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It should scare you. The EU just used their regulatory power to force the world's biggest search engine to make their user experience worse in order to benefit

by makomk 9y ago

It should scare you. The EU just used their regulatory power to force the world's biggest search engine to make their user experience worse in order to benefit other companies. Before Google penalized all the vertical search sites, doing a Google search for certain kinds of products was a terrible experience; page after page of crappy information-free autogenerated sites hoping to make $$$ from ads and referral fees that were SEO-optimized to the gills, making it impossible to find actual information. Not only that, but the specialized infoboxes at the top of Google's search results were an almost direct response to their competitor Microsoft doing exactly the same thing and promoting it at the main advantage of their search. Microsoft's comparison shopping subsidiary which they used for their search results was one of the companies complaining to the EU about this. Now that Microsoft have convinced the EU to ban Google from doing this, they can once again point to the fact that they offer this extra contextual information as a reason for using them and Google cannot compete.

denis1 9y ago
Or you should be happy, that the EU actually uses their regulatory power to benefit the consumer no matter how big the company they're going against is.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  Does it benefit the consumer though? I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies in response to a product query is better for consumers than just showing them a listing of the products they actually searched for. [Google's response][1] to this ruling suggests they have data which confirms this: > While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently, our data shows that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches. [1]: https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/european-commission-decision-shopping-google-story/ https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/european-commis...
  - zdkl 9y ago
    As a consumer, I have (much) more trust that my interests are advanced by the EU than google. This is an opinion which I don't feel the need to convert anyone to but I really don't understand the opposite view. Can someone explain why they believe google and other "emerging" power centers saveguard their interests better than the EU?
    - mythz 9y ago
      Why are you using Google then? Use a Service you can trust or you believe has your best interests at heart.
      - watbe 9y ago
        The answer to your question is given by the EC decision: > There are also high barriers to entry in these markets, in part because of network effects: the more consumers use a search engine, the more attractive it becomes to advertisers. The profits generated can then be used to attract even more consumers. Similarly, the data a search engine gathers about consumers can in turn be used to improve results. Simply put, the EC believes that Google is a barrier to any viable competition, so there's no ability to develop a competitive service to Google's own.
        mythz 9y ago
        Sounds like they're punishing commercial success, i.e. the goals of most public corporations. Search has been Google's core competency since their inception, they were much smaller than the existing Search engines when they started out but were able to create a better product that users preferred and since that time they've been able to amass a wealth of knowledge, experience and resources. Of course any company is going to have a hard time trying to compete with them now, but I don't see why they need to be punished for executing so well on their core mission.
        tripzilch 9y ago
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > Or you should be happy, that the EU actually uses their regulatory power to benefit the consumer no matter how big the company they're going against is. So is the EU going to fine Apple for not allowing iPhone users to access third-party browsers? At least Google doesn't force any lock-in with their platform here (the browser or search engine) - you're free to use any search engine you want.
  - gpderetta 9y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if the commission would take a look at Apple in the future, but note that currently they are not dominant in the mobile market.
  - allendoerfer 9y ago
    You have answered your own question: They don't do it, because Google, their competitor, does allow it, so there is choice.
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > You have answered your own question: They don't do it, because Google, their competitor, does allow it, so there is choice. ...what? Google doesn't force any lock-in on their platform, yet the EU fines them. Apple does, but the EU hasn't taken any action.
      - allendoerfer 9y ago
        It is not platform vs. platform, it is iTunes vs. Playstore (not a monopoly, choice => no action needed) and Google Search vs. nobody essentially (overwhelming dominance, quasi monopoly => action needed).
  - ionised 9y ago
    > So is the EU going to fine Apple for not allowing iPhone users to access third-party browsers? They are not dominant in the market, but if they were I would hope so.
timClicks 9y ago
> "user experience worse" Not necessarily. I read this as saying that if other players have well marked up content, they should have their listings appear in infoboxes, perhaps alongside Google's. Not that the infoboxes be removed.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  Pretty sure that's what Google Product Search used to do. They ended up having to change it because the resulting quality of those listings was terrible. See https://commerce.googleblog.com/2012/05/building-better-shopping-experience.html https://commerce.googleblog.com/2012/05/building-better-shop... Maybe if they tried again they could do better this time; I'm a little skeptical though.
  - jolic 9y ago
    Wow, the screenshot in the post is like a parody. (And that's the "new Google Shopping experience"). https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nw0uS-CN17o/T8cd822KTBI/AAAAAAAAAsA/WbKOR2Xi-VE/s1600/telescopes.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nw0uS-CN17o/T8cd822KTBI/AAAAAAAAA...
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      That's pretty much how ads on Google used to look. They've improved quite a bit since then.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
