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Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

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Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#151

Post by stefan_ »

cletus wrote: post #31

I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds. Why? Mozilla and Apple will lose significant revenue from having Google as the default search engine and Google will no longer have to pay those billions. What's more, no one else can pay to be the default either (eg the short-lived Mozilla Bing deal). So what's going to happen? Most users will probably still use Google, nobody is getting paid an…

It's like you didn't understand what this case was about at all. Google isn't paying to be first, Google is paying so nobody bothers making a competitor.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#152

Post by kelnos »

largbae wrote: post #14
leotravis10 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could surely open the door for Apple Search as the silver lining.

Wouldn't this just hot swap one monopolist policy for another?

Pretty much. And just push Apple customers further into Apple's walled garden.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#153

Post by riku_iki »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #109
ls612 wrote: post #83

The big loser from this ruling is Mozilla. The Firefox search deal gives them a big chunk of their money and they are already financially not in great shape.

Nothing prevents them from donating to Mozilla.

For-profit corp needs some incentives for such donation.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#155

Post by dwallin »

hintymad wrote: post #47

> Google’s payments to make its search engine the default option on smartphone web browsers violate US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing a key victory to the Justice Department. I still find it hard to understand why this makes sense. Don't companies make exclusive deals all the time, and whoever bids higher will get such deals? Why is it different for Google this time?

Scale and context matters. No one else could afford to pay anywhere remotely near what Google is paying Apple. If it was truly competitive bidding Google could just offer some small reasonable percentage more than the nearest competitor could afford and Apple would take it. The reason google is paying so much over where a market price would be is because they want to discourage anyone, particularly Apple, from even thinking about competing with them. Google is paying Apple 36% of the revenue (not profit) generated by those users.

A pretty good argument could be made that Apple would likely have built up and/or acquired it's own search engine by now if Google wasn't paying such obscene amounts. Apple was previously involved in talks with Microsoft to purchase Bing, and even acquired an ai search startup founded by ex-googlers (LaserLike).

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#156

Post by devrand »

ankit219 wrote: post #124
hintymad wrote: post #47

> Google’s payments to make its search engine the default option on smartphone web browsers violate US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing a key victory to the Justice Department. I still find it hard to understand why this makes sense. Don't companies make exclusive deals all the time, and whoever bids higher will get such deals? Why is it different for Google this time?

This would have been fine if Google was not a monopoly. The key part of the ruling is that judge agrees Google is a monopoly. And it's behavior is maintaining the monopoly illegally. Because it's a monopoly, and paying over the odds for these placements, it does not allow for a competitive marketplace. These payments create significant barriers to entry for other companies to even try and increase their market share…

Presumably these deals with Google will be nullified, but can the various browsers just make new deals with someone else? Can Microsoft just just swoop in and make a deal with Apple/Mozilla/Samsung? Mozilla is going to be desperate to find a new partner...

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#157

Post by mucle6 »

nabla9 wrote: post #121
cletus wrote: post #31

I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds. Why? Mozilla and Apple will lose significant revenue from having Google as the default search engine and Google will no longer have to pay those billions. What's more, no one else can pay to be the default either (eg the short-lived Mozilla Bing deal). So what's going to happen? Most users will probably still use Google, nobody is getting paid an…

> So what's going to happen? Apple might make their own search engine. Apple has a team that's been creating a next-generation search engine codenamed Pegasus under John Giannandrea. They already have search engines for App Store, Maps, Apple TV and News and Spotlight. Apple web search development worked as bargaining chip in pricing negotiations with Google. Google paid them $20 billion per year to not compete as mu…

If apple wanted to or thought they could make a profitable search engine, wouldn't they have already done it?

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#158

Post by rbera »

lvzw wrote: post #9
rbera wrote: post #4

At the very least, I hope the Apple-Google ~~exclusivity~~ default agreement is revoked. I suppose it’ll take another year to figure out the actual remedies though.

I think a year for the remedies is optimistic - could drag on for a while. Also worth mentioning that it is not an exclusivity agreement - it is a default agreement.

You’re right, my bad on the terminology. A year is definitely optimistic, I just hope that’s the first draft pending appeals. the longer it stretches on, the greater chance there is of directives being changed, lobbyists influencing politicians, etc.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#159

Post by Maxatar »

kelnos wrote: post #129
Maxatar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but it's worth noting that Chrome became the dominant browser on Windows even though Internet Explorer/Edge is the default browser and comes preinstalled.

That's more the exception that proves the rule, though. Chrome originally came out when IE was still a steaming pile of garbage, and Google spent lots of marketing money promoting it as a better, faster alternative. (Something that Mozilla had been previously somewhat succeeding at, more or less, but they didn't have the same resources and eventually lost their gains and fell behind.) These days Chrome just has so mu…

You're right on some points, other points don't match up with my understanding of the issue.

Chrome was a much better browser compared to the default that came installed on Windows, and certainly if someone is going to switch away from the default they will do it towards a much better alternative, on that we agree.

However, despite how much I think Google as a search engine has declined in quality, I still find them to be significantly superior to the alternatives, such as Bing and even DuckDuckGo (which I believe predominantly makes use of Bing) and that people will switch from whatever default search engine Apple sets to Google.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#160

Post by svnt »

legitster wrote: post #74
causal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it creates a monopoly then no, it's not okay, no matter how normal.

Not necessarily - as it is written, the Sherman anti-trust act and all of the amendments distinguishes between "innocent" and "coercive" monopolies. But the definitions are very loose and hard to pin down. It's hard to even consistently distinguish a monopoly - is it market share? Earning power? Barriers to entry?

As soon as they formalized a metric to distinguish a monopoly, it would become something deliberately managed by entities who wished to wield monopolistic power.

It would change the shape, but not the definition.

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