You … wait. Do you think that delivering the service that is Google doesn’t require any infrastructure?
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This isn’t just about preferential treatment of its services - in fact I’m not sure that is even the primary argument against google. Preferential treatment of its services is merely a mechanic of broader monopolistic behaviour that has motivated this antitrust suit. First, do we even agree that restriction of trade is a violation of law? I do. If you agree (and it doesn’t matter, it is still illegal) than Google deserves this suit and then some. It regularly blocks competitors from commerce. Froogle (or Google’s comparison shopping service) didn’t exist a decade ago. Competitors existed and even partnered with Google (if I’m not mistaken), however Google used its ability to preference its own services to relegate these services into obscurity and eventually bankruptcy. Google does this in the area of online advertising. It’s control of search listings allowed it to gain something like an 80% share in online advertising.
In a slightly different arena, Google used its provisioning of the Android operating system to favour its app store, despite active competition from large industry players (notably Amazon). Once competition arose, Google made installations of non-app-store apps more difficult than it’s own platform (nearly impossible). At this stage Google controls the app store (which has major problems with developer support) without oversight. Google can falsely shut down app developers with an automated algorithm and then provide them no appeal process (or a faulty one at best). Developers have no choice but to release apps through Google. Now before you say “but hey Android is Google’s” let me kindly remind you that Google did not invent app stores, Java, mobile computing or any number of the technologies that Android is built on (in fact they are being sued by Oracle right now for appropriating Oracles IP in Android).
Google has repeatedly used its dominance in one field (search ordering) to destroy existing business (shop comparison, online advertising, etc). This is the very definition of a violation of antitrust laws. There is no grey area here. This law suit should be expanded, not reduced on appeal.
Imagine if your local news channel began to favour a dog grooming service. Your dog grooming service was denied the advertising spots that had previously been available through the news network and your business suffered as the regions only news provider decided to limit your access to advertising and exposure in favour of another business. That is antitrust - oh and they just happened to own the dog grooming business as well.
This news is good!
P.S. competition is where Google makes a service similar and proves it is a better service without hindering the service it is competing with. Google is doing the opposite, where it enters areas of competition and restricts trade of its competitors in order to give itself a competitive advantage.
And finally, make these guys pay some taxes or actually physically relocate to the Bahamas (Google is all sorts of bad)
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[quote=“CarlMud, post:16, topic:103654, full:true”]
[quote=“d_r, post:15, topic:103654”]
Google used their search engine dominance to squeeze other price comparison engines out of business[/quote]
They removed the other price comparison engines from the internet?[/quote]
I don’t think you understand how antitrust regulation works. I suggest starting with J.M. Clark, Toward a Concept of Workable Competition, American Economic Review (1940) 241-256, then working your way forward.
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For everyone arguing that Google is a) not a monopoly and b) did nothing wrong, it might be worth reading the Guardian article @asdasdetc linked to which quotes the EU official explaining their reasons.
In short, Google introduced their comparison service Froogle.
Contrary to what some have said above, it did not outperform other price comparison services. It did really badly, i.e. people preferred to use other comparison services.
Google then deliberately chose to fiddle with their ranking algorithms to ensure that their comparison service turned up higher in the rankings.
The investigation revealed (who knew?) that the higher up the rankings something appears, the more likely it is to be clicked on. The top 10 get 95% of all the clicks and the first result gets 35% of all clicks. Being high on the rankings matters. It’s even more important on mobile devices.
Google is an effective monopoly. It makes up 90% of all searches.
Some of the comments here seem to focus on whether Google is a monopoly as a search provider from the point of view of the person searching. While it is true that there are other providers, Google has (or had at least) 90% of the market.
If you are a business looking to find customers, you therefore have to deal with Google. You don’t realistically have the option of choosing to advertise on a different platform. No useful number of people will see your offerings because almost everyone uses Google.
That makes Google a monopoly.
How or why it has that position is irrelevant. No one is saying that a business can’t be successful and win market share. What anti-trust law does say is that you can’t use your dominant position to wipe out the competition.
One can disagree about whether that should be the case or when or where someone has overstepped the mark. I can’t actually think of any country that does not have some sort of anti-trust/competition law though.
When it comes to what kind of conduct is reprehensible, I think deliberately setting up the playing field you control to pump up your sub-par offering and wipe out other, more popular options until your offering is the main one and then charging everyone else to access your comparison service is precisely the sort of thing competition law is intended to stop.
I suppose this is just one of those areas where the fundamental differences between the US mindset and European mindsets become clear. To us, this sort of thing seems self-evidently right (like socialised medicine). To the US, it’s crazy talk. 
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No idea what was so offensive in this post to flagg it (a post with 5 likes).
But since the point is important I will edit.
This thread is incredibly depressing reading. Thanks for making the argument.
