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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

#11

Post by unlinked_dll »

scarface74 wrote: post #9
shadowgovt wrote: post #7

Always 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.

"customers" != "consumers" in American vernacular, at least not when talking about business.

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#12

Post by djyaz1200 »

s3r3nity wrote: post #5
djyaz1200 wrote: post #3

I 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…

It's not even that they are using "extracted rents from A to significantly undercut prices below competitive level in market B to gain share" they are locking us and other companies out of the market altogether. This is a crime and it's happening right now.

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#13

Post by shadowgovt »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8
shadowgovt wrote: post #7

Always 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…

The thing is, if Google decides to favor a side and Bing doesn't, Bing search is just a click away. And if consumers value a politically-unbiased (or other-biased) opinion, they can migrate to Bing, right?

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#14

Post by scarface74 »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #11
scarface74 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consumers for Google are advertisers.

"customers" != "consumers" in American vernacular, at least not when talking about business.

A quick Google lookup for the definition of “consumer”

a person who purchases goods and services for personal use.

And definition of “customer”

a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business.

In both cases the consumer or customer is the person paying. Who is paying and what is the “product”?

I hate to go back to the tired saying but, the people who search on Google are the “product” that Google is selling to the customer - the advertiser.

Why would anyone expect Google to optimize for anyone else except for the paying customer/consumer?

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#15

Post by unlinked_dll »

scarface74 wrote: post #14
unlinked_dll wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"customers" != "consumers" in American vernacular, at least not when talking about business.

A quick Google lookup for the definition of “consumer” a person who purchases goods and services for personal use. And definition of “customer” a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business. In both cases the consumer or customer is the person paying. Who is paying and what is the “product”? I hate to go back to the tired saying but, the people who search on Google are the “product” th…

That's why I said in "American vernacular" because it's not the dictionary definition. Typically businesses/regulators distinguish between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions, the former is what you're describing, the latter is what OP is describing, and relates to any transaction between a business and an individual. it's also why we have markets like "consumer electronics" which refers to products sold to individuals, ie "consumers", and not industrial/business sectors.

I don't want to argue semantics though, since it's very clear to any native English speaker what "consumer" means in the context of regulation - it means individuals, not businesses. I get that the connotation of the word may be lost in translation, and that's what I was getting at.

In addition, "payment" isn't strictly hard currency, it's the exchange of value. Consumers are purchasing Google services with their data. They aren't the literal product that Google sells to advertisers, the data is.

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#16

Post by ijpoijpoihpiuoh »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #15
scarface74 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick Google lookup for the definition of “consumer” a person who purchases goods and services for personal use. And definition of “customer” a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business. In both cases the consumer or customer is the person paying. Who is paying and what is the “product”? I hate to go back to the tired saying but, the people who search on Google are the “product” th…

That's why I said in "American vernacular" because it's not the dictionary definition. Typically businesses/regulators distinguish between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions, the former is what you're describing, the latter is what OP is describing, and relates to any transaction between a business and an individual. it's also why we have markets like "consumer electronics" which r…

> They aren't the literal product that Google sells to advertisers, the data is.

Google does not sell data. They sell attention, like all advertising companies. They make a lot of money because 1. they have a lot of attention to sell and 2. they do a better job than most advertisers at finding the particular bits of attention that will be most valuable to the buyers. The data is part of what allows them to do that, or so the story goes.

Also, although I agree with your conclusion, I think you've been slightly misled as to what matters in the antitrust investigation. It is not the colloquial understanding of the word "consumer" that matters, it's the legal one. I'm under the impression that, as it happens, the legal one here comports with the colloquial one. I.e., what matters is the impact of Google's policies and practices on individual private citizens and residents. The impact on other businesses does not matter except inasmuch as such impact transitively harms private consumers.

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#17

Post by riazrizvi »

The German court review of the investigation declared consumers are not harmed because

> “ 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 further found that “whether the users act out of indifference or because they do not want to spend the necessary time and effort … does not matter. Their decision to sign on is ultimately free, uninfluenced and autonomous.”

- so it’s okay to obfuscate consumers with lengthy legal docs, that’s not considered misleading (gutless but unsurprising ruling)

- no mention of the competitive threat of 3 of 4 giant companies tracking all our online behavior, giant companies with massive VC war chests or close ties to the same, who can pick winners and losers to suit their interests and the interests of their few board-seated investors

As far as I see, this is the death of free-market capitalism. We are entering an era of gated-market capitalism. If will erode incentives and ultimately productivity.

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#18

Post by mtgx »

shadowgovt wrote: post #7

Always 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…

Then it's a good thing there are a lot of filings to the DOJ from Google competitors (in various niche markets) that say Google has been trying to strongarm them out of the market.

Have we forgotten how Google killed Skyhook?

https://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-l...

The only reason Google wasn't broken apart in 2012 when the last FTC antitrust case happened, is because Eric Schmidt was best buddies with Obama (who then got Schmidt a job at the Pentagon - while still working at Google - and Schmidt then got Google the Project Maven contract with the Pentagon, and so on, and so forth, if you want to go down that rabbit hole).

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#19

Post by Moru »

shadowgovt wrote: post #13
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The thing is, if Google decides to favor a side and Bing doesn't, Bing search is just a click away. And if consumers value a politically-unbiased (or other-biased) opinion, they can migrate to Bing, right?

They need to know this bias exist first. And they also need to know that there is alternatives. And then they also need to know how to change. This is a lot to ask from a lot of people I'm affraid. Are you willing to bet your and your countrys future on people switching to bing when someone manages to game Googles algorithm to favor a side in the next election in whatever country you live in?

Re: The Google Antitrust Investigations – Learning from Germany’s Facebook Inquiry

#20

Post by anoncake »

shadowgovt wrote: post #7

Always 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…

I think there is a more fundamental philosophical gap is on why we even have a market economy. If you primarily care about private property, the American policy makes sense as the state only interferes when it's undeniably necessary. If what you care about is the common good and you think letting companies compete is the best way to run an economy, only the European policy makes sense: You probably consider it impossible that lack of competition does not harm the customer. Otherwise it would be hard to defend not nationalizing the sector in question.
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