91–100 of 179 posts
I work for the Pirate Party MEP in the Parliament. My understanding is that this is mostly about German (and to a lesser degree Spanish) publishers putting pressure on Google for their various interests, including that they want to be paid when Google uses snippets of their content in Google News: https://juliareda.eu/2014/11/breaking-up-google-or-just-bank...
Well, they are the only 'convicted patent troll' in the right definition of the term: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/06/apple-google-motorol... Using SEPs for suing others is wrong. Google has learning marketing ploys from IBM, place ads in influential tech blogs, get lots of good PR, the same blogs will call anyone a patent troll but Google. And because I know this will come up- Patents are not evil- the syste…
> Using SEPs for suing others is wrong. Source for that?
What is the point of this vote ? the article says that the European Parliament has no authority to enforce such a break-up. Also Google is not a European company (wasn't it based in the US ?), so what's the point?
Technically I think Google claims their search technology is invented and produced in their Ireland version of the company and just licensed to the US one or something like that to defraud the US from taxes. So it is actually more UK/Europe than it is US since they just kind of steal from the US.
EU bureaucracy logic at its best - go after google and microsoft, but we let apple do whatever they want. For me they with their closed ecosystem are both bigger danger and more anti competitive than both Google and Microsoft combined. Or at least force them to accept other web browsers in their store.
You are completely wrong. Apple has a small market share, so it doesn't matter that they abuse it by disallowing e.g rival browsers and certain apps. It sucks, but one can use Android without too many headaches. But Google search is more like a public utility than a service. It has extreme market penetration which they abuse for various reasons like prime placing for their own products. And that not only hurts compet…
Or the new GMail app on the Lollipop ROM for my Nexus 5.
My email address was originally on Google Apps. I switched to Windows Phone from my Palm Pre in 2011 and they discontinued Exchange ActiveSync support shortly thereafter, so I moved everything over to Windows Live Domains, keeping my Google Apps login as my Google account.
I recently took a foray to Android in June and picked up the Nexus 5 I'm currently using, and I had no issues setting up my now Outlook.com account (same email address I used for my Google account) in the stock AOSP email app, I removed GMail and there was no trace of my no longer used Google Apps services on my device. Now with Lollipop, I always see two email accounts, one of which is the Google Apps account that no longer has email routed to it but I have no way to hide, and since it shares the same address getting my Outlook.com account added was a pain in the ass (it errored saying I cannot add multiple accounts with the same email address, had to use my @outlook.com alias).
Google used its search monopoly to wedge its way into other areas, the two big ones being email (I see way more active @gmail.com users than I do @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com/@outlook.com and ISP emails today) and online video (youtube). They then used these markets to push their way into the mobile space, which now has the opposite effect (their mobile OS is pushing people into using Google services exclusively).
Both iOS and Windows Phone use their own account systems (Apple ID and Microsoft Account respectively) to provide access to platform-specific services (Store, Synchronization, etc) but both allow users to sign up without requiring they create an email account with them, and both platforms have easy setup for the wealth of other email/calendar/contact sync services most people use.
Honestly, anyone who DOESN'T see Google abusing their monopoly position to prevent or at least actively discourage people from using competitive services is lying to themselves.
Well, they are the only 'convicted patent troll' in the right definition of the term: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/06/apple-google-motorol... Using SEPs for suing others is wrong. Google has learning marketing ploys from IBM, place ads in influential tech blogs, get lots of good PR, the same blogs will call anyone a patent troll but Google. And because I know this will come up- Patents are not evil- the syste…
> Using SEPs for suing others is wrong. Source for that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would certainly be not against some external entity or random event shutting HN down. That would lead to genesis of new communities and contribute to spreading the influence to several or dozens of separate entities. Ironically, voice of the hackers, the independents, the non-affiliated is weak here. The voice of the tech establishment, the VCs, the startups, the megacorps is heard loud and clear. Do you not see ho…
Charming. The "external entity or random event" part of that comment is what really sold it. You're all class.
Also, ofc, with you being one of the top HN members would not support that. I don't have any personal benefit from any outcome, but you do. Who is all class now?
edit: I am curious, in what way, shape or form "external entity or random event" part of my comment is related to either presence or lack of my class? Care to elaborate?
I know this won't happen, but it's a ridiculous idea. Google's search revenue is what helps fund many of its other projects; they couldn't be separated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US "natural" monopolies are allowed to exist, the best example of this being Microsoft with their Windows operating system. What isn't permissible, is using that monopoly to advantage your other products, and possibly more importantly disadvantage products of your competitors.
Natural monopolies are things like infrastructure where the entry cost of providing a fully separate parallel network (of railway lines, phone lines, broadband etc) is prohibitively high or where provision of such parallel network is undesirable for other reasons (e.g. environment). Could you explain how an operating system is a natural monopoly? Development of a new OS isn't cheap, but isn't prohibitively expensive…
The cost of providing and OS and an entire ecosystem of device drivers and an an entire ecosystem of apps is very high.
But even if you manage to build that, the cost of training a significant percent of the population into using and developing for your platform is much higher. Getting a significant presence in the "brain space" of a population is very expensive. Having people switch to an alternative is even more expensive due to, among others, human network effects.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only real customer service Google has is for active AdWords advertisers, if you are on the AdSense side or an end-user of any of its other services then good luck getting any real assistance from them. Microsoft has amazing customer service in comparison for its Live services, which is saying a LOT.
Pay for an Apps account. This gets you a live person to talk to and an SLA. Even if it's just one account on your personal domain (cost: $5/month), that alone makes it worth it. Shockingly, Google allocates their CS to people who pay for their service.
I don't expect 24x7 phone support for free services, but god damnit if my YouTube account gets shut down because of bullshit DMCA requests, or my AdSense account is closed because of fault algorithms suspecting bad-play I expect to have SOME recourse without needing to break out a lawyer and trying to take Google to court.
I have used a wealth of free services and products in my lifetime and NONE have had such piss-poor excuses for support.
> Pay for an Apps account.
I'd rather not need to host my email with Google (another problem I have with their account system, you can no longer make a Google account that isn't a gmail account) just get proper support from them. Even then it doesn't get me support for anything but the Google Apps services, the rest of their support is still garbage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only real customer service Google has is for active AdWords advertisers, if you are on the AdSense side or an end-user of any of its other services then good luck getting any real assistance from them. Microsoft has amazing customer service in comparison for its Live services, which is saying a LOT.
Pay for an Apps account. This gets you a live person to talk to and an SLA. Even if it's just one account on your personal domain (cost: $5/month), that alone makes it worth it. Shockingly, Google allocates their CS to people who pay for their service.