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Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

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Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#221

Post by thegrimmest »

dalbasal wrote: post #26

The way antitrust is working in recent years is kind of ridiculous. Google in Europe is becoming a rich case study in antitrust meh. You find that adwords engages in a blatant "monopolistic abuse" in some specific sense. In the Adwords EU case for example, Google was both monopsonising (google search) and monopolising search advertising. But, the actual violations are specific, like exclusivity requirements and other…

> IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete.

What do we win here? To me it seems that letting big companies get as big as they can allows them to use economies of scale to provide quality services cheaply to all of us. Search is a prime example here, only Google seems to be able to do it as well as they do. Many others have tried and failed.

Isn't the benefit of cheap/free services far outweighed by whatever arbitrary "abuses" that are alleged to have been perpetrated? Shouldn't our attitude be primarily of bewildered amazement at the status quo instead of attempting to micromanage how Google uses the massive, amazingly positive platform it built?

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#222

Post by thegrimmest »

dalbasal wrote: post #191
ripdog wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally good comment, but if search is separated from ads, how does it make money? I'm totally on board with splitting up Google, but losing Google search (or search becoming notably worse) would not be worth it for me. The competition is just so bad, and always has been.

Google will continue to make money as it does now, through adwords as a "search partner." This is also how other SEs make money. The biggest antitrust case Google has lost so far has related directly to this. Would they make less money? Yes, probably. It's hard to say how much, but it would still likely be enough to run Google. I think it's easier to understand the paradigm with Twitter or FB, since they're simpler.…

> it would still likely be enough to run Google. [emphasis mine]

Is this arbitrary guess really worth risking the whole farm?

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#223

Post by asddubs »

amacneil wrote: post #158
collaborative wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely easy, but it also is extremely easy to get permanently banned if they find out you "switched on" a hidden feature once the app got into production. A permanent ban can be very damaging, so one needs to make sure to be completely legit when it comes to app store submission reviews and app store ratings

Can confirm. We got the Coinbase iOS app banned for doing this back in the day, when Apple did not allow bitcoin apps (IIRC showing the price was ok, transacting was not). Even after they relaxed their bitcoin restrictions (and calls to the head of app store), they still made us wait out the 12 month ban before reinstating the app. https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-bitcoin-app-apple-app-stor... https://venturebeat.co…

I wonder how they confirm this happened. Do they store a video of the review and cross reference on suspicion?

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#224

Post by snambi »

icpmoles wrote: post #5

Quick summary: the biggest electricity provider in the country (ENEL) made an app (Juicepass) to find and manage their charging stations across the country. The Android Auto functionality of the app has been rejected by Google for non disclosed "security concerns while driving". The antitrust ruled out it was because Google wanted to sabotage competitor apps to the charging stations finder built-in in the Google Maps…

companies like google needed to be spilt up and made as smaller entities. These companies are a threat to humanity.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#225

Post by thegrimmest »

oblio wrote: post #27
dalbasal wrote: post #26

The way antitrust is working in recent years is kind of ridiculous. Google in Europe is becoming a rich case study in antitrust meh. You find that adwords engages in a blatant "monopolistic abuse" in some specific sense. In the Adwords EU case for example, Google was both monopsonising (google search) and monopolising search advertising. But, the actual violations are specific, like exclusivity requirements and other…

> IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete. Past a point, they should be regulated like an utility.

Doesn't that effectively mean that these companies will become further entrenched and nearly impossible to dislodge from their market positions? A prime example is Google Fibre, who tried to dislodge existing cable/internet companies, and failed primarily because of regulatory entrenchment.

Why not allow the market to be more inclusive? This will help create exactly the competitive pressure that we all benefit from.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#226

Post by asddubs »

thegrimmest wrote: post #221
dalbasal wrote: post #26

The way antitrust is working in recent years is kind of ridiculous. Google in Europe is becoming a rich case study in antitrust meh. You find that adwords engages in a blatant "monopolistic abuse" in some specific sense. In the Adwords EU case for example, Google was both monopsonising (google search) and monopolising search advertising. But, the actual violations are specific, like exclusivity requirements and other…

> IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete. What do we win here? To me it seems that letting big companies get as big as they can allows them to use economies of scale to provide quality services cheaply to all of us. Search is a prime example here, only Google s…

>What do we win here?

a more balanced power dynamic

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#227

Post by thegrimmest »

asddubs wrote: post #226
thegrimmest wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO, we need some way to declare a company "Big" and apply special rules to them. If those rules are onerous, that might create some organic pressure to split and/or help smaller incumbents compete. What do we win here? To me it seems that letting big companies get as big as they can allows them to use economies of scale to provide quality services cheaply to all of us. Search is a prime example here, only Google s…

>What do we win here? a more balanced power dynamic

Between who? And at the expense of cheap, readily available, quality services?

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#228

Post by zo1 »

nradov wrote: post #153
salawat wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of why searching is as painful as it is is because it has been deemed acceptable to pollute the search space. SEO should be neither encouraged or allowed. It is nothing less than adversarial corruption of a shared index. Boolean searching works. Go back to a library catalog sometime and be amazed at how quickly you can get relevant results when every Tom, Dick, and Methuseleh aren't shoveling extra irrelevant fe…

There is no practical way to disallow SEO. Search results have to be ranked somehow in order to be usable for most people. And site owners will always figure out tricks to game the ranking algorithms.

It's not SEO that's the problem. SEO is a symptom of the perverse incentives.

So Google has created incentives (via ad embedding in user-sites) for entities to generate content and compete with each-other for who can show the most ads. This in turn "pollutes the index" as the other poster phrased it, which makes it more and more difficult to find actual real (unique?) content, which then Google turns around and supposedly "helps" us with.

Let's be honest. Despite it's surface-level gigantic scale, the internet is actually very tiny when it comes to real genuine content. My wild estimate is that 99% of it is spam. Even in the case of user-generated content, for every genuine blog where someone shares their thoughts and unique insights or content, there are a thousand blogs which are just there to get ad-views by generating any content that might get someone to look there. I can't even find the former type of blog/site anymore. The only place I still encounter those on occasion is when it's linked to from HN. And the ones I do encounter that way, I find that even when I try to, I can't find it via any sort of generic search (i.e. not cheating by using the site name / author / unique phrases).

Splitting Google up won't fix this.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#229

Post by asddubs »

thegrimmest wrote: post #227
asddubs wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What do we win here? a more balanced power dynamic

Between who? And at the expense of cheap, readily available, quality services?

between regular people and companies. I don't think it has to come at the expense of those things, a company doesn't have to be the size and scope of google to be efficient.

Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance

#230

Post by Barrin92 »

permo-w wrote: post #202
egocentric wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because of system-level protections like the sandbox, not App Review or the App Store.

yes but if you allow alternative app stores, then what? it’s either regulated by apple, which defeats the point, or it’s a security risk. I’m against walled gardens, I just disagree that there’s no security upside to it

put a system setting in place that lets you lock down the device if necessary with a password so grandma can use it safely?

As OP points out you do not need an app store monopoly, you just need adjustable device settings.

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