The infoboxes are, in fact, one of the cases where Google regularly stole work from websites without permission and then denied them ad revenue by ensuring people didn't ever visit those sites to get it: https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynetworth-com https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet... Also, note that Bing doesn't lock you into their ecosystem in those boxes the way Google does. Take a look at "Uptown Funk": https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=uptown+funk https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=uptown+funk - Links to YouTube and Play Music https://www.bing.com/search?q=uptown+funk https://www.bing.com/search?q=uptown+funk - Places YouTube up top, then links to Groove AND Amazon MP3 (If you search "The Cure Lady Gaga" it also offers iTunes. Apparently it doesn't know that iTunes has Uptown Funk as well. Oops.) This is a live example of how Google violates antitrust law, but it's competitors do not.
tripzilch 9y ago
> The EU just used their regulatory power to force the world's biggest search engine to make their user experience worse in order to benefit other companies. It's really quite simple, if Google's user experience hinges on them abusing their market dominance then they have no business in the EU. Even if it means we can't have certain "nice things", I am perfectly okay with that. Companies have power. Companies with market dominance have a disproportionate amount of power. Why should a company be allowed to wield all that power without being held responsible for it? So if you're gonna be a dominant company in the EU, you're going to have to take responsibility and not abuse your power to stifle competition. It's not like the "before" situation you sketch couldn't have been improved in any other way. It just so happens that this particular way also ("conveniently") stifled competition in shopping sites by abuse of Google's market dominance in Search. Why is this bad? Because abuse of market dominance doesn't always result in a better user experience or product. And we can't even be sure that was actually the case now, because of this market dominance, no other company got a chance, the only way was Google. Also, the problem in your "before" situation was Google serving its users search results that were spammed to death with low quality SEO crap. This was Google's problem (sure it's a really hard problem, but it's theirs). That shit could only thrive because of Google's popularity. Any real competition, like normal price comparison sites, were already suffering because of this (or worse, forced to join this dark side). The thing is, this problem had nothing to do with the actual competition. But Google chose the solution (abuse market dominance) which drove them into obscurity. Eventually SEO-spammers (whose core business was never price comparison sites) found other ways to game and abuse the system. If Google would've done nothing, people would have stopped using Google for finding price comparison sites (and back then, Google was really very good for many other things) because the SEO spam isn't useful. Then competing price comparison sites would have had a chance, and who knows, maybe Google's actual web-searching user experience (which is terrible today) would have remained better. I mean that's what we lost when Google tried to become the sites it linked to, instead of helping people find them. Not saying this would be the only solution, it's obviously not as profitable as Google has been while abusing their market dominance, maybe they could have found something responsible in between. Also, we gotta be consistent. If the EU Commission on antitrust could say "we'll allow it this time because we kinda like the end result", THEN you should be scared, really really scared. Arbitrary application of the law is very bad, every time you encounter it, no matter what. The Commission established that they've been abusing their market dominance since 2011 (or 2008). Market dominance put Google in a special position of responsibility, they are now being held to that.
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
So really you are angry at Microsoft, not the EU.
virtuabhi 9y ago
I think that it is a form of protectionism by the EU. The EU does not want American companies to have monopoly in Europe. At one point, EU was giving grants to anyone who can build a competitor to Google. With this and similar rulings, EU is twisting the arms of American companies and making it harder to do business in Europe. This strategy is straight out of the playbook of China.
Denzel 9y ago
There's a clear difference between what Bing and Google are doing. Please don't mistake the facts: 1. The EC is not asking Google to make their user experience worse. 2. The EC does not have a problem with sponsored search results. Google's user experience is the generic algorithm that determines what is the most relevant result. Google deliberately did not subject its own comparison shopping service to that algorithm while subjecting competitors' to it. Furthermore, Google took the FIRST result position. Why would they do this if they have the best user experience and it should come up first anyways? Contrast with Bing, when I search for "baseball bat": The first 3 results above the fold are organic unpaid SERPs. (Nothing from Bing in the top three spots.) And their shopping ads are displayed to the right of the organic search results. If Google would've treated these products like ads, then the EC wouldn't have had a problem. But they didn't. And they have a dominant share of the general internet search market. Google deliberately tried to exploit its market dominance to enter into another market in which it was not competitive. There's nothing scary about this fine.
- gpderetta 9y ago
  I worked at Bing in a previous life. As far as I know it was official policy that internal results would not be artificially boosted but had to be subject to the same ranking algorithm as anything else.
- i_cant_speel 9y ago
  But it's Google's website. Why shouldn't they be able to promote their own products on their site?
  - adamnemecek 9y ago
    Because it's anti competitive behavior.
    - aries1980 9y ago
      I don't see AMD offerings on Intel's website either.
lucideer 9y ago
This is a complete false equivalence. If placing Google's own shopping results in the top spot improves user experience to that extent, they could and should do it organically.

by makomk 9y ago

denis1 9y ago

Or you should be happy, that the EU actually uses their regulatory power to benefit the consumer no matter how big the company they're going against is.

