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Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

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Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#91

Post by Ainab »

yanw wrote: post #77
aamar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maps, and Places, and Product Search -- they are all part of search. That's a very relevant point, but it also sounds at least superficially similar to Microsoft's "the browser is part of the OS" argument, which generally seems to be a failure. That case has been referenced several times in this hearing; it's clearly front of mind.

No, that meme is wrong, it's not similar. You bought Windows and Microsoft bundled IE with it, you didn't by Google you use it, Google is Google's. And no one says that search must be just the 10 links and nothing more.

Your reasoning is flawed!

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#92

Post by dhimes »

yanw wrote: post #61
tsunamifury wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become a monopoloy in a certain industry, under american law, you do owe it to your competitors to allow them to compete on fair ground with you. This is why theaters were not allowed to be owned by studios, Car Dealerships by actual Car companies, etc.

Anti trust exists to protect costumers and when the product is free and the alternatives are free, where is the harm?

I can't speak for the down-voters, but I disagree with you on the grounds that Google is not free. You seem to be confusing its users with its customers. The advertisers are the customers. The have terrible customer service for people who don't spend a bundle, you can point out faults with their penalties and get a response of "meh" (when you eventually do get a response). In principle I can see great harm from a Google monopoly, not the least harmed being myself as a small G customer.

That said, I can't argue this article specifically because I didn't rtfa, and probably won't until much later if at all.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#93

Post by [deleted] »

ugh wrote: post #85
coderdude wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He shares the point of view of the person defending Google (she's a former anti-trust investigator?). If you can freely and instantly switch from Google to Bing then you cannot claim they have a monopoly. If you don't like Google's results there is nothing locking the consumer into Google except their own choice.

It's a bit too much gymnastics for my brain right now but shouldn't one also look at this from the perspective of Google's paying customers, i.e. advertisers? Looking only at those who use Google to search seems to be missing one half of the business.

[deleted]

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#94

Post by dmpayton »

Something that kind of irked me about Jeremy Stoppelman's testimony: He failed to mention that Yelp provides an API and, in essence, gives away their data.

If Google was consuming their API (vs. scraping content directly from their site), would this even be an issue?

Let's assume, hypothetically, that Google used the API provided by Yelp to enhance their search results. If Yelp said, "We don't like what you're doing, so stop because we said so", I feel that it would totally be within Googles rights to say, "Fine, we no longer wish to do business with you and will exclude you from our index".

Of course, I'm not entirely sure what the Yelp API of 2010 looked like, nor have I read their TOS. However, I still feel that Stoppelman's testimony did more to remove my desire to ever use Yelp than it did to convince me that Google is this big evil monopoly that's destroying the little guy.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#95

Post by mc32 »

yanw wrote: post #61
tsunamifury wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become a monopoloy in a certain industry, under american law, you do owe it to your competitors to allow them to compete on fair ground with you. This is why theaters were not allowed to be owned by studios, Car Dealerships by actual Car companies, etc.

Anti trust exists to protect costumers and when the product is free and the alternatives are free, where is the harm?

I think the consumer are the entities (Fujitsu, Coke, eBay, etc.) advertising on Google, not the people using Google (mom, sister, dad) for search.

From that perspective, Google being the pre-eminent search provider (i.e, where the advertisers' customers search for a product or service) this becomes relevant.

Basically, yes, an advertiser could only advertise on Yahoo! (but in the process lose quite a chunk of their potential customer base).

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#96

Post by 0x12 »

oldstrangers wrote: post #53

The antitrust regulator just asked about sending in a third party to review google's search algorithm. Haha. Hahahahaa. Not a chance.

And why not?

Google could put up a lot of resistance but if the government wants something bad enough they generally get it. The other option is not to do business in that particular country, and for google that option is not on the table.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#97

Post by jinushaun »

I hope the politicians don't confuse plain old search result rankings with smart searches.

http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips/

When I enter "1+1" into Google, I expect back "2", not a link to a calculator website. When I enter a street address, I want the first result to be a map, not a link to a mapping website. When I enter a stock symbol, I want the current stock price at the top of the results, not a link to a slow loading website.

Google has had these smart search results since day one and the functionality keeps expanding much to the displeasure of some companies. One could argue that this is an example of Google "favouring" its own services, but as a consumer, that's what I expect and that's why I keep using Google! I don't want links, I want answers. Bing likes to talk about being a "decision engines", but Google did it first.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#98

Post by rmrm »

martincmartin wrote: post #88
rmrm wrote: post #32

I think Google would be well served if Schmidt had a little more Steve Jobs in him. Not a lot, as I think Jobs might get so frustrated he'd melt down, but a little. Eric makes everything sound somehow slightly sinister, even when it isn't. When asked about something like maps and places the correct answer is: We realized that is what people wanted in response to their queries. We looked around, and the other map prod…

If you're asking if we favor our own maps properties, damn right we do. That sound bite would be taken out of context, and the game would be over for Google.

Isn't the fact that Google Maps appear at the top of any results page that might be location related the smoking gun evidence?

It's an obvious truth. I understand the need for diplomacy, but acknowledging the obvious and then explaining A) Why you do it, and B) Why you're entitled to do it just seems like the right answer. Or at least more right than saying you don't do it, and acting kind of ashamed about it.

Obviously I was facetious with my overly Jobsian approach, but I'd like to see a little more upfrontness about it.

Of course we do it. Here's why.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#99

Post by Volpe »

Is this not similar to "Free-to-Air" TV stations promoting their own shows rather than competing stations shows.

Seems identical given the fact they both generate revenue from advertising, are "anti-competitive", and free (to the viewer of ads)

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#100

Post by vogonj »

mrtron wrote: post #60
coderdude wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He shares the point of view of the person defending Google (she's a former anti-trust investigator?). If you can freely and instantly switch from Google to Bing then you cannot claim they have a monopoly. If you don't like Google's results there is nothing locking the consumer into Google except their own choice.

Not only can you switch instantly from Google to Bing, you can do the same with the indirect competitors such as yelp. Yelp claims Google is hurting consumers because often Yelp's results are better than what Google displays as their own Location results above. Is it really hurting a user to have to scroll slightly down? Or if Yelp's results were really better would users not go directly there or use their apps as an…

it's anti-competitive. the question is not whether it's hurting consumers directly, but whether it is stifling competition in the spaces that Google enters, which then indirectly hurts consumers -- a lack of competition, the theory goes, slows down the pace of innovation, and gives dictatorial control over a market sector to one actor. bundling IE with Windows didn't directly hurt the consumer, either (and for a long time, IE was the best browser available on Windows), but it didn't stop the DOJ from pursuing Microsoft over it.

given how steeply traffic falls off as you get farther down a SERP (see, to name the first page I found searching for "serp clickthrough", http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/understanding-google-serp-cli...), it's hard to argue that (theoretically) practices which unjustly downrank non-Google properties would not constitute anticompetitive behavior when Google has a 65%+ share of search.

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