The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
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The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
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Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#2"The court rejected the notion that additional data increases the barriers to competitive entry, and indicated that this issue “requires closer examination and a detailed explanation/review and conclusive presentation by the antitrust authorities.”"
Maybe someone who knows more about this topic could clarify but this suggests that the court believes network effects and scale don't affect the barrier to entry? (pending further reviews)
I would be very interested in learning more about how they came to this decision as from what I've seen a number of large tech products (e.g. youtube) only seem to become feasible at extreme scale.
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#3I would suggest that monopolies in one area are not that harmful in tech because tech changes so rapidly that monopolies are quickly undermined by "the next thing". What's damaging is when tech companies have a monopoly in one area that they leverage to extend their monopoly into "the next thing". Famous example is Windows bundling Internet Explorer. Google is now doing this kind of thing... Example... Google used to allow businesses to add their own SMS capable number to their "My Business" profile to allow customers to message them. They have since removed that option pending the release of their own API for messaging. They are using their monopoly in search to extend their power into communication. This harms the businesses (like mine) that were assisting companies with this messaging and that harm generates damages. The way for the legal system to stop these monopolies indefinite expansion is to find the actual places where they are restricting competition/innovation and generating monetary harm to others in the process... point out these issues and make them change their behavior, pay or both. If you disagree I'm interested in how you think the power of these tech giants can be constrained?
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#4"The court rejected the notion that additional data increases the barriers to competitive entry, and indicated that this issue “requires closer examination and a detailed explanation/review and conclusive presentation by the antitrust authorities.”" Maybe someone who knows more about this topic could clarify but this suggests that the court believes network effects and scale don't affect the barrier to entry? (pendin…
So I strongly disagreed with that finding, but two possible lines of reasoning:
1) Say you have a machine learning algorithm, where there could be two ways to improve the outcomes: get more data, or pick a better model. Google's massive dataset is a benefit/competitive moat of sorts to its search algorithm, but _in theory_ you could build a better algorithm or model. You can see some evidence of this in vertical specific searches (i.e. travel, shopping, etc.) and in DuckDuckGo's success.
2) The other refrain I hear a lot is that this additional data is not "zero-sum" - i.e. multiple apps can collect my location data or email or [insert data point here,] and I can onboard or offboard that data pretty easily. Therefore this data isn't a limited resource that can be hoarded like a true competitive moat.
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#5I would suggest that monopolies in one area are not that harmful in tech because tech changes so rapidly that monopolies are quickly undermined by "the next thing". What's damaging is when tech companies have a monopoly in one area that they leverage to extend their monopoly into "the next thing". Famous example is Windows bundling Internet Explorer. Google is now doing this kind of thing... Example... Google used to…
> companies have a monopoly in one area that they leverage to extend their monopoly into "the next thing."
This is also illegal in the States for being anti-competitive. e.g. if you have a dominant market position in one market, and leverage that to enter another market and/or gain market share, this tends to be the source of many Sherman cases.
Ex: Company X is a monopoly in market A but wants to enter market B. If I use extracted rents from A to significantly undercut prices below competitive level in market B to gain share, even if it's unprofitable in the short term - THAT's a problem.
Note that startups don't get as much scrutiny when they do this, partly because it's very rare for a startup to have dominant market share.
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#6"The court rejected the notion that additional data increases the barriers to competitive entry, and indicated that this issue “requires closer examination and a detailed explanation/review and conclusive presentation by the antitrust authorities.”" Maybe someone who knows more about this topic could clarify but this suggests that the court believes network effects and scale don't affect the barrier to entry? (pendin…
So I strongly disagreed with that finding, but two possible lines of reasoning: 1) Say you have a machine learning algorithm, where there could be two ways to improve the outcomes: get more data, or pick a better model. Google's massive dataset is a benefit/competitive moat of sorts to its search algorithm, but _in theory_ you could build a better algorithm or model. You can see some evidence of this in vertical spec…
(1) seems to strongly model how Google originally entered an already-packed search engine market and came to be the dominant ecosystem player.
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#7Always useful to keep in mind in discussions of monopoly: there is a big philosophical gap regarding why one might care a monopoly exists, and that gap can guide thinking on the topic in subtle ways.
American law tends to center around harm to consumers. By that reasoning, it can be hard to prove a market with a single player is actually anticompetitive if that player isn't muscling out better options for consumers from the space (i.e. if they corner 90% of the market because they really do offer the best value at the lowest price, who cares).
European laws tend to center around the philosophical core that the market should be a level playing field for producers or vendors, so even if all other choices than the dominant player are worse for consumers, the market needs to stay competitive so that business firms don't die and put a bunch of people out of jobs.
It's useful to know where someone is coming from in considering topics like this.
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#8Always useful to keep in mind in discussions of monopoly: there is a big philosophical gap regarding why one might care a monopoly exists, and that gap can guide thinking on the topic in subtle ways. American law tends to center around harm to consumers. By that reasoning, it can be hard to prove a market with a single player is actually anticompetitive if that player isn't muscling out better options for consumers f…
> American law tends to center around harm to consumers. By that reasoning, it can be hard to prove a market with a single player is actually anticompetitive if that player isn't muscling out better options for consumers from the space.
I think censorship changes the equation a lot. Because of the right of free association, a company can choose to favor a side of the political spectrum. This is not problematic in the absence of a monopoly as there will likely be a diverse range of companies, and new companies can enter that cater to one side or the other.
However, if a company is a monopoly with a huge barrier to entry because of network effects and/or data, it can be argued that the monopoly is harmful to consumers on the other side of the political spectrum because they will not get the chance to promote their views.
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#9Always useful to keep in mind in discussions of monopoly: there is a big philosophical gap regarding why one might care a monopoly exists, and that gap can guide thinking on the topic in subtle ways. American law tends to center around harm to consumers. By that reasoning, it can be hard to prove a market with a single player is actually anticompetitive if that player isn't muscling out better options for consumers f…
The consumers for Google are advertisers.
Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry
#10“[The court] found that consumers were not harmed by Facebook, which had informed them about data use practices in a lengthy terms of service agreement when they registered as users. “There is no evidence that Facebook obtains the consent of users through coercion, pressure, exploitation of lack of willpower or otherwise unfair means.” “
The court seems to have ignored the cases in which consent is never obtained. Shadow profiling is still happening isn’t it?