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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

#501

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #24
clarry wrote: post #3

Promoting your own product above competitors' is ok unless you're big. Ok, I get it. But I don't agree with it.

Controversial way to look at this, but surprisingly close to the truth: markets exist for the people. Companies have only one purpose: to serve the people. Their profits are merely incidental. Any type of regulation (or lack thereof) can be traced back to this rule. Freedoms exist only to let companies thrive insofar as that then lets them sell goods that benefit the people. Once that stops, the freedoms stop. I'm be…

> Companies have only one purpose: to serve the people.

That seems completely backwards. Governments have only one purpose—to serve the people.

Companies have only one purpose—to serve its shareholders. Of course, purely pursuing this purpose can lead to perverse outcomes so we have regulation to keep it in check.

> Companies [don't] have any type of inherent right to exist

Huh? In so far as individuals have a right to engage in trade and commerce, and in so far as they have a right to engage in this in coordination with other individuals, companies do have a right to exist.

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

#502

Post by tripzilch »

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.

So, their market dominance was established from their web search product. The antitrust ruling was based on them abusing the power that comes with this dominance to stifle competition with their shopping product.

While it may be the case that today, Google likes to pile all these things into one integrated product (the user benefit of this being really debatable, even if you personally like it), their market dominance was initially acquired from their web search.

If they had historically always been demoting other shopping sites in favour of their own, they would probably not have gotten this dominant at all. One of the features that set Google apart from the other big search engines in its early days was in fact very similar: Other engines would sell rankings and other tricks often favouring profit over relevance. Google didn't do this, partially out of "principle" (which is apparently lost now), partially because their pagerank algorithm was so superior in ranking for relevance that they didn't need to. If they had only returned results for their own shopping business, it wouldn't have gained nearly as much support and wouldn't have been as successful.

But because of this established market dominance, they can get away with it today, because everything is integrated, people just google stuff, even if shopping results are heavily skewed towards their own. And not only does this obscure competition, the competition that does appear far down really sucks, and now you have people arguing that Google Shopping is actually in fact better. Google's web search has deteriorated in quality quite a bit, especially for queries related to "integrated Google products", which makes sense because why bother sorting out a web filled with spam for the good bits (like they used to work very hard at) if you can just push your own product instead?

Finally, regardless of whether Google likes to integrate and pile everything into one heap, Online Shopping and Web Search are different markets.

That's the whole point of this antitrust, just because different businesses in different markets can be grouped under one huge company, doesn't mean it can abuse its market dominance in one market to stifle competition in another.

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

#503

Post by mythz »

uhhfcuvv wrote: post #483
mythz wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What line of reasoning? I don't think irremovable Desktop Apps and Websites are comparable or that they should be sanctioned the same way. It didn't have to be a ballot box but I think users should be able to decide what default browser they want to use on first use. I'd prefer to only be install what browsers I want to use. IMO Microsoft is just as hostile now, I can't uninstall Edge from Windows 10, I keep getting…

> I need to use my spam hotmail account to log into Windows 10, I tried using a local account but it broke everywhere that launched a Sign Up page which crashed after 1s of an empty screen, which I needed in order to get the latest version of WSL with the bug fix I needed. You're lying. You don't need a hotmail account to do any of that.

Can't you read? I said I had tried using my local account initially but then I couldn't use the Windows Sign In dialog for anything, not to access Windows Insider Programme ( Settings > Windows Insider Programme - which you do need an MS account for) not to add another user, not to connect my Internet account, not to login to the Windows Store, Xbox, etc. So after spending a few hours trying to run every hack I could find (none worked) I ended up reinstalling Windows 10 again then kept their default Internet account policy and now everything's working again. Since you don't have any clue what I went through feel free to Google it yourself: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows+10+can%27t+add+user+dialog

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

#504

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

justin66 wrote: post #424
yladiz wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, my implicit argument is that this specific argument isn't really valid because these circumstances have happened before and I don't believe the decision against Microsoft is controversial in 2017. I do believe that something like Google, while obviously having alternatives, is often the place people search, so it is in many ways a monopoly and should be heavily scrutinized to ensure it's not using its positio…

> I don't believe the decision against Microsoft is controversial in 2017. Well, in one sense that's obviously true: it's no longer a source of controversy. On the other hand, if there is a reason you believe the people who argued against the Microsoft antitrust action - or aspects thereof - in the late nineties would retract their opposition today, I wonder what it is. More to the point, I wonder if you have read an…

Add my name to the list of people that aren't entirely convinced that bundling IE was a abuse of monopoly power.

