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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

#491

Post by shagie »

bdd8f1df777b wrote: post #467
otterley wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? They did it for Maps.

Even though Apple hasn’t been sued for Apple Maps, they are not safe from such antitrust charges. The antitrust cases move slowly so it’s possible that they just haven’t gotten to there.

Apple Maps is now on the web ( https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/24/24205449/apple-maps-web-b... )

So far, Company + Map hasn't caused any problems with even bigger players and tighter interegration (Google + Google Maps and Microsoft + Nokia ( https://news.microsoft.com/2013/09/03/microsoft-to-acquire-n... )).

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#492

Post by ImJamal »

aziaziazi wrote: post #295
cletus wrote: post #31

I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds. Why? Mozilla and Apple will lose significant revenue from having Google as the default search engine and Google will no longer have to pay those billions. What's more, no one else can pay to be the default either (eg the short-lived Mozilla Bing deal). So what's going to happen? Most users will probably still use Google, nobody is getting paid an…

We got some chromebooks at (totally un-tech) work. Some are set with quant, some duckduckgo and some other misterious (to me) search engines. When you open the browser for the first time it gives you a list of ~10 to choose. Knowing the constant days cadence, delay and stress we handle I can easely picture my colleagues picking the closest to mouse to access the web without loosing a second.

Can't you set a group policy and have it default to Google or whatever search engine you want?

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#493

Post by thayne »

coldpie wrote: post #308
isomorphic wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I checked (this may have changed), Firefox also tags the default search engines with URL query parameters indicating that the search came from Firefox. When I tried to change this it would not let me edit the default URLs. I had to add entirely-new versions of Google and DuckDuckGo, with custom names and stripped-down URLs in order to avoid the tagging. No doubt it is revenue-related, but it's also a pr…

> it's also a privacy problem. Can you describe how? What information is that query parameter providing to an attacker that is not being provided in 50 other ways?

I suppose it tells them you searched with the address/search bar instead of navigating to the search website. But I'm not sure why you would care about that.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#494

Post by ghostly_s »

KolenCh wrote: post #464
o-o- wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that the idea behind antitrust laws was that if an entity reaches total market dominance and uses that dominance to keep other out of the game, the entity should be split into competing entities. What I'm seeing however is nothing more than toothless, political pointing sticks. Both IBM, Microsoft and Google have clearly at some point obtained total domination of their markets. Consequently they've a…

I was just listening to this episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/acquired/id1050462261?... They pointed out that a monopoly is not the sin, the sin is to abuse that market position for unfair advantage. So your summary of their verdict in a way is what the US view of antitrust is.

FYI, when you share an Apple Podcasts link, anyone reading on an Apple device without the Podcasts app installed cannot do anything with it, even copy the link to open elsewhere-it just turns into a prompt to install "Podcasts." So I don't even know what podcast you're pointing to to find it in the app I prefer.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#495

Post by jonhohle »

bdd8f1df777b wrote: post #467
otterley wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? They did it for Maps.

Even though Apple hasn’t been sued for Apple Maps, they are not safe from such antitrust charges. The antitrust cases move slowly so it’s possible that they just haven’t gotten to there.

The problem isn’t that Google has search and makes Android. It’s that they have search and paid android phone makes and Apple oodles of money to make Google search the default.

Apple would not need to pay anyone to make their search (or maps or browser) the default. It would be the default on Apple devices and not used much outside of that.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#496

Post by smsm42 »

cletus wrote: post #31

I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds. Why? Mozilla and Apple will lose significant revenue from having Google as the default search engine and Google will no longer have to pay those billions. What's more, no one else can pay to be the default either (eg the short-lived Mozilla Bing deal). So what's going to happen? Most users will probably still use Google, nobody is getting paid an…

They don't have a better product, not for a long time, but they do have a famous product, with which most of the people are familiar with, unlike the competitors. They have been matched and over-matched long ago, but since virtually nobody within 99% accuracy makes research on current search engine market before typing into the box, that doesn't matter - people know google, so people go to google, however inferior their product would be. If it's not literally useless, they'll keep using it for a while now.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#497

Post by nytesky »

nabla9 wrote: post #121
cletus wrote: post #31

I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds. Why? Mozilla and Apple will lose significant revenue from having Google as the default search engine and Google will no longer have to pay those billions. What's more, no one else can pay to be the default either (eg the short-lived Mozilla Bing deal). So what's going to happen? Most users will probably still use Google, nobody is getting paid an…

> 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…

Search is dead anyways. It’s all SEO nonsense. I would rather have a curated list of validated sights. Like recipes only from actual chefs or publications, news from newspapers and networks, be absolutely sure the address I am looking at is my BANKS website.

All the Reddit, twitter, Pinterest, and blog stuff can stay in the Google wasteland and gotcha ad links.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#498

Post by smsm42 »

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…

You can't seriously bring 2009 as a proof the situation now is the same. In Internet terms, it's like arguing current politics with examples of the time of Charlemagne.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#499

Post by alphabetting »

belorn wrote: post #425
legitster wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People use Google because it's the default, not because they will go out of their way to keep using it. Is this actually true? Microsoft has bent over backwards trying making it inconvenient to get Chrome + Google on any new device. There's even the whole "Edge is the #1 browser to install Chrome" meme. Normies just really like Google.

How many stories have you seen with "I search for X, and all the top results are advertisements"? The latest that I recall that I saw on HN was "Now all results above the fold are ads". Its not uncommon to search for product X, only to find product Z being ranked above the official store of X. Google search is advertisement first, quality second. Bing may be equally crappy too. Microsoft "welcome to edge" page is a b…

Id wager SEO/AI slop is a much bigger problem for Google than ad load for their userbase. Only 20% of queries have ads so 4 out of 5 times ads won't even be seen. But on those 4 out of 5 do have the chance of turning users away from Google with awful SEO optimized sites and AI slop.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#500

Post by ImJamal »

uabstraction wrote: post #373
warkdarrior wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone bid for being the search engine in a browser with <4% market share and falling? Everybody will want to be on iPhone/Safari, Android/Chrome, and Windows/Chrome or Edge.

4 percent of the browser market is still well over a hundred million users.

These default search deals are only on new installs though. How often will those users reinstall Firefox?
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