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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

#71

Post by kbwt »

I don't think Google should be allowed to get away with clauses like this one from their developer agreement:

  4.5 Non-Compete.
    You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any
    Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution
    of software applications and games for use on Android devices
    outside of the Market.
See: https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_us/about/developer-distribu...

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

#72

Post by zby »

woodpanel wrote: post #47
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.

The USA subsidies high-tech via military spending. This is not just a Chomsky theory - it has been on Hacker News a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8980498 (direct: http://steveblank.com/secret-history/)

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

#73

Post by exelius »

ankitml wrote: post #68
exelius wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, and a large reason of that is the open source nature of Android coupled with the fact that Google services don't cost end users anything in most cases. Also, Google's goal in this is to commoditize an adjacent market (mobile hardware) - which is as good for consumers as it is for Google. There was an argument for antitrust when Google was making hardware under Motorola, and my hunch is that Google diveste…

that doesnt make sense. There is a midway between forcing google services and no google services allowed, which is optional google services. SO if samsung can become dominant vendor by creating their own services the others can still go with google. This is a win for consumers who now have no choice but to go with google services.

That's how it is now. If Samsung wanted to create its own ecosystem, Google isn't stopping them. Samsung would just need their own app store as well. I don't think they seriously had any intention of doing so, so they signed the agreement.

The thing is, the Google Play Store is more than just an app store, it's an entire ecosystem of apps and libraries that are guaranteed to be there and synchronized across the device. If you make Google services optional, then developers can't rely on their presence and would have to develop against multiple APIs. You'd get into a situation where an app would work on one manufacturer's device and not on another, and the platform would likely crumble over time as the user experience would pale in comparison to the tightly integrated iPhone.

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

#74

Post by exelius »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #69
exelius wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, and a large reason of that is the open source nature of Android coupled with the fact that Google services don't cost end users anything in most cases. Also, Google's goal in this is to commoditize an adjacent market (mobile hardware) - which is as good for consumers as it is for Google. There was an argument for antitrust when Google was making hardware under Motorola, and my hunch is that Google diveste…

But it's not a competitive handset market. Google has gotten all of them agreed not to compete with Google on OS, apps, and services, which they've all fallen in line with, and barely if at all compete with each other. (You'll notice they all do anti-Apple marketing, but no other Android OEM has ever done an ad against Samsung, for instance.)

The market would be even less competitive without Google. It would just be Apple and Samsung. Having multiple OEMs selling similar products is definitely a good thing: if Samsung starts to ship terrible products, another OEM can step in and users don't face a huge learning curve. We already have one vertically-integrated vendor in Apple, the market needs an "open" option as well if we want a healthy marketplace.

And they absolutely compete against each other. They just don't do it in public because there are more effective ways of competing.

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

#75

Post by ocdtrekkie »

exelius wrote: post #74
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not a competitive handset market. Google has gotten all of them agreed not to compete with Google on OS, apps, and services, which they've all fallen in line with, and barely if at all compete with each other. (You'll notice they all do anti-Apple marketing, but no other Android OEM has ever done an ad against Samsung, for instance.)

The market would be even less competitive without Google. It would just be Apple and Samsung. Having multiple OEMs selling similar products is definitely a good thing: if Samsung starts to ship terrible products, another OEM can step in and users don't face a huge learning curve. We already have one vertically-integrated vendor in Apple, the market needs an "open" option as well if we want a healthy marketplace. And…

I disagree. We have no idea how HTC, Motorola, Sony, LG, and others would've approached the market without Google. It's nearly impossible to say with any degree of accuracy.

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

#76

Post by ocdtrekkie »

exelius wrote: post #73
ankitml wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that doesnt make sense. There is a midway between forcing google services and no google services allowed, which is optional google services. SO if samsung can become dominant vendor by creating their own services the others can still go with google. This is a win for consumers who now have no choice but to go with google services.

That's how it is now. If Samsung wanted to create its own ecosystem, Google isn't stopping them. Samsung would just need their own app store as well. I don't think they seriously had any intention of doing so, so they signed the agreement. The thing is, the Google Play Store is more than just an app store, it's an entire ecosystem of apps and libraries that are guaranteed to be there and synchronized across the devic…

They are stopping Samsung from making it's own ecosystem. By forcing Google apps on Samsung devices, Samsung isn't able to develop their own competing ecosystem without also marketing Google's ecosystem simultaneously. So unless Samsung can compete with all Google products all at once, Samsung can't compete.

Developers having to do real work is irrelevant, because developers are not the goal of antitrust law. Antitrust law is about protecting consumers, and if developers have to do more work because of it, so be it. If the EU's new limits on Google after this case causes their infrastructure to collapse or become unfeasible, that's Google's problem to solve. These are technical issues, not legal ones, and have no place in this discussion.

