15 ms·

Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU

245 points by ghosh 11y ago

JoshTriplett 11y ago
> “Dominant companies can’t abuse their dominant position to create advantage in related markets,” she said bluntly, formally accusing Google of exploiting its supremacy in general search to dominate the market for online product searches It seems completely ridiculous to call those two different markets. Finding the most relevant X on the web is fundamentally part of the same market no matter what X is. Now, if they'd accused Google of using their market position in search to promote gmail, for instance, they might have a point. Not a very good point, but at least an understandable point. But calling "general search" and "product search" two different markets? They seem to just be looking for a way to extort concessions out of a company that seems like a tempting target, all the more so for not being an EU company. Later in the same article is an indignant accusation that Google's display of other types of search results don't label themselves as ads. Of course they're not; if you search for an address, and you conveniently get a map of that address (which is one of the most likely things you were looking for), that's not an ad, that's the content you actually wanted. (By contrast, the garbage next to it telling you about other services related to random keywords in the search terms are ads.) Now, the crazy 2014 deal that fell through certainly does sound like antitrust-style collusion; it's certainly ridiculous to have competitors bid for the right to appear as a list of competing services at the top of Google search results. But far from the "extortion" it's described as, it sounds a lot more like collusion between multiple large companies to exclude smaller players. The solution isn't to find a way to include more companies; it's to forget that that anticompetitive arrangement was ever proposed, and continue on with the current situation where Google shows users whatever it thinks they're looking for. (I'm not suggesting that Google has pure and altruistic motives here; far from it. They're out to make money. I'm just saying that they've done nothing wrong here, and more generally that there's no wrong here for anyone to be accused of doing. That some random local company in the EU got annoyed at not being at the top of Google search results should not be Google's problem, or anyone's problem other than that company's.)
- hansibansi 11y ago
  First of all, the reason why they differentiate product and general search is, because Google injects a carousel at the top of the page, regardless of its relevancy. Thus, the differentiation. Secondly, the big discussion of abusing its market dominance was ultimately triggered by Yelp and other vertical search engines. Google first ripped of Yelp by scraping their content and then added it to their own Google Places search. After that, they decided to give their own service more relevancy. This would not be a problem, IF they were competition in the European market, but Google has an average market share of 90 percent in Europe (note, that it has up to 99 percent in other markets like Germany) and thus Yelp is super dependent on Google. Overall, this is NOT a fair market and Google has such a dominance in that market that new players are not likely (or ever) to appear. A 99 percent market share is a monopoly, there are not many non-government markets that experience such a malfunction.
  - adventured 11y ago
    There was an easy solution for Yelp: opt out of Google search results. What Yelp wants, is to have their cake and eat it too. They want to benefit from what Google offers, and they want Google to behave exactly as they would prefer, assuming control over Google's product through government power. Classic competitor hypocrisy, the same behavior displayed 15 years ago by Microsoft's extremely envious competition. They didn't want to beat Microsoft in consumer operating systems, they wanted to chain and control Microsoft's operating system to their benefit.
    - simonh 11y ago
      If search results that hit Yelp data linked to Yelp there'd be no problem. However if it links to Google Places because Google scraped the Yelp data and loaded it into the Places database - that's a problem. Suppose someone launched an 'Encyclopedia Search' service that searched Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britanica, etc and linked to their sites. The the service then started loading the Wikipedia and Britanica content into it's own respository and linked searches to that. It's still searching the same data, and taking you to the same articles, it's just that now you're not going to Wikipedia or Britanica anymore. Would that be ok? If not, what's the difference?
guelo 11y ago
If you look at what has happened in China after Google left, how they were able to quickly grow massive web companies, protectionism seems like a no-brainer for every slightly advanced country. Silicon Valley sees the huge first-mover advantages and is moving as fast as possible to move into every liberalized market. But it makes no sense for a country to allow Silicon Valley to take these industries for themselves. This is the fastest growing industry for the next several decades with the best paying jobs. It only makes sense to nurture the local companies and local talent instead of giving it all away to the Americans. Europe is always fretting about how they need to create their own Silicon Valley but it's easy to do, kick out the Americans! You'll have your own Baidu, Tencent and Alibabas in no time.
