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> By following the rules & regulations set out, which Google will have been fully aware of. There was no previous ruling that indicated that displaying their o

by mythz 9y ago

> By following the rules & regulations set out, which Google will have been fully aware of. There was no previous ruling that indicated that displaying their own relevant content on their own Search pages was illegal. It's absurd to think displaying relevant content in the context of what the User is searching for is illegal, or that they should've been investing resources in helping their competitors get more exposure. These shackles on User Experience are going to give Amazon and Bing an advantage who aren't limited in their ability to provide integrated services or forced competitor placement. > Doesn't mean they have to show terrible shopping pages, they just have to compete with them on an even footing rather than pushing every other comparison site back to almost nowhere in the results. Are they going to be able to charge for prominent placement or do competitors get it for free? If there was an Auction Google could just outbid everyone since they're going to keep the bulk of the revenue, which they're unlikely going to be allowed to do, so if they're not forced to give prominent placement for free, they're going to have to charge an amount they wont be able to bid for themselves.

IanCal 9y ago
Are you suggesting the ruling is out of line with the regulations? Previous anti-trust rulings seem pretty similar to me. If microsoft gets into trouble for making IE a default browser or bundling windows media player, I'm really not surprised with the way this went. > It's absurd to think displaying relevant content in the context of what the User is searching for is illegal It's not absurd to think that using your dominance in a market to heavily push people towards your own other services is illegal. The Commission also note that it's not just the relevance of the link, but the position that makes a big difference. > b) Furthermore, the effects cannot just be explained by the fact that the first result is more relevant because evidence also shows that moving the first result to the third rank leads to a reduction in the number of clicks by about 50%. Since the introduction, it massively increased click-throughs to their already available service, with a corresponding huge decrease to competitors. Was their own service good? > Contemporary evidence from Google shows that the company was aware that Froogle's market performance was relatively poor (one internal document from 2006 stated "Froogle simply doesn't work"). So to be clear the problem is that they had a pretty naff service, which when treated similarly to other players lost out. They then promoted it far above other results, resulting in a huge shift towards them and away from their competitors. They did not compete by making the service better, but by using their huge dominance in one market to step into another and significantly harm the other players.
- mythz 9y ago
  > Previous anti-trust rulings seem pretty similar to me. If microsoft gets into trouble for making IE a default browser or bundling windows media player, I'm really not surprised with the way this went. What other Website do you know has been penalized for showing their own content and are being forced to give their competitors prominence? Microsoft had a 95%+ Monopoly on Desktop Operating Systems and wouldn't allow you to remove IE, anyone can easily go to amazon.com, bing.com, ebay.com or visit any other website to do their shopping if they prefer to.
- skwirl 9y ago
  Should Amazon be forced to show results for e-readers other than Kindle or audiobooks other than those on Audible? I don't think it's obvious at all where the line is.
  - IanCal 9y ago
    Do amazon treat the kindle differently from other ebook readers on their site? If, for example, kobo fits my search better and they demote it while putting kindle content right at the top. Does that kind of thing happen? In which case, quite possibly, if * amazon can be argued to have a very large position, with the vast majority of searches going through it * it can be shown that people tend to click almost exclusively on the first or first few links * they are treating their own, different, service more favourably than competitors (and remember when in the context of google, it's how people would find the competitors in the first place) * you can see them having hugely increased sales for their own product after the introduction, and massively decreased sales for other people But then my understanding of the regulations comes largely from the links here. Fundamentally though, if you're big enough to be concerned about this you should be able to afford the legal teams to figure this out or approach the commission to discuss what is and is not within the regulations.
    - latch 9y ago
      To answer your first question, since I don't think it was rhetorical, I'm aware of at least 1 case where amazon stopped selling competing products (1). I also just searched for "aaa batteries" and the first hit, after the AmazonBasics ad, were AmazonBasics batteries. I'm not saying either of these are anti-competitive. I understand that more goes into it than just that. Just offering these little facts in case anyone else is curious. (I do think that with both Amazon's increasing dominance and seemingly increasing aggressiveness, they're heading for legal issues). (1) https://www.recode.net/2016/5/31/11826394/amazon-apple-tv-google-chromecast https://www.recode.net/2016/5/31/11826394/amazon-apple-tv-go...

by mythz 9y ago

IanCal 9y ago

Are you suggesting the ruling is out of line with the regulations? Previous anti-trust rulings seem pretty similar to me. If microsoft gets into trouble for making IE a default browser or bundling windows media player, I'm really not surprised with the way this went. > It's absurd to think displaying relevant content in the context of what the User is searching for is illegal It's not absurd to think that using your dominance in a market to heavily push people towards your own other services is illegal. The Commission also note that it's not just the relevance of the link, but the position that makes a big difference. > b) Furthermore, the effects cannot just be explained by the fact that the first result is more relevant because evidence also shows that moving the first result to the third rank leads to a reduction in the number of clicks by about 50%. Since the introduction, it massively increased click-throughs to their already available service, with a corresponding huge decrease to competitors. Was their own service good? > Contemporary evidence from Google shows that the company was aware that Froogle's market performance was relatively poor (one internal document from 2006 stated "Froogle simply doesn't work"). So to be clear the problem is that they had a pretty naff service, which when treated similarly to other players lost out. They then promoted it far above other results, resulting in a huge shift towards them and away from their competitors. They did not compete by making the service better, but by using their huge dominance in one market to step into another and significantly harm the other players.

mythz 9y ago
> Previous anti-trust rulings seem pretty similar to me. If microsoft gets into trouble for making IE a default browser or bundling windows media player, I'm really not surprised with the way this went. What other Website do you know has been penalized for showing their own content and are being forced to give their competitors prominence? Microsoft had a 95%+ Monopoly on Desktop Operating Systems and wouldn't allow you to remove IE, anyone can easily go to amazon.com, bing.com, ebay.com or visit any other website to do their shopping if they prefer to.
skwirl 9y ago
Should Amazon be forced to show results for e-readers other than Kindle or audiobooks other than those on Audible? I don't think it's obvious at all where the line is.
- IanCal 9y ago
  Do amazon treat the kindle differently from other ebook readers on their site? If, for example, kobo fits my search better and they demote it while putting kindle content right at the top. Does that kind of thing happen? In which case, quite possibly, if * amazon can be argued to have a very large position, with the vast majority of searches going through it * it can be shown that people tend to click almost exclusively on the first or first few links * they are treating their own, different, service more favourably than competitors (and remember when in the context of google, it's how people would find the competitors in the first place) * you can see them having hugely increased sales for their own product after the introduction, and massively decreased sales for other people But then my understanding of the regulations comes largely from the links here. Fundamentally though, if you're big enough to be concerned about this you should be able to afford the legal teams to figure this out or approach the commission to discuss what is and is not within the regulations.
  - latch 9y ago
    To answer your first question, since I don't think it was rhetorical, I'm aware of at least 1 case where amazon stopped selling competing products (1). I also just searched for "aaa batteries" and the first hit, after the AmazonBasics ad, were AmazonBasics batteries. I'm not saying either of these are anti-competitive. I understand that more goes into it than just that. Just offering these little facts in case anyone else is curious. (I do think that with both Amazon's increasing dominance and seemingly increasing aggressiveness, they're heading for legal issues). (1) https://www.recode.net/2016/5/31/11826394/amazon-apple-tv-google-chromecast https://www.recode.net/2016/5/31/11826394/amazon-apple-tv-go...