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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

#281

Post by mozempthrowaway »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #135
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…

Really, really curious how this all plays out WRT Mozilla. Mozilla receives on the order of 80% of their revenue from making Google the default search engine on Firefox. They're going to have to layoff the majority of their employees.

Working 10 hours per week was nice while it lasted.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#282

Post by everfrustrated »

hcurtiss wrote: post #248
gregdoesit wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m one of the paying Kagi customer who wants to make Kagi my default iOS search engine, but cannot. It’s maddening that even though I paid for both my iPhone / iPad and for Kagi, Apple for some reason makes it impossible for me to make this choice (that I already made by paying for Kagi). On Chrome at least this is possible, even if it’s additional steps (I have not used the extension though there.)

I too am a paying customer. Surprisingly -- at least to me -- it's easy to do with Microsoft's Edge browser on iOS. I use it as default on both iOS and macOS.

It's only easy now because Microsoft had a lot of runs in with the US and EU regulators on this specific issue in the past.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#283

Post by throwaway88222 »

hugh_kagi wrote: post #21

We face a number of challenges simply letting our paying customers change their search engine: 1. On iOS the list of allowed search engines is simply baked into OS, we have a fiddly extension that hooks outbound calls to /search and redirects them but I wish we didn't need to. 2. On Chrome, we use an extension to change the default search engine and enable search auto-complete etc, but Google has a policy that such a…

As someone who worked at Mozilla, on Firefox browsers, I can guarantee you that none of this is a coincidence.

I have never seen the search contract so I don't think I am breaking any kind of NDA but I have been close enough to engineering and browser planning and product management to know that Google dictates (negotiates?) in great detail every aspect of search in the browser. This is not a simple "you can use Google Search" deal, instead Google is basically the product manager and ux designer for the browser and they spell out in the contract how search works, how the navigation works, what the UX looks like, what is allowed and not allowed in terms of competing search engines. On mobile it goes further than that and they also dictate how the browser integrates with Android features related to search and voice search.

Mozilla can't surive without Google cash and I fully believe they negotiated hard for a good fair deal that puts users and choice first but I am also sure that Google got the better hand and that is why Search in Firefox has been largely "product managed" / micro-managed by Google.

Apple probably had much more freedom becsuse of their size and power and I don't really understand why it is not possible to add a custom search engine. There is no advantage for Apple to not allow this. Other than .. Google probably force a good deal in their advantage? Apple taking more money by allowing less choice, or even being forced to accept a new deal?

Not having a search deal is simply not an option. Mozilla would die. Apple would have to explain billions of revenue loss to shareholders. Both are impossible.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#284

Post by [deleted] »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #204
arresin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20 billion in 2022 according to the verge via court docs: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/2/24147007/google-paid-apple...

If the rate Google pays is in some way set per usage/rev-share, then Google is indeed paying to make the setting difficult to change.

[deleted]

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#285

Post by m_ke »

diogofranco wrote: post #161
m_ke wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gives people room to try, especially now with new entrants like perplexity that might offer better results. Google search went to shit and ruined most of the web with it, by creating an SEO industry that's 100% focused on optimizing for their ranking signals.

> by creating an SEO industry that's 100% focused on optimizing for their ranking signals. The SEO industry will optimize towards ranking on whatever search engine people are using

It would be a lot harder to do if the market had more viable competitors. In a world with 5-6 dominant options and a long tail of niche search engines you'd probably have options that penalize blog spam, aggregators like pinterest and sites with paywalls or millions of ads / affiliate links.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#286

Post by dylan604 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #144
mrob wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox makes you jump through hoops too. To enable the UI for adding custom search engines you need to set the undocumented preference "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh" to true.

If I was a government party with subpoena power I'd be really interested in the email chain around that decision.

If you were a government party with subpoena power, you'd think the internet was made of tubes. You'd have no idea how tech works, and only rubber stamp things tech companies provide you. Otherwise, you'd be over qualified and too focused on things other than raising money, kissing babies while stealing their lollipops.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#287

Post by convivialdingo »

Finally? Google has basically turned search and news into a political-corporate mouthpiece. Android is essentially a vacuum for surveillance capitalism. I rarely even use google to find anything beyond Chinese food and such.

If we could go back to Google 2010 that would be fantastic.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#288

Post by mozempthrowaway »

layer8 wrote: post #265
jl6 wrote: post #237

It’s called out that Google pays Mozilla to have Google be the default search engine in Firefox. I worry this ruling will lead to Google ceasing those payments, effectively killing Mozilla as a going concern.

Or maybe Mozilla will focus more on Firefox again.

No we won’t. We all knew this gravy train was coming to an end. In terms of revenue it’s ~500M per year/~80-something %.

Once this stops, there’s no way for us to keep funding operations at the level they’re at.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#289

Post by singron »

o-o- wrote: post #246
knuckleheads wrote: post #37

> Mehta’s decision is expected to trigger a separate proceeding to determine what penalties Google will face – and the company is also likely to file an appeal As a Google antitrust watcher, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop with what remedies the court will actually recommend to correct this monopoly. If you ask 20 experts, who all otherwise agree that Google is a monopoly, you might get 40 different answers ab…

I always thought that the idea behind antitrust laws was that if an entity reaches total market dominance and uses that dominance to keep other out of the game, the entity should be split into competing entities. What I'm seeing however is nothing more than toothless, political pointing sticks. Both IBM, Microsoft and Google have clearly at some point obtained total domination of their markets. Consequently they've a…

The original Sherman Act specifies imprisonment for 1 year, a $5,000 fine, and the seizure of property due to the violating behavior. It also gives courts the authority to "prevent and restrain such violations". It makes no specific note of splitting up corporations.

Obviously this isn't the modern understanding, and the act was later amended.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#290

Post by dylan604 »

bee_rider wrote: post #234
trentnix wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the circumstantial evidence is sufficient to figure it out.

Are we supposing that Google made their payment conditional on obfuscating the ability to switch search engines?

This is one of those "a wink is as good as a nod to a blind person" situations so that plausible deniability is maintained while getting the desired results
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