4 ms·

Monopoly = the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service. How exactly does Google possess or control the supply of searc

Monopoly = the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service. How exactly does Google possess or control the supply of searches? You are always free to use any of several other search engines: Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Baidu, and quite a few others. Facebook and Apple are getting into the game as well.

blahi 10y ago
That is not true or true only very strictly speaking. There is this thing called a "dominant position". There are formulas which are used to calculate if a company has a dominant position. If they do have, it is up to the court to decide whether they are abusing their dominant position.
- blisterpeanuts 10y ago
  In the U.S., monopolization is defined by the FTC as the ability to prevent competition: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a... It's not at all clear that anything Google does prevents competition. Indeed, if you google "search engines", Google itself doesn't even appear on the first page. I get DogPile, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Wikipedia as my top four hits. Then there's something about "say goodbye to Google: 14 alternatives". If I search for "webmail", gmail is the eighth hit. Based on my 16-odd years of daily use of Google, it hardly seems as though Google is trying to limit or downplay the competition. The EU complaint appears to be that Google displays a pattern of promoting its own products in searches. I doubt they can prove that; it's likely that different results are promoted based on algorithms that target user preferences and history, not an evil plan to make the world buy Google services. Why would Google do that? It's a stupid thing to do and they already have a dominant position as you say, so they don't need to. No one says "let me bing that for you". No one says "just look it up on yahoo". Google has the dominant mindshare and they simply can sit back and enjoy being the success that they are.
  - blahi 10y ago
    Because sometimes those products are vital to Google's survival. Back when they released PLAs, they killed all comparison shopping engines. They were even caught doing it with internal emails showing malicious intent. There is a NYT article with the FTC documents attatched, but I can't find it now.
    - wbl 10y ago
      So cross-promoting is illegal? The New York Times advertises its subscriptions and branded experiences, not those of other papers.
      - blahi 10y ago
        The New York Times does not have a dominant position.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Monopoly = the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service. That's the common-language definition, but that's somewhat tangential in discussing legal action. The legal criteria in US antitrust jurisprudence is actually pricing power, I think the same is true in the EU (both US and EU antitrust regulations do, though to a lesser extent than monopolies with pricing power, regulate some anticompetitive actions of non-monopolies as well -- the EU, as I understand, goes further than the US in this area.)
caspianm 10y ago
They don't control the supply of search services so much as they control the supply of eyeballs.

blahi 10y ago

That is not true or true only very strictly speaking. There is this thing called a "dominant position". There are formulas which are used to calculate if a company has a dominant position. If they do have, it is up to the court to decide whether they are abusing their dominant position.

blisterpeanuts 10y ago
In the U.S., monopolization is defined by the FTC as the ability to prevent competition: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a... It's not at all clear that anything Google does prevents competition. Indeed, if you google "search engines", Google itself doesn't even appear on the first page. I get DogPile, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Wikipedia as my top four hits. Then there's something about "say goodbye to Google: 14 alternatives". If I search for "webmail", gmail is the eighth hit. Based on my 16-odd years of daily use of Google, it hardly seems as though Google is trying to limit or downplay the competition. The EU complaint appears to be that Google displays a pattern of promoting its own products in searches. I doubt they can prove that; it's likely that different results are promoted based on algorithms that target user preferences and history, not an evil plan to make the world buy Google services. Why would Google do that? It's a stupid thing to do and they already have a dominant position as you say, so they don't need to. No one says "let me bing that for you". No one says "just look it up on yahoo". Google has the dominant mindshare and they simply can sit back and enjoy being the success that they are.
- blahi 10y ago
  Because sometimes those products are vital to Google's survival. Back when they released PLAs, they killed all comparison shopping engines. They were even caught doing it with internal emails showing malicious intent. There is a NYT article with the FTC documents attatched, but I can't find it now.
  - wbl 10y ago
    So cross-promoting is illegal? The New York Times advertises its subscriptions and branded experiences, not those of other papers.
    - blahi 10y ago
      The New York Times does not have a dominant position.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Monopoly = the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service. That's the common-language definition, but that's somewhat tangential in discussing legal action. The legal criteria in US antitrust jurisprudence is actually pricing power, I think the same is true in the EU (both US and EU antitrust regulations do, though to a lesser extent than monopolies with pricing power, regulate some anticompetitive actions of non-monopolies as well -- the EU, as I understand, goes further than the US in this area.)

caspianm 10y ago

They don't control the supply of search services so much as they control the supply of eyeballs.