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Google should be broken up, say European MPs

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Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#91

Post by pjc50 »

arethuza wrote: post #50
oblio wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When debating pro-against EU, we should never forget how pre-EU Europe looked like. We've been incredibly good at killing each other. I'd pick a huge beauracracy over arms races any day of the week.

I'm not sure I'd actually call the EU a "huge bureaucracy" - it has 33 thousand staff: http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/hr_key_figures_en.pdf That's about twice as much as the Scottish Government - which is for a much smaller population.

The bureaucracy is indirect; all the regulatory requirements are implemented nationally and handled by national staff. Or impose requirements on businesses that don't correspond to enforcement staff at all, like CE marking.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#92

Post by youngtaff »

oblio wrote: post #11
vince_refiti wrote: post #6

The European Union should be broken up.

When debating pro-against EU, we should never forget how pre-EU Europe looked like. We've been incredibly good at killing each other. I'd pick a huge beauracracy over arms races any day of the week.

Yes, this often put forward as a case for why the EU is a good thing but the reality is we probably stopped killing each other because we finally had a war that was large enough to put many people off war for life.

Those who repeat the line that the EU prevented wars in Europe seem to forget what happened in the Balkans

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#93

Post by dghf »

rtpg wrote: post #88
dghf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is competition. Bing, DuckDuckGo, even Yahoo's still hanging in there. There are no technological or commercial barriers to switching search engines: no-one is making people use Google search (except I guess maybe on Android devices or Chromebooks -- I don't have and have never used either, so I don't know). People use it because either (a) it returns better results or (b) inertia. If it's (a), using it is…

I would say that the technological barrier exists for google just like with IE and MSFT: Google is the default browser in Firefox + Chrome. The IE solution was to offer an explicit browser choice in EU versions of windows. A similar one could be imagined here. The "solution" would be to disallow Google from making an exclusivity agreement with FF and to have a choice screen in Chrome. Unfortunately this would cause i…

Firefox has just switched its default search engine to Yahoo:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2850152/yahoo-dethrones-googl...

So maybe not so much harm to Mozilla.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#94

Post by CmonDev »

datashovel wrote: post #47

I kind of feel sorry for Europe, that their leaders can't see the enormous positive impact Google is having on the world. And in general I hate behemoth corporations. Google is different. The moment they start behaving like other Fortune 100 companies is the moment I stop rooting for them. There are still too many complacent monopolies in the world to break up Google. Unfortunately Google is the only one with the mon…

And of course we should change the taxation just to make them stop evading?

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#95

Post by Brakenshire »

rtpg wrote: post #30

I know a lot of people kind of scoff at the idea of breaking up Google because they happen to offer the best product, but here are the 4 points mentioned >The manner in which Google displays its own vertical search services compared with other, competing products > How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews - to include within its own services > The exclusivity Google has to sell adver…

Yeah, the idea of actually breaking up Google is in my opinion foolish, but the idea of introducing limited regulations to try to lessen the impact on other markets from its monopoly position in search, seems perfectly reasonable.

For instance, if there was a rule which legislated minimum standards for transferring services elsewhere, as per your last point, that seems to be something it would be difficult to complain about.

Also, I want to see the text of the adopted statement, because the comments in the press release, and in previous stories, have only said, to paraphrase "regulation may be necessary to unbundle search from commercial services". That doesn't scream "wants to break up the company" to me. Is that really being proposed?

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#96

Post by tomp »

rtpg wrote: post #81
matthewmacleod wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the right to publish its own services. That changes once a company becomes a monopoly, specifically because it leads to market distortion. We've got rules against this sort of thing for a reason…

I always thought that anti-trust laws kicked in when the power was abused, so to speak.

Power is abused here, though. Google is using it's monopoly/dominant market position in search to build up it's market share in maps/local/social/whatever.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#97

Post by Kudos »

aroberge wrote: post #86

I am puzzled regarding the various rants (by politicians and others) of the type "we must break up Google"... Let me mention a couple of points which I never see addressed by people pushing this idea: 1. There exists a well established protocol/convention (robots.txt) that can be used to indicate to search engines that "these pages should not be indexed", thus preventing copying content from those pages. As far as I…

I don't think they're suggesting Google search results should not display ads. They're saying Google shouldn't control the network that decides which ads get displayed.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#98

Post by datashovel »

CmonDev wrote: post #94
datashovel wrote: post #47

I kind of feel sorry for Europe, that their leaders can't see the enormous positive impact Google is having on the world. And in general I hate behemoth corporations. Google is different. The moment they start behaving like other Fortune 100 companies is the moment I stop rooting for them. There are still too many complacent monopolies in the world to break up Google. Unfortunately Google is the only one with the mon…

And of course we should change the taxation just to make them stop evading? https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

I definitely don't believe in doing illegal things. If they're doing illegal things they should be prosecuted. If what SHOULD be illegal is NOT illegal, then IMO that's on the law makers.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#99

Post by tomp »

aroberge wrote: post #86

I am puzzled regarding the various rants (by politicians and others) of the type "we must break up Google"... Let me mention a couple of points which I never see addressed by people pushing this idea: 1. There exists a well established protocol/convention (robots.txt) that can be used to indicate to search engines that "these pages should not be indexed", thus preventing copying content from those pages. As far as I…

The allegation

> How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews - to include within its own services

Has nothing to do with robots.txt - I don't know what Google does, but if it e.g. copies reviews from Yelp and includes them in Google Maps, that's not completely OK (it might benefit the users, but it also boosts Google's market share).

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#100

Post by bad_user »

adrianb wrote: post #53
rtpg wrote: post #30

I know a lot of people kind of scoff at the idea of breaking up Google because they happen to offer the best product, but here are the 4 points mentioned >The manner in which Google displays its own vertical search services compared with other, competing products > How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews - to include within its own services > The exclusivity Google has to sell adver…

> First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the right to publish its own services. Microsoft was forced to include a browser choice screen and not use IE by default on Windows computers sold in the EU. The same happens here - you have different responsibilities when you're in a dominant position.

Problem is Microsoft is no longer dominating the market of operating systems, especially if you're counting mobile devices and absolutely every OS now comes with a bundled browser that you cannot uninstall. So apparently, if the US would have decided to break Microsoft, it would have been a huge mistake, potentially killing a big software company that was disrupted by newer technology anyway.

So you know, abusive companies should be punished. But lets be honest here, politicians are targeting the likes of Microsoft, Google or Apple not for our own good, but because they see a huge pie that isn't theirs and want a piece of it, with people forgetting that these companies have defined the huge markets they are dominating in.

And I'm saying this as a European citizen that had plenty of diatribes against all 3 companies mentioned here - but I do not believe in government interventions when it comes to software and yes, I don't believe in net neutrality either.

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