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Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

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Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#41

Post by pjc50 »

pja wrote: post #9

It ought to have been transparently obvious to Google execs from when Google became utterly dominant in the web search space that the risk of anti-trust violations was very high and if they wanted to avoid being censured they needed to consistently take the high road & avoid using that dominance to force entry into other fields at the expense of competitors. It has always looked to me that Google was consistently ste…

The bundling issue on Android is basically what Microsoft were censured for with IE and Media Player. The real question is what happens when the competition authorities question the market for iOS apps (which is subject to arbitary veto and 30% fees).

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#42

Post by davidw »

microtonal wrote: post #36
davidw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American living in Italy, there really are more taxes and "death by a thousand cut" fees and rules here than in the US, from what I've seen. Everyone treats their Fords and Fiats well, but for smaller companies, it's all the red tape and small stuff that's most annoying, not even the overall tax level.

As an American living in Italy, there really are more taxes and "death by a thousand cut" fees and rules here than in the US, from what I've seen. I like to pay a little more tax and actually have a decent healthcare system, social security net, and retirement. One of the problems is that many of the large US corporations legally avoid tax via one of the tax havens (including my country of origin, The Netherlands). I…

This is a complex topic:

* There are taxes and taxes. Pay a % every month, simply and easily? That's not such a big deal - everyone has different tollerances and preferences, but it is what it is. Italy has lots of little, annoying taxes and gotchas, though, which take a lot of time and are irritating. For businesses, a lot of these need to be paid even if the business is not profitable (like startups!).

* Healthcare is actually more expensive in the US as a % of GDP. "Europe" wins there in my personal experience. For businesses it's easier too: no shopping around for health insurance.

* Social security changes a lot from country to country. Italy's system does not really seem to be working that well to me, though.

* Retirement. I don't trust either the Italian or US systems. I hope yours works better.

My point was mostly that it's all the small - and constant - annoyances that make life harder for a small business here in Italy.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21606293-small-b... - this kind of backs up what I said - it's not the overall level of taxation so much as the 'hassle' factor.

I would suspect that things are better in the Nordic countries, and maybe the Netherlands too.

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#43

Post by pjc50 »

microtonal wrote: post #36
davidw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American living in Italy, there really are more taxes and "death by a thousand cut" fees and rules here than in the US, from what I've seen. Everyone treats their Fords and Fiats well, but for smaller companies, it's all the red tape and small stuff that's most annoying, not even the overall tax level.

As an American living in Italy, there really are more taxes and "death by a thousand cut" fees and rules here than in the US, from what I've seen. I like to pay a little more tax and actually have a decent healthcare system, social security net, and retirement. One of the problems is that many of the large US corporations legally avoid tax via one of the tax havens (including my country of origin, The Netherlands). I…

The cost is not so much the tax, but the work that must be done in order to comply with it. This ends up as a deadweight loss.

Regulations also set the minimal viable size of a business. Small manufacturing businesses of all kinds are beset by the CE compliance requirements.

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#44

Post by eitally »

kgrin wrote: post #38
thescrewdriver wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty crazy that they currently have the power/leverage to demand that of OEMs.

And yet when they don't, people decry (accurately!) the crappiness of non-"Google Edition" phones. For years now, the only Android devices truly competitive with iPhones have been the various Nexus/Google Play Edition/etc. devices - ones where Google has taken a heavy hand and enforced a more integrated (one might say "Apple-y") experience. Indeed, early on in Android's life, Google was much more hands-off with the O…

I agreed with you until this past year. If you play with a Nexus 5 or 6, and then you handle a Galaxy S6/Note4, LG3 or HTC M8/9, the user experience of all the of the non-Nexus devices is actually quite good and the OEMs are now allowing users to either disable or remove OEM apps & skins or skin elements they don't want. Frankly, the UX of stock Android is pretty crappy in several areas, and a lot of third party ROMs & skins improve it dramatically.

The issue I have is that if you're a non-techy user and you get accustomed the "The Samsung Way", then try to switch to a different brand device, it can be very disorienting. They practically feel like different OSes in some cases.

In addition, the current Nexus devices (5/6) are pieces of crap compared to the halo phones from the big OEMs.

