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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

#341

Post by Malp »

gregdoesit wrote: post #215
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…

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 recommend trying out Quiche Browser on iOS, or Orion from Kagi- both will support Kagi as a search option. Spotlight search still goes to Google, but I find that acceptable.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#342

Post by g15jv2dp »

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…

Nothing is ever going to happen. Google, Apple etc are the US's international economic arm that ensures competing countries never develop a threatening IT sector. They're very happy to let any foreign startup be gobbled up, for example. Negative consequences on the domestic market are just an unfortunate byproduct.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#343

Post by lcouturi »

mrob wrote: post #117
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.

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.

This is not really true. The about:config flag you mentioned does add a button in the Settings page allowing the addition of custom search engines, but that's only because the intended method for adding search engines is different. The normal way doesn't require setting anything in about:config, but it might be a little hidden (still found it on my own though, so I dunno).

The regular way is to visit the homepage for the search engine you want to add and click the URL bar. This will show the usual search drop-down with the "This time, search with:" row at the bottom. If you're on the homepage for a search engine which hasn't been added to Firefox, there will be an additional button on that row allowing you to add the site as a search engine, which will make it accessible from the regular settings page like every other search engine.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#344

Post by j_maffe »

cletus wrote: post #203
nabla9 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what's going to happen? Apple might make their own search engine. Apple has a team that's been creating a next-generation search engine codenamed Pegasus under John Giannandrea. They already have search engines for App Store, Maps, Apple TV and News and Spotlight. Apple web search development worked as bargaining chip in pricing negotiations with Google. Google paid them $20 billion per year to not compete as mu…

We forget that there was at least a decade of several "Google killers" a year [1]. It's a graveyeard. That was 2009 too. The volume slowed down but people are still trying (and failing) [2]. Microsoft has of course tried but Bing is only really propped up by Microsoft's deep pockets. It's not a profitable enterprise (AFAIK). And this is with Microsoft using every trick they can to bypass EU and US consent decrees and…

> We forget that there was at least a decade of several "Google killers" a year [1]. It's a graveyard.

Yes, that's called a monopoly.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#345

Post by warkdarrior »

NotPractical wrote: post #291
nilptr wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's "free market capitalism and deregulation" for corporations WE like.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#346

Post by j_maffe »

dmazzoni wrote: post #78
akira2501 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but Google didn't buy its way into dominance annd maintain their dominance through exclusivity deals This is a huge claim. Do you have any evidence to back it up?

I think they're saying is that in Google's very early days, they gained market dominance against a dozen other search engines simply by being better. It wasn't until years later that they started paying to be the dominant search engine.

> It wasn't until years later that they started paying to be the dominant search engine.

I agree but I that's not what the GP said.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#347

Post by eli »

w10-1 wrote: post #305
eli wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is explained in quite a bit of detail in the judge's ruling: https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rZ1UlL.0... Starting about page 197. > Google understands there is no genuine competition for the defaults because it knows that its partners cannot afford to go elsewhere. Time and again, Google’s partners have concluded that it is financially infeasible to switch default GSEs or seek greater flexibi…

The court is plain silly if it's concluding that multi-billion-dollar deals create resistance or diminishes incentives. If anything, it creates incentives by proving that another search engine could make billions from smartphone fees alone.

It’s an exclusive deal that prevents anyone else from offering a similar deal. Of course it reduces competition. The only question is whether it also violates the monopoly law.

I’d encourage you to read the decision, I just pulled two paragraphs from a pretty exhaustive document.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#348

Post by aristofun »

surgical_fire wrote: post #330
aristofun wrote: post #179

I don’t like google and I don’t like the way their shitty search is stuck in every hole. But denying by court a company a right to honestly pay to another company for distribution of their services has much worse long term consequences and is wrong.

> But denying by court a company a right to honestly pay to another company Considering this is an antitrust case, those payments are not honest.

That is my point - they _are_ honest (i.e. not stolen or tax evaded, not earned on illegal drugs etc).

But a short sighted court decided otherwise for whatever dumb reason they had.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#349

Post by XMPPwocky »

Twirrim wrote: post #229
zufallsheld wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least on mobile Firefox for Android, that's not true. It's there by default.

You can change between ones that you have a search tools extension for, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/category... , but you can't just put your own custom search engine in. That said, keyword searches are awesome and I use them for a whole lot of things, including effectively custom search engines. I have keyword searches against, e.g., internal confluence docs so I only have to enter "con " and…

I have UI to enter a custom URL for search in Firefox for Android, with no extensions beyond Privacy Badger, Unhook, and uBlock Origin- interesting.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#350

Post by j_maffe »

g15jv2dp wrote: post #342
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…

Nothing is ever going to happen. Google, Apple etc are the US's international economic arm that ensures competing countries never develop a threatening IT sector. They're very happy to let any foreign startup be gobbled up, for example. Negative consequences on the domestic market are just an unfortunate byproduct.

I think in this case it could, simply because all of the competitors are American, none are foreign.
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