Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 702 posts

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

#641

Post by Dylan16807 »

datguacdoh wrote: post #626
Dylan16807 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"PageFair 2017 ad blocking report: Usage up 30%" Whether or not that number is correct, it's definitely a significant portion of the population doing it.

30% from what starting base? If the number was relatively small to begin with, 30% growth doesn't really mean much.

Oh, I'm sorry, I misread that title as "up to", because I viewed it right after a slightly older headline saying "IAB Study Says 26% of Desktop Users Turn On Ad Blockers". So go with 26% as a possibly-high number. I very much doubt the number is under 10%. It's a lot of people.

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

#642

Post by kaeluka »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #622
kaeluka wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are not a utility. In many ways, they are. They didn't sign up for it, yet here we are..

They are an advertising company blowing money on free inducements to get you to click on their ads. Utilities don't work that way.

I think that you understand quite well what I'm saying but you're trying to construct an argument now to protect you from adapting your opinion.

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

#643

Post by [deleted] »

euyyn wrote: post #489
Kurtz79 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're returning relevant information Customers are searching for." They were really not. For every search you assume you will be given the more popular matches, what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their advantage, giving doctored results. There wouldn't have been any problem if they promoted their service making it clear it was not part of the search results. EDIT: For a countere…

> what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their advantage, giving doctored results Where did you get this from?

[deleted]

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

#644

Post by [deleted] »

euyyn wrote: post #489
Kurtz79 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're returning relevant information Customers are searching for." They were really not. For every search you assume you will be given the more popular matches, what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their advantage, giving doctored results. There wouldn't have been any problem if they promoted their service making it clear it was not part of the search results. EDIT: For a countere…

> what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their advantage, giving doctored results Where did you get this from?

[deleted]

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

#645

Post by honestoHeminway »

disiplus wrote: post #505
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.

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.

Its called democracy- its when a goverment pushes the interests of its people.

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

#646

Post by lucideer »

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…

This is a complete false equivalence. If placing Google's own shopping results in the top spot improves user experience to that extent, they could and should do it organically.

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

#647

Post by Kurtz79 »

euyyn wrote: post #489
Kurtz79 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're returning relevant information Customers are searching for." They were really not. For every search you assume you will be given the more popular matches, what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their advantage, giving doctored results. There wouldn't have been any problem if they promoted their service making it clear it was not part of the search results. EDIT: For a countere…

> what they were doing was purposefully bypassing their own algorithm to their advantage, giving doctored results Where did you get this from?

"Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service: when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine in relation to which Google's comparison shopping service wants to show results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results.

Google has demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results: rival comparison shopping services appear in Google's search results on the basis of Google's generic search algorithms. Google has included a number of criteria in these algorithms, as a result of which rival comparison shopping services are demoted. Evidence shows that even the most highly ranked rival service appears on average only on page four of Google's search results, and others appear even further down. Google's own comparison shopping service is not subject to Google's generic search algorithms, including such demotions."

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

#648

Post by ableton »

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…

A lot of people wonder why anyone could vote for Brexit. This is exactly why. This kind of regulatory fever unnecessarily burdens people at all levels of society. These regulators are unelected, and so they can make terrible decisions with no accountability. These regulators have essentially said that google can't show ads for products on their site unless they do it in a specific way that also shows their competitors ads for free! That is insane. This kind of crazy decision is common from these regulators, and it's no wonder the Brits got fed up with it.

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

#649

Post by cJ0th »

zepto wrote: post #628
cJ0th wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it seems "search" isn't as untouchable as it used to be. Qwant, for instance, may not be a 100% there but it is quite good. https://www.qwant.com/

What are you taking about? Any Google Search competitor needs to be seriously better than google in order to stand a chance, ‘not 100% there’ is equivalent to not there at all. Moreover Qwant is just bing search results repackaged.

> Moreover Qwant is just bing search results repackaged.

Not in France and Germany

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant#Criticism

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

#650

Post by jolic »

sqeaky wrote: post #605
jolic wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AFAIK this has never been written into law or ruled illegal before. Doesn't seem that different from the case against Microsoft over Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player?

One was an operating that had a monopoly that was nearly impossible switch away from and was bundling software to destroy specific competitors. The other is a web page with tons of competitors, many of which work well, deciding what their own computers after you specifically requested them to do so.

No, the point is that Google is using their dominance in search, which isn't easy to switch away from, to compete in price comparisons. Google just having a price comparison tool isn't the problem, it's when they include it as a part of search. Which is using their dominant position.

While whether you can switch might be important from a user standpoint it's not necessarily a factor from a market standpoint. It's more about how much power you have and how you use that power. It might be very easy to switch to Bing, but Google still have power over >90% of the search market.

Post reply on HN