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Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

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Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#81
post #56
post #32

I think Google would be well served if Schmidt had a little more Steve Jobs in him. Not a lot, as I think Jobs might get so frustrated he'd melt down, but a little. Eric makes everything sound somehow slightly sinister, even when it isn't. When asked about something like maps and places the correct answer is: We realized that is what people wanted in response to their queries. We looked around, and the other map prod…

> Maps, and Places, and Product Search -- they are all part of search. That's a very relevant point, but it also sounds at least superficially similar to Microsoft's "the browser is part of the OS" argument, which generally seems to be a failure. That case has been referenced several times in this hearing; it's clearly front of mind.

Microsofts case would have been (or should have been) bolstered if their next largest competitors were all doing exactly the same things. All Google has to do to point out that these things are a natural part of search is point at Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, etc -- and look for maps, places, condensed information and answers served up directly.

Microsoft was hamstrung by not having any competitors doing the same thing. It makes it more difficult to make that argument.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#82
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become a monopoloy in a certain industry, under american law, you do owe it to your competitors to allow them to compete on fair ground with you. This is why theaters were not allowed to be owned by studios, Car Dealerships by actual Car companies, etc.

Anti trust exists to protect costumers and when the product is free and the alternatives are free, where is the harm?

Yelp cant build google to in order to funnel traffic into their local business ratings website

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#83
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become a monopoloy in a certain industry, under american law, you do owe it to your competitors to allow them to compete on fair ground with you. This is why theaters were not allowed to be owned by studios, Car Dealerships by actual Car companies, etc.

Anti trust exists to protect costumers and when the product is free and the alternatives are free, where is the harm?

Let's say Google entered a clearly different market, such as making & delivering pizza. Further say: Google's pizza is slightly more expensive and somewhat less good than pizza created by their competitors. Based on that, we would ordinarily guess that their market share will be low to nonexistent.

But let's say Google reserves the most prominent position on their SERP for hundreds of relevant queries for one-click pizza delivery. Maybe the majority of people will still click through to Goat Hill Pizza or whatever, with tastier, cheaper pizza. But Google's more prominent position gives them an advantage vs. their competitor, and that will lead to increased and probably significant market share.

Now this is the key: we users could decide that Google's promotion of bad pizza on their SERP means we should switch to Bing. But Google's search engine is, despite this one bad case, still far superior to Bing's. So according to standard micro-economic analysis, pretty much all of us stick with Google, so Google Pizza continues to get the boost.

In summary, in this hypothetical, Google is using the "excess" excellence of their search engine to increase market share of very different products. Since those products may be unusually profitable, they also have an increased ability to drive competitors out of the market. If unchecked, wealthy firms with one great product can use this technique to extend their monopoly into more and more fields. The end result is that more consumers end up with worse quality products and (over time) fewer options due to less competition.

(Note: I'm not arguing that this is truly happening in real life. I'm trying to explain how even a free product with monopolistic dominance can be used to take over other markets with inferior products.)

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#84
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become a monopoloy in a certain industry, under american law, you do owe it to your competitors to allow them to compete on fair ground with you. This is why theaters were not allowed to be owned by studios, Car Dealerships by actual Car companies, etc.

Anti trust exists to protect costumers and when the product is free and the alternatives are free, where is the harm?

As a general rule (ie I'm not taking sides here) - it makes it more difficult for higher quality options to compete.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#85
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly have very little understanding of how antitrust laws work.

He shares the point of view of the person defending Google (she's a former anti-trust investigator?). If you can freely and instantly switch from Google to Bing then you cannot claim they have a monopoly. If you don't like Google's results there is nothing locking the consumer into Google except their own choice.

It's a bit too much gymnastics for my brain right now but shouldn't one also look at this from the perspective of Google's paying customers, i.e. advertisers? Looking only at those who use Google to search seems to be missing one half of the business.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#86
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you become a monopoloy in a certain industry, under american law, you do owe it to your competitors to allow them to compete on fair ground with you. This is why theaters were not allowed to be owned by studios, Car Dealerships by actual Car companies, etc.

Anti trust exists to protect costumers and when the product is free and the alternatives are free, where is the harm?

That is a naive view... anti-trust exists to take choice away from the consumer and put it in the hands of the government, thus making companies more beholden to them.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#87

Last I checked it wasn't possible to switch the default search engine on Android phones (whether it was set to Google or otherwise). Is this still the case? I couldn't find anything conclusive in my searching.

I'm not sure what you mean. You can't try a new widget instead of the Google Search one? Or are you saying that widget should allow you to switch to Bing?

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#88
post #32

I think Google would be well served if Schmidt had a little more Steve Jobs in him. Not a lot, as I think Jobs might get so frustrated he'd melt down, but a little. Eric makes everything sound somehow slightly sinister, even when it isn't. When asked about something like maps and places the correct answer is: We realized that is what people wanted in response to their queries. We looked around, and the other map prod…

If you're asking if we favor our own maps properties, damn right we do.

That sound bite would be taken out of context, and the game would be over for Google.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#90
post #81
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maps, and Places, and Product Search -- they are all part of search. That's a very relevant point, but it also sounds at least superficially similar to Microsoft's "the browser is part of the OS" argument, which generally seems to be a failure. That case has been referenced several times in this hearing; it's clearly front of mind.

Microsofts case would have been (or should have been) bolstered if their next largest competitors were all doing exactly the same things. All Google has to do to point out that these things are a natural part of search is point at Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, etc -- and look for maps, places, condensed information and answers served up directly. Microsoft was hamstrung by not having any competitors doing the same thin…

Good point. Schmidt mentioned that competitors have similar features, but I didn't connect the idea that they're all doing very similar things, which they probably are, with the idea that those features are part of any complete search product.

You could imagine Bing implementing a preference which will automatically swap in Google's Maps, News, etc. in place of home-grown versions whenever you search on Bing. If such a preference is feasible (leads to an okay user experience), it would help make the case that these ancillary features are in fact separable from basic search, and that Google ought to do the same. My guess is Google wouldn't mind that terribly.

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