It does not surprise me. Search is bread, butter and oxygen for Google. Spending a few billion dollars a year to sustain a revenue of hundreds of billions of dollars seems logical. Not sure right or wrong. But understandable.
Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
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Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#62”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the comp…
that "effectuate the non-compete agreement" is doing some work, it would be one thing if Google said to Apple, we want your guarantee that you will not be entering the search engine market and in return we will give you this - then it is a non-compete agreement - but as it is it is a default search engine agreement.
No idea what (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; means - but it sure sounds realllly bad and nefarious!
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#63Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#64Here's the complaint: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_Northern_Distri... The putative class they're suing to represent is apparently "All consumers and businesses who paid Google to place advertising on Google search in the United States since January 1, 2005." I think the basic argument is "Apple might have created a competing search engine business, but Google paid them not to, which hurt people buying…
> I think the basic argument is "Apple might have created a competing search engine business, but Google paid them not to
That's the feeling I got. I mean if this was the case, then Apple could be sued by Google for extortion - "pay us or we'll build a competitor". This lawsuit makes no sense.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple might have a minority of units sold, but they have a very convincing majority of revenues and profits in several markets, e.g. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-handset-market-o... "Apple has been the biggest profit and revenue generator in the handset business. In Q2 2021, it captured 75% of the overall handset market operating profit and 40% of the revenue despite contributing a relatively moderate…
Making more money by selling less implies large margins and I don't think that having better margins than the competitors says anything about being a monopoly. Actually, it means that their customers are so happy with the Apple product that they are willing to pay a premium to have it. Apple's large margins are merely an opportunity that no one was able to fetch. You can verify that people are not paying Apple more b…
> I don't think that having better margins than the competitors says anything about being a monopoly.
> Apple's large margins are merely an opportunity that no one was able to fetch.
In a functioning free market, competitors would have picked up the slack long ago (iPhone is 14 years old now), and cashed in on those high profit margins too.
Now, you can choose to believe that literally every multi billion dollar tech company in the world is so stupid and incompetent as to be unable to replicate Apple's "premium user experience" to capture similar profit margins, or you can look for simpler explanations, that inevitably generalize as anti-competitive practices.
That doesn't deny the popularity of Apple's products, by the way. Believe it or not they can be both genuinely popular and monopolistic / anti-competitive, with both of those factors contributing to insanely above-market profit margins.
"You can buy LG" just shows that you don't understand the distinction between concentrated market power power, anti competitive business practices, and actual monopoly, nor the fact that antitrust regulations do not require their target to be an actual monopoly with zero competitors available for sale (and for good reason).
> They are viable, in fact, many reviewers and techies say that Samsung/Google/LG/Whatever are much better than Apple
Bing and DDG are also available and viable, and "[some] techies say" that they're better than Google. So what. This metric is utterly irrelevant.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you’re not happy with Apple and Google behaving monopolistically “buy Google Pixel” doesn’t seem like a great solution. Nor does buy a phone running Google’s operating system feel like a great answer.
If you are not happy with the competition too, I guess you can watch Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga to cheer you up or go make your own device.
The allegation is these companies are not competing with each other, they are working together. This includes working together to prevent competitors making their own devices. There are very limited alternatives if you want to avoid Google and Apple completely.
I'm not familiar with the Eurovision show you mention, so not sure of the relevance.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple has 60% of the mobile market in the US[1], and more than double the revenue from their dominant stake in the mobile app distribution market than Google[2], both off which make up over 99% of that market. Also, our layman definitions of monopoly do not matter when it comes to antitrust laws[3]: > Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthan…
As we are not in a court in here, only the laymen opinion is relevant as it is impossible to make a strict legal discussion without having a strict legal process. I would say, Apple is very popular in the US but I don't see how it can be a monopoly when you can just order another device from Amazon and that device being just good or maybe better. In many other rich countries, people are choosing Samsung, Americans ca…
That's just it; I don't think you can speak of a monopoly as long as you have a reasonable choice. Which, in the US, you DON'T have for a lot of things like internet.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#68Quoted post unavailable.
I've become fond of Ecosia; results still aren't great (Bing under the hood) but at least it's planting trees.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#69Just a reminder here folks that anyone can sue for anything. That doesn't mean that evidence will show any of the claims are true, but it will be interesting to follow and see what evidence they claim to have. Note Google is now incorporated in Delaware so it does seem that venue may be an issue.
> Just a reminder here folks that anyone can sue for anything.
California Crane School Inc seem to be a provider of training for crane operators, so I'm curious why they're suing Google over this particular allegation. I wonder: is there any possibility that they're a proxy for some other party or parties?
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#70Here's the complaint: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_Northern_Distri... The putative class they're suing to represent is apparently "All consumers and businesses who paid Google to place advertising on Google search in the United States since January 1, 2005." I think the basic argument is "Apple might have created a competing search engine business, but Google paid them not to, which hurt people buying…
AIUI in US competition law price is the only consideration, so this is smart. It will hinge on whether or not Apple had any concrete plans to build a search engine, and if their abandonment of it can be linked to the deal with Google.
Which is to say it is a tall order and might not succeed. But if it does.. goodness, what a hit they'll take.