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  At the expense of the citizens. Why not let companies compete?
  - guelo 11y ago
    There is no competition, it's just monopolies. It's been shown over and over that the first-mover advantage on the web is almost insurmountable because of the network effects.
    - JoshTriplett 11y ago
      Which is why Google was the first search engine ever, and before that people just banged rocks together in the general vicinity of phone lines, because any prior search engine would have had an insurmountable first-mover advantage that Google could not possibly have overcome?
      - abritinthebay 11y ago
        While I agree with the general point you are making - the Internet as a whole had not reached a general populace tipping point until after Google was a major player in search. I think we, as technologically included people, tend to overestimate how old the internet is to most people outside of maybe early email usage. Also the implosion of companies (like Yahoo) is a factor here. If Yahoo hadn't been really stupid they would still be dominant - and it would have been hard to stop them. Of course people can overtake when the leader throws the lead... but it's luck and also hard.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
IBM 11y ago
>Although she uses Google frequently, Vestager says it doesn’t cloud her view of the case. “Congratulations for being big, but don’t misuse it. For Europeans, this is very fundamental,” she says. >That might be the scariest thing of all for Google. It isn’t dealing with an antitech ideologue or a competition czar consumed with cementing a personal legacy. It faces a straightforward prosecutor in a hostile political climate dominated by powerful local business interests with their own regulatory agendas. Good luck to Google searching for a way out of that. I've been following this story for a while and I watched the press conferences she gave and that's the impression I got from her as well. I think Google is definitely not going to skate by like they did in the US with a slap on the wrist. The investigation into Android is going to be another big one and if they break up Google's ability to bundle/tie in their services, it pretty much neutralizes the entire benefit of Android to Google as a defensive moat.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Absolutely. In another article, Vestager is said to have the nickname the "Iron Lady of Denmark". Google can't buy her out. And as a stepladder-carrying woman in a leadership position, she's a formidable leader and icon that Google can't easily tear down or discredit. If they try and break up Google though, I expect Google to leave the EU wholesale rather than comply.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  So Vestager is a straightforward politician that is actually doing her job and has no other agenda than supporting local businesses and protecting the interests of the consumer? This is fantastic. I wish we had some more people of her caliber in US politics. Reflects well on the EU that she was elected.
  - M2Ys4U 11y ago
    >Reflects well on the EU that she was elected. It would, if hers was an elected position :P The European Commission is a bit of a strange beast. As is the rest of the EU, to be honest. The Commission consists of the President of the European Commission, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (effectively its foreign minister), and 26 other commissioners. The President of the European Commission is elected by the European Parliament[0], and the High Representative is then chosen by the European Council[1], with the consent of the Commission President, who cannot be from the same country as the President and will be one of the Commission's Vice Presidents. The other 26 Commissioners are then appointed by the unrepresented Member States, so they each have one Commissioner. The Commission President then assigns each of the Commissioners (except the High Representative) a portfolio and then the entire body is subject to a confirmation vote by the European Parliament before it can take office. [0] It can't just vote for anybody, though, the European Council technically has to propose a candidate "taking in to account" the results of the results of the election to the European Parliament, although in 2014 (the first time they had the opportunity since the rule was introduced) Parliament successfully managed to establish the precedent that the Council must nominate the designated candidate ("Spitzenkandidat") of the European Political Party[2] that won the most seats at the election in the first instance. [1] The European Council is the body consisting of the heads of state and government from the EU Member States, not to be confused with the Council of the European Union, which consists of ministers from Member State governments, and the Council of Europe which is a distinct organisation. [2] European Political Parties aren't political parties in the same way they are at national levels - they are more coalitions or federations of national political parties - and they are also distinct from political groups in the European Parliament.
choppaface 11y ago
