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European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

bbc.co.uk

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Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#71

Post by silveira »

sfrank2147 wrote: post #58

A monopoly should be defined by barriers to entry, not just market share. There's nothing preventing other large companies from entering the search space, and in fact many of them have (yahoo, microsoft, etc). There are true monopolistic firms like Comcast or Time Warner, where there are serious logistic/economic barriers preventing other firms from entering the market. This doesn't seem like one of them to me.

Logistic/economic and most importantly, legal. ISP have deals with local governments to have monopolies.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#72

Post by lnanek2 »

I don't think they have the power, but they can impose regulations and fines Google would have to pay to do business in their area. I think it would be great for the ecosystem if Google was no longer allowed to put their own products at the top of search results. Google Finance ahead of Yahoo Stocks, etc..

Right now Google uses their power to direct traffic to unfairly compete in a lot of areas, so consumers don't get the best product. Looking at web metrics, often 90% of the traffic to a web site is from Google, and companies live or die based on that traffic. So unfairly placing your own products above others kills them.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#73

Post by ouiya »

Well, they are the only 'convicted patent troll' in the right definition of the term: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/06/apple-google-motorol...

Using SEPs for suing others is wrong. Google has learning marketing ploys from IBM, place ads in influential tech blogs, get lots of good PR, the same blogs will call anyone a patent troll but Google.

And because I know this will come up- Patents are not evil- the system is broken sure, people misuse trivial patents, but at the same time, people who put hard work in their work need to be rewarded (for meaningful patents). If I'm an academician and I've spent 5 years coming up in my life with something innovative that would otherwise have taken a lot of time, then I should have the option to sell it to someone who is better equipped to monetize it. It's like an author hiring a publisher. So patent consortiums are not trolls, they are like publishers. Google is because they misused SEPs.

Sidenote: I'm against those kiddish patents that are just about 'describing at technique in which x y z'. I feel the patent overhaul should involve the FTC creating a team that would decide the 'year' validity of a patent, and companies having to pay for it. That notwithstanding, Google is a troll. And just because it gives out free stuff, you guys like it.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#74

Post by comboy »

patrickk wrote: post #47
comboy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in minority, but with all VCs funding available today I just don't get any anti-monopoly laws. Adsense didn't work for you and you are unhappy with the experience. Does some other company solution works better for you? Then switch. If it doesn't then adsense is giving you the best value for your money and I see no reason for inefficient governments to interfere with how efficient companies function. edit: I don't…

> ... with all VCs funding available today I just don't get any anti-monopoly laws. Are you implying that there is a sum of money that could dislodge Googles stranglehold on the search (and therefore search advertising) market? Look at Microsofts efforts with showering Bing with money. If VCs could back a potential Google-killer, what is the chance that it could resist becoming swallowed by Google once the threat was…

ad1. I'm implying it's much easier with VC. But you surely cannot beat Google trying to do exactly what they are doing. With enough innovation, yes I think you can. Google used to be a small company too. As long as there is a freedom of choice for customer all giants fall once they are bad enough.

Of course there is advantage in being big, apart from the technology. But that advantage comes from many many people choosing this technology over other options.

ad2. No other platform comes close so let's make it worse so that other ones are closer? I know you think you don't want to make it worse but to improve it. But that's your, or some government opinion. And these opinions are not what led to this dominance. It's quite possible that being led by those opinions it would never succeed, and some other, worse platform would be dominant.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#75

Post by Karunamon »

DannyBee wrote: post #67
vdaniuk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflict of interest is very real and full disclosure should be a norm in the community powered media with so much influence on tech industry.

What? Everyone on HN works for someone. I am not my company. Google has plenty of views i don't agree with, and I have plenty of views they don't agree with. If you believe comments on HN (or almost anywhere else) should have conflict of interest disclosures, you may as well shut it all down. Everything here is opinions of people, presented as opinions of people.

It's really not that hard to understand that someone making comments about a company they are paid by should call that out.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#76

Post by wfjackson »

DannyBee wrote: post #67
vdaniuk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflict of interest is very real and full disclosure should be a norm in the community powered media with so much influence on tech industry.

What? Everyone on HN works for someone. I am not my company. Google has plenty of views i don't agree with, and I have plenty of views they don't agree with. If you believe comments on HN (or almost anywhere else) should have conflict of interest disclosures, you may as well shut it all down. Everything here is opinions of people, presented as opinions of people.

The problem is that you're unwilling to apply that same logic to Ben Edelman and pretty much call him a paid shill. At least the commenter you were replying to noted the potential conflict of interest, unlike you.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#77

Post by DannyBee »

wfjackson wrote: post #76
DannyBee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Everyone on HN works for someone. I am not my company. Google has plenty of views i don't agree with, and I have plenty of views they don't agree with. If you believe comments on HN (or almost anywhere else) should have conflict of interest disclosures, you may as well shut it all down. Everything here is opinions of people, presented as opinions of people.

The problem is that you're unwilling to apply that same logic to Ben Edelman and pretty much call him a paid shill. At least the commenter you were replying to noted the potential conflict of interest, unlike you.

Because it's not the same?

Ben publishes pieces in newspapers, journals, and testimony, and pretends they are objective while being paid by companies to write them.

If you think this is the same as me or anyone else commenting on HN about their personal opinions, i'm not sure what to tell you.

When I start submitting congressional testimony on behalf of google, and we start talking about it on HN, i'll happily note that i wrote it.

(In the same way when we talked about Google code.google.com, i happily noted i worked on it)

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#78

Post by Oletros »

ouiya wrote: post #73

Well, they are the only 'convicted patent troll' in the right definition of the term: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/06/apple-google-motorol... Using SEPs for suing others is wrong. Google has learning marketing ploys from IBM, place ads in influential tech blogs, get lots of good PR, the same blogs will call anyone a patent troll but Google. And because I know this will come up- Patents are not evil- the syste…

> Using SEPs for suing others is wrong.

Source for that?

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#79

Post by pluma »

tomp wrote: post #35
byEngineer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And NOBODY would even dare to think to treat Russian monopolies like that. Monopolies that actually are a real threat to Europe. Like Gazprom.

Well... right now, Europe pretty much depends on Gazprom et al. They are working fast trying to introduce alternatives (gas from US, new gas pipes under the Mediterranean and from the middle east, fracking in the UK), but there is a long way to go.

They spent years not introducing alternatives and instead become even further reliant on Russian gas.

... until the mess in the Ukraine started and they had to choose between Russia and the US (again).

(insert snark about replacing one reliance with another via TTIP)

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#80

Post by Karunamon »

snuxoll wrote: post #68
psykovsky wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which customer service are you talking about?

The only real customer service Google has is for active AdWords advertisers, if you are on the AdSense side or an end-user of any of its other services then good luck getting any real assistance from them. Microsoft has amazing customer service in comparison for its Live services, which is saying a LOT.

Pay for an Apps account. This gets you a live person to talk to and an SLA. Even if it's just one account on your personal domain (cost: $5/month), that alone makes it worth it.

Shockingly, Google allocates their CS to people who pay for their service.

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