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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

#581

Post by euyyn »

vkou wrote: post #560
euyyn wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare MS and the bundled Internet Explorer: Yes, it was more convenient for people not to be required to download a browser after installing the OS. That was a non-issue, as OEMs were able (and did often) pre-install any number of software packages on top of Windows. The issue was MS telling them "if you preinstall Netscape Navigator, you won't get any more Windows licenses from us". Among other things that were…

In the words of another poster, it sounds MS was punished for being very successful! The thing about anti-trust is that being a monopoly is allowed. What's not allowed is using a monopoly position to get a large advantage in another market.

I'm not understanding that. You can be very successful without trying to prevent your business partners from making their products better for their clients.

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

#582

Post by Denzel »

makomk wrote: post #312
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…

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…

There's a clear difference between what Bing and Google are doing. Please don't mistake the facts:

1. The EC is not asking Google to make their user experience worse.

2. The EC does not have a problem with sponsored search results.

Google's user experience is the generic algorithm that determines what is the most relevant result. Google deliberately did not subject its own comparison shopping service to that algorithm while subjecting competitors' to it. Furthermore, Google took the FIRST result position.

Why would they do this if they have the best user experience and it should come up first anyways?

Contrast with Bing, when I search for "baseball bat": The first 3 results above the fold are organic unpaid SERPs. (Nothing from Bing in the top three spots.) And their shopping ads are displayed to the right of the organic search results.

If Google would've treated these products like ads, then the EC wouldn't have had a problem. But they didn't. And they have a dominant share of the general internet search market.

Google deliberately tried to exploit its market dominance to enter into another market in which it was not competitive.

There's nothing scary about this fine.

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

#583

Post by ridewinter »

jolic wrote: post #573
ridewinter wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if Spotify creates a music recognition feature that competes with Shazam, would they need to create an API that allows you to choose your music recognition service from within Spotify? This a very slippery slope!

Probably not. Someone using Spotify and their hypothetical music recognition service is more like someone using Google Search and Gmail which isn't a problem. This is more like is someone would search Spotify and artists from their own record label (or promotion company) were at the top of the search results.

That really helps my understanding of the matter. Thanks :)

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

#584

Post by toomuchtodo »

refulgentis wrote: post #452
Mahn wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

+1. While adding billions to their coffers may not be the motivation, there's a ravenous appetite to figure out how to distribute wealth of this obscenely rich generation of multinationals. This reeks of an ineffectual political institution grasping for one of the few solutions it can implement.

Would you prefer the EU simply prevent Google from operating in their borders? That's always an option.

It's so refreshing to see checks and balances on US multinationals, and I say that as a US citizen.

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

#585

Post by Denzel »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #354
denis1 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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,…

I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies is better for the consumer either. So why does Google do it?

Google is really smart, right? They've done some amazing things with search. Do we believe that Google doesn't know how to display those comparison search results page in a carousel like their own? Or is it that they don't want to?

Think about it for a second. What if Google did that, and they subjected their own comparison search results page to the same generic algorithm that they subjected everyone else's too?

Maybe it's too hard for Google. But they like standards: see AMP. So why not create some standard tags so everyone has a fair chance?

I don't know, it certainly looks like Google was exploiting its market dominance in general internet search to get a leg up in another industry without actually competing. That's not fair.

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

#586

Post by CamperBob2 »

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?

Really? As a consumer, what has the EU done for you lately, compared to what Google and other Internet "monopolies" have done for you?

One monopoly is no more moral than another simply because the first one has guns and the second doesn't.

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

#587

Post by Tritrin »

asr wrote: post #457
sweden wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it works for you, it doesn't mean it works for everyone else. Of all Google's services I don't care about: - Google Shopping, I never saw a reason to use it and I never did, I prefer to use local shops or Amazon - Google Maps, I actually prefer Open Street Maps. The amount of detail on OSM is staggering and in many ways, I think the data is much more complete than Google Maps - Google reviews about restaurant…

Conversely, just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean everyone else feels it's broken. At the same time Google was introducing the shopping results that the Commission says were illegal, Microsoft was running advertisements with the slogan "Bing and Decide" that advertised how great a feature it is to do essentially the same thing. So even if you don't believe Google, there's at least some evidence that a lot…

>So even if you don't believe Google, there's at least some evidence that a lot of people actually do like services showing up.

Yes, and this is exactly what the decision entails, these services should be ranked on their own merit. Google shouldn't be allowed to artificially prioritize their services on searches but let them compete with others.

"It [Google] gave prominent placement in its search results only to its own comparison shopping service, whilst demoting rival services."

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

#588

Post by Tritrin »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #146
Radle wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the articel? Google is not allowed to put itself or products from Alphabet higher in the search results than third party products. What kind of links they put up is googles decision. If they made a link "Shopping" next to "Maps" and "Images" everything would be fine. The problem is search results. Consumers expect all results to be shown fairly, by not doing so Google violated it's position. This is not…

Sure, but the question is, where the line will be drawn. A "Shopping" link next to "Maps" and "Images" is probably OK, but it's also completely useless. I'd be surprised if more than a fraction of people doing comparison shopping actually clicked that link. Intentionally pushing down results of competitors via algorithmic criteria is obviously bad, but say they stopped doing that. What about the inline shopping box a…

>The kind of results that as a user I want to see. Will that be disallowed to? If so, this will make Google Search a significantly worse product.

From the article the issue is not that Google services appear in the search results, rather it is that they artificially make their own results appear first without regards to normal search algorithms.

"Google has abused this market dominance by giving its own comparison shopping service an illegal advantage. It gave prominent placement in its search results only to its own comparison shopping service, whilst demoting rival services."

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

#589

Post by crdoconnor »

emidln wrote: post #579
crdoconnor wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what they're doing in Brooklyn: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/15/how-a-stre... That would scale just about as well as your crappy elastic search thing would.

I can demo an alternative to Google Search in a weekend. I can throw comparatively small amounts of money to improve it (e.g. add more sites) such that it is extremely useful to find sites that I designate to have crawled (and it's not difficult to crawl the top N sites). My algorithms will be worse, my crawler less efficient, I probably will ignore javascript, my database will be larger than it needs to be, but none…

>compared to the merely large pile you'd need to run a credible regional alternative to google search for some segment of the population

How exactly would a credible regional alternative to google work and why are there exactly zero of them if it's so easy?

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

#590

Post by thinkfurther »

merpnderp wrote: post #546
aluhut wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Really sad to read that here but: 1) They are a quasi monopoly. The word you use to describe searching on the internet is "googling". Most of the phones on this planet run on their OS. So please...don't fool yourself. 2) Who's creating those desires? You think that the desire for millions of useless shit products that drive the global market are created by some neccesity deeply in our DNA? Or maybe by your free…

You're talking about advertising pushing useless shit on people they wouldn't want? But they don't see the advertising until they've already searched for the item ! That's either some magical advertising that makes people search for things before they've seen it. Or you're wrong.

Or, you know, the intent and nature of most advertising is completely orthogonal to the circumstances and conditions of them appearing, the point stands, and you're not even nearing actually addressing it, just bumping over your own straw man.

And when I google for "an item", like "medium sized dog", for whatever reason that means I already...well, what? Want a dog? Maybe, likely not. Want whatever that particular ad is trying to peddle me with whatever shoddy means and rhetoric, because it might have to do with dogs, or merely claim it does? Nope.

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