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Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

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Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antitrust breach, market manipulation, collusion, wage suppression - basically the usual stuff they do. Oh, and when they agreed to suppress wages through an anti-poaching agreement, was that explicit in the contract? https://fortune.com/2015/09/03/koh-anti-poach-order/

WTF does that have to do with the default search agreement? You just listed a bunch of unrelated bad things companies did.

We are discussing if the agreement is in good faith or possibly it’s there to cover up nefarious intent.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? As I said in another comment that’s not my experience. Might be wrong, I’ll double check tomorrow at work.

I am 100% positive. Which browser do you think is the default on a Chromebook?

My bad, I ready to fast and understood "google search" while you wrote "chrome".

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of Google's 2023 revenue of 305.63e9 US-$, 77.8% (237.86e9 US-$) was advertising revenue. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-reven... They are obviously not only an ad company, but GP only claimed that they are an ad company "first". Can you please clarify which part you consider oversimplified?

Consider the case of a YouTuber who gets most of their revenue through superchats. They regularly upload videos, a couple times a week, and receive ad revenue and the od sponsorship deal. Once a week they do a livestream Q&A which is where the bulk of that superchat revenue comes from. Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of dete…

> Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader?

Yes. And if you press them economically, it will show.

The only difference is that most people do not optimize their lives for profit.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. People are forced to do all kinds of things. They are forced at gunpoint, they are forced via laws, they are forced via incentives that are so strong they may as well be a gun. As are companies. So, in theory, you are wrong. In practice, even more wrong. If management decided to not pay this money, and gave up that positioning to a competitor, they would be fired. If the board allowed it to continue, t…

How in God's name can someone be forced (compelled by force or necessity : involuntary) by an incentive? No, your usage of the word is against the one used by the code of law regarding market regulation, simple as that.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force - read the verb section.

There is no tight definition of "force" in US market regulation. You are making things up.

The phrase "market forces" is directly quoted in the ruling. Market forces are incentives pushing market participants to behave in certain ways. This is econ 101.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#695
post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked Google doesn't 'sell your information to people', but it does offer hyper targeted ads; the ethics of both scenarios are deeply rotten to me.

> Last I checked Google doesn't 'sell your information to people', but it does offer hyper targeted ads So you understand what I’m talking about. I didn’t mean selling the information directly. Because why would they, they make more money by keeping the data to themselves and selling you out indirectly from the information they gathered over and over.

It's digital pimping. Google are fully-automated, mass-scale digital pimps. They pimp your eyeballs out to Johns who pay for the privilege of mindfucking you, with the help of an extremely sophisticated matchmaking and realtime auction system. In return, you get nice handbags (YouTube) and get your hair did (GMail).

Calling it "ads" and Google an "advertising company" is just making a vague allusion to what's really going on and does not carry the proper connotation of exploitation.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#696
post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. People are forced to do all kinds of things. They are forced at gunpoint, they are forced via laws, they are forced via incentives that are so strong they may as well be a gun. As are companies. So, in theory, you are wrong. In practice, even more wrong. If management decided to not pay this money, and gave up that positioning to a competitor, they would be fired. If the board allowed it to continue, t…

>No one at google sits around thinking "i want to preserve our monopoly status". They are thinking "I don't want to be crushed by someone" I guarantee they are thinking both, but both are pretty much the same statment anyway.

I spent years there and never saw anyone convey the idea of maintaining a monopoly.

I'll agree that to some extent they are the same thing in certain markets - those that naturally tend to 1 or 2 players dominating the entire market.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just listening to this episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/acquired/id1050462261?... They pointed out that a monopoly is not the sin, the sin is to abuse that market position for unfair advantage. So your summary of their verdict in a way is what the US view of antitrust is.

FYI, when you share an Apple Podcasts link, anyone reading on an Apple device without the Podcasts app installed cannot do anything with it, even copy the link to open elsewhere-it just turns into a prompt to install "Podcasts." So I don't even know what podcast you're pointing to to find it in the app I prefer.

Sorry, I was on mobile and I got that link from the “share” sheet. I probably know that it is not portable, as I shared Apple News links and found that out before.

Here’s the part of the transcript:

> It is not necessarily illegal to be a monopoly. It is illegal to abuse your monopoly power. This court is examining both of those questions. (1) Is Microsoft a monopoly? (2) Are they abusing their power?

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For phones you either pay a premium to enter the Apple walled garden or you prostitute your digital life and get spied on by Google There is also a GNU/Linux option here. Sent from my Librem 5. > I use Linux, but that's not for the broad masses currently Unless "broad massses" require some unique MS Office or Photoshop functionality, they can easily switch to Linux. My relatives did and are happy.

> Sent from my Librem 5. How well is that holding up nowadays, as a phone?

Calls a texts work fine. I didn't try MMS, but on the forums people managed to make it work. Battery life is not very long, 4-5 hours of use or 20 hours of suspend.

I'm really happy to be able to run desktop apps (also on a big screen!) and have full control over my phone.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#699
post #459
post #246

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I always thought that the idea behind antitrust laws was that if an entity reaches total market dominance and uses that dominance to keep other out of the game, the entity should be split into competing entities. What I'm seeing however is nothing more than toothless, political pointing sticks. Both IBM, Microsoft and Google have clearly at some point obtained total domination of their markets. Consequently they've a…

How would you split Google? Any type of split would kill that which makes Google so great.

1. Search site. As a separate product, it would need to earn money. Improve filtering and the search itself. It would be able to host ads from other advertising networks (like any other large site). Make an additional API or tool to regularly update data by certain filters) You can charge money for all these things.

2. Ads. As a separate advertising network, for which google.com will be just one platform/site, like thousands of others.

3. Mail as a separate service, leave the ability to log in to other sites through this account, so you keep one login for everything (who needs it). It can also be an advertising platform for any advertising network. You can offer better services for a fee, while keeping the basic functionality free.

4. YouTube as a separate service, as well as a platform where many other advertising networks or advertisers will compete for advertising space. Introduce paid plans for creators, where there will be a certain volume limit after which you will need to pay for the service.

5. Cloud services. Separately.

6. Google Docs. As a separate online document service, you can charge a subscription fee for certain features as in 365.

7. Browser. No need for Manifest v3. Improvements to the extension store. You can also sell advertising space and make integrations with various tools, as Opera does, for example. You can even make some kind of subscription, or make paid extensions that will speed up sites, improve the look, and cut out ads.

This is the first thing that came to mind. This can be thought out better. This will create competition for other players and for these potentially divided campaigns. General improvement of products. And all of this can be kept "under one login, in one ecosystem," with the ability to make "one system and one login" in conjunction with other tools.

Re: Google loses antitrust suit over search deals on phones

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem like a disagreement. They still have the best search engine at the moment.

They really don't, though Kagi costs $. Even ignoring that it's a bit unclear, since in many cases DDG or bing give better results.

Do you have any examples or types of query of where a free search engine produces better results?

I tried to Google for it, but maybe expectedly, that doesn’t bring up any good examples.

I think free has the be table-stakes for the default search engine, because otherwise you are forcing all users to change or buy a license, so any paid alternatives are out.

Disclaimer: Work at Google; not on search-related things, opinions my own.

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