Ajedi32 9y ago
Does it benefit the consumer though? I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies in response to a product query is better for consumers than just showing them a listing of the products they actually searched for. [Google's response][1] to this ruling suggests they have data which confirms this: > While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently, our data shows that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches. [1]: https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/european-commission-decision-shopping-google-story/ https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/european-commis...
- zdkl 9y ago
  As a consumer, I have (much) more trust that my interests are advanced by the EU than google. This is an opinion which I don't feel the need to convert anyone to but I really don't understand the opposite view. Can someone explain why they believe google and other "emerging" power centers saveguard their interests better than the EU?
  - mythz 9y ago
    Why are you using Google then? Use a Service you can trust or you believe has your best interests at heart.
    - watbe 9y ago
      The answer to your question is given by the EC decision: > There are also high barriers to entry in these markets, in part because of network effects: the more consumers use a search engine, the more attractive it becomes to advertisers. The profits generated can then be used to attract even more consumers. Similarly, the data a search engine gathers about consumers can in turn be used to improve results. Simply put, the EC believes that Google is a barrier to any viable competition, so there's no ability to develop a competitive service to Google's own.
      - mythz 9y ago
        Sounds like they're punishing commercial success, i.e. the goals of most public corporations. Search has been Google's core competency since their inception, they were much smaller than the existing Search engines when they started out but were able to create a better product that users preferred and since that time they've been able to amass a wealth of knowledge, experience and resources. Of course any company is going to have a hard time trying to compete with them now, but I don't see why they need to be punished for executing so well on their core mission.
        tripzilch 9y ago
chimeracoder 9y ago
> Or you should be happy, that the EU actually uses their regulatory power to benefit the consumer no matter how big the company they're going against is. So is the EU going to fine Apple for not allowing iPhone users to access third-party browsers? At least Google doesn't force any lock-in with their platform here (the browser or search engine) - you're free to use any search engine you want.
- gpderetta 9y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if the commission would take a look at Apple in the future, but note that currently they are not dominant in the mobile market.
- allendoerfer 9y ago
  You have answered your own question: They don't do it, because Google, their competitor, does allow it, so there is choice.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > You have answered your own question: They don't do it, because Google, their competitor, does allow it, so there is choice. ...what? Google doesn't force any lock-in on their platform, yet the EU fines them. Apple does, but the EU hasn't taken any action.
    - allendoerfer 9y ago
      It is not platform vs. platform, it is iTunes vs. Playstore (not a monopoly, choice => no action needed) and Google Search vs. nobody essentially (overwhelming dominance, quasi monopoly => action needed).
- ionised 9y ago
  > So is the EU going to fine Apple for not allowing iPhone users to access third-party browsers? They are not dominant in the market, but if they were I would hope so.

timClicks 9y ago

> "user experience worse" Not necessarily. I read this as saying that if other players have well marked up content, they should have their listings appear in infoboxes, perhaps alongside Google's. Not that the infoboxes be removed.

Ajedi32 9y ago
Pretty sure that's what Google Product Search used to do. They ended up having to change it because the resulting quality of those listings was terrible. See https://commerce.googleblog.com/2012/05/building-better-shopping-experience.html https://commerce.googleblog.com/2012/05/building-better-shop... Maybe if they tried again they could do better this time; I'm a little skeptical though.
- jolic 9y ago
  Wow, the screenshot in the post is like a parody. (And that's the "new Google Shopping experience"). https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nw0uS-CN17o/T8cd822KTBI/AAAAAAAAAsA/WbKOR2Xi-VE/s1600/telescopes.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nw0uS-CN17o/T8cd822KTBI/AAAAAAAAA...
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    That's pretty much how ads on Google used to look. They've improved quite a bit since then.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

