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European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

bbc.co.uk

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Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#101

Post by higherpurpose »

sfrank2147 wrote: post #58

A monopoly should be defined by barriers to entry, not just market share. There's nothing preventing other large companies from entering the search space, and in fact many of them have (yahoo, microsoft, etc). There are true monopolistic firms like Comcast or Time Warner, where there are serious logistic/economic barriers preventing other firms from entering the market. This doesn't seem like one of them to me.

The "many" examples you gave is actually just one: Microsoft. Both Yahoo and DuckDuckGo searches are essentially based on Bing.

There is tremendous barrier to entry in the search space - otherwise Bing wouldn't still suck compared to Google. The point of competition is to get good enough to steal market share from the entrenched incumbents or gain new users somehow. If that doesn't happen, for whatever reason, then you don't have strong competition.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#102

Post by snuxoll »

ponyous wrote: post #52
lumberjack wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is completely opt-in unlike Microsoft and Google.

Can you elaborate? How is Microsoft not opt-in?

Beats me, both Apple and Microsoft require an account be created to get the most out of their devices and services, but making an account doesn't force you to create a new email address in the process unlike Google.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#103

Post by aragot »

Brakenshire wrote: post #26

To copy from the previous discussion. These are the issues that are up for debate: >The manner in which Google displays its own vertical search services compared with other, competing products > How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews - to include within its own services > The exclusivity Google has to sell advertising around the search terms people use > Restrictions on advertisers…

> In my opinion, there's zero chance of Google being broken up

In 2004 when the European commission fined Microsoft €497m, I thought the company had good enough lawyers and lobbies to overturn it. This case and the next one in 2008 finally resulted in more than $2bn in fines [1], more than 3% of its global revenue [2].

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_comp...

[2] http://www.statista.com/statistics/267805/microsofts-global-...

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#104

Post by dantillberg »

DannyBee wrote: post #60
ckelvin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work for Google? If you do, ny the same metric, shouldn't we discount all your numerous posts defending Google and attacking their competitors?

I do work for Google, but i explicitly don't speak for them on HN. I also don't work for Google Legal, and don't work on issues related to this stuff. I have opined on this stuff long before i worked for Google, and will long after. Google literally does not pay me for my views on this. Ben is literally paid for his anti-google views on this stuff. You are of course, welcome to discount whatever you like. You should…

You may feel that way, and you may really be acting that way, but what matters is not so much what you do but how it is perceived. Simply being employed by someone introduces bias, or at least the perception of bias. Just as you raise important notes about Ben that readers of his "work" ought to be aware of while drawing conclusions from it, readers of your comments ought to be aware of your association to Google while drawing conclusions from what you say about its critics.

My conclusions from this thread are in fact that you mostly just happen to work for Google, that you have a long personal (and vaguely professional) interest in observing this dispute, and that Ben is a paid shill that abuses his credentials and the brand of his employer to make easy money. But it gave me pause that you weren't up-front about your own employer.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#105

Post by Elrac »

antr wrote: post #49
Elrac wrote: post #5

As someone living in Europe, I think they don't realize that, in a way, Google is bigger than the European Parliament. The citizens of Europe barely take the European Parliament seriously, and there's not much reason for Google to. I happen to be a fan of Duck Duck Go. But I think Google can do without Europe more easily than Europe can do without Google. There's no need to go to extremes, either. Just like Microsoft…

> The citizens of Europe barely take the European Parliament seriously and yet 43% of Europeans decided to vote in the last European elections. That is a higher turnout than many local/regional elections across Europe. I guess Europeans do care.

Good point!

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#106

Post by kiiski »

celticninja wrote: post #27
XorNot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a distinct category of "edgy" activist types which have decided Google must be some sort of evil monopoly on the internet by a sheer failure of understanding of why infrastructure business models can be monopolies, whereas "being a popular search engine" really isn't.

Being a monopoly is not necessarily a bad thing. It can lead to consumers being negatively affected but that is not a foregone conclusion. YKK, the zip manufacturer, has effectively had a monopoly on zips for a long time but they produce high quality goods at a low price. The consumer gets a great deal and the monopoly knows to keep the customer happy to keep their market position. Google do search better than anyone…

I think YKK is a bad example here, considering they were fined for beign part of a cartel in Europe (2007). That doesn't seem like something that benefits customers or gets them a great deal.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#107

Post by tomjen3 »

archgrove wrote: post #39
venomsnake wrote: post #36

EU bureaucracy logic at its best - go after google and microsoft, but we let apple do whatever they want. For me they with their closed ecosystem are both bigger danger and more anti competitive than both Google and Microsoft combined. Or at least force them to accept other web browsers in their store.

Apple don't have anything even vaguely approaching a monopoly in any area. Their market share in everything from phones to computers is 90% for search. You can't have a "Monopoly on the contents of the iPhone app store" any more than Coke has a "Monopoly on the contents of Coke cans", and thus should be forced to fill some with Pepsi.

Wouldn't surprise me if Apple has 90% of the app income.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#108

Post by tomjen3 »

lnanek2 wrote: post #70
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #13

What is the point of this vote ? the article says that the European Parliament has no authority to enforce such a break-up. Also Google is not a European company (wasn't it based in the US ?), so what's the point?

Technically I think Google claims their search technology is invented and produced in their Ireland version of the company and just licensed to the US one or something like that to defraud the US from taxes. So it is actually more UK/Europe than it is US since they just kind of steal from the US.

That is not fraud, it is legal. Stop blaming business for tax holes.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#109

Post by IBM »

DannyBee wrote: post #46
pasta_2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intention was never to break them up. MEPs calling for it is just to show the EU Commission that they have the political support to take the gloves off. If you actually want to know the justification for the EU doing this you should read this paper by Ben Edelman. http://www.benedelman.org/publications/google-tying-2014-10-... He's consulted for various Google competitors but he's also a professor at Harvard Busi…

If by "consulted", you mean that Ben has been paid to come up with papers exactly like this for various anti-google lobbies, many many times over the past 10 years, then yes, he has "consulted". Ben has literally no legal training in antitrust law that i'm aware of, so his opining on it is somewhat interesting. (I edited this comment because Ben does have a JD from Harvard law that I forgot about, so he does have leg…

Do you actually have a rebuttal to anything he wrote in his paper?

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#110

Post by Retra »

snird wrote: post #62
cbeach wrote: post #30

To copy from the previous discussion: I was blocked indefinitely from Adsense by Google's faulty algorithms (without explanation and with appeals rejected without explanation). I lost the revenue I'd earnt that month, and soon realised Google holds a monopoly in this space, and no one else offered a comparable service. I'm all for Google's stronghold to be broken. reply

Breaking up a company is a violent action. No one forced you to use their service, and they do not use violence or any kind of illegal actions to kill those who try to compete with them. Google simply are the biggest due to being the best. It's that simple. If you'll break up everyone who is too good, then what is the society we are walking toward in this situation?

So your idea of 'force' is just flexible enough to qualify regulation as violence, but a monopoly is still ok?

Nobody forces a business to get big. Nobody forces a business to even exist.

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