This is exactly same as penalizing someone for opposing net neutrality
European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
321–330 of 702 posts
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#322Google's dominance is so complete that for years even their top browser competitor, Firefox, came preset to use an omnibox with Google as the default search engine, meaning that everything one typed into the browser was sent to Google, even if not actually a Google search.
This integration with Google is pervasive in Firefox; there are dozens of settings built into the browser that send information to various Google services. Yes, it's possible to change all of them, but probably less than 0.001% of users will do that. This is why it's not possible to take Firefox's claim that they are pro-privacy seriously.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#323while i disagree with EU and i think that goole has full right of sort things inthe way it wants, i also recognize that the "don't be evil" motto are just bullshits
google has the bad habit to sell itself as the saviour, while it is just making its own interests like anyone else... do not hide google...
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you read the articel? Google is not allowed to put itself or products from Alphabet higher in the search results than third party products. What kind of links they put up is googles decision. If they made a link "Shopping" next to "Maps" and "Images" everything would be fine. The problem is search results. Consumers expect all results to be shown fairly, by not doing so Google violated it's position. This is not…
Sure, but the question is, where the line will be drawn. A "Shopping" link next to "Maps" and "Images" is probably OK, but it's also completely useless. I'd be surprised if more than a fraction of people doing comparison shopping actually clicked that link. Intentionally pushing down results of competitors via algorithmic criteria is obviously bad, but say they stopped doing that. What about the inline shopping box a…
I personally reckon that making Google Search a significantly worse product is part of the reason why this happened. One of the companies pushing for this is Ciao, a comparison shopping service owned by Microsoft and used to provide the equivalent feature for Bing search results. Microsoft clearly know how useful these kinds of contextual results are, because before Google had them they were promoting them as Bing's big advantage over Google. Now they've managed to get the EU to restrict Google's ability to compete by offering them.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#325[deleted]
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#326I 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…
Or you should be happy, that the EU actually uses their regulatory power to benefit the consumer no matter how big the company they're going against is.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#327I 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…
If google can manipulate search results, then ISP companies can manipulate internet traffic. I think the arguements in favour of net neutrality can also be applied to this case.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#328I 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…
Incorporation is a charter to do business in the service of society. It's not carte blanche. There is no right to profit(eering).
The smart play is to skim off the top, maintain some fiction of competition, and horde the loot.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Where is Google's jugular, for that regulatory thumb?
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The anti-competitive practices you're talking about is not being able to decide what content gets displayed on your own website, what relevant information you're allowed to show Users in response to their search results and being forced to give your competitors more prominence. AFAIK this has never been written into law or ruled illegal before.
Sounds a lot like deciding what programs are included in your operating system. Do you consider this materially different, and if so why?