Much of this debate centers on the premonition that Google highlights their own content and services in order to fight competition and maximize their own profits. They are acting intentionally and rationally. But their monopoly is hurting others, so we (er, the EU) convict(s) Google of malice. However, another plausible position is that Google is merely behaving negligently. There are some studies (paid by competitors, sure) showing users dislike Google promoted content and products. Those products should probably have their A/B tests ended, but nobody has the guts to pull the plug (and willpower to evolve the effort into something else). Knowledge Base has sucked away ~30% of Wikipedia's traffic, which thankfully has not yet hurt donations. Google certainly doesn't want Wikipedia to fall apart. If we want to draw a parallel to Microsoft's monopoly, we could point out how IE was initially a good product but then fell behind the competition. Pushing it on consumers not only hurt consumer choice, but (over time) locked users into a poor experience. But did we really need to carry out a lengthy (and ineffective) anti-trust case? Building a legal case is expensive and highly political. If discovery doesn't uncover evidence of malicious intentions, then one must prove competitors and consumers were harmed. But if the monopoly has been held for so long, how can one prove those damages without resorting to small, expensive, and contrived studies? We should begin to embrace an expectation that the producer of any successful product will eventually become negligent. Protecting consumer choice is not just about fair discovery, but ensuring the diversity needed for markets to evolve (for better or, perhaps in the short term, for worse). Why do we have to go to such effort to show how Google is specifically doing harm? Why can't we say they had their turn, and here are places where they have concentrated marketshare and thus places in need of diversity?
- bobajeff 11y ago
  Probably because being able to have your monopoly ended by government for no other reason than you're dominant goes against the concept of a free market. The fear I think is such a move would disincentize people from building companies.
- scholia 11y ago
  > Google is merely behaving negligently For one example, Google started showing results linked to G+ while not showing superior results from Twitter. That looked like an open-and-shut case of Google using its search monopoly to promote one of its own properties to the disadvantage of a rival. I really don't think it counts as negligence... > IE was initially a good product but then fell behind the competition. Pushing it on consumers not only hurt consumer choice, but (over time) locked users into a poor experience. I'm not sure there is a useful analogy with the Google case. However, IE6 was initially a good product and fell behind out of neglect. That was partly because Microsoft didn't do a new browser until it did a new OS, and the new OS -- Vista -- was (a) delayed and then (b) unsuccessful. Mistakes were made, as they say. The point is that Microsoft wasn't "pushing [IE6] on consumers". Microsoft was desperate to get consumers off IE6 and XP, but consumers (and businesses) didn't want to move. Either way, Microsoft's mistakes left the door open for Firefox and, later, Chrome. The anti-trust action didn't solve the problem -- and it didn't help Netscape, which started it. The market solved the problem by creating better browsers.
weddpros 11y ago
For a long time, countries agreed that free-trade was the best way to avoid another war. Europe was created as an economic region first, to avoid another war. But today I'm afraid Europe suffers memory loss. They're using coercion against another country (always the same one, the USA) for ideological reasons... which is the very definition of war. The fact they're citing money as the reason only makes it more frightening. Prosperous countries avoid war and favor trade instead, if possible. As a European citizen, I can witness the anti-american mindset: it's growing, nurtured by press and politicians. Don't think "it's not the USA, it's Google/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook": they actually cite the USA all day long until Google is a synonym for the USA in people's mind. A quick check with the first article I can find in my Google newsfeed: in the french press, about Apple Music, the article starts with "Le géant américain de l'informatique Apple" (The american IT giant/behemoth Apple) The internet is an amazing promoter of free-trade, so unsurprisingly it's the perfect target for Europe. Please don't call it a conspiracy theory: it's not one, because I hope I'm wrong ;-)
- rnnr 11y ago
  Totally agree. And although there is indeed an anti-american mindset, American politicians speak pretty often about the loss of 'american' jobs too... It's just the common economic illiteracy. Trade protections don't benefit any party involved, they don't make economic sense and they never did.
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  In my experience, the clashes of European companies with EU regulators just don't create as much press. The most recent anti-trust/cartel activity is listed by the European Commission for Competition: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_at_by_date http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fusea... http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html Currently that covers: something about pay-TV in UK/Ireland, Qualcomm, a bunch of European cargo train operators, a pan-European retail food packaging cartel, something about a Bulgarian Energy Holding, German car heating and climate control vendors, Amazon, SkyTeam. Of these, two are American (Qualcomm, Amazon), one has a US company involved (Delta Airlines as part of SkyTeam), everything else is EU internal. That doesn't look like coercion against another country ("always the USA") to me. I guess there are two reasons why the media is mostly covering the cases where US companies are involved: First, the big tech companies are mostly American. Being big brings you on the radar of both regulators (everywhere) and the media covering the industry. Second, EU tech media takes cues from US tech media. When the US media report on something (such as a potential problem for the international business of their local industry), EU tech media pick it up. Up until today I haven't heard about the retail food packaging cartel, but with a €115M penalty that must have been a bigger issue. But why should HN (and related media) cover that? They're no household names, so it's also not covered in the general press. But I'm quite certain that the trade press of the retail food industry will cover this in great detail.