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

#505

Post by disiplus »

Mahn wrote: post #387
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?

Personally, as an EU citizen, I don't believe that Google is advancing my interests and rights, but I also don't believe that the EU commission dictating what Google can or cannot do based on who is lobbying and how much money is at stake has the consumer's best interests in mind. To me these fines seem motivated by money, not consumer rights.

on what is this based. the EU commision distroyed roaming between EU members, and im pretty sure they had all the lobiying from mobile operators to not do it.

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

#506

Post by e12e »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #445
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?

Can someone explain why they believe google and other "emerging" power centers saveguard their interests better than the EU? 1. Because it's in their long term best interest to have a customer for life (No political cycle) so they are more incentivized than a politician would be to support the interest of the consumer. 2. They have a more insight into user desires and actions on a day to day basis, meaning they can p…

Re: 1) You might think that is in Google's best interest - but I'm not sure most previous behavior with handling anything from usenet (Google groups), via the rss reader through any number of other services Google has mismanaged or shut down.

It's in Google's best interest to make money. A large userbase and ubiquitous brand is part of that. User happiness is only one possible means to that end.

Finally, you seem to think that search users are Google's customers - as they don't pay anything to Google, they are a resource, or product - not a customer.

Google search is a loss-leader for Google ads - if there's no competition (say paying for product placement at these other sites) - Google gets a bigger share of the ad revenue.

I don't see what magical mechanism there is that would strongly push Google to care for the Google search users "best interest".

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

#507

Post by interfixus »

harryf wrote: post #267
calcifer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nothing but preference or lazyness Those two (but especially preference) are extremely strong motivators for humans to choose one product over the other. But even if it wasn't, the law is there the protect the citizens and their livelihoods, not one company's supposed right to hold a monopoly.

A lot of time, research and money has gone into feeding those preferences and laziness. The patterns to create habit forming products are well known - even books about it http://amzn.to/1PU95Fp There probably needs to a category of consumer software where the argument "but you could always use an alternative" should not apply, when evaluating monopolies. Once you have network effects for example, you have the foundat…

Of course I have a choice. Not using WhatsApp.

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

#508

Post by zeteo »

Kenji wrote: post #470
zeteo wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this result scares me [...] I never questioned that they had a right to do that. It is their website Are you serious? By this logic Microsoft could do whatever they wanted with Windows. Yes, when you're big enough to absolutely dominate a market you can't just use that to make rules that kick out everyone else.

Their site runs on their server and is free to visit. Micosoft runs their products like Windows and Office on YOUR machine. That's the difference.

> [Google's site] runs on their server [...] Micosoft runs their products like Windows and Office on YOUR machine

That's not a significant difference - Google's site renders on your machine too. Google's servers send you computer code (HTML, Javascript) and Microsoft's servers also send you computer code (Windows binaries).

> [Google's site] is free to visit

The use of API calls in Windows is also free. Would you be OK with Windows servicing Chrome and Dropbox several times slower than Microsoft products? There was a huge antitrust case about this in the '90s.

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

#509

Post by sz4kerto »

Kenji wrote: post #470
zeteo wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this result scares me [...] I never questioned that they had a right to do that. It is their website Are you serious? By this logic Microsoft could do whatever they wanted with Windows. Yes, when you're big enough to absolutely dominate a market you can't just use that to make rules that kick out everyone else.

Their site runs on their server and is free to visit. Micosoft runs their products like Windows and Office on YOUR machine. That's the difference.

No. You run their products on your machine.

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

#510

Post by MrZongle2 »

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 it's time Google enters politics..."

I think we're long past that point: https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...

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