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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

#511

Post by tripzilch »

latch wrote: post #313
IanCal wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do amazon treat the kindle differently from other ebook readers on their site? If, for example, kobo fits my search better and they demote it while putting kindle content right at the top. Does that kind of thing happen? In which case, quite possibly, if * amazon can be argued to have a very large position, with the vast majority of searches going through it * it can be shown that people tend to click almost exclusiv…

To answer your first question, since I don't think it was rhetorical, I'm aware of at least 1 case where amazon stopped selling competing products (1). I also just searched for "aaa batteries" and the first hit, after the AmazonBasics ad, were AmazonBasics batteries. I'm not saying either of these are anti-competitive. I understand that more goes into it than just that. Just offering these little facts in case anyone…

Sounds about right. But first they'd have to establish that Amazon has market dominance in the entire EU. Which I don't think they have. So there's that.

Then they would investigate if they abuse this dominance to stifle competition. Which I think your batteries example would qualify for. They'd probably look a bit further though because I dunno, if it's just batteries :-p So they'd gather more evidence and if they find enough, they too will get an antitrust case.

Just that, market dominance in itself is not illegal, so if Amazon, unlike Google (knowingly!!) did, uses that dominance responsibly, no problem.

What I got from the article, the investigation has been very reasonable and it's beyond doubt that Google went way over the line.

People may question whether this EU regulation is right (but I believe it is), but from the looks of it, at least it's fair: With great market dominance comes great responsibility.

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

#512

Post by kazen44 »

interfixus wrote: post #427
mattmanser wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you read the wiki article[1], it's actually very good at answering your question. The whole article is worth reading, not just the section I linked answering your specific question. Dominance is reflected by the reality of market share, not by whether or not someone could theoretically switch search engine. In the EU they have a very dominant position (95% I think?). It's no different from saying MS had an…

It's no different from saying MS had an effective monopoly/dominance in the 2000s, even though you could theoretically install Linux I not only could, I most certainly did. The situation was different, though. Microsoft Windows had a kind of real monoply, since it was - and is - difficult to find a retail pc without the damned thing preinstalled and included in the price. No such mechanism exists concerning Google, a…

I very much more intensely dislike the monolithic and terrifying EU throwing its weight around.

why do you find the EU terrifying? (also, the EU is not exactly monolithic considering it is not a single entity in many areas, but that is another point entirely).

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

#513

Post by kazen44 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #208
aapjesverkoper wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you honestly implying that google, a multi billion dollar corporation hasn't 'won'?

Winning would be if they were allowed to use their dominant market position to full, unrestricted extent.

which is something you do not want for the general wellbeing of your population or the continuation of your state.

Also, Many people here seem to forget that we do not, in fact, live in a completely laissez-faire capitalistic society for good reason. Especially compared to the US, the countries in the EU do not view unfetered capitalism as a 'good and just' thing.

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

#514

Post by chimeracoder »

denis1 wrote: post #326
makomk wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

> 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.

So is the EU going to fine Apple for not allowing iPhone users to access third-party browsers?

At least Google doesn't force any lock-in with their platform here (the browser or search engine) - you're free to use any search engine you want.

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

#515

Post by kazen44 »

rizenfrmtheash wrote: post #400

I kind of want google to shut off all services for a week in EU countries. No search, images, maps, gmail, or android services. I wonder how quickly the eu will sober up.

also, i doubt google would want to do that considering the EU as a economic block is the largest economy in the world with nearly 510 million people.

It is larger then the US by a fair margin.

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

#516

Post by ridewinter »

Let's say Spotify began including a music recognition feature similar to Shazam. That would be really useful! Would this decision force Spotify to not include the feature because they have a monopoly on music streaming and it would force Shazam out of business? That just seems plain wrong.

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

#517

Post by jondubois »

I think this makes sense.

The EU has to defend its producers as much as it defends its consumers.

I wouldn't say that the EU is doing this at the expense of its consumers because I don't think that consumers actually get a better deal because this feature of Google.

Google's initiative only serves to narrow down the options for consumers and funnel them to where Google wants them to go.

Google's business is to steal people's free will and sell it to corporations.

To be fair, I don't think it's much different from what all the other corporations are doing. All advertising ought to be taxed.

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

#519

Post by kazen44 »

throwawaymanbot wrote: post #434

What is annoying about this all, is that the EU picks on tech companies a lot. They seem to do absolutely NOTHING about the financial houses, that got away with an awful lot during the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen, as an example. It would be much better for consumers if the EU applied their fines to more "dangerous to society" type outfits, that can actually do and have done immense damage to eco…

the problem with fining financial structures is that the eurozone at the moment has no common fiscal policy and no framework to do these kind of financial crimes efficiently.

Although there is far more support to integrate more fiscal policy across the eurozone (as expressed by both macron, merkel and some minor other EU nations), the legislation simply isn't their yet.

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

#520

Post by Analemma_ »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #473
Analemma_ wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is I don't see my buying habits having any larger of an impact on the behavior of corporations than my voting habits do on the behavior of the government. The libertarian conviction that businesses will change their behavior to attract my dollars never seemed to have any empirical footing to me.

I think the empirical footing is simply seeing how companies change their businesses to adjust to consumer demands. All of the major players have shown time and time again that they adjust their products based on user behavior. The entire Lean method and deploy-measure-iterate-deploy cycle, is predicated on a feedback loop between users and products.

In your original post, you said:

> If you take the stance that the government is looking out for your interests better than Google is...

making a clear implicit counterclaim that Google is looking out for my interests better than the government. But then you say this:

> The entire Lean method and deploy-measure-iterate-deploy cycle, is predicated on a feedback loop between users and products.

As someone who has done a lot of A/B testing over the course of their career, I can say with authority that this argument is completely bogus, to the point that I'm having trouble believing you're making it in good faith. A/B testing rarely has anything to do with matching the product to customer's stated preferences or looking out for their best interests. It's almost always about exploiting various quirks of psychology to increase engagement or spending, in the manner of casinos.

In fact, I'm willing to wager that A/B testing, as it's done today, probably anti-optimizes the product from the perspective of the user's (or society's) best interests (best example: Facebook and the social bubble effect, and how outrage-inducting fake news gets more clicks and engagement than nuanced real stuff)

Contrast this with the history of how well companies respond to consumer's stated preferences. A clear majority of people, when polled, say they want less corporate welfare, companies that treat the environment better, reasonable labor protections, etc.. None of these have happened to any significant degree, unless their hand was forced by (bitterly opposed) regulation.

Now, this is mostly people's own fault, because their spending habits do not match their stated preferences, and businesses follow revealed preference. But that's been my point all along: businesses cannot be trusted satisfy stated preferences. And I'm the rare consumer who does try to put my money where my mouth is, and my preferences still never translate into large-scale change. That's what I mean when I say there's no empirical footing for the claim that businesses can be trusted to look out for my interests.

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