louithethrid 11y ago
Im in Germany, i can see no investment to grow a european google. Oh, yes there are great declarations of grandios plans. But my experience in a baker-shop can tell you everything on the european attitude towards technology. "So what are you doing for a livin?" "I work as a software developer.." "Oh, so your company doesent produce anything real?" You cant force a culture to embrace something new that it detests. This doesent mean that this culture will not buy the products, but it will never produce them on the level as californium. Another example? People pay ridiculous amounts of money for public television in germany. And it is bad. Outright horrible. Not regarding production quality, not the acting, execution and direction. Then what is missing to create a german game of thrones? The answer: A diffrent production culture, that doesent view half a hour of screaming drama as a authentic drama, and understands that a joke on the henchmans axeblade makes drama so much more impacting. Will that change come? No. Cultures only adapt when they suffer and europe is not suffering enough.
- Zirro 11y ago
  Please don't speak of a "European attitude towards technology" when there is none. For example, I can't imagine hearing the attitude you describe here in Sweden, and I believe you could find plenty of germans who would disagree with you as well. Not only are we many different countries, but we are also different individuals. There is no common "European attitude towards technology".
  - jaawn 11y ago
    This is a very reasonable point. By the same logic, there should not be a single European action taken against Google either. The people behind all of the political resistance to Google in EU countries seem to all be from, or tied to, EU corporations who want to take some of the market from Google by force. They are trying to push through regulations that are good for their company with little regard to what is good for the people of all the different EU nations.
- Quanticles 11y ago
  > "Oh, so your company doesent produce anything real?" The euros are real
afeef 11y ago
old twats.
jaawn 11y ago
I have seen several comments that basically say "Google puts customers first, but this goes against the EU's strong preference to protect local workers." It is not "customers over workers" it is "customers over local corporations with less developed products". Google has offices in 40 different countries (https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/ https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/). Workers could easily go work for Google without moving to America...and Google offers some of the best, most competitive career prospects of any company. Until this changes, there is no reason to presume that Google's behavior in Europe is somehow hurting "workers." Sure, if Google was providing inferior products, and paying its workers lower-than-market salaries and abusing its dominance to keep better products out of the market, then all of this fuss would make sense. Fear of this happening at some point is not, in my opinion, a good justification for such heavy resistance to Google's activities. We shouldn't confuse the interests of local (i.e. European) corporations with the interests of the people. It being harder for a Danish company, for example, to enter the online search, mapping, or shopping market doesn't mean it is harder for Danish people to work in online search, mapping, or shopping. It also does not mean it is harder for Danish people use high-quality products in these industries. I don't see how Google's actions so far constitute "abuse of dominance" even if you take a protection-of-workers stance...only if you take a "protection of the local corporate CEO" stance.
- aoeuasdf1 11y ago
  Well said. Google is hardly an American company anymore. Their EU workers pay EU taxes.
bla2 11y ago
Good reporting. Shows how much the EU is owned by the publishing industry.
- ftoste 11y ago
  yes, also the unconscionable betrayal by the modern day benedict arnolds-msft, yelp, getty images, and iac enjoying their bratwurst and lederhosen, while lady liberty weeps in silence.
  - bla2 11y ago
    Hm?
maldusiecle 11y ago
Surprisingly little talk here about the degree to which Google has abused its search market position in ways that push other players out. I would have expected more. Antitrust laws exist for a reason. If Google uses its dominance in search to stop better solutions from having a chance, it hurts everyone--consumers included, but startups especially. It's not just a matter of "protectionism," it's a matter of keeping the market open to innovation.
nradov 11y ago
Does anyone remember Quaero? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaero In 2005 the French and German governments sponsored a "European" competitor to Google. It failed.
ftoste 11y ago
nationalism on HN? oh dear. will techies start calling french fries freedom fries?

