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The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

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Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#221

Post by joe_the_user »

jitl wrote: post #3
account-5 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is won and followed by similar for all other tech monopolies: Amazon, apple, meta, Microsoft, etc.

Google has 95% of search market, but none of the other examples have 95% of anything. What are Amazon, Apple, Microsoft’s monopolies? They all have substantial competitors across their various verticals. Amazon: Walmart (goods), Netflix (media) Microsoft: Apple (OS), Google, Amazon (enterprise compute) Apple: Microsoft (O, services), Samsung (mobile), Google (mobile, services), Netflix (media)

Amazon: Walmart (goods), Netflix (media)

Walmart and Amazon are both huge but it seems just wrong to say a brick-and-mortar store as equivalent to an online market place. The direct competitors to Amazon are Ebay, Baidu, Etsy, Temu and others, all of which are much smaller in the US (but some are huge elsewhere). You say that Facebook is a Google competitor because it offers eyeballs and because people sometimes go there to get stuff and it uses it's info for ads providing.

The actual situation imo is that online enterprises compete via monopolistic competition [1]. No large high tech company wants to offer exactly the same thing as it's because at best neither will make a lot of money - instead, any company entering a crowded marketplace will come up with something guaranteeing them more engagement, higher profits and so-forth (thus something even worse from the consumer's view). See Meta's Threads.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#222

Post by jahewson »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #198
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #187

I appreciate the passion Matt Stoller brings to antitrust issues but his analyses are not good on the economics, to say the very least. I agree that some of google’s conduct is very questionable. It’s not obvious to me that paying to be the default search product is pro-competitive. On the other hand, the case that Google is going to make (and which I think is going to be really hard for the government to overcome) i…

Look, I’m not informed or an expert here, but if it’s being given away for free, then the search itself is not the “product”. The way I understand it, Google’s monopoly is over the ad market. Stoller wrote a book on the subject which I never properly got through in its entirety, but it included a deep dive on what a monopoly is. You are correct - market share is not an anti-trust violation in it’s own. My assumption…

There’s a 2nd, later case where the DoJ is suing Google over their ad network:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl...

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#223

Post by arrosenberg »

saalweachter wrote: post #196
lordnacho wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about buying the default search from Apple? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong but I seem to recall they pay a lot of money for that.

What outcome are you hoping for here? Google can't pay to be the default search engine on a browser, no one can pay to be the default search engine on a browser, no one can be the default search engine on a browser, or just Google can't be the default search engine on a browser?

1 and 2. Google as the overwhelmingly dominant player should not be allowed to pay to further monopolize the space, and since Microsoft is the alternative, I would support banning paid defaults in general.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#224

Post by jahewson »

hgs3 wrote: post #96

Antitrust laws are too reactive. We need proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria. Ideally, the criteria would be aggressive enough to kill large corporations leaving behind only small to medium-sized businesses. The result would be markets with increased competition, more innovation, lower prices, more options for employment and self-employment, and the elimination of Big Co…

This gets you cartels, where the top players collude.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#225

Post by [deleted] »

xcdzvyn wrote: post #202
shadowgovt wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a government creating a search engine as a public service. ... Oh wait, that's actually a great idea and I want to see that happen.

I, personally, am very, _very_ glad my country doesn't oblige me to use a state-sponsored search engine. Baidu "六四事件"[0] to find out more! [0] "June Fourth incident", the Chinese name for the Tiananmen square massacre. Other banned search terms include "candle", "never forget", and the numbers 25 and 64.

[deleted]

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#226

Post by candiddevmike »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #187

I appreciate the passion Matt Stoller brings to antitrust issues but his analyses are not good on the economics, to say the very least. I agree that some of google’s conduct is very questionable. It’s not obvious to me that paying to be the default search product is pro-competitive. On the other hand, the case that Google is going to make (and which I think is going to be really hard for the government to overcome) i…

It's not free, but you aren't paying money for it.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#227

Post by summerlight »

hgs3 wrote: post #96

Antitrust laws are too reactive. We need proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria. Ideally, the criteria would be aggressive enough to kill large corporations leaving behind only small to medium-sized businesses. The result would be markets with increased competition, more innovation, lower prices, more options for employment and self-employment, and the elimination of Big Co…

> We need proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria.

Even assuming that this is a good idea, this have an unnecessary risk of being unconstitutional and getting scrapped by the justices. If you want to limit property rights in this fundamental way, that has to be based on a very strong judicial basis. That's why almost all reasonable antitrust regulation happens in a reactive way, because it has to prove that those regulated entities are actually doing something harmful.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#228

Post by paulryanrogers »

saalweachter wrote: post #196
lordnacho wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about buying the default search from Apple? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong but I seem to recall they pay a lot of money for that.

What outcome are you hoping for here? Google can't pay to be the default search engine on a browser, no one can pay to be the default search engine on a browser, no one can be the default search engine on a browser, or just Google can't be the default search engine on a browser?

Legally enforced ballot with random default if users click through without reading. Same for browsers themselves.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#229

Post by arrosenberg »

summerlight wrote: post #227
hgs3 wrote: post #96

Antitrust laws are too reactive. We need proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria. Ideally, the criteria would be aggressive enough to kill large corporations leaving behind only small to medium-sized businesses. The result would be markets with increased competition, more innovation, lower prices, more options for employment and self-employment, and the elimination of Big Co…

> We need proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria. Even assuming that this is a good idea, this have an unnecessary risk of being unconstitutional and getting scrapped by the justices. If you want to limit property rights in this fundamental way, that has to be based on a very strong judicial basis. That's why almost all reasonable antitrust regulation happens in a reactive…

The constitution says nothing adverse to regulating entities that are not actively doing harm (though I disagree). Congress can write any standard they want into law if you get the right legislators in a room.

Antitrust is reactive because consolidation is a slow burn and it takes a while for a critical mass of voters to feel the problem. Thats why Obama and Biden have taken completely different approaches, despite being ideologically similar.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#230

Post by asah »

bbor wrote: post #45
offtwit wrote: post #25

It sounds like this is only about google search. How can that be broken up? Or are they just going to get fined many billions of dollars and they lose their right to being the default search engine on iPhones?

The author is just focusing on this aspect bc that’s this case, but there’s multiple ongoing. E.g. there’s one about monopolistic practices in the online ad business. Specifically here: How does Google lock out rivals? Well, it pays $45 billion a year to have distributors refuse to carry its competitor’s products, signing deals with “Apple, LG, Motorola, and Samsung; major U.S. wireless carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobil…

Refuse to carry? Or just not the default?
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