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Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

nytimes.com

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Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#61

Post by euske »

mrunkel wrote: post #13

I find all this hand wringing over Google to be so tiring. Google is doing what is best for it's customers. Be that advertisers and/or searchers. If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance. Last I checked, nobody is forced to use google to search for things, nobody if forced (except for perhaps android users) to use Chrome. I'm not a laissez-faire capitalist by any means, but I don't see that Google…

I find it amusing how their argument is similar to the MS' antitrust argument in 90s.

Microsoft: "An OS should include everything. Third party apps aren't needed. It's only good for consumers."

Google: "A search engine should include everything. Third party websites aren't needed. It's only good for consumers."

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#62

Post by kefka »

saurik wrote: post #60
kefka wrote: post #16

Indeed, Google is too big and has a massive effect on the Internet across the whole world. A single capricious decision made by Google/Alphabet can cause dozens of businesses to shutter or fail. And that is a big problem, especially if we care about upstarts and new companies. However, that responsibility they fail to take in consideration except by lawsuit, does not counteract YELP's BaaS - Blackmail as a Service. T…

> However, that responsibility they fail to take in consideration except by lawsuit, does not counteract YELP's BaaS - Blackmail as a Service. ...and that you have reason to dislike Yelp or even think they are hypocritical does not counteract the problem with Google, which is the topic at hand, making your comment seem like nothing more than a defense of vigilanteism :/.

I would accept the accusation of defense of vigilantism, but I only highlighted the issue. I see it as a "Pot calls Kettle Black", but I do not advocate a response, other than that the courts handled it incorrectly.

I can have fault with both Google/Alphabet and Yelp. They each can have their own form of hypocrisy and potentially illegal behaviors. Me calling one out doesn't lessen the other's actions.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#63

Post by empath75 »

notatoad wrote: post #51
mdasen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance. That's precisely the issue. It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas. Microsoft had the best operating system and a browser that they wanted people to use. People preferred Netscape, but Microsoft used its OS dominance to kill off Netscape. It is ok to be dominant in a prod…

>It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas I think it's a stretch to say that searching for HVAC business listings and searching for HVAC business reviews are really different markets. If google had an HVAC subsidiary and they suppressed all search results and ads for competing HVAC companies, that would be abusing their dominant positio…

They didn't google for 'reviews', they literally googled for 'yelp'

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#64

Post by simion314 »

notatoad wrote: post #59
simion314 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point here is that Google is not returning the best results but pushing it's own other services on top of the list even if in this case other review services are better.

It's displaying ads above the search results. That's what google does. It's their whole business. It's not pushing their own review services over yelp, it's advertising alongside search results.

What about when they put a Chrome ad even if you are not searching for replacing your browser? So the main point with the EU antitrust is not about yelp but about Google putting it's own stuff on top , not about the ads.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#65

Post by bhldr »

kailuowang wrote: post #45

I found that Yelp's reviews very unreliable. My business owner friends told me that they are constantly harassed by yelp's sales representatives to buy the right to "clean up" their reviews. I don't see how yelp can continue trash their brand like this and blaming Google for their low performance.

Cleaning up reviews is actually not a Yelp feature. Paid or unpaid.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#66

Post by curun1r »

redm wrote: post #9

"Mr. Stoppelman feels he has no choice. Like a lot of small internet companies, Yelp lives in a world where one company, Google, accounts for an outsize share of its business, and could destroy it at any time." That sums it up for Yelp and many others, myself included. Combine that reality with the black box that Google is, in many ways, and you have an inaccessible behemoth who's decisions decide the fate of many. G…

> Mr. Stoppelman feels he has no choice. Like a lot of small internet companies, Yelp lives in a world where one company, Google, accounts for an outsize share of its business, and could destroy it at any time

The same basic thing could be said for most of Yelp's customers. Many would prefer that Yelp not exist or not index them but are forced to buy expensive plans with Yelp to have some measure of control over their public profile. It's basically a modern-day version of the protection rackets employed by organized crime. As much as I think Google has outsized power and does need to be reined in in certain circumstances, I have very little sympathy for Yelp being subjected to the same sort of undesirable influence from a larger, more powerful company that they exert on much smaller companies.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#67

Post by acdha »

nradov wrote: post #54
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Search for a start. Youtube is effectively standing alone in the space. Google Maps is completely dominating the space (in particular there is nothing that replaces the Earth product or the parts of Earth in maps). Gmail is taking over the world over here. Most local mail solutions are irrelevant at this point and the only real alternative to gmail even intentionally is outlook now. Chrome effectively took out…

Bing, Vimeo, Here, Yahoo Mail, Firefox Some ad blockers can block Google AdSense.

Do you run a website where those are significant traffic? It's been a long time since not-Google search has been more than a rounding error in my experience, with the exception of Yandex for Russia and Baidu for China if you have content for those audiences.

Vimeo and Firefox are trying but the trajectory has not been good.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#68

Post by timr »

parthdesai wrote: post #25
redm wrote: post #9

"Mr. Stoppelman feels he has no choice. Like a lot of small internet companies, Yelp lives in a world where one company, Google, accounts for an outsize share of its business, and could destroy it at any time." That sums it up for Yelp and many others, myself included. Combine that reality with the black box that Google is, in many ways, and you have an inaccessible behemoth who's decisions decide the fate of many. G…

> "Mr. Stoppelman feels he has no choice. Like a lot of small internet companies, Yelp lives in a world where one company, Google, accounts for an outsize share of its business, and could destroy it at any time." Ah the irony. Yelp is the same website that bullied small businesses to pay for positive reviews[1]. [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/yelp-accused-of-bullying-bus...

"Ah the irony. Yelp is the same website that bullied small businesses to pay for positive reviews"

No, Yelp is accused of this. Nobody has ever shown it to be true.

(I can also tell you, as someone who worked there, that it definitely is not true, but you don't have to take my word for it. You just have to not confuse accusations with facts.)

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#69

Post by nradov »

acdha wrote: post #67
nradov wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing, Vimeo, Here, Yahoo Mail, Firefox Some ad blockers can block Google AdSense.

Do you run a website where those are significant traffic? It's been a long time since not-Google search has been more than a rounding error in my experience, with the exception of Yandex for Russia and Baidu for China if you have content for those audiences. Vimeo and Firefox are trying but the trajectory has not been good.

The question was about alternatives to Google services (which do exist in almost every category), not about the share of traffic that websites receive from various search engines. If websites want to avoid being overly dependent on Google then they're going to have to get creative and figure out ways to drive traffic other than search.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#70

Post by coredog64 »

kefka wrote: post #6
Fej wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a shame. I doubt any real antitrust cases will be brought here in the US for the next 4 years.

Honestly, I'd say longer than that. The Democrats have very little impetus to do them either, given their corporate funding record. It's been about 30 years since the Democrats gave up on the working classes to cater to "Cause of the Week", "Big Media", and associated areas. Even Obama, with the ACA, set it up that we're required to pay for-profit companies for insurance. He even had a super-majority to enable Medica…

Medicare doesn't cut out the private insurance companies either. If you have 'Medicare Advantage', the Feds are subsidizing your private insurance premium. If you have regular Medicare, the Feds are paying one of a handful of private insurance companies to manage your account. It has been this way for quite some time now.
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