245 points by ghosh 11y ago

> “Dominant companies can’t abuse their dominant position to create advantage in related markets,” she said bluntly, formally accusing Google of exploiting its supremacy in general search to dominate the market for online product searches It seems completely ridiculous to call those two different markets. Finding the most relevant X on the web is fundamentally part of the same market no matter what X is. Now, if they'd accused Google of using their market position in search to promote gmail, for instance, they might have a point. Not a very good point, but at least an understandable point. But calling "general search" and "product search" two different markets? They seem to just be looking for a way to extort concessions out of a company that seems like a tempting target, all the more so for not being an EU company. Later in the same article is an indignant accusation that Google's display of other types of search results don't label themselves as ads. Of course they're not; if you search for an address, and you conveniently get a map of that address (which is one of the most likely things you were looking for), that's not an ad, that's the content you actually wanted. (By contrast, the garbage next to it telling you about other services related to random keywords in the search terms are ads.) Now, the crazy 2014 deal that fell through certainly does sound like antitrust-style collusion; it's certainly ridiculous to have competitors bid for the right to appear as a list of competing services at the top of Google search results. But far from the "extortion" it's described as, it sounds a lot more like collusion between multiple large companies to exclude smaller players. The solution isn't to find a way to include more companies; it's to forget that that anticompetitive arrangement was ever proposed, and continue on with the current situation where Google shows users whatever it thinks they're looking for. (I'm not suggesting that Google has pure and altruistic motives here; far from it. They're out to make money. I'm just saying that they've done nothing wrong here, and more generally that there's no wrong here for anyone to be accused of doing. That some random local company in the EU got annoyed at not being at the top of Google search results should not be Google's problem, or anyone's problem other than that company's.)

hansibansi 11y ago
First of all, the reason why they differentiate product and general search is, because Google injects a carousel at the top of the page, regardless of its relevancy. Thus, the differentiation. Secondly, the big discussion of abusing its market dominance was ultimately triggered by Yelp and other vertical search engines. Google first ripped of Yelp by scraping their content and then added it to their own Google Places search. After that, they decided to give their own service more relevancy. This would not be a problem, IF they were competition in the European market, but Google has an average market share of 90 percent in Europe (note, that it has up to 99 percent in other markets like Germany) and thus Yelp is super dependent on Google. Overall, this is NOT a fair market and Google has such a dominance in that market that new players are not likely (or ever) to appear. A 99 percent market share is a monopoly, there are not many non-government markets that experience such a malfunction.
- adventured 11y ago
  There was an easy solution for Yelp: opt out of Google search results. What Yelp wants, is to have their cake and eat it too. They want to benefit from what Google offers, and they want Google to behave exactly as they would prefer, assuming control over Google's product through government power. Classic competitor hypocrisy, the same behavior displayed 15 years ago by Microsoft's extremely envious competition. They didn't want to beat Microsoft in consumer operating systems, they wanted to chain and control Microsoft's operating system to their benefit.
  - simonh 11y ago
    If search results that hit Yelp data linked to Yelp there'd be no problem. However if it links to Google Places because Google scraped the Yelp data and loaded it into the Places database - that's a problem. Suppose someone launched an 'Encyclopedia Search' service that searched Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britanica, etc and linked to their sites. The the service then started loading the Wikipedia and Britanica content into it's own respository and linked searches to that. It's still searching the same data, and taking you to the same articles, it's just that now you're not going to Wikipedia or Britanica anymore. Would that be ok? If not, what's the difference?

guelo 11y ago

If you look at what has happened in China after Google left, how they were able to quickly grow massive web companies, protectionism seems like a no-brainer for every slightly advanced country. Silicon Valley sees the huge first-mover advantages and is moving as fast as possible to move into every liberalized market. But it makes no sense for a country to allow Silicon Valley to take these industries for themselves. This is the fastest growing industry for the next several decades with the best paying jobs. It only makes sense to nurture the local companies and local talent instead of giving it all away to the Americans. Europe is always fretting about how they need to create their own Silicon Valley but it's easy to do, kick out the Americans! You'll have your own Baidu, Tencent and Alibabas in no time.