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

#77

Post by vidarh »

fromtheoutside wrote: post #21
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…

> It's fascinating that their memo dismisses their search position so easily, but focuses on graphs for shopping and travel that shows ... The (current) EU charges only target Google Shopping and the placement of Googles own products in relation to competitors.

That was exactly what I assumed when I wrote my comment.

The point is that the issue that is relevant to whether or not their behaviour falls afoul of EU anti-trust rules is whether or not they have a monopoly position for search, and whether or not they are using such a monopoly position to expand their reach in the shopping space, not whether or not Google Shopping faces competition or currently does well.

If anything, the fact that Google Shopping faces stiff competition makes their alleged attempt to leverage their search position to expand its reach more serious, as there is an existing market they may hurt through anti-competitive practices.

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

#78

Post by chatmasta »

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…

> searches on Amazon and Ebay and others should also be included in any assessment of search market share

Thanks, this is an interesting point. Search users fit into different profiles based on context. Marketers have known this for a while, as different keywords target users in research mode, ready-to-purchase mode, review mode, etc. Buyers searching for "best blue widgets" have different intent than "cheap blue widgets" or "buy Acme blue widgets".

Specific engines like Yelp, ebay, Amazon target users in specific contexts, but google targets general contexts. Why should Google avoid improving searches for specific queries if it has the technical ability to do so?

I suppose the question is, did Google overstep boundaries in the way it improved search results for specific contexts? Did Google violate antitrust laws by scraping content from these context-specific engines, then effectively saying "if you don't like it, we'll stop, but you can't use our search engine" (Yelp). [0]

[0] http://bit.ly/1ILbpMb (non-paywalled WSJ article via Google search, ironically enough)

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

#79

Post by exelius »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #76
exelius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how it is now. If Samsung wanted to create its own ecosystem, Google isn't stopping them. Samsung would just need their own app store as well. I don't think they seriously had any intention of doing so, so they signed the agreement. The thing is, the Google Play Store is more than just an app store, it's an entire ecosystem of apps and libraries that are guaranteed to be there and synchronized across the devic…

They are stopping Samsung from making it's own ecosystem. By forcing Google apps on Samsung devices, Samsung isn't able to develop their own competing ecosystem without also marketing Google's ecosystem simultaneously. So unless Samsung can compete with all Google products all at once, Samsung can't compete. Developers having to do real work is irrelevant, because developers are not the goal of antitrust law. Antitru…

They are technical issues that become competitive issues because of the presence of a strong, vertically integrated competitor. And I highly doubt Samsung's ability to create a competitive ecosystem; they have had the chance across a number of product categories and failed.

Developers having to do work is absolutely a competitive issue: it's erecting a barrier to entry through regulation because it drives up the cost of developing an Android app. For many developers, it would likely drive the cost beyond the point of feasibility.

And the market is likely at the point where even if the restrictions were relaxed, companies wouldn't take advantage of them because the market has already settled on Google and Apple. But if they were relaxed, it would likely be the end of Google's support of AOSP, which would further hamper the ability of OEMs to develop their own platforms / ecosystems.

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

#80

Post by vidarh »

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…

The competitors that are allegedly being hurt by their preferential treatment here are not selling things either - they are comparison shopping sites.

It is not the consumers this anti-trust action is intended to protect, but those competitors of Google Shopping. The presumption of a lot of anti-trust law is that protecting competition is in the long term public interest that outweigh short term impact on consumers. Some anti-trust actions are motivated by direct consumer interest, but most is motivated by preventing anti-competitive practices by a monopolist from harming competitors.

If competitors of Google Shopping are treated fairly in terms of search results, and can buy the same kind of position that Google Shopping can (I don't think they can), then there would be no issue.

My point in terms of Amazon is not that Amazon search isn't different to Google - clearly they are, though they too have paid third party results on their pages.

My point is that to Google it's their search dominance they need to downplay, not the relatively market position of Google Shopping. Giving their own business preferential treatment is perfectly legal if they're not in a monopoly position. The moment they're found to have a monopoly position, a lot of forms of preferential treatment becomes illegal anti-competitive practices.

They can beat this in two ways: By convincing the EU or EU courts that they do not have a search monopoly, or convincing the EU that they are not giving Google Shopping preferential treatment. The latter I think would be extremely hard given how Google Shopping results are positioned.

The way they can not beat this is by talking about how there's a lot of competition in comparison shopping. If anything, that gives the EU Commission a stronger reason to act on allegations of anti-competitive behaviour, as it means there are Google competitors that may be harmed by any anti-competitive behaviour that might be occurring.

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