My strong impression is that those refusing to accept that
a) google is and acts as a monopoly (at least in certain areas and that
b) google has and is abusing their monopoly position are US contemporaries. And that they believe in the mantra of business success justify every kind of practice and that it is a sin to regulate markets in any way that might curtail the strong operators.
If Americans feel do offended by business regulation that they come down on a legal and principled decision of the EU regulator like a tone of bricks, just because business should be free, you guys, you American guys deserve your golfing orange president-- Who has made a career out of subverting regulations and is currently busy subverting the US Constitution.
Why should it be wrong to use your “well earned position” to peddle his substandard 5 star hotels or his daughter’s shoes and scarfs. Yep the ultimate American dream of free market enterprise.
With every minute I am more thankful for the EU, and that, thanks to the incompetence and ignorance of both the US and UK governments the EU is free to develop its own version of market capitalism-- which considers citizens as constituents with a stake in governance rather than just consumers to be milked for every penny.
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Making assumptions regarding people’s knowledge and then claiming the “deserve” something is both disingenuous and attacking the person rather than their message.
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I made no assumption about your knowledge, I made assumptions about your (and others’) assumptions on how business relates to society and how society should regulate it.
I made these assumptions on the basis of statements you and others have made. I don’t, at the moment, have the time to do a detailed text analysis of what those on your side of the argument have written.
But my overall point was, a point others (on my, the European side of the argument) have echoed, that there seems to be a European vs American thing going on here. And that while we European welcome the regulators decision Americans seems to regard this is a regulatory overreach.
In addition I made the comment–merely a personal observation which you can take or leave–that given the reluctance Americans in this forum seem to have towards regulation, it is no surprise that the orange-business-mogul-par-excellence can get away with murder.
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Wait for what?
Of course I do not. That’s why I qualified it in contrast to “deep” infrastructure. Utility companies require specialized infrastructure. Whereas most all web services are using hardware which is very similar to what the users already have. Instead, the difference is mainly one of scale. So sitting at your computer and writing code will not make one into a competitor to a gas, electric, or phone company. But it can yield you a service such as Google - or Facebook, or eBay, or other companies which people commonly describe as monopolies which actually aren’t.
All it takes to undo their perceived monopoly is for people to use one of the many other already existing services. That people often don’t, and still complain about it, is what puzzles me. The dynamic seems more like people being hostage to a toxic relationship which they know is bad for them, but that they are too comfortable to leave. It sounds more like a psychological problem.
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You are here completely changing what you say. Before you seem to assert that those who dont agree with you do not understand (“really don’t get”) the matter at hand, but here you speak of European vs American views on regulation. Which is your actual view? Why accuse anyone of ignorance if in fact the issue is one of different viewpoints?
FWIW I clearly called this a money grab on the part of the EU. I said the same thing regarding the EU trying to levy what was essentially an illegal tax on Apple some time back. I said nothing at all about if government regulation should be heavy or light.
Finally you again change your message regarding the current POTUS. Do we “deserve” or is it “no surprise”?
FWIW2 I didnt vote for Trump . Please make no assumptions about my political opinions, especially if indeed you have observed my comments in the past.
When called out by name, if I’m shown to be in error I’ll apologize and back down on an opinion or misstatement of fact but I’ll certainly dig in when it comes to complete mischaracterizations or swerving stories.
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Exactly this.
[quote=“L0ki, post:24, topic:103654”]
To us, this sort of thing seems self-evidently right (like socialised medicine). To the US, it’s crazy talk.[/quote]
That’s not fair; a lot of modern competitive market theory originated in the US.
I’m a Yank, though I had the benefit of a DoJ antitrust prosecutor as an immediate family member.
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Last night I was drinking with a buddy who works at one of the biggest securities firms in Japan. His current live in SO? She works for the FSA!
Ok I am going to do the text analysis here, to highlight nuances of language, which you seem to overlook.
In common parlance “really don’t get” in English has nothing to do with knowledge. Mostly, it implies that the person being addressed has closed their mind to an opposing view–as you seem to do in this instance (p.s. Have you flagged my post? which of course would be an excellent case in point).
In both of my posts I spoke of European vs American views. As a matter of fact the difference btw the two point of views in relation to regulating business was the main point of my posts:
In the first post I made a connection between aversion to business regulation and [EDIT to clarify] a country voting for a president who is immune to all regulation including the US Constitution. This seem to have offended.
In the second post, I elaborated:
Where does this statement accuse you or anyone of ignorance? It makes an observation about cultural difference in viewing regulation and regulators. And given the political times I also feel offended by the barrage of baseless attacks in this thread on the EU regulator.
Thank you for asserting my point. Most of us Europeans don’t seem to have this reaction to our elected politicians taking a stand against big business. Which of course was my point.