dylanjermiah 11y ago
At the expense of the citizens. Why not let companies compete?
- guelo 11y ago
  There is no competition, it's just monopolies. It's been shown over and over that the first-mover advantage on the web is almost insurmountable because of the network effects.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    Which is why Google was the first search engine ever, and before that people just banged rocks together in the general vicinity of phone lines, because any prior search engine would have had an insurmountable first-mover advantage that Google could not possibly have overcome?
    - abritinthebay 11y ago
      While I agree with the general point you are making - the Internet as a whole had not reached a general populace tipping point until after Google was a major player in search. I think we, as technologically included people, tend to overestimate how old the internet is to most people outside of maybe early email usage. Also the implosion of companies (like Yahoo) is a factor here. If Yahoo hadn't been really stupid they would still be dominant - and it would have been hard to stop them. Of course people can overtake when the leader throws the lead... but it's luck and also hard.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

IBM 11y ago

>Although she uses Google frequently, Vestager says it doesn’t cloud her view of the case. “Congratulations for being big, but don’t misuse it. For Europeans, this is very fundamental,” she says. >That might be the scariest thing of all for Google. It isn’t dealing with an antitech ideologue or a competition czar consumed with cementing a personal legacy. It faces a straightforward prosecutor in a hostile political climate dominated by powerful local business interests with their own regulatory agendas. Good luck to Google searching for a way out of that. I've been following this story for a while and I watched the press conferences she gave and that's the impression I got from her as well. I think Google is definitely not going to skate by like they did in the US with a slap on the wrist. The investigation into Android is going to be another big one and if they break up Google's ability to bundle/tie in their services, it pretty much neutralizes the entire benefit of Android to Google as a defensive moat.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Absolutely. In another article, Vestager is said to have the nickname the "Iron Lady of Denmark". Google can't buy her out. And as a stepladder-carrying woman in a leadership position, she's a formidable leader and icon that Google can't easily tear down or discredit. If they try and break up Google though, I expect Google to leave the EU wholesale rather than comply.
roymurdock 11y ago
So Vestager is a straightforward politician that is actually doing her job and has no other agenda than supporting local businesses and protecting the interests of the consumer? This is fantastic. I wish we had some more people of her caliber in US politics. Reflects well on the EU that she was elected.
- M2Ys4U 11y ago
  >Reflects well on the EU that she was elected. It would, if hers was an elected position :P The European Commission is a bit of a strange beast. As is the rest of the EU, to be honest. The Commission consists of the President of the European Commission, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (effectively its foreign minister), and 26 other commissioners. The President of the European Commission is elected by the European Parliament[0], and the High Representative is then chosen by the European Council[1], with the consent of the Commission President, who cannot be from the same country as the President and will be one of the Commission's Vice Presidents. The other 26 Commissioners are then appointed by the unrepresented Member States, so they each have one Commissioner. The Commission President then assigns each of the Commissioners (except the High Representative) a portfolio and then the entire body is subject to a confirmation vote by the European Parliament before it can take office. [0] It can't just vote for anybody, though, the European Council technically has to propose a candidate "taking in to account" the results of the results of the election to the European Parliament, although in 2014 (the first time they had the opportunity since the rule was introduced) Parliament successfully managed to establish the precedent that the Council must nominate the designated candidate ("Spitzenkandidat") of the European Political Party[2] that won the most seats at the election in the first instance. [1] The European Council is the body consisting of the heads of state and government from the EU Member States, not to be confused with the Council of the European Union, which consists of ministers from Member State governments, and the Council of Europe which is a distinct organisation. [2] European Political Parties aren't political parties in the same way they are at national levels - they are more coalitions or federations of national political parties - and they are also distinct from political groups in the European Parliament.

