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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

#141

Post by yuhong »

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…

I am going to suggest that the best settlement is probably a tutorial on the layout of Google search result pages.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#142

Post by adventured »

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.

They have a monopoly on downloaded music purchases. That has been weakened in the last few years. Prior to Spotify and Pandora climbing to substantial scale, iTunes had a very strong monopoly on digital music sales (spanning both the Windows and Mac platforms).

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#143

Post by gress »

DannyBee wrote: post #48
blub wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are completely wrong. Apple has a small market share, so it doesn't matter that they abuse it by disallowing e.g rival browsers and certain apps. It sucks, but one can use Android without too many headaches. But Google search is more like a public utility than a service. It has extreme market penetration which they abuse for various reasons like prime placing for their own products. And that not only hurts compet…

"It has extreme market penetration which they abuse for various reasons like prime placing for their own products. And that not only hurts competitors but in the end also consumers which will end up with only one option for maps, video sharing, etc." Assuming they did prime place their own products, this is not a recognized antitrust harm (it is not bundling or tying, despite random claims on HN).

Assuming you're right and it's not a recognized antitrust harm, what's your opinion of it?

Do you think it's ethical or good for society simply because it hasn't yet been ruled illegal?

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#144

Post by dingaling »

dogma1138 wrote: post #128

If i were Google i would give the EU a day without Google. But in any case the EUP can vote for what ever they wan't they do not have any legislative power, as it (and all other) power (s) within the EU lie in the hands of the European Commission, which luckily is not "democratically" elected and it's members are appointed by the Council of Europe. The EU parliament for some time now has been a mess of fringe politic…

> If i were Google i would give the EU a day without Google.

I'm not sure how that would help refute an accusation that they're abusing their monopoly. It would seem to play right into the accusers' hands.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#145

Post by gress »

tptacek wrote: post #138
gress wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that HN is less influential than newspapers and journals? Are you pretending to be unaffected by the incentives you have to defend Google?

If you're going to impugn someone else's integrity, could you perhaps sign your name to the comment? I have no idea who you are. I'm just going to assume you work for Alibaba, or Vk.

Surely you can't be this blind to the power imbalance.

A Googler defending Google on HN has the backing of one of the most powerful corporations in the industry, and no risk to his future career.

Calling out this bias or even being critical of the Google carries potentially huge career risk.

Anonymity is a necessity if unpopular opinions are to be heard.

And by all means assume I work for a competitor (which I do not) - that doesn't change the fact that DannyBee is incentivized to support Google and yet tries to distinct himself from this truth.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#146

Post by tptacek »

gress wrote: post #145
tptacek wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to impugn someone else's integrity, could you perhaps sign your name to the comment? I have no idea who you are. I'm just going to assume you work for Alibaba, or Vk.

Surely you can't be this blind to the power imbalance. A Googler defending Google on HN has the backing of one of the most powerful corporations in the industry, and no risk to his future career. Calling out this bias or even being critical of the Google carries potentially huge career risk. Anonymity is a necessity if unpopular opinions are to be heard. And by all means assume I work for a competitor (which I do not…

Anonymity is vitally important to civic discourse, which is why it's so galling when it's recklessly abused for cowardly and pointless drive-by character assassination.

But that's what I'd expect to see from a secret shill for Yahoo.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#147

Post by dingaling »

adventured wrote: post #134
dogma1138 wrote: post #128

If i were Google i would give the EU a day without Google. But in any case the EUP can vote for what ever they wan't they do not have any legislative power, as it (and all other) power (s) within the EU lie in the hands of the European Commission, which luckily is not "democratically" elected and it's members are appointed by the Council of Europe. The EU parliament for some time now has been a mess of fringe politic…

I think if the Germans want to play nationalistic economic war, the US should return fire at Porsche, BMW, and Daimler - claiming that they possess abusive and unfair positions in the luxury car market, and proceed to levy extreme penalties in the US market on those companies (with the US market being 1/4 of their auto sales). Or perhaps try to force those automakers to divest those brands for the US market. If the E…

> Porsche, BMW, and Daimler - claiming that they possess abusive and unfair positions in the luxury car market

Can you explain how any of those examples are abusing their market dominance?

For example, if Porsche engines only ran on Porsche oil and petrol, available only from Porsche fuel stations which required an annual membership subscription, then that might be a problem.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#149

Post by ldng »

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

Paypal got repeatedly slapped on their wrist for similar behavior until they somewhat understood. Why don't you gather people to start a class action suit ? There are cases of true abuses but because it is "only" some few hundred dollars, people let go ... And Google keep the money. Reminds me a lot of a certain Paypal area.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#150

Post by barsoap »

avz wrote: post #124
skrebbel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, what is the Pirate Party's stance on this? (I have no idea how to find individual MEP votes on bills)

I think there are actually two interesting questions here since there are now many Pirate Parties in Europe. One about the general stance of pirate parties and one about the stance of the German PP specifically. I would generally expect a pirate party to support free-of-charge publishing of snippets and linking to content on the internet as a basis for the open internet. On the other hand, I wonder whether the German…

> On the other hand, I wonder whether the German Pirate Party is able to look beyond what may be construed as an interest of German publishing industry.

It's not actually in that industry's interest and even if in were, no, the Piratenpartei is completely opposed.

Noone is seeing any problem with defending google in one instance, and bashing them in another.

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