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#45

Post by eitally »

davidw wrote: post #42
microtonal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American living in Italy, there really are more taxes and "death by a thousand cut" fees and rules here than in the US, from what I've seen. I like to pay a little more tax and actually have a decent healthcare system, social security net, and retirement. One of the problems is that many of the large US corporations legally avoid tax via one of the tax havens (including my country of origin, The Netherlands). I…

This is a complex topic: * There are taxes and taxes. Pay a % every month, simply and easily? That's not such a big deal - everyone has different tollerances and preferences, but it is what it is. Italy has lots of little, annoying taxes and gotchas, though, which take a lot of time and are irritating. For businesses, a lot of these need to be paid even if the business is not profitable (like startups!). * Healthcare…

Brazil is exactly the same!

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#46

Post by eitally »

davidw wrote: post #42
microtonal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American living in Italy, there really are more taxes and "death by a thousand cut" fees and rules here than in the US, from what I've seen. I like to pay a little more tax and actually have a decent healthcare system, social security net, and retirement. One of the problems is that many of the large US corporations legally avoid tax via one of the tax havens (including my country of origin, The Netherlands). I…

This is a complex topic: * There are taxes and taxes. Pay a % every month, simply and easily? That's not such a big deal - everyone has different tollerances and preferences, but it is what it is. Italy has lots of little, annoying taxes and gotchas, though, which take a lot of time and are irritating. For businesses, a lot of these need to be paid even if the business is not profitable (like startups!). * Healthcare…

Brazil is exactly the same!

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#47

Post by woodpanel »

blfr wrote: post #7

Those graphs are so sad. It's all American companies competing among themselves: Twitter, Bing, DuckDuckGo... Even on our home turf, even with natural advantage (not so much in search but definitely in shopping), local competition is at the bottom, far behind Amazon and Ebay. And this doesn't seem to worry anyone here. We continue to tack on more regulation, tax rules detrimental to small businesses in their complexi…

Agree. The european problem: non-entreprenurial culture resulting in startup-prohibiting red tape. Two factors where the US beats Europe. Now combine that advantage the Americans have with the economics of scale of Software: It eats the world.

Part of that cake: Pretty much any non-downtown store in Europe.

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#48

Post by WhitneyLand »

In the software space, how much tangible benefit has antitrust actually provided to consumers?

Microsoft's power was reduced more by market shifts, failure to adapt, and unanticipated new tech than it was by monopoly sanctions.

I do believe absolute free markets are not practical, as evidenced by the fact they mostly don't exist.

However, the minimum force principle applies. For every government constraint on tech I thing it's fair to ask, is there no way the market can fix itself in 5 years? How many disruptive shifts will happen during that time?

Maybe government could help more by starting first with stronger patent reform?

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#49

Post by blumkvist »

7952 wrote: post #29
vidarh wrote: post #6

It's fascinating that their memo dismisses their search position so easily, but focuses on graphs for shopping and travel that shows them in a weak position in those areas, as either the memo is hiding their real arguments (which might not be unreasonable - given its audience and the odds it would leak), or they have not thought this through. What the graphs show is that there are a number of strong competitors in th…

Google are not actually selling things, merely offering search of retailers (who pay for the priveledge). From the consumers point of you I think this is distinctly different from what Amazon do. On the Google I see they only push Google Shopping through ads and don't appear to alter normal search results. I suppose that they could have an advantage in terms of ads over competitors, but that is the benefit they are s…

One of the stronger (in terms of product offering) competitors to google were shopping comparison sites. They dominated the search results. Then google pushed an update that pushed them down. However, the manual reviewers really liked them, so in the end, comparison sites resurfaced. Then google changed the manuals, which the reviewers used, so they had no option but to downgrade shopping comparison sites.

So, how is this not malicious altering of normal search results, so you can push out competition?

How about insurance? How about travel? How about google+ imposed on youtube? How about changing ToS of android for OEMs?

Re: Google’s Internal Response to Imminent E.U. Charges

#50

Post by blumkvist »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #48

In the software space, how much tangible benefit has antitrust actually provided to consumers? Microsoft's power was reduced more by market shifts, failure to adapt, and unanticipated new tech than it was by monopoly sanctions. I do believe absolute free markets are not practical, as evidenced by the fact they mostly don't exist. However, the minimum force principle applies. For every government constraint on tech I…

Microsoft's power was reduced because of a huge anti trust suite. It was later won on appeal, but they got the cue.
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