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European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance

europa.eu

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

#681
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like a game where others should have the chance to win at one point, just like you did.

Winning means end of the game. Hence the game doesn't allow anyone to win - because what the society needs is not the players to win, but for the game to go on and players to play.

I don't equal winning with having a monopoly or no competitors but rather just being profitable so you can live a OK life.

In that case, if you win, others can still win as well.

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

#682
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 G…

From this sentence?

> Google has included a number of criteria in these algorithms, as a result of which rival comparison shopping services are demoted.

Sounds like a jump to conclude they were doctoring results from "they modify their ranking algorithms".

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

#683
post #582
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…

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 algorith…

Why shouldn't they? It's their site! See the OP. It's not a utility.

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

#684
post #683
post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 algorith…

Why shouldn't they? It's their site! See the OP. It's not a utility.

Just because I own my own house doesn't mean I can blast a jet engine I'm testing inside it... there are rules and laws that exist in the world.

If you think those rules and laws have a negative impact, then work to fix them.

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

#685
post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it does benefit the consumer. You are assuming that google is going to show me the best search results etc for my query, while in reality they are displaying what suits them and their advertiser better. Which is great for google, not exactly great for my interests however.

Google doesn't have to fulfill any interests of yours, though.

Exactly. Thats my point. Its not beholden to me. But alters what I see, based on what fulfills their interest, not what fulfills mine.

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

#686

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.

You are right, But I imagine thats by lobbyist design. If there was the will to investigate, it would happen easily.

Its odd how Tech which changes my browser search gets heavy regulation EU wide, but not fiscal items, where a currency is shared EU wide.

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

#687
post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's not what democracy is. Also the EU has been shamed as undemocratic since their representatives are not elected by popular vote. People do vote for who represents them as a country in the EU but I doubt any of them had a choice in the Google fine.

Uhm... So this is problem in the EU but not the US right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

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

#688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not how Google's business works. Advertisers quite literally pay for clicks. That was part of how Google disrupted the market back in the day; most other advertising networks were selling "impressions", but Google was so confident in the relevance of their ads that you got impressions for free and only paid when a customer actually clicked on it. The click is worth paying for, because it is a signal that the…

The "pay for click" is how they sell their product to advertisers. But advertisers do not pay for clicks. A click is worthless. They pay because they know that their adverts are being shown to the right people and there's a guarantee there in the "pay for click" thing. In order for Google to actually get those clicks, it must show them to the right people, and it does that by targeting. Google sells targeted advertis…

This is still a muddled view of things.

In pay-for-click, advertisers are paying for advertising which is effective. The click is how that is measured.

There are other ways to measure effectiveness, but measuring clicks is simple and reliable. No matter how you do it, advertisers ultimately want to pay for ads that work and lead to sales.

Everything else is a means to an end, targeting in particular. Ineffective advertising is a worthless waste of money, no matter how well targeted it is. Untargeted advertising which leads to sales on the other hand, is very valuable.

So sure, advertisers will prefer targeted advertising. But that's because they expect it will work better than the alternative. What matters to them is whether it works, not how.

To the general public the how is critical though. If there was less tracking and spying and data harvesting we'd all be better off. So it's very important to squash the misunderstanding that tracking and targeting itself has intrinsic value for anyone. For society (and for the ad networks), tracking has a significant cost and is in many ways a significant liability. For advertisers it's a tool in their toolbox, and if we could replace it with a more benign one, that'd be good for everyone.

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

#689
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.

> 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.

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

They are not dominant in the market, but if they were I would hope so.

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

#690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It's really quite simple, if Google's user experience hinges on them abusing their market dominance then they have no business in the EU. Even if it means we can't have certain "nice things", I am perfectly okay with that. Companies have power. Companies with ma…

I do wonder how you'd really feel if you got your wish, and your "google.com" tomorrow resulted in a "HTTP 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons"

I mean, that's just silly.
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