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EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

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Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#121

Post by bko »

KronisLV wrote: post #117
bko wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I often hate how loaded/incendiary Ed Zitron's tone is and don't like some of his takes, but I wouldn't call it "some random blog". I run a random blog, that guy's closer to being a proper journalist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Zitron

Referencing a blog is fine. But when you're on a forum discussing ideas just forwarding a blog link is bad taste. Summarize the key arguments. Do some work.

It's like if someone is arguing free markets and I just provide a link to a WSJ editorial. It's rude, requires no work on the sender and imposes work on the receiver to read and synthesize and respond to the argument. I see this occasionally where someone will just have an LLM generate a response (which it will happily do for any topic taking any position) and just passing it off.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#122

Post by chrisjj »

phiresky wrote: post #21
plantain wrote: post #10

It drives me insane when in Europe the link between Google Search and Google Maps is broken and I often have to copy paste an address between the two. Thanks EU, what if I like Google's integrations?

The EU told them they can not by default prefer their own maps product when linking from their search product, they have to allow the user to choose. They could have simply added a selector when a user first clicks on the maps preview in the search result, and then remembered it on device or across that user's account. But of course, then the user could choose a competitor's product and Google would have to honor it.…

Probably every Google team has an enshittification expert.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#124

Post by vphpersson »

plantain wrote: post #10

It drives me insane when in Europe the link between Google Search and Google Maps is broken and I often have to copy paste an address between the two. Thanks EU, what if I like Google's integrations?

After I noticed the Maps button no longer showed up, I installed a browser extension called "Google Search Maps Button". I haven't had any problem since then. (Or even better, make one with AI to avoid potential security concerns)

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#125

Post by scoofy »

xnx wrote: post #123

Being upset that Google search shows Google Maps is like being upset that you can't get a Burger King Whopper at McDonald's.

Ehh… I honestly believe that you should either be a market, and resale other products, or you should be a boutique, and sell your own.

Mixing in branded items in a market with special treatment is very obviously anticompetitive. We see amazon doing that to high margin items egregiously. We see Costco doing it less egregiously.

We should fight against anticompetitive practices pretty seriously.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#126

Post by urbandw311er »

qq66 wrote: post #5

The EU has found a clever way to charge US tech companies for market access without triggering a WTO violation.

I mean the current US president literally threatened to increase EU trade tariffs if the EU tries to get the big tech companies to pay their fair share of tax here. You can’t have it both ways.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#127

Post by KronisLV »

bko wrote: post #121
KronisLV wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hate how loaded/incendiary Ed Zitron's tone is and don't like some of his takes, but I wouldn't call it "some random blog". I run a random blog, that guy's closer to being a proper journalist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Zitron

Referencing a blog is fine. But when you're on a forum discussing ideas just forwarding a blog link is bad taste. Summarize the key arguments. Do some work. It's like if someone is arguing free markets and I just provide a link to a WSJ editorial. It's rude, requires no work on the sender and imposes work on the receiver to read and synthesize and respond to the argument. I see this occasionally where someone will ju…

> Summarize the key arguments. Do some work.

I'd still take at least a blog post with relevant information over nothing, but yeah, that is fair.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#128

Post by murderfs »

nolok wrote: post #32
mrtksn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share the frustration but maybe if Google hadn't gained a monopoly status Google Maps wouldn’t have been in its current sorry state. My assessment is that EU is doing too little too late, the fine should have been something like 20B and used towards creating a non-profit, open and extendable map service ideally with the people who already do great mapping tech that don't show up in Google search results at the top.…

Eh, on the other hand the EU has now effectively forced usb-c for devices after apple refused to play it clean for years and they still got people who complained (how dare the regulator be opiniated toward tech !). The EU loves to play it the european way, and while on the surface it seems "oh that means regulations" in reality it's a "figure it out yourselves and please behave like adult, we don't want to deal with…

> Eh, on the other hand the EU has now effectively forced usb-c for devices after apple refused to play it clean for years and they still got people who complained (how dare the regulator be opiniated toward tech !).

They almost forced micro USB for devices, which would have been far worse: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/06/10-companies-agree-t...

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#129

Post by bmordue »

brainwad wrote: post #82
phiresky wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU told them they can not by default prefer their own maps product when linking from their search product, they have to allow the user to choose. They could have simply added a selector when a user first clicks on the maps preview in the search result, and then remembered it on device or across that user's account. But of course, then the user could choose a competitor's product and Google would have to honor it.…

The specific problem with Maps is that Google _can't_ deep link to other providers except by lat-lng or address, both of which throw away the actual context of the PoI in the common case of searching for PoIs. Well, it could perhaps deep-link to OSM-based maps, since their map data is open... but Google, as a proprietary map maker, probably treats OSM data as radioactive.

They could make available a URI using the geo: scheme, but the hacky ways of including a POI as part of a geo: URI (ie using a query string) feel generally unsatisfactory.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#130

Post by bmordue »

master-lincoln wrote: post #56
geokon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a larger web-standards problem. There is no standard clickable "link" for physical locations. There is no URL-equivalent you can send to someone, they click it, it open up their map viewer of choice. You can send Lat Lon coordinates and then have the recipient copy and paste them. It generally works though there isn't a standard format and no service will make it clickable like an email address, so th…

There is a standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_URI_scheme I have it working on my Android phone. It's clickable links that open my map app of choice (or rather a selection dialog). It's just that the big players do not want to use it.

I'm a bit surprised this doesn't have more traction. It doesn't seem to have been designed with POIs in mind, which is unfortunately a limitation.
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