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Google could face a $9B EU fine for rigging search results in its favour
- strictnein 9y agoAt some point it seems like the US government needs to step in and somehow mediate these things. I'm sure it's incredibly popular to fine US companies huge sums of money in Europe, but this is starting to get out of hand.
- Oletros 9y agoDo you have statistics to back this claim?
- strictnein 9y agoWhat claim did I make that would require statistical backing?
- Oletros 9y ago> I'm sure it's incredibly popular to fine US companies huge sums of money in Europe, but this is starting to get out of hand. reply This claim
- strictnein 9y ago$9 billion is out of hand. I'm talking about the article.
- Oletros 9y agoFirst, no fine has been done. Second, you're not answering what I have asked. Do you have statistics about the EU fining more US companies than other companies?
- strictnein 9y agoYou're free to google that for yourself. I'm not your research service.
- Oletros 9y ago> You're free to google that for yourself. I'm not your research service So you don't have any source. Thanks, is what I thought. By the way, I have done my research, and you're the one making a claim, you're the one that has to proof it
- funkyy 9y agoLike US is not doing it... Google broke EU laws on purpose - their revenue is huge from European markets, thus they should pay a huge fine. As simple as that.
- strictnein 9y agoNo, it's not "as simple as that". Deciding that a company owes 10% of its worldwide revenue because of something like this is not simple. > Like US is not doing it... They're not.
- rorykoehler 9y agoThe US fined Deutsche Bank $14B & BNP $8B. That's how these things work at the moment.
- strictnein 9y agoGot it. Moving billions of dollars through the US between illicit governments and banned groups is totally the same as tweaking search results and should be fined in equivalent amounts.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- NicoJuicy 9y agoThe US only fined 5 billion to Goldman for the financial worldwide crisis. That's peanuts Ps. http://fortune.com/2016/04/11/goldman-sachs-doj-settlement/ http://fortune.com/2016/04/11/goldman-sachs-doj-settlement/
- rorykoehler 9y agoLooking at this completely coldly and amorally... The governments aren't considered 'illicit' under French law. Perhaps search result manipulation isn't illegal under US law (I don't know). That's irrelevant as the laws of the land where the acts took place were broken. The companies breaking the laws must have known that and taken the risk anyway. They lost. They got fined. The more fines that happen the bigger the incentive for the other party to reciprocate.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoWould you say the same thing if America fined China for its companies taking advantage of US citizens? Or is it selective sovereignty?
- strictnein 9y agoIf they levied a $9 billion fine because of how a Chinese tech firm possibly manipulated search results? First, that wouldn't happen. Second, yes, I would.
- greglindahl 9y agoThe US would be fining the US arm of a Chinese company, and has already done so multiple times. Similarly, China has fined a bunch of Chinese arms of foreign auto companies for monopoly issues around spare parts.
- ma2rten 9y agoI don't think Google is a US company for legal purposes. These violations, if there were any, were done by the European subsidy of Google.
- config_yml 9y agoIt's also incredibly popular in the US to fine European companies, so to me this looks like tit for tat.
- burkaman 9y agoWhat do you mean? If you don't want to be subject to EU judgement, don't do business in the EU. It's the same everywhere, European countries that enter the US have to follow US laws and obey US courts.
- strictnein 9y agoIn the US a company wouldn't be fined $9 billion for "antitrust violations" simply because they may have tweaked their search results to favor their own products. The US fined VW $2.8 billion for falsifying their emissions testing, a far more serious thing. That's less than 2% of global revenue.
- pulse7 9y agoLet's see if GM will be fined as well after latest findings... Destroying many other businesses with "antitrust violations" is also serious for many people loosing their jobs...
- burkaman 9y agoThe fine is not $9 billion, that was a complete guess by Reuters. It's the classic "the max penalty in theory could be this", like reporting that a criminal "could face" life in prison even though in reality they'll get a couple years. I don't understand your comparison to the US. Obviously EU courts do not follow US laws, they follow EU laws. If the laws are unfair, don't open a business there. For example, I think the blasphemy laws in Iran are unfair. The logical conclusion is to not go to Iran or at least not commit blasphemy there, not to go break the law and then complain that "this would never happen in America".
- eropple 9y agoSounds like the US should fine companies more for doing bad things, too, then. That sounds like a pretty straightforward solution to this terrible injustice. (And besides: Google isn't an "American company" any more than any multinational. The EU is fining the European-incorporated arm of the company.)
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- pyrale 9y agoFining companies heavily is something the EU learned from the US. Examples given : BNP $8bn fine a few years ago, WV just recently, etc. What ground would the US have to defend their companies, when every time an euro country has tried to weight on these issues, the answer has been: "The justice system is separated from the executive" ?
- strictnein 9y agoVW's fine is equivalent to less than 2% of global revenue for a far more serious act. BNP (which must be at the top of the search results when people are googling this) violated criminal law while illegally helping Sudan transfer vast sums to illicit and blacklisted groups through the US financial system. Again, that was $9 billion for something far more serious than tweaking search results.
