Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 702 posts

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

#391

Post by [deleted] »

zdkl wrote: post #367
Ajedi32 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it benefit the consumer though? I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies in response to a product query is better for consumers than just showing them a listing of the products they actually searched for. [Google's response][1] to this ruling suggests they have data which confirms this: > While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently,…

As a consumer, I have (much) more trust that my interests are advanced by the EU than google. This is an opinion which I don't feel the need to convert anyone to but I really don't understand the opposite view. Can someone explain why they believe google and other "emerging" power centers saveguard their interests better than the EU?

[deleted]

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

#392

Post by watbe »

mythz wrote: post #378
zdkl wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer, I have (much) more trust that my interests are advanced by the EU than google. This is an opinion which I don't feel the need to convert anyone to but I really don't understand the opposite view. Can someone explain why they believe google and other "emerging" power centers saveguard their interests better than the EU?

Why are you using Google then? Use a Service you can trust or you believe has your best interests at heart.

The answer to your question is given by the EC decision:

> There are also high barriers to entry in these markets, in part because of network effects: the more consumers use a search engine, the more attractive it becomes to advertisers. The profits generated can then be used to attract even more consumers. Similarly, the data a search engine gathers about consumers can in turn be used to improve results.

Simply put, the EC believes that Google is a barrier to any viable competition, so there's no ability to develop a competitive service to Google's own.

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

#394

Post by Ajedi32 »

denis1 wrote: post #388
Ajedi32 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I get at all: https://i.imgur.com/nKpAYKX.png Regardless of what you're seeing though, ads are a necessary part of Google Search; it's how they make their money. IMO it's a little strange to be complaining that Google is showing you ads in your search results.

I mean, I don't expect Google to show the same results to everyone (this is what I get: http://imgur.com/a/go3pU ). Funny thing is that the results changed between my first and second query (there was another unrelated result before the first link to Samsung). I'm not complaining about ads and this fine is not about ads. It is about Google favoring Google Shopping links instead of competitors even though Google Shopp…

> I'm not complaining about ads and this fine is not about ads. It is about Google favoring Google Shopping links [...]

Google Shopping links _are_ ads though: https://i.imgur.com/m5rGqLa.png

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

#395

Post by grahn »

mythz wrote: post #302
bjl wrote: post #292

Earlier 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.

> being forced to give your competitors more prominence

No, they are being forced to give their competitors equal prominence.

The press release literally says: "the Decision orders Google to comply with the simple principle of giving equal treatment to rival comparison shopping services and its own service"

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

#396

Post by matt4077 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #354
denis1 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does it benefit the consumer though? I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies in response to a product query is better for consumers than just showing them a listing of the products they actually searched for. [Google's response][1] to this ruling suggests they have data which confirms this: > While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently,…

It's possible for such tactics to be useful for consumers and still be an illegal use of their dominant market position.

Compare MS and the bundled Internet Explorer: Yes, it was more convenient for people not to be required to download a browser after installing the OS.

But imagine if MS had been successful, and Internet Explorer had emerged as the only browser: Do you think that would have been in the common interest? (hint: around that time, they tried to get .doc established as the standard, replacing HTML)

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

#397

Post by tripzilch »

makomk wrote: post #312
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…

> 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.

It's really quite simple, if Google's user experience hinges on them abusing their market dominance then they have no business in the EU.

Even if it means we can't have certain "nice things", I am perfectly okay with that.

Companies have power. Companies with market dominance have a disproportionate amount of power. Why should a company be allowed to wield all that power without being held responsible for it? So if you're gonna be a dominant company in the EU, you're going to have to take responsibility and not abuse your power to stifle competition.

It's not like the "before" situation you sketch couldn't have been improved in any other way. It just so happens that this particular way also ("conveniently") stifled competition in shopping sites by abuse of Google's market dominance in Search.

Why is this bad? Because abuse of market dominance doesn't always result in a better user experience or product. And we can't even be sure that was actually the case now, because of this market dominance, no other company got a chance, the only way was Google.

Also, the problem in your "before" situation was Google serving its users search results that were spammed to death with low quality SEO crap. This was Google's problem (sure it's a really hard problem, but it's theirs). That shit could only thrive because of Google's popularity. Any real competition, like normal price comparison sites, were already suffering because of this (or worse, forced to join this dark side).

The thing is, this problem had nothing to do with the actual competition. But Google chose the solution (abuse market dominance) which drove them into obscurity. Eventually SEO-spammers (whose core business was never price comparison sites) found other ways to game and abuse the system.

If Google would've done nothing, people would have stopped using Google for finding price comparison sites (and back then, Google was really very good for many other things) because the SEO spam isn't useful. Then competing price comparison sites would have had a chance, and who knows, maybe Google's actual web-searching user experience (which is terrible today) would have remained better. I mean that's what we lost when Google tried to become the sites it linked to, instead of helping people find them. Not saying this would be the only solution, it's obviously not as profitable as Google has been while abusing their market dominance, maybe they could have found something responsible in between.

Also, we gotta be consistent. If the EU Commission on antitrust could say "we'll allow it this time because we kinda like the end result", THEN you should be scared, really really scared. Arbitrary application of the law is very bad, every time you encounter it, no matter what.

The Commission established that they've been abusing their market dominance since 2011 (or 2008). Market dominance put Google in a special position of responsibility, they are now being held to that.

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

#398

Post by cyxxon »

Radle wrote: post #132
cyxxon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they are forced to stop doing this it will make my search experience worse for me. This seems to be the whole point of the fine. Currently Google's services just so damned conveniently integrated that no one uses competitors' services, even if they are better. The thing is, though, I am totally with you here. I don't want to use one of the other services for maps, or flights, or these snippets for information. T…

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…

I actually read it again. Maybe I misunderstand it, but for me it is about the Google shopping comparison service: "Google has abused its market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service." What that means was this: "When a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine in relation to which Google's comparison shopping service wants to show results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results."

ow are they going to fix this now? Show five results, one of which is from Google, four from competitors? Which competitors? How bad can the results be, as long as they are returned by Google's request to their service? Can I exclude competitors? I don't want my data to go to Idealo, for example, I only have an account with Google.

I fear this is just opening a can of worms, becasue ultimately I am searching for something, go to a search engine for this, and want results. If I wanted results from a different search engine, I would have used that one. Now I get mixed results that I did not want to see. Is it really so bad that Google (the search engine) "understands" what I was probably really searching for and offers a specific type of search results - links to shops where I can buy SearchedProduct(tm)?

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

#399

Post by matt4077 »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #351
bjl wrote: post #292

Earlier 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.

I see your point and actually agree to an extent. But controlling what goes on on the company's own website doesn't sit well to me. Take this example: Walmart has a hair salon in many of their stores. Walmart's primary business model is not hair but product sales. But obviously Walmart wants you to get their hair cut at their salon. This is similar to the government stepping in and saying that the store must allow ot…

Well if Wal-Mart owned 95%+ of the retail space in Europe, you can be pretty sure they'd have to allow competitors access in some form or another.
Post reply on HN