choppaface 11y ago

Much of this debate centers on the premonition that Google highlights their own content and services in order to fight competition and maximize their own profits. They are acting intentionally and rationally. But their monopoly is hurting others, so we (er, the EU) convict(s) Google of malice. However, another plausible position is that Google is merely behaving negligently. There are some studies (paid by competitors, sure) showing users dislike Google promoted content and products. Those products should probably have their A/B tests ended, but nobody has the guts to pull the plug (and willpower to evolve the effort into something else). Knowledge Base has sucked away ~30% of Wikipedia's traffic, which thankfully has not yet hurt donations. Google certainly doesn't want Wikipedia to fall apart. If we want to draw a parallel to Microsoft's monopoly, we could point out how IE was initially a good product but then fell behind the competition. Pushing it on consumers not only hurt consumer choice, but (over time) locked users into a poor experience. But did we really need to carry out a lengthy (and ineffective) anti-trust case? Building a legal case is expensive and highly political. If discovery doesn't uncover evidence of malicious intentions, then one must prove competitors and consumers were harmed. But if the monopoly has been held for so long, how can one prove those damages without resorting to small, expensive, and contrived studies? We should begin to embrace an expectation that the producer of any successful product will eventually become negligent. Protecting consumer choice is not just about fair discovery, but ensuring the diversity needed for markets to evolve (for better or, perhaps in the short term, for worse). Why do we have to go to such effort to show how Google is specifically doing harm? Why can't we say they had their turn, and here are places where they have concentrated marketshare and thus places in need of diversity?

bobajeff 11y ago
Probably because being able to have your monopoly ended by government for no other reason than you're dominant goes against the concept of a free market. The fear I think is such a move would disincentize people from building companies.
scholia 11y ago
> Google is merely behaving negligently For one example, Google started showing results linked to G+ while not showing superior results from Twitter. That looked like an open-and-shut case of Google using its search monopoly to promote one of its own properties to the disadvantage of a rival. I really don't think it counts as negligence... > IE was initially a good product but then fell behind the competition. Pushing it on consumers not only hurt consumer choice, but (over time) locked users into a poor experience. I'm not sure there is a useful analogy with the Google case. However, IE6 was initially a good product and fell behind out of neglect. That was partly because Microsoft didn't do a new browser until it did a new OS, and the new OS -- Vista -- was (a) delayed and then (b) unsuccessful. Mistakes were made, as they say. The point is that Microsoft wasn't "pushing [IE6] on consumers". Microsoft was desperate to get consumers off IE6 and XP, but consumers (and businesses) didn't want to move. Either way, Microsoft's mistakes left the door open for Firefox and, later, Chrome. The anti-trust action didn't solve the problem -- and it didn't help Netscape, which started it. The market solved the problem by creating better browsers.

weddpros 11y ago

For a long time, countries agreed that free-trade was the best way to avoid another war. Europe was created as an economic region first, to avoid another war. But today I'm afraid Europe suffers memory loss. They're using coercion against another country (always the same one, the USA) for ideological reasons... which is the very definition of war. The fact they're citing money as the reason only makes it more frightening. Prosperous countries avoid war and favor trade instead, if possible. As a European citizen, I can witness the anti-american mindset: it's growing, nurtured by press and politicians. Don't think "it's not the USA, it's Google/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook": they actually cite the USA all day long until Google is a synonym for the USA in people's mind. A quick check with the first article I can find in my Google newsfeed: in the french press, about Apple Music, the article starts with "Le géant américain de l'informatique Apple" (The american IT giant/behemoth Apple) The internet is an amazing promoter of free-trade, so unsurprisingly it's the perfect target for Europe. Please don't call it a conspiracy theory: it's not one, because I hope I'm wrong ;-)

rnnr 11y ago
Totally agree. And although there is indeed an anti-american mindset, American politicians speak pretty often about the loss of 'american' jobs too... It's just the common economic illiteracy. Trade protections don't benefit any party involved, they don't make economic sense and they never did.
pgeorgi 11y ago
In my experience, the clashes of European companies with EU regulators just don't create as much press. The most recent anti-trust/cartel activity is listed by the European Commission for Competition: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_at_by_date http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fusea... http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html Currently that covers: something about pay-TV in UK/Ireland, Qualcomm, a bunch of European cargo train operators, a pan-European retail food packaging cartel, something about a Bulgarian Energy Holding, German car heating and climate control vendors, Amazon, SkyTeam. Of these, two are American (Qualcomm, Amazon), one has a US company involved (Delta Airlines as part of SkyTeam), everything else is EU internal. That doesn't look like coercion against another country ("always the USA") to me. I guess there are two reasons why the media is mostly covering the cases where US companies are involved: First, the big tech companies are mostly American. Being big brings you on the radar of both regulators (everywhere) and the media covering the industry. Second, EU tech media takes cues from US tech media. When the US media report on something (such as a potential problem for the international business of their local industry), EU tech media pick it up. Up until today I haven't heard about the retail food packaging cartel, but with a €115M penalty that must have been a bigger issue. But why should HN (and related media) cover that? They're no household names, so it's also not covered in the general press. But I'm quite certain that the trade press of the retail food industry will cover this in great detail.

