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European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

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Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#311

Post by dmix »

coldtea wrote: post #271
dmix wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's search results have become more than just a directory of websites like it was in previous years. It now integrates tons of specialized results such as embedded videos and smart answers to direct questions. It will only move further and further away from simple lists of sites as their AI improves. I fear this fine will deter innovation here as any special results Google adds will be scrutinized heavily. It's…

> If Google was merely a Yellow Pages style service as it was previously then I'd be more sympathetic to the idea of distorted rankings favouring Google services but that's becoming less and less the typical user experience. Well, I'm primarily agains the idea of giving a single, non democratically controlled non-international entity, so much power. To the point where I don't care if Google is forced to stop innovati…

Do you think an organization like EU can effectively fine or regulate their way to a more uniform market though?

Google could partner with other companies to do integration in their search engine for those smart results but then they'd just be giving another company an unfair advantage.

I don't see how you could stop this without crippling the type of answers Google provides. Besides maybe offering open tools they could automously integrate with.

Google pushed for adding metadata so any web developer can add things like star ratings and pricing directly to SERPs. But the adoption has been limited and limited compared to a full custom integration with a web service they control.

But regardless Google is a monopoly that we can't really do much about. Plenty of people have tried to compete and failed so there will be some consequences of that.

Considering how important the tool is to the world I'm quite the opposite. I'd rather let Google have a few specialized subsites which they can dominate a few markets with ease, in exchange for not severely limiting the potential of their technology - a technology we are all stuck using for the foreseeable future.

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#312

Post by makomk »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #275

I might be in a minority here and I'll probably get down voted but this result scares me... and I used to be CTO one of those competing price comparison sites that show up lower in the results so if anyone should agree it should be me. While it made me angry when Google put their results above ours, I never questioned that they had a right to do that. It is their website. They are not a utility. At what point does a…

It should scare you. The EU just used their regulatory power to force the world's biggest search engine to make their user experience worse in order to benefit other companies. Before Google penalized all the vertical search sites, doing a Google search for certain kinds of products was a terrible experience; page after page of crappy information-free autogenerated sites hoping to make $$$ from ads and referral fees that were SEO-optimized to the gills, making it impossible to find actual information.

Not only that, but the specialized infoboxes at the top of Google's search results were an almost direct response to their competitor Microsoft doing exactly the same thing and promoting it at the main advantage of their search. Microsoft's comparison shopping subsidiary which they used for their search results was one of the companies complaining to the EU about this. Now that Microsoft have convinced the EU to ban Google from doing this, they can once again point to the fact that they offer this extra contextual information as a reason for using them and Google cannot compete.

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#313

Post by latch »

IanCal wrote: post #240
skwirl wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should Amazon be forced to show results for e-readers other than Kindle or audiobooks other than those on Audible? I don't think it's obvious at all where the line is.

Do amazon treat the kindle differently from other ebook readers on their site? If, for example, kobo fits my search better and they demote it while putting kindle content right at the top. Does that kind of thing happen? In which case, quite possibly, if * amazon can be argued to have a very large position, with the vast majority of searches going through it * it can be shown that people tend to click almost exclusiv…

To answer your first question, since I don't think it was rhetorical, I'm aware of at least 1 case where amazon stopped selling competing products (1).

I also just searched for "aaa batteries" and the first hit, after the AmazonBasics ad, were AmazonBasics batteries.

I'm not saying either of these are anti-competitive. I understand that more goes into it than just that. Just offering these little facts in case anyone else is curious.

(I do think that with both Amazon's increasing dominance and seemingly increasing aggressiveness, they're heading for legal issues).

(1) https://www.recode.net/2016/5/31/11826394/amazon-apple-tv-go...

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#314

Post by JoeAltmaier »

the6threplicant wrote: post #296
throwaway2016a wrote: post #275

I might be in a minority here and I'll probably get down voted but this result scares me... and I used to be CTO one of those competing price comparison sites that show up lower in the results so if anyone should agree it should be me. While it made me angry when Google put their results above ours, I never questioned that they had a right to do that. It is their website. They are not a utility. At what point does a…

To me it shows why "big government" is a necessity (as well as a curse). You can't regulate a company that is bigger than the enforcer of the regulations.

I don't see it. The governor on my engine isn't larger than the engine.

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#316

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

calcifer wrote: post #65
interfixus wrote: post #49

Please enlighten me: What kind of monopoly would that be? Much as I detest an awful lot of Google, I have never once been - and know of noone else who has ever been - forced to use their search against my will. In fact, I get along fine without it, as well as without their analytics and their browser and their cloud stuff, excepting of course that I am often forced to correspond with gmail addresses.