- maxerickson 9y agoWhat do you propose the US government actually do? A multilateral treaty with Europe (you might call it a "Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership") would be one way to establish a process for dealing with such things. Those seem to be unpopular these days, what with them always putting America second and forever subjugating the sovereignty of the US to some poorly negotiated deal. (Well, actually, they have for the last 70 years served American interests and had exit provisions that preserved sovereignty well enough)
- strictnein 9y agoI'm in favor of TTIP, so if that would help create a process to address this, then great.
- jononor 9y agoA process to let US companies get away with abusing their monopoly position? No thanks.
- devy 9y agoConspiracy theories would probably tell you that it's the retaliation of a string of Deutsche Bank's fines by the Fed in the last two years. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=deutsche-bank+fine https://www.google.com/search?q=deutsche-bank+fine [2]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/27/like-dodgy-plumbing-deutsche-bank-will-be-expensive-to-fix---but/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/27/like-dodgy-pl...
- nothrabannosir 9y agoGoogle makes money in Europe, just like they do in the US. That's what this fine is about. If they don't like it, they can leave. Like they did with China, back in the day. Markets have rules. Don't like the rules? Leave the market. If Google were unreachable in Europe, this fine would not have existed.
- matt4077 9y agoThat's simply not true. See http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistics.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistic... point 1.6. Of the companies hit with the 10 largest fines, none were from the US: Year Undertaking** Case Amount in €* 2016 Daimler Trucks 1 008 766 000 2016 DAF Trucks 752 679 000 2008 Saint Gobain Carglass 715 000 000 2012 Philips monitor tubes 705 296 000 2012 LG Electronics monitor tubes 687 537 000 2016 Volvo/Renault Trucks 670 448 000 2016 Iveco Trucks 494 606 000 2013 Deutsche Bank (EIRD) 465 861 000 2001 Hoffmann-La Roche Vitamins 462 000 000 2007 Siemens insulated switchgear 396 562 500
- tschellenbach 9y agoAs a European I think it's sad how we spend our efforts fining startups instead of creating an ecosystem that fosters the creation of break out companies.
- sasvari 9y agofining startups does google really still count as a startup (18 years old, 50k+ employees)?
- echlebek 9y agoCertainly not, the Alphabet company is a multinational corporation.
- jswny 9y ago> creating an ecosystem that fosters the creation of break out companies I think that the fine imposed here is doing exactly that. How is Google in any way a startup?
- idibidiartists 9y agoDo they have proof of that?
- ticklemyelmo 9y agoHow is it that Google search results are considered a public service that must run in any particular way other than their own whim? Is it simply a matter of scale?
- numerlo 9y agoGoogle is a monopoly in the search engine market and monopolies are heavily regulated.
- bhauer 9y agoBut it's not. I never use Google for searching and I do a lot of searching. It's merely the largest search engine.
- juandazapata 9y ago"It's the largest search engine, but I never use it, so it must not be a monopoly" :slow-clap:
- mohaine 9y agoThe lack of a viable alternative is the pretty much definition of monopoly. Just because lots of people use something doesn't mean there is a monopoly. Def: "the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service." Google has a very nice search engine but I personally fail to see how they control the supply enough to be considered a monopoly. Sure most people use them, but that is by choice. There are viable alternatives.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoStandard Oil only maxed out at 90% market share. US Steel only reached 60% of the steel market. There were banks other than JP Morgan. A more nuanced view of monopoly has to do with how much power they can wield in the markets.
- pulse7 9y agoJust write "translate" and you will get 1) Google's translate service inlined 2) Google Translate Website and then everything else...
- sogen 9y agoBut you are on Google's site, it's a company, not a public service.
- neom 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- mattmanser 9y agoThere are different rules when you use a dominant position in one market to gain share in another. This is equivalent to the Microsoft/IE thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law
- Zeppin 9y agoThey're not challenging Google's dominance of search or projecting responsibilities on them as a service due to that monopoly. They're simply objecting to Google using its dominance in search to gain dominance in, for instance, digital translation.
- kryptiskt 9y agoThere are laws about what companies can do. And using a dominant market position in one market to help them in other markets can be an anti-trust violation (see Microsoft and the browser wars).
- Spinfusor 9y agoWhat are you suggesting they show first? Most people would argue that Google's translation service is the best of the free/ad-supported options out there. Even Bing shows Google's translator first (after their own inline version).
- gthtjtkt 9y agoHow about a similar fine for rigging search results during the US election? http://aibrt.org/downloads/EPSTEIN_et_al_2017-SUMMARY-WPA-A_Method_for_Detecting_Bias_in_Search_Rankings.pdf http://aibrt.org/downloads/EPSTEIN_et_al_2017-SUMMARY-WPA-A_...