No, I have from the beginning made a hypothesis regarding the election of a POTUS, which to most of us Europeans seems unacceptable (to the point that trumps election seems to have influenced European election outcomes).
Nor did I assume or accuse you of having voted for him (I work on the assumption that I am highly unlikely to encounter a trump voter on bbs).
Furthermore, the NSDAP i.e. Hitler was only elected by 43.9% of Germans in 1933, that doesn’t stop the rest of the world from assume that every German had Mitschuld. e.g. including me, the granddaughter of a German Jew who was screamed at for speaking German, the perpetrator’s language, by another survivor. These things are complex.
But since my point is about the US mindset in relation to big business / big money and the election of a twisted individual whose only merit seems to be his connection to big business / big money, the point seems legitimate–even if, in your opinion not well made.
You have not been shown to be in error. This is not a discussion on facts, this thread turned (very surprisingly to me) into a discussion on very strongly held OPINIONs on Business Regulation. Opinions which you have made clear, repeatedly. (It could have also been a discussion on the Internet and its future, but was not)
The way you chose to make your opinion was by criticising European Institutions for regulatory actions which were in accordance with both the laws and principles of the European Union. You sited no evidence why this decision was wrong on principle or law. You just repeated:
Calling something a money grab is highly emotive and will be read as opinion. Flagging someone elses (also emotive) opinion doesn’t strengthen your point.
We are talking about intellectual trends, not personal views. In the last couple of months the intellectual trends in the US and Europe seem to be developing in opposite directions–even though there is a great diversity of opinion everywhere the way the governments are developing are contrary.
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If we are going to get into linguistics, kindly allow me as a native speaker of English to offer another view. Rather than a closed mind as you put it, the far more common usage is to mean “does not understand”. See here for several examples.
No, as far as I understand the rules here, flagging is not about disagreement or opposing opinion and thus I would not do so for your comments at this point. I’ve made this quite clear in the threads regarding flagging.
As for the rest, You seem to believe you didnt change what you said. OK then.
Also, as above, I didnt flag you, no need to go from asking me to assuming I did.
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Every time you search for a product Google Shopping shows up on top of search results. You don’t have to know what it is but you use it every day most probably.
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I lost my job with a rival shopping search engine back in the days when they started showing Google Shopping on top and demoted most of their competitors during the so called “Panda” update.
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I don’t think you understand that a book written in the 40s has no frame of reference for the concept of antitrust regulation as it should relate to a modern information service. Should I read a telegraphy manual from the 1890s to learn how the transfer layer works in modern networking?
Thanks for a straight forward answer and apologies for assuming re flagging.
I was / am rather puzzled & irritated why anyone would flagg my post, which admittedly was emotive, but not offensive…
Agree re “does not understand” as a potential interpretation of “doesn’t get it”, but that is still very different from “doesn’t know it” which would imply ignorance.
I think the key word in the sentence to which you and presumably someone else has taken offense was "if making the sentence conditional. Thus speaking of possibilities rather than facts…So much for linguistics. Thanks for the fair play.
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I don’t have a side in this dialectic. I just felt like performing an experiment:
- Google: office.com, godaddy, outlook/live, email.secureserver.net(?), Bowling Green State’s mail, Wikipedia’s definition, gmail , mail.com, followed by newstories.
- Bing: yahoo, hotmail, outlook/live, windows live, outlook at the itunes store, gmail at the android store, yahoo at the MS store, Microsoft Office, gmail, AOL.
- DuckDuckGo: Yahoo, hotmail, outlook/live, windows live, outlook at the itunes store, gmail at the android store, yahoo at the MS store, Microsoft Office, gmail, AOL, mail.com, email.secureserver.net(?), yahoo mail, mail.com again.
Make of that what you will.
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Suggesting that people who have a differing perspective on an unrelated issue deserve to have as president a person who they vehemently oppose is pretty damn offensive. I didn’t flag it, because I didn’t see it until now, but yeah, that’s just harsh.
I think this is the aspect where the fundamental difference of perspective comes into play. I don’t consider Google to be a search engine business and a merchandiser and an internet service provider and whatever else… They’re a single service. The search engine and the price comparison are obvious features of the same service in a modern information service. To not use one to enhance the other makes both less useful to customers. Pretending that a company should only perform one service and ignore another obvious service isn’t anti-trust. It’s anti-consumer.
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Most welcome and appreciated. Unfortunately there are still users who flag for disagreement.
Honestly its the only interpretation when used that way by my understanding. Because I’ve been outside the US for quite a while, I made some effort to see if there was a recent shift in colloquial usage to the meaning you suggested but could not find any evidence of it meaning a closed mind or the like.
Also I realize that colloquial speech can be misunderstood. I’ve been called out here for using what I thought were very common expressions, all of which were easily checkable for meaning but were misunderstood by readers here including native speakers of English.