Google holding a dominant position or a monopoly on search is not by itself illegal. However, using that position to gain entry in a different market (shopping, in this case) is considered anti-competitive and hence illegal.

So when Amazon decided to sell hardware, would that be anti-competitive?

Pretty much, you could use the argument you just made against any business that delved into another space. Apple with phones back in the day, Microsoft with Hardware, Walmart and groceries, etc etc etc. There are almost infinite examples, very few businesses haven't expanded their product line and reach. Using their own business to do so is just an obvious solution.

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#317

Post by jabv »

bjl wrote: post #292
throwaway2016a wrote: post #275

I might be in a minority here and I'll probably get down voted but this result scares me... and I used to be CTO one of those competing price comparison sites that show up lower in the results so if anyone should agree it should be me. While it made me angry when Google put their results above ours, I never questioned that they had a right to do that. It is their website. They are not a utility. At what point does a…

Once you gain a certain amount of market share you no longer have the right to engage in certain kinds of anti-competitive actions. There's nothing extreme about that; the laws have been in place for over a century.

"It is generally conceded in our age that a critically strategic producer has an obligation to the public for the sake of the common good."

And what happens if Google says, "f* it, we're not providing a utility, we're not taking traffic from European IPs anymore"?

I am no anarcho-capitalist, but I really think more folks should read Atlas Shrugged.

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#318

Post by 3pt14159 »

nkkollaw wrote: post #229
3pt14159 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMP isn't bad in the sense that it makes websites faster. AMP is bad because it (usually, in common practice) switches the domain, so you lose control of a huge number of things and you essentially cede control to a third party, so instead of this: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/us/politics/hillary-cl... You get this: https://amp.gstatic.com/v/mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/us/p... Now ironically, this is actua…

Ah, I had no idea that the implementation required you to proxy everything through Google, I thought all you had to do was changing the code. I would never do that.

Theoretically you could of course host your own AMP server, but of course if you're going to have your, say, mobile subdomain you can just as easily make things fast by just sticking to plain old HTML and simple CSS. In reality what happens is that companies trade control for speed on mobile.

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#319

Post by patrickaljord »

catdog wrote: post #297
patrickaljord wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they didn't benefit, if using those services were a net loss, then people wouldn't be using them. Also, I like to draw a line between monopolies imposed by force (eg taxi offering horrible services making competitors illegal through licensing) and those used by people voluntarily because they enjoy the services. Google is used voluntarily, because people enjoy it, like Microsoft during the 90's. As I read elsewher…

> If they didn't benefit, if using those services were a net loss, then people wouldn't be using them. 1. They may benefit more from better services. 2. As far as I know Google operates a lot of services which are not profitable by themselfs. > Also, I like to draw a line between monopolies imposed by force (eg taxi offering horrible services making competitors illegal through licensing) and those used by people volu…

> 1. They may benefit more from better services. 2. As far as I know Google operates a lot of services which are not profitable by themselfs.

So what? Billion dollar companies subsidizing tech for the masses (even selfishly) is not a bad thing. That's one of the best thing about capitalism.

> It's a bit like when (in the old days) the major phone company

No, it's not like that, phone companies were granted monopolies by governments enforced by the law and force of the state. Google is not enforced by the use of government force or law, it's just pleasant to use and so people use it willingly, huge difference.

> this worked mostly because they got far too lazy with IE

You're proving my points, monopolies that are used willingly and not enforced by the government are forced to innovate to survive, if they don't people will check alternatives.

> Microsoft was dominant on the client for over a decade and still is in a lot of areas. It took a long time and a shift to new device categories to partly break that monopoly. And finally what happened is only a shift to a new dominant player called Google.

So a company had a great technology and marketshare that lasted ~15 years only, how is that something to worry about exactly? They had the best tech and grabbed the market until they didn't have the best tech. What's wrong exactly here? Google has the best Search right now and most of the market, if their tech starts lagging, they will lose their marketshare. Again, not seeing the issue here.

> Only exceptionally big innovations which are so different to even overwhelm the monopolist have a chance.

Again, that's exactly my point, trying to bring down monopolies by force only discourages/postpones exceptionally big innovations from happening. Also, Google itself was a huge innovation by itself, why is it a bad thing that only another huge innovation could beat them?

Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

#320

Post by kbart »

dingo_bat wrote: post #273

This is like forcing itunes to show movie results from prime video.

No. The key difference is that iTunes owns the rights to the contest it promotes via some kind of author-distributor agreement, so all the contest is 'theirs'. Google search, on the other hand, crawls the whole web, but put results by Google Shopping on top and punishes others, that have nothing to do with Google nor gave them an explicit permission to use their content. This creates an illusion that Google Shopping products are somehow better.
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