by nikanj »

cornel_io wrote: post #54
hetspookjee wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so happy that Apple keeps me safe of dangerous search engines. /s I don't get this logic, honestly. What is the point of not being able to add any and all search engines to Apple?

Apple hates any sort of technical customization in their mass-market products. They always have, and keep stripping them down to the most dumbed-down settings screens they can figure out while still allowing the bare necessities (which they apparently don't consider adding an alternative search engine to be). I don't like this approach, but it is very consistent in their products, features tend to disappear over time…

Every customization option means more complaints from some customer who managed to mess up that setting.

“My search no longer works!” “Sir you have the search registry key set to ‘turkey bake time’”

“Well that’s what I was searching for, and then the search stopped working completely. iPhones are the worst, I’m gonna tell all my friends”

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#97

Post by acallaghan »

nefitty wrote: post #78
coolandsmartrr wrote: post #72

Why is the plaintiff, California Crane School, suing Apple and Google? As far as I see, the plaintiff is not in the tech business, as they're a school that teaches how to operate cranes[1] [1] https://www.californiacraneschool.com/

They're pivoting, so to speak.

Someone had the do the heavy lifting I guess

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#98

Post by cryptica »

mjevans wrote: post #3

Would Apple be a monopoly if they did enter the 'search' business? Google at least can leave Android free, and people that ship it able to customize as well as customers able to switch search providers. Apple would have a very vertically integrated stack, and would they allow anyone else making a phone equal access?

They're all an oligopoly. Together, they monopolized government and reserve bank money printers.

It's a scheme, people take loans to buy Apple shares, then future generations will take even bigger loans to buy Apple shares from the previous people for 10x the price, then repeat ad infinitum. They don't even need to do any productive work anymore. Just busy-work, like Bitcoin is doing using ASIC miners to burn electricity.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#99

Post by eitland »

matkoniecz wrote: post #76
mgh2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way to run a profitable search engine without relying on advertising? Ex: Cloud search - https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/

https://kagi.com/ has plans for subscriptions, I hope that they will have product worth paying for. I spend enough time and effort searching that paying 50$/month[0] would make sense if it would get me clearly superior tool. [0] for reference, I pay 250$/month for place where I live (in Poland).

With the usual disclaimer about my Google experience not being anyone elses Google experience:

For my work Kagi is already beating Google. In fact there is is almost no competition, it is almost as if they are in completely different leagues:

In one month I have once gone back to find something in Google that Kagi couldn't find.

For every other query the results have been so good that I haven't even bothered to check.

For comparison, if I use Google I always find myself tweaking my queries or trying with DDG or even marginalia in weird cases, and the same with DDG.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#100

Post by onion2k »

amelius wrote: post #92
bni wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easy to change, it a dropdown in Safari settings, very easy to find. I agree though that Google pays Apple billions to be the default stinks. Even though in this case Apple greed aligns perfectly with user expectation.

It still makes me wonder: if Apple had their own search engine, would they be allowed to not have the option to change it?

That would be a very clear anti-trust violation where they would be abusing position in the OS market to influence their position in the search market.
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