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I'm not sure what makes this abuse. Curating the content you serve isn't just okay; it's one of the key value propositions of a search engine. The problem is wh

by matchu 11y ago

I'm not sure what makes this abuse. Curating the content you serve isn't just okay; it's one of the key value propositions of a search engine. The problem is when a content provider, for whatever reason, intentionally curates in a way that provides less value to the consumer.

jbigelow76 11y ago
So what about an OS vendor that "curates" a particular default browser and destroys a competing browser provider in the process? I seem to remember that happening a few years back. It's not so much the curating that's the problem, nobody would care if Duck Duck Go did it, the problem is with the regulators that view Google to be the only curator out there.
- georgemcbay 11y ago
  The problem in the Microsoft case was use of near-monopoly in one market (operating systems) to gain unfair advantage in another market (browsers), though even that seems a bit outdated already since the idea of shipping an OS without a browser built-in seems ludicrous today. In any case, that concept of using monopoly power in one market to bolster power in another doesn't really apply here with Google. I share a lot of the unease many people have with the amount of power Google has been able to amass as the de factor curator of the Internet, but I'm also somewhat amazed they are in the position they are in and have been as (mostly) benevolent as they have been. I suspect it is actually pretty hard work just to remain somewhat close to neutral when you are sitting on that much power.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > since the idea of shipping an OS without a browser built-in seems ludicrous today. Windows 7 in Europe.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    This applies directly to Google. Remember them pushing Chrome on you? having ads directly on Google.com? To this day forcing you to use Chrome for Hangouts? And so on? Do you seriously think Chrome would have caught on if it weren’t for this push of advertisements? This is direct abuse of near-monopoly in one market (search engines) to gain unfair advantage in another market (browsers).
    - plonh 11y ago
      Chrome originally caught in for the same reason Firefox: when it came out it was the best browser by far. People forget how bad IE used to be and later how bad Firefox got.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        Are you so sure about that? Because no one knew about it until Google started this massive ad campaign, where for weeks literally every single ad on the web was "INSTALL CHROME NOW".
    - bduerst 11y ago
      Chrome didn't catch on at first - they had to advertise the shit out of it on TV because nobody knew what a browser was. Seriously, look up "Dear Sophie" to see how many awards it won. Google doesn't do TV, so that's not a monopoly.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        Their TV ads were mostly ignored, but most people ended up accidentally clicking one of the Chrome ads, and then actually tried it out. There were days where every single YouTube preroll ad was for Chrome, every side ad was for chrome, every ad in the bottom of the video was for Chrome, every single ad served by AdWords was for Chrome, on Google.com were ads for Chrome in the top right with an animated arrow, there were ads for Chrome below and above the search box, etc. It was horrible, and I really believe this was unfair competition. Especially as people using AdSense complained that they got paid next to nothing or nothing for people viewing and clicking Chrome ads.
- gizmo686 11y ago
  Against whom is Google being anti-competitive with this move. How should we prevent this move from being illegal, without specifying what metrics Google is and is not allowed to use?
