Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 266 posts

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#201

Post by amadeuspagel »

ricardo81 wrote: post #194
amadeuspagel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the vast majority of google searches there are no relevant ads. All these searches are subsidized by someone googling "flights to new york" and booking a flight right there. Google provides an immense public good with free (and mostly ad-free) results to all kinds of questions, which other flight search engines do not. Imagine: A flight search engine as a marketing gimick starts a web search engine, and shows fli…

It's (was in cases) a symbiotic relationship. Without sites offering flights, Google could have never offered relevant results to searchers in the first place. Same for any other vertical.

No google actually owns the backend of these flight search engines as well[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#202

Post by ricardo81 »

emodendroket wrote: post #199
ricardo81 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, five smaller Google's would be good, 4 more points of view. Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter seems to have highlighted anyone with the greatest of intentions is never going to please everyone, and that choice and freedom to express that choice is good.

Consider this: one of the many complaints about big tech is companies having too much personal data on customers. But if we feel one entity having the data is bad, why is several having it better? That seems worse. Now it's even harder to keep track of.

But most alternatives choose not to retain personal data and have much more stringent privacy policies.

Realistically I don't think the average individual can fathom how much personal data the likes of Google has on people. Small example, I deleted my entire Youtube subscription/history several times, I keep getting recommended the same things. Clearly there's more to 'deleting it entirely'.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#204

Post by dekhn »

jeffbee wrote: post #196
dekhn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Google's Flights product. I'm saying they give it preferential ranking treatment so more people use it (regardless of whether it's a superior product) and I would love it if the government could actually prove that).

How would you draft the rule? Is it just that Google is forbidden to offer services of any kind that other people also offer? Speaking as an informed consumer I strenuously prefer Google Flights over all others. I'd feel harmed if the DOJ just outlawed the 1 offering that wasn't a giant scam.

I wouldn't know how to draft a rule (I don't even know if what they are doing is illegal). I think the Flights interface is superior to the competitors as well. However, it's unclear to what extent Google is using their control of ranking to ensure that their onebox shows up on top, and how much that prevents people from seeing competitor's sites.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#205

Post by ricardo81 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #197
ricardo81 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, five smaller Google's would be good, 4 more points of view. Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter seems to have highlighted anyone with the greatest of intentions is never going to please everyone, and that choice and freedom to express that choice is good.

> Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter seems to have highlighted anyone with the greatest of intentions is never going to please everyone I dunno, wouldn’t that require assuming that Elon Musk had “the greatest of intentions”, as well as being a generalization to “never” from a single failure?

I think in his case he saw the flaws with Twitter, the bans, the algorithmic black box and thought he could bring something better to the table. Perhaps he learnt better after the fact.

At least having more private black box algos gives people a choice rather than a monopoly on choice.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#206

Post by ricardo81 »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #201
ricardo81 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's (was in cases) a symbiotic relationship. Without sites offering flights, Google could have never offered relevant results to searchers in the first place. Same for any other vertical.

No google actually owns the backend of these flight search engines as well[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software

In 2010 though, half into Google's lifetime and well into the time where they were dominant.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#207

Post by okamiueru »

basch wrote: post #119
okamiueru wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every article about abusive "monopolies", just read it as "abusing market position".

To be fair, and I don't agree with this, the word monopoly appears in the complaint 66 times. The NYT is reporting the story, but the FTC is the one "misusing" the word. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...

I'm just trying to help out here. I don't disagree with you, but it gets tiring that every single time some market position is abused, and the word "monopoly" gets used, there is at least one pedantic getting hung up on the "mono" part.

Android/iOS market share? Duopoly really. Call it a monopoly? "How is it a monopoly when..."

What they mean. What is always meant, is, you have a market position so significant, that you can use to get an unfair advantage on competition. That's what this is about, that is what all of these usually are about.

But, it gets sidetracked by misuse of words that should be understood from context.

Antitrust, isn't exclusively about monopolies abusing their market position. It doesn't care that much about whether it is one actor abusing it's position, or if it's two... Or three.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#208

Post by mrWiz »

jeffbee wrote: post #196
dekhn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Google's Flights product. I'm saying they give it preferential ranking treatment so more people use it (regardless of whether it's a superior product) and I would love it if the government could actually prove that).

How would you draft the rule? Is it just that Google is forbidden to offer services of any kind that other people also offer? Speaking as an informed consumer I strenuously prefer Google Flights over all others. I'd feel harmed if the DOJ just outlawed the 1 offering that wasn't a giant scam.

How about forbidding Google from giving it preferential ranking treatment?

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#209

Post by marcosdumay »

pxc wrote: post #151

'Abusing', huh? As though we can expect to see benign monopolies as a norm. Bizarre turn of phrase.

Well, getting a monopoly for competitive reasons and not abusing it in any way is perfectly legal, whatever odds are there if it happening.

The government only gets involved when there is some abuse.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#210

Post by riversflow »

jboydyhacker wrote: post #155
thehappypm wrote: post #75

Google 2021 revenue: $258B Meta 2021 revenue: $118B Can someone explain how Google has a monopoly when there are competitors in their league?

Google owns 90%+ of search, Android, and the Ad side. The three together allow it to crush competitors from both ends all while taking a 35% cut. The most lucrative part of the ad business is paid downloads. how many of those searches start in Google with e.g. "Download Spotify". Google makes money selling that to Spotify and they can do it at a much higher rate because no other ad seller has access to search invento…

> no other ad seller has access to search inventory for "download Spotify”

I think that behavior should be broadly illegal on the basis that it’s tantamount to false advertising and extortion.

Google claims to be a search engine; if you search for something very specific and well known like Spotify, providing you a paid advertisement as the top hit is essentially fraud.

Post reply on HN