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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

#291

Post by NotPractical »

nilptr wrote: post #75
rvz wrote: post #8

Remember folks, it isn't over yet, I'd expect Google to appeal this one and this is just about their search dominance. There is another one on the way with the DOJ going after their Ads business. [0] [0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl...

While not over they have a tough battle ahead. This was a case brought by the Trump Admin and carried on under Biden. I don't see a conservative Federal judge gutting this ruling any more than I do a liberal one.

> I don't see a conservative Federal judge gutting this ruling any more than I do a liberal one.

Can you explain how free market capitalism and deregulation of corporations is compatible with lawsuits like this one?

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#292

Post by isomorphic »

akdor1154 wrote: post #206
init2null wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no excuse for not making search engine management as simple and flexible as Firefox does, especially on the desktop, but I appreciate the hoops you jump through to keep hacks available for browsers with less user choice.

Even Firefox has its issues - they don't sync search settings along with everything else, and the reason is they're worried about interfering with paid search defaults on new installs.

The last time I checked (this may have changed), Firefox also tags the default search engines with URL query parameters indicating that the search came from Firefox. When I tried to change this it would not let me edit the default URLs. I had to add entirely-new versions of Google and DuckDuckGo, with custom names and stripped-down URLs in order to avoid the tagging.

No doubt it is revenue-related, but it's also a privacy problem.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#293

Post by Maxatar »

troupo wrote: post #275
Maxatar wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your article argues the opposite of your claim. Your article says that Microsoft themselves were working to move people away from Internet Explorer 6 and encouraging people to upgrade to a modern browser by declaring IE 6 to be at its end of life. The article says that Youtube displayed a banner recommending users to upgrade to either Firefox, IE 8, or Chrome and that due to concerns by Google's lawyers, the orde…

> But your article argues the opposite of your claim. It's not. The article talks about Youtube nailing the final nail in IEs coffin, which it did. As for shoving Chrome down everyone's throats I'm amazed no one remembers the ancient history of just 15 years ago: - showing it on search pages: http://www.webandsay.com/archives/google-is-actively-pushing... - prominently showing it on Youtube: http://googlesystem.blogs…

Fascinating how two people can read the same article and take away two opposite conclusions from it. If anything what Youtube did helped Firefox far more than it helped Chrome, but I suppose from your point of view it's the opposite.

Ah well, c'est la vie!

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#294

Post by pradn »

nox101 wrote: post #257
pradn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly wrong, but its not out of place w/ the sheer number of recipes and blogs saying the same thing. It's parroting "common wisdom" which is wrong. It's not as egregious as some of the generative AI results spewed out by the lowest-cost-inference LLMs they hooked up to Google search a few months back.

It was still a common occurrence for google to display incorrect results that weren't common wisdom. I had tons of such experiences. One I remember was searching for "healthy body weight for x of age y" where x was man,woman and y was my age. Google said 50lbs higher than I expected. I clicked through to the article. The article said the average was this high number, not a healthy weight.

Yes, totally. Automated, fallible systems.

Ultimately it's a cost issue. If they wanted to, they could fact check the top million question queries - but they don't want to spend on that.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#295

Post by aziaziazi »

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…

We got some chromebooks at (totally un-tech) work. Some are set with quant, some duckduckgo and some other misterious (to me) search engines. When you open the browser for the first time it gives you a list of ~10 to choose. Knowing the constant days cadence, delay and stress we handle I can easely picture my colleagues picking the closest to mouse to access the web without loosing a second.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#296

Post by magicalist »

TheCleric wrote: post #111
fuzztester wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is that abuse, though? is it against the law? IANAL, but I would think not. I mean, many people put links to their other products or services on the web page of one of their products or services.

It is, if you are leveraging one monopoly to attempt to gain more. This is what happened with Microsoft and Internet Explorer (via the Windows monopoly)[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... .

Had Microsoft merely provided advertised IE with Windows there never would have been a suit. Even bundling alone would have been a hard case to make. They did far more than just ship IE with Windows.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#297

Post by mozempthrowaway »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #114
JohnFen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thunderbird, on the other hand, takes user donations. And it depends on Firefox, sadly.

Fair enough. In any case, now would probably be a good moment for Mozilla to reconsider user donations on Firefox. Just my €50 of course isn't going to change the future by itself. But I'd happily give it to them if they'd let me. (And I don't even mind manually removing Google and replacing it with DDG.)

Just so you know, the money users donate goes towards political causes not towards Firefox.

When you are donating, you are donating to the Mozilla Foundation (which is a non-profit). All Firefox development is done through Mozilla Corporation (which is a for profit entity). There is no way to donate to Firefox.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#298

Post by dylan604 »

I have never used the URL/location bar as a search. I once was looking over the shoulder for someone that does, and the list of previous searches that popped up was quite revealing. This just reinforced my not wanting to ever use that feature. I'm sure this must look suspicious to anyone that would ever "look into" my machine. My default search therefore is which site I decide to use at the time, but rarely is it ever Google.

I hope the $0.000000001 that the Googs paid for my default setting is worth it. /s

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#299

Post by w10-1 »

svnt wrote: post #181
xpe wrote: post #96

After the DoJ vs. Apple suit was mentioned in March, I did some research before about what the DoJ views unfavorably in this arena. My bullet points were useful to a lot of people here then, so perhaps it can help inform some of the conversation here too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39782290 After some research, the practices below may capture much (though not necessarily all) of what the Department of Justi…

Some of these are a bit different in scope to some of your points, but here a few things I believe aren't really covered: Predatory hiring: Hiring key employees from competitors primarily to weaken them rather than to benefit from the employees' skills. Patent abuse: Using a large portfolio of patents to stifle competition rather than to protect legitimate innovations. Regulatory capture: Using influence to shape reg…

> what the DoJ views unfavorably in this arena

I think he meant to add `...for anti-trust purposes`

Data and acquisitions (and maybe platforming) might be considered under anti-trust. Others not so much.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#300

Post by fallingknife »

svnt wrote: post #181
xpe wrote: post #96

After the DoJ vs. Apple suit was mentioned in March, I did some research before about what the DoJ views unfavorably in this arena. My bullet points were useful to a lot of people here then, so perhaps it can help inform some of the conversation here too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39782290 After some research, the practices below may capture much (though not necessarily all) of what the Department of Justi…

Some of these are a bit different in scope to some of your points, but here a few things I believe aren't really covered: Predatory hiring: Hiring key employees from competitors primarily to weaken them rather than to benefit from the employees' skills. Patent abuse: Using a large portfolio of patents to stifle competition rather than to protect legitimate innovations. Regulatory capture: Using influence to shape reg…

Most of these don't make much sense:

Predatory hiring - banning this would be preventing competition in the labor market and be extremely bad for workers. Also unproveable.

Regulatory capture - the government regulators are not going to sue themselves

Killer acquisitions - already illegal to engage in acquisition to form monopoly

Data hoarding - the government can't force you to share things for free. That violates the takings clause

Self-preferencing - this is such a long standing and legally permitted practice that it is not plausible to make illegal. e.g. every grocery store has a store brand that they favor.

Vaporware - if this is a provable lie it is already covered by fraud statutes, and it would be such a stupid move by the company that I don't believe it actually happens

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