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    As search becomes something that society depends upon, start treating it as a public utility. > without specifying what metrics Google is and is not allowed to use? Why not? If society depends on something, we regulate it. There are many different possible degrees of regulation, so this is not a boolean condition, even though painting such situations as a boolean choice between pure laissez-faire and nationalizing an industry (instead of merely regulating). If you don't like this idea, I suggest that Google (or any other business) should find a way on their own to handle the situation (possibly by making their metrics more available, transparent, and verifiable?), or the choice may eventually be taken out of their hands.
    - jfoster 11y ago
      Google would break if it were transparent. I'm frustrated by the status quo; I run a site where users who found it through search contact me to say that it should've been higher in the search results. I think this would only get worse if it were transparent, though. Gaming Google would become predictable and mechanized. The outcome would be ugly.
      - pdkl95 11y ago
        Fraud doesn't become legal just because someone has a clever idea for SEO. You're scenario only works in a totally unregulated environment. Internet businesses are not magically except from the types of regulation found in every other industry. The entire point of a regulation is to place limits on behaviors that harm society when left on their own. However, focusing on my suggestion of transparency and verification misses the point. The method by which Google regains (and maintains) the public trust is their problem, and I'm sure that more than one solution exists. My point is it would probably be in Google's best interest to fix this problem, because waiting too long has consequences. At some point, the people who feel that are treated unfairly by Google - it doesn't matter if they are correct in that belief - will fight back, which has already started in small, preliminary ways. > The outcome would be ugly. The outcome would also be ugly in a future where a socially-necessary service is controlled entirely by a single entity. As usual in these situations, the best situation is somewhere in the middle.
tzs 11y ago
One potential problem here is that this only applies to page blocking interstitials that promote an app. Page blocking interstitials that push signing up for a newsletter, for example, will not be penalized. It could be hard to argue that an interstitial pushing an app (especially an app specifically for the site the user is visiting that gives them enhanced features compared to the mobile web version of the site) is more annoying, distracting, or otherwise harmful to a user than any other kind of blocking interstitial. Thus, one might try to conclude that Google's actual interest here is trying to keep users from using apps to access content instead of using the web site where Google is more likely to be the ad provider. I have no idea if this could rise to the level of an antitrust violation, but it's the first place I'd look for one.
- matchu 11y ago
  Yeah, I dunno. I could buy the argument that a modal on launch isn't always evil (maybe it's a signin prompt), so we don't want to just block that kind of UI outright; we instead want some heuristics to tell us whether the modal is helpful or not, and prompts to download apps are almost always unhelpful. Still, I feel like newsletter prompts are also easy to detect, so that argument doesn't hold a ton of water unless there's also a separate plan to address those—or maybe they're testing the waters with this one. I think I need more information to have a real opinion :/
- bagacrap 11y ago
  There's an alternative that is more user-friendly which the browser provides, but only for app install interstitials. Since there's no built-in alternative for other kinds of interstitials, it makes sense that they're left alone (although the crappier your site, the less time people spend on it, and presumably the farther it falls down the search results). Also, the blog post states they're essentially calling these sites mobile-unfriendly, which I think is entirely fair. All full-page interstitials are annoying, on the mobile web or desktop web, but only "install our app" interstitials are unique to mobile. So if you view "mobile friendly" as meaning "as good as desktop web", banning bad things that are only relevant to mobile makes sense.

