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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

#411

Post by enraged_camel »

ko27 wrote: post #298
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…

> I'll probably get down voted Damn, I hate this trend of making you comments appear more controversial. > What's next? You really should not argue this point. We need to stop "big" companies doing "anti-consumer" practices. The reason why those terms are in quotation marks is because when you are discussing antitrust and monopoly laws those terms are not well defined. You should only look at these rulings per-case b…

>>Damn, I hate this trend of making you comments appear more controversial.

I take it as a way of saying "this will probably be a controversial opinion here, but..." which is totally fine.

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

#412

Post by matt4077 »

currysausage wrote: post #23

I tend to agree with the underlying judgment, yet the record-breaking fine seems disproportionate to the debatable degree of wrongdoing, compared to the Intel case, where the (obviously reprehensible) extortion of distributors etc. only led to a fine of about €1.06B.

What matters more than the absolute sum is the amount of "pain" it causes. It's therefore tied to size more than just "evilness".

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

#413

Post by matt4077 »

ionised wrote: post #279
oyvey wrote: post #212

Visting google is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The EU should not interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of power from their side.

That's a very US-centric viewpoint and not one shared by people in Europe.

It has nothing to do with US/EU. The US has a long tradition of anti-trust laws which work essentially the same as the European.

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

#414

Post by matt4077 »

grondilu wrote: post #315

Maybe it's time Google enters politics, gains control of the US army somehow, and then threatens to invade Europe if they ever bother them again.

Maybe Google is run by people far above idiotic nationalistic revenge fantasies such as this.

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

#415

Post by tripzilch »

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?

This. Google's data just shows their interests happen to align with "what people usually prefer" this time, but we know that is not what motivates google. Not at all.

They have acted against "what people usually prefer" many, many times before when it was beneficial to their own interests.

Additionally, "what people usually prefer" is completely orthogonal to the EU antitrust ruling, which is about holding companies responsible for the power that comes with market dominance.

Companies don't really have ethics or humanity (the way people do), unless we force them to. "We" in this case refers to the whole of society, including the people making up the company. In particular as companies grow very large, even if the people making up the company are ethical, humane and good, THEY are still tasked to wrangle a wild beast that is mostly just hungry for profits, and try to steer it to do Good and not Bad because it doesn't see there is a difference. But even then, they can use help from the rest of society, and regulations can be part of this help.

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

#416

Post by oyvey »

yladiz wrote: post #246
oyvey wrote: post #212

Visting google is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The EU should not interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of power from their side.

> Using Internet Explorer is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The US government should not interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of power from their side.

>Using Internet Explorer is 100% voloutary and there are alternatives. The US government should not interfere, its unnecessary and I think its an abuse of power from their side.

I've already forgotten the IE case so I might be missing some details but what you wrote is 100% true even if it was probably intended in a ironic fashion.

I really, really don't see a reason why a government should interefe in a voloutery exchange. I kinda like my internet unregulated. Crazy actually how many people will "(+1)" sentences like "the internet should be decentralized, free of government and corporate censorship and open to everyone" but will cheer for the EU when they attempt to force a website to change its content.

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

#417

Post by wav-part »

bjl wrote: post #359
throwaway2016a wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But I don't buy that they can't do what they want in their own store. Then you're unfamiliar with anti-trust law.

Everyone in the universe is.

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

#418

Post by Kurtz79 »

mythz wrote: post #250
gpderetta wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that Google is not a shopping service. Using a dominant position in one market to acquire one in a different market is not allowed.

They're returning relevant information Customers are searching for. If it wasn't relevant or useful people would use a different Service they'd deem more valuable to them. A major part of Google's simplicity is they provide a single search box you can use to search for anything, I don't want to have to go to 100 different sites to search for 100 different things.

"They're returning relevant information Customers are searching for."

They were really not.

For every search you assume you will be given the more popular matches, what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their advantage, giving doctored results.

There wouldn't have been any problem if they promoted their service making it clear it was not part of the search results.

EDIT: For a counterexample, google "flights price compare".

You will be shown a small form at the top from which you can use their own service.

It is clearly separated from the search results, which show the actual most popular websites for flight comparison.

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

#419

Post by matt4077 »

wyager wrote: post #42

What would Google have to do to ignore this fine? If they cut any physical presence in the EU, would the EC have any way to enforce this fine? Put another way, if the EU tried to take money from some random e.g. American or Japanese company without a physical presence in the EU, what channels could the EU use to twist their arm across national boundaries? Somewhat related, there could be good money in providing an ex…

Yawn... Google isn't going to give up a double-digit percentage of their market to indulge these sorts of nationalistic revenge fantasies.

The EU has strong legal institutions, and is a democracy ruled by law, with standards at least as good as the US.

They aren't any more hostile to businesses than the US, which has basically identical antitrust laws. Find the list of EU antitrust actions, and you'll see they take actions against EU companies far more often than companies from non-EU countries, almost perfectly aligned with representation in the EU market. You just don't hear about some Italian steel mill being fined in US media.

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

#420

Post by matt4077 »

dustinmoris wrote: post #125

Someone said once something which really describes this well: The EU hasn't contributed ANYTHING to the internet, but they are the ones who want to regulate it the most. :(

This really doesn't have much to do with the Internet, and your comparison is factually wrong, as well. Please go find that someone who said this, and tell him his petty nationalistic fury is unbecoming.
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