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Google should be broken up, say European MPs

bbc.com

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Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#141

Post by xtrumanx »

kaolinite wrote: post #131
xtrumanx wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but those users aren't stuck on Google and can easily move on to Google. Also why have you restricted yourself to advertising on search engines? It's like complaining that if I'm advertising on basketball games and I don't have my adverts on NBA games then I'm missing out on 90% of people who watch basketball games. Should we break up the NBA? By the way, I don't mean to be argumentative. The closest reason I co…

This is nothing to do with the users. The entire reason this has come up is because Google is allegedly using their monopoly to place their products above the products of other companies. Users aren't locked in but website-owners/advertisers are. This is a problem they can't get away from, switching provider just isn't an option. Your NBA example doesn't really work because it's missing the abuse of power (not really…

I think I've figured out the reason I don't see this the way you do; I believe Apple has the right to alter the search results of their App Store because it's their freaking store.

Guess the only solution to this problem is to have some sort of legislation decreeing whether the Google's actions is legal or illegal.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#142

Post by tomjen3 »

tomp wrote: post #96
rtpg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

No, search is also for things like positions, local businesses, etc. And no I don't want to be prompted to customize my google experience by choosing any of X providers for maps, etc. I want the answer to my gooddam search query, stat.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#143

Post by gpjt »

mbel wrote: post #107
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…

> But there is competition. Bing, DuckDuckGo, even Yahoo's still hanging in there. Only if you are English speaker and are looking for English sites (which is the case only for minority of Europeans). Apart form Google other search engines are localized either poorly or not at all.

Sounds like a market opportunity for someone. In Russia there is Yandex, in China there is Baidu. The EU has a larger population and much higher GDP (~market size?) than Russia, and a higher GDP than China. (Actually, a higher GDP than the US, according to Wikipedia.)

Even if we have to break it down by language, Germany, France, and the UK have larger GDPs than Russia. Italy's not far behind.

So why is there no European competitor -- or multiple EU competitors -- to Google?

(Apart from the obvious snarky "someone might start one but then they'd have to worry about being hamstrung by EU Parliament resolutions once they got too powerful" reason -- Russia and China are hardly bastions of libertarian capitalism.)

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#144

Post by Tiksi »

kyrra wrote: post #138
Tiksi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally go to https://news.ycombinator.com/active when I'm in the mood for discussions over articles, and this is currently #1 there.

Thank you, I didn't know about this feature of HN. Bookmarked for future reading. How did you find out about it, I'm not seeing it linked from the places I'd expect.

There was a post about it some time back. I've always wondered why it's not linked anywhere.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#145

Post by kaolinite »

xtrumanx wrote: post #141
kaolinite wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nothing to do with the users. The entire reason this has come up is because Google is allegedly using their monopoly to place their products above the products of other companies. Users aren't locked in but website-owners/advertisers are. This is a problem they can't get away from, switching provider just isn't an option. Your NBA example doesn't really work because it's missing the abuse of power (not really…

I think I've figured out the reason I don't see this the way you do; I believe Apple has the right to alter the search results of their App Store because it's their freaking store. Guess the only solution to this problem is to have some sort of legislation decreeing whether the Google's actions is legal or illegal.

I actually lean more towards your way of thinking - I'm just trying to explain how the EU feels and why they're doing it.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#146

Post by barsoap »

fafner wrote: post #137
probably_wrong wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how Google gets away with the second point for non-CC'd material. This is how I've been told it went by in Germany: there was a law drafted[1] that said publishers should get compensation for snippets of their articles in search results. This was a law apparently drafted directly in response to Google's practices. So Google sent a letter to most publishers, asking for royalty-free access to their conten…

This law makes me angry. How could have anybody been so stupid? Did the publishers really think Google would just hand them over money? Google announced even before it passed that they'd drop the content. They underestimated what power Google has and if they drop you from the index then you lose not them. Now they are all handing over royalty-free access to Google. But all other companies and people still have to pay…

> How could have anybody been so stupid?

We are talking about the people publishing "Bild", here. It's not actually about being stupid, it's about being blinded by their own evilness.

Would you expect anything different from, say, Murdoch?

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#147

Post by throwawayaway »

kjjw wrote: post #49
throwawayaway wrote: post #10

If they actually knew what they were talking about, they would be voting to decentralize the internet, not break Google up. I don't think trying to break up Microsoft or fine them for bundling internet explorer achieved a whole lot. They are looking at the problem the wrong way.

'Decentralising the internet', if considering the web as an important part of that, pretty much is an effort to break apart Google. Google is a centralised web made reality.

Disagree. Not everything that works without or around Google is an effort to break apart Google.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#148

Post by barsoap »

vince_refiti wrote: post #23
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.

Don't they still subsidize their agricultural sector, and dump stuff on the international markets and hurt non-EU farmers? I consider that to be very uncompetitive.

It's not nearly as bad as it was when payout was still strictly by production. Nowadays, farmers are paid to let fields fall fallow so there's no insane overproduction, hence less market crashing abroad.

Some sort of CAP is a necessity: The point is to keep local farmers in business as to keep local production capacity (not necessarily production) alive so that when shit hits the fan when it comes to imports, Europeans won't starve.

Yes, there should be further fixes. But it's much better than in the past, and I think the fishing policy should be dealt with first.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#149

Post by meowface »

bad_user wrote: post #100
adrianb wrote: post #53

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. 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 com…

I believe net neutrality is important because telcos are not the same as software companies. Anyone can theoretically compete with a software company; if you're a telco with billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and you're the only option for a huge chunk of the country, the only people who even have a chance of competing are companies of similar size (like Google).

For many people in the US, they're completely stuck with Comcast or Verizon and likely will be for decades to come (Google Fiber's complete roll out will obviously take a very long time). They either have to move, or suck it up.

Re: Google should be broken up, say European MPs

#150

Post by Oletros »

agd wrote: post #7

> Google has around 90% market share for search in Europe It's a complete monopoly and the barrier to entry is huge. Might be a good thing to break them up.

> It's a complete monopoly and the barrier to entry is huge. Might be a good thing to break them up.

The actual vote is for breaking ALL the search engines, despite of the size or if they have abused or not.

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