by matchu 11y ago

jbigelow76 11y ago

So what about an OS vendor that "curates" a particular default browser and destroys a competing browser provider in the process? I seem to remember that happening a few years back. It's not so much the curating that's the problem, nobody would care if Duck Duck Go did it, the problem is with the regulators that view Google to be the only curator out there.

georgemcbay 11y ago
The problem in the Microsoft case was use of near-monopoly in one market (operating systems) to gain unfair advantage in another market (browsers), though even that seems a bit outdated already since the idea of shipping an OS without a browser built-in seems ludicrous today. In any case, that concept of using monopoly power in one market to bolster power in another doesn't really apply here with Google. I share a lot of the unease many people have with the amount of power Google has been able to amass as the de factor curator of the Internet, but I'm also somewhat amazed they are in the position they are in and have been as (mostly) benevolent as they have been. I suspect it is actually pretty hard work just to remain somewhat close to neutral when you are sitting on that much power.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > since the idea of shipping an OS without a browser built-in seems ludicrous today. Windows 7 in Europe.
- kuschku 11y ago
  This applies directly to Google. Remember them pushing Chrome on you? having ads directly on Google.com? To this day forcing you to use Chrome for Hangouts? And so on? Do you seriously think Chrome would have caught on if it weren’t for this push of advertisements? This is direct abuse of near-monopoly in one market (search engines) to gain unfair advantage in another market (browsers).
  - plonh 11y ago
    Chrome originally caught in for the same reason Firefox: when it came out it was the best browser by far. People forget how bad IE used to be and later how bad Firefox got.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      Are you so sure about that? Because no one knew about it until Google started this massive ad campaign, where for weeks literally every single ad on the web was "INSTALL CHROME NOW".
  - bduerst 11y ago
    Chrome didn't catch on at first - they had to advertise the shit out of it on TV because nobody knew what a browser was. Seriously, look up "Dear Sophie" to see how many awards it won. Google doesn't do TV, so that's not a monopoly.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      Their TV ads were mostly ignored, but most people ended up accidentally clicking one of the Chrome ads, and then actually tried it out. There were days where every single YouTube preroll ad was for Chrome, every side ad was for chrome, every ad in the bottom of the video was for Chrome, every single ad served by AdWords was for Chrome, on Google.com were ads for Chrome in the top right with an animated arrow, there were ads for Chrome below and above the search box, etc. It was horrible, and I really believe this was unfair competition. Especially as people using AdSense complained that they got paid next to nothing or nothing for people viewing and clicking Chrome ads.
gizmo686 11y ago
Against whom is Google being anti-competitive with this move. How should we prevent this move from being illegal, without specifying what metrics Google is and is not allowed to use?
- pdkl95 11y ago
  As search becomes something that society depends upon, start treating it as a public utility. > without specifying what metrics Google is and is not allowed to use? Why not? If society depends on something, we regulate it. There are many different possible degrees of regulation, so this is not a boolean condition, even though painting such situations as a boolean choice between pure laissez-faire and nationalizing an industry (instead of merely regulating). If you don't like this idea, I suggest that Google (or any other business) should find a way on their own to handle the situation (possibly by making their metrics more available, transparent, and verifiable?), or the choice may eventually be taken out of their hands.
  - jfoster 11y ago
    Google would break if it were transparent. I'm frustrated by the status quo; I run a site where users who found it through search contact me to say that it should've been higher in the search results. I think this would only get worse if it were transparent, though. Gaming Google would become predictable and mechanized. The outcome would be ugly.
    - pdkl95 11y ago
      Fraud doesn't become legal just because someone has a clever idea for SEO. You're scenario only works in a totally unregulated environment. Internet businesses are not magically except from the types of regulation found in every other industry. The entire point of a regulation is to place limits on behaviors that harm society when left on their own. However, focusing on my suggestion of transparency and verification misses the point. The method by which Google regains (and maintains) the public trust is their problem, and I'm sure that more than one solution exists. My point is it would probably be in Google's best interest to fix this problem, because waiting too long has consequences. At some point, the people who feel that are treated unfairly by Google - it doesn't matter if they are correct in that belief - will fight back, which has already started in small, preliminary ways. > The outcome would be ugly. The outcome would also be ugly in a future where a socially-necessary service is controlled entirely by a single entity. As usual in these situations, the best situation is somewhere in the middle.

tzs 11y ago

One potential problem here is that this only applies to page blocking interstitials that promote an app. Page blocking interstitials that push signing up for a newsletter, for example, will not be penalized. It could be hard to argue that an interstitial pushing an app (especially an app specifically for the site the user is visiting that gives them enhanced features compared to the mobile web version of the site) is more annoying, distracting, or otherwise harmful to a user than any other kind of blocking interstitial. Thus, one might try to conclude that Google's actual interest here is trying to keep users from using apps to access content instead of using the web site where Google is more likely to be the ad provider. I have no idea if this could rise to the level of an antitrust violation, but it's the first place I'd look for one.

matchu 11y ago
Yeah, I dunno. I could buy the argument that a modal on launch isn't always evil (maybe it's a signin prompt), so we don't want to just block that kind of UI outright; we instead want some heuristics to tell us whether the modal is helpful or not, and prompts to download apps are almost always unhelpful. Still, I feel like newsletter prompts are also easy to detect, so that argument doesn't hold a ton of water unless there's also a separate plan to address those—or maybe they're testing the waters with this one. I think I need more information to have a real opinion :/
bagacrap 11y ago
There's an alternative that is more user-friendly which the browser provides, but only for app install interstitials. Since there's no built-in alternative for other kinds of interstitials, it makes sense that they're left alone (although the crappier your site, the less time people spend on it, and presumably the farther it falls down the search results). Also, the blog post states they're essentially calling these sites mobile-unfriendly, which I think is entirely fair. All full-page interstitials are annoying, on the mobile web or desktop web, but only "install our app" interstitials are unique to mobile. So if you view "mobile friendly" as meaning "as good as desktop web", banning bad things that are only relevant to mobile makes sense.