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European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
91–100 of 702 posts
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#92The thing is, personally I prefer getting integrated results from Google's other search services when I do a Google search. I like getting Google Maps results when I search for a location, I like getting Google Flights results etc. When I do a Google search I am not just using it as a simple website search. I want it to use it to search the whole Google suite of services. If they are forced to stop doing this it will…
> If they are forced to stop doing this it will make my search experience worse for me.
This seems to be the whole point of the fine. Currently Google's services just so damned conveniently integrated that no one uses competitors' services, even if they are better.
The thing is, though, I am totally with you here. I don't want to use one of the other services for maps, or flights, or these snippets for information. They are just search results for me. The integration is more important for me than ... better filtering, or whatnot. I can always go to one of those sites, but there really is no need, And frankly, it would really, really suck if I had to now.
Edit: From the text:
> Google has to apply the same processes and methods to position and display rival comparison shopping services in Google's search results pages as it gives to its own comparison shopping service.
What does that even mean? Right now Google has a link for Maps, Images, Shopping, Videos, ... in the top bar. Do they need to change it to Maps, Images, Shooping (Google), Shopping (Idealo), Shopping (yet another service), ...? Embedding results would not work. Have a link called Shopping that does not list results, but points to more shopping sites, maybe with the search term already preappended? Meh...
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. Next up, the Adsense and Android antitrust cases. How do I know? I googled it: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust-idUSKB...
At this point they are also apparently abusing their capcha. You use it from Firefox, solve like 3 different captcha, my most recent experience with Cloudflare. Use it from Chrome, instant check after failing a login. And it's from the same IP that has done it over and over again. If you were the least bit intelligent you would not do this... unless you were trying to make the user experience of other browsers worse…
Now try the same thing with cookies deleted in both browsers. Or in incognito/private mode.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#94Please enlighten me: What kind of monopoly would that be? Much as I detest an awful lot of Google, I have never once been - and know of noone else who has ever been - forced to use their search against my will. In fact, I get along fine without it, as well as without their analytics and their browser and their cloud stuff, excepting of course that I am often forced to correspond with gmail addresses.
It's not about users that _could_ do something else. It's about the fact that in reality 95% of all clicks as a result of a google search go to the top 3 results and 90% of all search in the affected countries goes through google.
Sure those users could use ddg but it's not about what users could do, the reality of the matter is that other comparative shopping sites depend(ed) on google and got cheated.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#95what's stopping google from shutting up shop in the EU. would they have to block EU access? how much revenue do they make from EU clients?
It'll get factored as a cost of business. If the cost of business exceeds the benefit, then they'll close down their EU operations. Otherwise, it sucks they're not making as much money as they want/should, but they're making enough to continue for now. The fine is both large enough and small enough that it probably won't act as much of a deterrent but rather an incentive to more closely study EU rules to see what more they can/can't get away with, and whether they can use any of their knowledge against potential competitors to stomp them out.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. Next up, the Adsense and Android antitrust cases. How do I know? I googled it: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust-idUSKB...
At this point they are also apparently abusing their capcha. You use it from Firefox, solve like 3 different captcha, my most recent experience with Cloudflare. Use it from Chrome, instant check after failing a login. And it's from the same IP that has done it over and over again. If you were the least bit intelligent you would not do this... unless you were trying to make the user experience of other browsers worse…
They do a lot of profiling. Like if you're logged into a google account at the time, and other session checks. Perhaps your browsers had different cookies/localStorage, which could explain it.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google holding a dominant position or a monopoly on search is not by itself illegal. However, using that position to gain entry in a different market (shopping, in this case) is considered anti-competitive and hence illegal.
No, I realise that. My question is how are they supposed to hold a monoply or dominance, when there is nothing but preference or lazyness stopping anyone from switching to a competing service?
How the monopoly arises is irrelevant to the law. Even if it's just collective laziness, it is still illegal to use that monopoly to influence other markets.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#98If they do not comply within 90 days, they can be fined with 5% of the daily average revenue of Alphabet, Inc. For FY16, they had a revenue of approx. $90.27b, that leaves a fine of approx. $12.3m. *edit: forgot to divide by 365 (days). I apologise.
Just refuse to pay it, operate only from the UK and Switzerland in Europe. Can't fine someone who isn't in your jurisdiction
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#99Unjust enrichment of disgusting bureaucrats. In this case, google did nothing wrong other than display what they want on their own site, and for that they have to pay their hard earned money to an undemocratic authoritarian commission. No thanks.
Companies are free to do (or not) business wherever they want; they must follow the rules and regulations. We just have stronger laws and regulations about monopolies in Europe and apparently Google is ignoring them. Then it has to be fined to comply the rules as it makes sense.
A similar thing is going on with the food. We have a more strict regulation, and there was some talks about deregulating it to do more business with USA; however this would in practical terms mean lowering the quality of our food. Of course everyone complained! The same is going on with the internet.
Re: European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance
#100This is a ridiculous figure, how can they come up with a figure more than 2x times the amount of the previous record (for Intel's egregious behavior) for deciding what content goes on their own platform, which wasn't previously known to be illegal?
What do they want to force Google to do now, prohibit being able to advertise on their own platform? give their competitors priority placement for free? How many rival comparison services do they need to show now? There could be hundreds popping up to take advantage of the forced exposure with scam and ad-ridden pages. Does Google have to show them all? Who decides? Will this ruling extend to all other relevant content Google shows around Search results?
Guess we'll have to see, but this ruling could force Google to provide a degraded Customer experience which I guess is one way to make their Services less appealing and allow competition to catch up.