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Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

nytimes.com

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Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#211

Post by Woshiwuja »

patmorgan23 wrote: post #43
bettercallsalad wrote: post #27

I am not following these testimonies in anti-trust cases where they have a competitor of Google testify against Google. Isn’t testifying all about presenting evidence? If I am accused of theft in a criminal court and my arch rival is brought for testimony against me, it doesn’t sound like a fair process to me. Of course if it’s a substantiated material it would make sense but otherwise it doesn’t just makes sense at…

In the United States we have an adversarial system of justice. That means the prosecution gets to present their evidence and arguments, and the defense gets to respond and counter. The defense will have ample opportunity to cross examine and present rebuttal whiteness. And just because a witness is presented doesn't mean the fact finder (judge or jury) will find them credible.

why does the US still use common people during jury is beyond me tho

Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#212

Post by crazygringo »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #133
crazygringo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. First of all, no website owner in their right mind is going to block Bing. Second of all, they have to detect that you're a bot in the first place. Most sites don't employ sophisticated anti-bot technology. Simply running a headless browser (which you need to do anyways for JavaScript) with a common user-agent, and slow enough browsing not to be rate-limited, will let you index 99.9+% of sites.

Many website owners do explicitly block Bing and all other crawling bots in their right minds. If you have a wide low-traffic website then bots of all sorts will make a majority of your traffic and subsequently a majority of your AWS costs. If you see money spent on search engine X indexing and very few users incoming from that search engine it's a rational decision to block it. Or ask for money (that actually happen…

> Many website owners do explicitly block Bing and all other crawling bots in their right minds.

If by "many" you mean "less than 0.1%". Nearly all sites want traffic, which search engines provide.

And you're moving the goalposts from the commenter I was responding to.

Nobody disputes it takes a large capital investment to create an index in the first place. But this is the business world -- that's what investors are for.

But the idea that websites provide their public content to Google and leave other crawlers with no way to access it is simply untrue. That is not a factor hindering competition.

Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#214

Post by delfinom »

jiggawatts wrote: post #3

One way Google maintains their monopoly is that many websites block all bots except for the Google indexing bot. This makes it literally impossible for anyone to make a competing search engine because millions of doors are slammed in their face. There is no practical way to negotiate access at this scale either leaving no options for small startups — e.g.: AI-based search! One possible anti-monopoly measure would be…

>One way Google maintains their monopoly is that many websites block all bots except for the Google indexing bot.

Because Googlebot is actually _friendly_.

O boy are there bad bots out there for search engines that often DDOS your site to shit.

Yandex is probably the worst out there from experience. Not only will it hammer you, they put in extremely aggressive retries such that even if you ban it temporarily for 4 hours, the literal second your IP block of their spiders expire, they will flood you with requests, and they don't even know how long the ban is, their bots just keep trying and trying.

Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#216

Post by deafpolygon »

jiggawatts wrote: post #3

One way Google maintains their monopoly is that many websites block all bots except for the Google indexing bot. This makes it literally impossible for anyone to make a competing search engine because millions of doors are slammed in their face. There is no practical way to negotiate access at this scale either leaving no options for small startups — e.g.: AI-based search! One possible anti-monopoly measure would be…

I agree. I don't relish the idea of certain other countries' services getting too large in the vacuum that breaking up Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet will do.

Just imagine TikTok, then have that applied to Search, Mail, etc.

Do you want this?

Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#217

Post by nojvek »

granzymes wrote: post #130
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #129

"Google has argued that the default positions are not overwhelmingly powerful and that users can switch to a new search engine if they like." OK, then why pay Apple close to $20 billion annually to be the "default". "Mr. Schmidtlein hammered Mr. Nadella with questions about instances in which Bing had been the default on mobile phones, only for users to switch back to Google." If Google search is so great, and Apple…

For me, the fact that Google has >50% market share on Edge is proof that Google is right. Consumers clearly know how to change defaults when they want to.

Source for Google >50% market share on edge?

Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#218

Post by deafpolygon »

l33tman wrote: post #181
fractalb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I didn't know it. Microsoft is still a monopoly on desktop OS, even after this anti-trust investigation. To me, that's weird. Anti-trust didn't work?

Just having the most popular product doesn't mean you're liable in an anti-trust case, you have to abuse the position as well (IANAL though). There are no viable competitors for a PC desktop OS for them to abuse and haven't been since the 80-90's I guess. A bit off topic, but to me it's interesting that they couldn't extend their desktop OS dominance to the mobile world when they launched Windows Phone with a huge wa…

Or it was just cheaper to launch an inferior product and say "welp, no monopoly here."

Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#219

Post by nojvek »

layer8 wrote: post #192
matteoraso wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google being default on Chrome the leading browser? This is why Microsoft won't win. Google obviously isn't going to not use their own search engine on their own browser, and that's totally fine. I'm not sure what Google can even do to reduce the market share of their search engine besides intentionally making it worse than Bing.

They can be broken uo so that the entity making the browser is not the same entity operating the search engine anymore. If course, the same would apply to Edge and Bing.

The entity making Edge is mostly Google. Edge is a shell on top of Chromium engine.

Chromium/Chrome team(s) is easily a few 100 million loss making, only profitable because of ads.

No one pays for the browser. It’s a loss leader.

So splitting them means things could get worse instead as the top browser engineers go elsewhere.

Re: Microsoft CEO testifies that Google’s power in search is ubiquitous

#220

Post by specialist »

Woshiwuja wrote: post #211
patmorgan23 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States we have an adversarial system of justice. That means the prosecution gets to present their evidence and arguments, and the defense gets to respond and counter. The defense will have ample opportunity to cross examine and present rebuttal whiteness. And just because a witness is presented doesn't mean the fact finder (judge or jury) will find them credible.

why does the US still use common people during jury is beyond me tho

Perhaps we need more more specialized courts.

My local jurisdiction has separate tracks for both vets and addicts. Because handling those cases in the "normal" court is inefficient and unproductive. (eg Most addicts need treatment, not jail time. Vets specific care, not jail time.)

IIRC, there's a separate bankruptcy court. Sounds smart. I don't expect laypersons to understand finance and such.

Methinks we need separate courts for both intellectual property and healthcare. Where the "jury of one's peers" is composed of actual domain expert peers.

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