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoFor all the good it did... /s
- mtgx 9y ago"But your honor, I only tried to kill my wife - I didn't succeed!"
- jvreeland 9y agoFYI the person who wrote this paper has a long standing hatred of google ever since they warned people his website had malware. His motives might not be entirely academic.
- tdb7893 9y agoI'm curious about how he measured bias and maybe I missed it in the paper. Anyway he threw out people who communicated via Gmail because they didn't show the same bias, which seems sketchy methodologically. Also his findings could be pretty easily explained without Google doing anything purposefully on their end.
- javascriptPhD 9y agoGoogle's motto is 'don't do bad things' so I highly doubt there's any merit to these accusations.
- f4rker 9y agoGoogle needs to be put in check. They think they are above the law.
- webuser321 9y agoWhat is needed but AFAIK is never discussed is an objective index of what is on the www. (Not a cache of the entire www, and not a full-text search engine. Rather, an index, similar to what is in the Yellow Pages (subject, alphabetical), but going a little further. For example, each site might submit a list of say 5 selected "permanent" URLs where a user could retrieve site information.) This is not an insurmountable task. And it need not be conducted by a private company. A significant amount of the work is already done with respect to sites that register domain names, via zone files. But this is only start and is not comprehensive. Back in the day, early search engines required operators to submit www sites to the search engine. That active involvement of www site operators seems to have been lost. There could well be a publicly-run directory service for the www. Operators could submit their site to a public agency instead of a private company. Or at least make it easy for a very simple crawler to retrieve a sitemap.xml or some file with a standard format for disclosing site information. Private companies have difficulty policing overzealous marketing and fraud in such situations. Today we have one company using "secret algorithms" that supposedly address the situation. But if a site is submitting information to a governmental agency instead of a private company maybe it becomes a little less easy for marketers to bend the truth. There is more opportunity and incentive to enforce the consumer protection laws. Better for consumers. Users could still access Google to determine popularity of a given www site (or "relevance" if you believe that popularity has some bearing on relevance). Keeping in mind that Google is a private company that encourages a bidding war between advertisers for a spot to the right of the top popularity ranking for a given search query. The behind the scenes of the auction process is opaque. Google has no incentive to be wholly objective. Give users more choice how to look up www sites. (Note this is a little different than full text search. It is far less complex.) Site discovery: This is a fundamental problem that is occasionally discussed. Site discovery. All those sites users never learn about because of search engine schemes like "PageRank". We see the same phenomenon in an "App Store". Top 10 are promoted excessively. All the rest are never discovered by the vast majority of users. Perhaps the only reason someone can make large sums through selling an app is because if they can get into the top 10, then all other apps are effectively hidden from most users. This dynamic creates a certain hype and draws in more contributors all trying to get into the top 10. Each paying fees to the company behind the "App Store". Can we apply a similar analysis to Google search and the sale of AdWords? What might fuel demand for ads? The lure of a #1 rank or an ad to the right of it? Getting back to the issue: Let user/developers work with a free, objective index not produced or manipulated by a private company. I can think of many ways to build efficient search i.e., www site discovery, using such an index. I believe others would have even better ideas. We already have a privately-held cache of the entire www. What we still need is a publicly-accesible index into that cache so that users can discover www sites by means other that popularity.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoThe EU fining a company and collecting are two very different things. I expect whatever fine they decide to be litigated until a favourable outcome is agreed upon.
- matt4077 9y agoThat's simply not true. See, for example, http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistics.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistic... Chart 1.2 (fines), compared to Chart 1.4 (Fines adjusted for court rulings) From 1990 to 2017, they collected 24.4 billion Euro of 26.7 that were imposed: Year Imposed Fine Adjusted for Court rulings 1990 - 1994 539 691 550 344 282 550,00 1995 - 1999 292 838 000 270 963 500,00 2000 - 2004 3 462 664 100 3 157 348 710,00 2005 – 2009 9 414 012 500 7 920 497 226,50 2010 – 2014 7 921 947 674 7 608 375 579,00 2015 - 2017. 5 091 156 000 5 091 156 000,00 total 26 722 309 824 24 392 623 565,50
- bitmapbrother 9y agoOf course it is. >Intel Wins Latest Round in Battle Over $1.17 Billion EU antitrust Fine. Intel Corp.’s fight to overturn a record 1.06 billion-euro ($1.17 billion) European Union antitrust fine received a boost from an adviser to the bloc’s top court in a case that could have ramifications for a growing list of disputes involving U.S. tech giants from Google to Apple Inc. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-20/intel-should-win-fight-over-1-16-billion-fine-court-aide-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-20/intel-sho...
- Oletros 9y agoAre you aware that your link doesn't prove your point? > If Intel ultimately prevails, it would be the commission’s first defeat in a case concerning so-called abuse of dominance by a company for “very many years,” said Trevor Soames, a competition lawyer in Brussels.
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- yuhong 9y agoI have been thinking of a standard for example for how much space these results can take on the screen.