The infoboxes are, in fact, one of the cases where Google regularly stole work from websites without permission and then denied them ad revenue by ensuring people didn't ever visit those sites to get it: https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynetworth-com https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet... Also, note that Bing doesn't lock you into their ecosystem in those boxes the way Google does. Take a look at "Uptown Funk": https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=uptown+funk https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=uptown+funk - Links to YouTube and Play Music https://www.bing.com/search?q=uptown+funk https://www.bing.com/search?q=uptown+funk - Places YouTube up top, then links to Groove AND Amazon MP3 (If you search "The Cure Lady Gaga" it also offers iTunes. Apparently it doesn't know that iTunes has Uptown Funk as well. Oops.) This is a live example of how Google violates antitrust law, but it's competitors do not.

tripzilch 9y ago

> The EU just used their regulatory power to force the world's biggest search engine to make their user experience worse in order to benefit other companies. It's really quite simple, if Google's user experience hinges on them abusing their market dominance then they have no business in the EU. Even if it means we can't have certain "nice things", I am perfectly okay with that. Companies have power. Companies with market dominance have a disproportionate amount of power. Why should a company be allowed to wield all that power without being held responsible for it? So if you're gonna be a dominant company in the EU, you're going to have to take responsibility and not abuse your power to stifle competition. It's not like the "before" situation you sketch couldn't have been improved in any other way. It just so happens that this particular way also ("conveniently") stifled competition in shopping sites by abuse of Google's market dominance in Search. Why is this bad? Because abuse of market dominance doesn't always result in a better user experience or product. And we can't even be sure that was actually the case now, because of this market dominance, no other company got a chance, the only way was Google. Also, the problem in your "before" situation was Google serving its users search results that were spammed to death with low quality SEO crap. This was Google's problem (sure it's a really hard problem, but it's theirs). That shit could only thrive because of Google's popularity. Any real competition, like normal price comparison sites, were already suffering because of this (or worse, forced to join this dark side). The thing is, this problem had nothing to do with the actual competition. But Google chose the solution (abuse market dominance) which drove them into obscurity. Eventually SEO-spammers (whose core business was never price comparison sites) found other ways to game and abuse the system. If Google would've done nothing, people would have stopped using Google for finding price comparison sites (and back then, Google was really very good for many other things) because the SEO spam isn't useful. Then competing price comparison sites would have had a chance, and who knows, maybe Google's actual web-searching user experience (which is terrible today) would have remained better. I mean that's what we lost when Google tried to become the sites it linked to, instead of helping people find them. Not saying this would be the only solution, it's obviously not as profitable as Google has been while abusing their market dominance, maybe they could have found something responsible in between. Also, we gotta be consistent. If the EU Commission on antitrust could say "we'll allow it this time because we kinda like the end result", THEN you should be scared, really really scared. Arbitrary application of the law is very bad, every time you encounter it, no matter what. The Commission established that they've been abusing their market dominance since 2011 (or 2008). Market dominance put Google in a special position of responsibility, they are now being held to that.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

So really you are angry at Microsoft, not the EU.

virtuabhi 9y ago

I think that it is a form of protectionism by the EU. The EU does not want American companies to have monopoly in Europe. At one point, EU was giving grants to anyone who can build a competitor to Google. With this and similar rulings, EU is twisting the arms of American companies and making it harder to do business in Europe. This strategy is straight out of the playbook of China.

Denzel 9y ago

There's a clear difference between what Bing and Google are doing. Please don't mistake the facts: 1. The EC is not asking Google to make their user experience worse. 2. The EC does not have a problem with sponsored search results. Google's user experience is the generic algorithm that determines what is the most relevant result. Google deliberately did not subject its own comparison shopping service to that algorithm while subjecting competitors' to it. Furthermore, Google took the FIRST result position. Why would they do this if they have the best user experience and it should come up first anyways? Contrast with Bing, when I search for "baseball bat": The first 3 results above the fold are organic unpaid SERPs. (Nothing from Bing in the top three spots.) And their shopping ads are displayed to the right of the organic search results. If Google would've treated these products like ads, then the EC wouldn't have had a problem. But they didn't. And they have a dominant share of the general internet search market. Google deliberately tried to exploit its market dominance to enter into another market in which it was not competitive. There's nothing scary about this fine.

gpderetta 9y ago
I worked at Bing in a previous life. As far as I know it was official policy that internal results would not be artificially boosted but had to be subject to the same ranking algorithm as anything else.
i_cant_speel 9y ago
But it's Google's website. Why shouldn't they be able to promote their own products on their site?
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  Because it's anti competitive behavior.
  - aries1980 9y ago
    I don't see AMD offerings on Intel's website either.

lucideer 9y ago

This is a complete false equivalence. If placing Google's own shopping results in the top spot improves user experience to that extent, they could and should do it organically.