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An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

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Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#41

Post by mattlondon »

snarbles wrote: post #38
mattlondon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there already are many search engines? I recently got a couple of new windows laptops and Edge defaulted to Bing, but after changing away from Bing it is relentlessly trying to make me set Bing as the default search engine every few days. Note that I am using Edge here, not Chrome. Last time I installed Chrome I think it forced me to pick a default search engine, and didn't endlessly harass me to pick Google as i…

Edge, Bing, and Safari do not have majority market share. It would still please me to see these companies broken up. They have their own obnoxious and/or harmful practices that are the result or of attempts to be monopolistic.

I would be surprised to learn that MS does not have majority market share in desktop OSes. Windows still seems to be the default choice - Mac OS and Chrome must be tiny in comparison?

Edit: Windows is 73%, closest is Mac OS at 15% (which was way higher than I expected) https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#42

Post by IncreasePosts »

bbqfog wrote: post #37
IncreasePosts wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the other parties succeed? IE the aggregator sites? Is it merely because they exist? If I make an aggregator aggregator, should I be able to demand placement on Google search results above mere aggregator sites?

Other parties should succeed because it's good for me, the consumer. If I need to take a trip, it's not in my interest at all for Google to be in the value chain and for me to pay the monopoly penalty as a consumer.

But Google was prevented from showing you direct links to directly book on the suppliers website. How is forcing users to go through an aggregator(and include them in the value chain) beneficial for users?

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#43

Post by zeroCalories »

walkingthisquai wrote: post #15

I know everyone loves hating on Google here, but some of the changes that they were required to make are genuinely quite annoying. Maps results on the search page don't work like they used to. Clicking the mini-map doesn't open to Google Maps anymore, so you have to relearn some behaviours. I know it's minor stuff (for now), but as a long time happy user of Maps, this kind of thing does not benefit me, and I don't ge…

I agree. Google definitely has an unfair advantage, but ultimately the services that want to compete don't offer compelling features over the ones provided by Google. I recently had to book a flight, and I want to book through the airline's site, but when sorting by price on Google flights I get a million different comparison sites that offer slightly less on a ticket, messing up the whole sort. At this point just kill Google, or tell these comparison sites to eat shit. If Google starts to abuse a monopoly position to exploit users then we can talk about brining in competition, but the competition right now sucks and I don't care to support them.

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#44

Post by Suppafly »

bbqfog wrote: post #40
Suppafly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There would be many search engines and the ability for one to drastically impact other industries with UI changes would go away. Honestly that's just wishful thinking. Generally these monopolies, regardless of 'artificial propping up' tend to be fairly natural monopolies and these sorts of changes just make it harder on people to get the experience they had before and prefer.

Not true, look at what happened to Internet Explorer after MS was forced to allow people to uninstall it.

It's not clear to me what point you're making. What happened to IE specifically when MS was forced to allow people to uninstall it?

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#45

Post by rockskon »

therealmarv wrote: post #23

Too late too slow. Google in European Union feels already today like a different website in comparison to Google USA where there is an AI answering (which is totally not enabled in Europe). Meanwhile the crowds slowly adopting asking ChatGPT & Co about hotel recommendations and ChatGPT delivers. And in Europe I need to open maps.google.com to search for places because a direct link from google.com is not allowed. It'…

You say the lack of forced AI answers with their accompanying russian-roulette-esque accuracy as if that's a bad thing.

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#46

Post by drivingmenuts »

poizan42 wrote: post #27
walkingthisquai wrote: post #15

I know everyone loves hating on Google here, but some of the changes that they were required to make are genuinely quite annoying. Maps results on the search page don't work like they used to. Clicking the mini-map doesn't open to Google Maps anymore, so you have to relearn some behaviours. I know it's minor stuff (for now), but as a long time happy user of Maps, this kind of thing does not benefit me, and I don't ge…

That is Google's choice. They weren't allowed to give Google Maps as the only option. Rather than implementing a way for the user to choose which site to use for maps they decided they would rather remove the feature altogether.

It makes sense, though. Google doesn't want to send business to a competitor - that's giving them a leg up on you.

While the EU may punish Google, it shouldn't expect them to like it.

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#47

Post by the_duke »

therealmarv wrote: post #23

Too late too slow. Google in European Union feels already today like a different website in comparison to Google USA where there is an AI answering (which is totally not enabled in Europe). Meanwhile the crowds slowly adopting asking ChatGPT & Co about hotel recommendations and ChatGPT delivers. And in Europe I need to open maps.google.com to search for places because a direct link from google.com is not allowed. It'…

The horrible AI driven answers that are more wrong than right are very much present in the EU though.

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#48

Post by fargle »

bjt wrote: post #4
bbqfog wrote: post #3

This is a great argument for breaking up Google because they've created an anti-competitive environment where other parties cannot succeed without Google gatekeeping them.

Sincerely asking... help me connect the dots there? Suppose Google is broken up into separate businesses, one for search and one for ads. Is the idea that the search side would have no incentive to show hotel search results on a map? I'm not seeing the connection between the breakup proposal and the features discussed in the post.

what this is showing is simply more of google abusing their monopoly. making linking to maps from search harder and inconvenient for users does not help the users, nor smaller independent companies, nor really anybody at all. but that's because even with complying with the law, google is purposefully using its monopoly to make compliance as annoying and unhelpful as possible.

what should be happening is that the provider of the maps app is nothing to do with google search and then if your favorite map provider can plug-in to the search results in a seamless way it wouldn't be an anti-trust issue at all. it would benefit all parties. instead google opts to, and who can expect different, maximize the annoyance to their already captive users and minimize their negative business impact (e.g. sending anyone to somebody else's map app).

but they certainly aren't going to voluntarily break themselves up because some regulation that can be implemented in a way that's annoying to their users. who still have no viable other options, btw.

the root cause of the annoyances the users are now facing is both caused by googles monopolistic behavior in the first place and then them weaponizing their own captive users to push back on any regulations trying to stem it. a significant contributing factor is regulations like these are do more harm than good.

the right answer for abusive monopolies is to 1) don't let them form and 2) break them up when they do. chicken-shit regulation like this will only have the predictable result - avoidance, annoyance, no-real-change. and, as you alude, simply make everything worse for everyone.

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#49

Post by summerlight »

jjulius wrote: post #29
summerlight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cases, a single extra action is known to cause pretty steep drop in discovery/engagement rates and it's the whole point of "default option" antitrust debates.

If the user is determined, they'll press on and discover it, as I and others have. If they're not, then they won't. Perhaps a drop in discovery/engagement suggests that using that feature wasn't as vital as others thought it was?

I'm not interested in subjective arguments but one clear thing is that there is a significant number of people who don't have a good sense of discovering tech features.

Re: An update on Google's compliance with the DMA

#50

Post by freehorse »

bbqfog wrote: post #40
Suppafly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There would be many search engines and the ability for one to drastically impact other industries with UI changes would go away. Honestly that's just wishful thinking. Generally these monopolies, regardless of 'artificial propping up' tend to be fairly natural monopolies and these sorts of changes just make it harder on people to get the experience they had before and prefer.

Not true, look at what happened to Internet Explorer after MS was forced to allow people to uninstall it.

The same happens in android, you get a prompt to select your browser in a new phone (not sure if that is eu or not), similar in ios.
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