louithethrid 11y ago

Im in Germany, i can see no investment to grow a european google. Oh, yes there are great declarations of grandios plans. But my experience in a baker-shop can tell you everything on the european attitude towards technology. "So what are you doing for a livin?" "I work as a software developer.." "Oh, so your company doesent produce anything real?" You cant force a culture to embrace something new that it detests. This doesent mean that this culture will not buy the products, but it will never produce them on the level as californium. Another example? People pay ridiculous amounts of money for public television in germany. And it is bad. Outright horrible. Not regarding production quality, not the acting, execution and direction. Then what is missing to create a german game of thrones? The answer: A diffrent production culture, that doesent view half a hour of screaming drama as a authentic drama, and understands that a joke on the henchmans axeblade makes drama so much more impacting. Will that change come? No. Cultures only adapt when they suffer and europe is not suffering enough.

Zirro 11y ago
Please don't speak of a "European attitude towards technology" when there is none. For example, I can't imagine hearing the attitude you describe here in Sweden, and I believe you could find plenty of germans who would disagree with you as well. Not only are we many different countries, but we are also different individuals. There is no common "European attitude towards technology".
- jaawn 11y ago
  This is a very reasonable point. By the same logic, there should not be a single European action taken against Google either. The people behind all of the political resistance to Google in EU countries seem to all be from, or tied to, EU corporations who want to take some of the market from Google by force. They are trying to push through regulations that are good for their company with little regard to what is good for the people of all the different EU nations.
Quanticles 11y ago
> "Oh, so your company doesent produce anything real?" The euros are real

afeef 11y ago

old twats.

jaawn 11y ago

I have seen several comments that basically say "Google puts customers first, but this goes against the EU's strong preference to protect local workers." It is not "customers over workers" it is "customers over local corporations with less developed products". Google has offices in 40 different countries (https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/ https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/). Workers could easily go work for Google without moving to America...and Google offers some of the best, most competitive career prospects of any company. Until this changes, there is no reason to presume that Google's behavior in Europe is somehow hurting "workers." Sure, if Google was providing inferior products, and paying its workers lower-than-market salaries and abusing its dominance to keep better products out of the market, then all of this fuss would make sense. Fear of this happening at some point is not, in my opinion, a good justification for such heavy resistance to Google's activities. We shouldn't confuse the interests of local (i.e. European) corporations with the interests of the people. It being harder for a Danish company, for example, to enter the online search, mapping, or shopping market doesn't mean it is harder for Danish people to work in online search, mapping, or shopping. It also does not mean it is harder for Danish people use high-quality products in these industries. I don't see how Google's actions so far constitute "abuse of dominance" even if you take a protection-of-workers stance...only if you take a "protection of the local corporate CEO" stance.

aoeuasdf1 11y ago
Well said. Google is hardly an American company anymore. Their EU workers pay EU taxes.

bla2 11y ago

Good reporting. Shows how much the EU is owned by the publishing industry.

ftoste 11y ago
yes, also the unconscionable betrayal by the modern day benedict arnolds-msft, yelp, getty images, and iac enjoying their bratwurst and lederhosen, while lady liberty weeps in silence.
- bla2 11y ago
  Hm?

maldusiecle 11y ago

Surprisingly little talk here about the degree to which Google has abused its search market position in ways that push other players out. I would have expected more. Antitrust laws exist for a reason. If Google uses its dominance in search to stop better solutions from having a chance, it hurts everyone--consumers included, but startups especially. It's not just a matter of "protectionism," it's a matter of keeping the market open to innovation.

nradov 11y ago

Does anyone remember Quaero? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaero In 2005 the French and German governments sponsored a "European" competitor to Google. It failed.

ftoste 11y ago

nationalism on HN? oh dear. will techies start calling french fries freedom fries?