4 ms·

>The last thing I want is to search for some product on Google and get a list of search results pages from other companies as a response instead of a listing of

by ksk 9y ago

>The last thing I want is to search for some product on Google and get a list of search results pages from other companies as a response instead of a listing of the products I'm actually searching for. The OP isn't talking about Google linking to 'search results pages', but link to the actual product itself. You're already in agreement with them, so stop arguing :) The only problem here is that Google seems to think that its mission is to setup a tollbooth on the internet rather than indexing information and just responding to search queries. >According to the line from Google you quoted above, most of their users disagree with you on that. I'm one such user. An advertising company says "Our users think our ads are awesome" - You'll have to excuse the people who don't take that seriously.

Ajedi32 9y ago
> The OP isn't talking about Google linking to 'search results pages' Really? It certainly sounds like that's what he was talking about: > wouldn't need to search again, but would be on the search results of that other site In any case, linking directly to the actual product is _already_ what Google does. So if that's the goal, then what's the issue? > An advertising company says "Our users think our ads are awesome" That's another thing about this ruling that I don't get. Google's "Product Search" results are essentially paid ads, and they're explicitly marked as such. (Example: https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa) With this ruling, isn't the EU pretty much saying that Google isn't allowed to display ads on their search results pages, because those ads are displayed at the top of the page, thus "giving prominent placement to Google's own service"? That's ridiculous, right?
- ksk 9y ago
  Google was not fined for displaying ads, but for promoting its services, illegally, via product tying. Google search should be responding to a query with relevant web pages that their crawler indexed. Instead, they insert a popup that links to their shopping service and try to make a buck off of that. This is the first complaint, the second is that they demoted rival shopping services from their search results.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    I can't really speak to the second complaint, since I'm not privy to the internal workings of Google's ranking algorithms (though I have anecdotal evidence that the overall quality of Google's search results in these situations is just fine), but as for the first one: as a consumer I very much like Google's integrations between search and their other services. Those integrations are one of the main things that makes Google's search engine better than its competitors. Being able to search for a nearby business and immediately see whether it's open, with a link to get directions to it on Google Maps, is incredibly useful. Same goes for the product results being discussed here, and for other services like Google's built-in calculator, dictionary, image search, etc. If such integrations are illegal under EU law, then in my opinion the law is harmful to consumers and needs to be changed. I'm not an EU citizen though, so I don't really have a say in the matter. I can only sit back and hope this ruling only results in the quality of Google's search results being gimped in the EU, and not in non-EU countries.
    - ksk 9y ago
      >Being able to search for a nearby business and immediately see whether it's open, with a link to get directions to it on Google Maps, is incredibly useful. Same goes for the product results being discussed here, and for other services like Google's built-in calculator, dictionary, image search, etc. A lot of that is not a service provided by Google. They simply scrap data others have created and insert their ads. Its a sophisticated form of rent seeking. If you tried to do that with THEIR services they'd shut you down ASAP - e.g. If you ran a meta search engine which collected search results from all other search engines, google will immediately block your access once you got popular. I'm totally for this fine, and hope that Google mends their ways. They do have a good search product that I enjoy using but promoting their unsuccessful services by integrating it with a successful search product is wrong and harms competition. I want the web to stay open, and Google's promotion of their closed platforms is troublesome. Unfortunately, Google spends a lot on lobbying and cozying up with the government, so I doubt we will see such enforcement in the US.
      - julianmarq 9y ago

by ksk 9y ago

Ajedi32 9y ago

> The OP isn't talking about Google linking to 'search results pages' Really? It certainly sounds like that's what he was talking about: > wouldn't need to search again, but would be on the search results of that other site In any case, linking directly to the actual product is _already_ what Google does. So if that's the goal, then what's the issue? > An advertising company says "Our users think our ads are awesome" That's another thing about this ruling that I don't get. Google's "Product Search" results are essentially paid ads, and they're explicitly marked as such. (Example: https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa) With this ruling, isn't the EU pretty much saying that Google isn't allowed to display ads on their search results pages, because those ads are displayed at the top of the page, thus "giving prominent placement to Google's own service"? That's ridiculous, right?

ksk 9y ago
Google was not fined for displaying ads, but for promoting its services, illegally, via product tying. Google search should be responding to a query with relevant web pages that their crawler indexed. Instead, they insert a popup that links to their shopping service and try to make a buck off of that. This is the first complaint, the second is that they demoted rival shopping services from their search results.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  I can't really speak to the second complaint, since I'm not privy to the internal workings of Google's ranking algorithms (though I have anecdotal evidence that the overall quality of Google's search results in these situations is just fine), but as for the first one: as a consumer I very much like Google's integrations between search and their other services. Those integrations are one of the main things that makes Google's search engine better than its competitors. Being able to search for a nearby business and immediately see whether it's open, with a link to get directions to it on Google Maps, is incredibly useful. Same goes for the product results being discussed here, and for other services like Google's built-in calculator, dictionary, image search, etc. If such integrations are illegal under EU law, then in my opinion the law is harmful to consumers and needs to be changed. I'm not an EU citizen though, so I don't really have a say in the matter. I can only sit back and hope this ruling only results in the quality of Google's search results being gimped in the EU, and not in non-EU countries.
  - ksk 9y ago
    >Being able to search for a nearby business and immediately see whether it's open, with a link to get directions to it on Google Maps, is incredibly useful. Same goes for the product results being discussed here, and for other services like Google's built-in calculator, dictionary, image search, etc. A lot of that is not a service provided by Google. They simply scrap data others have created and insert their ads. Its a sophisticated form of rent seeking. If you tried to do that with THEIR services they'd shut you down ASAP - e.g. If you ran a meta search engine which collected search results from all other search engines, google will immediately block your access once you got popular. I'm totally for this fine, and hope that Google mends their ways. They do have a good search product that I enjoy using but promoting their unsuccessful services by integrating it with a successful search product is wrong and harms competition. I want the web to stay open, and Google's promotion of their closed platforms is troublesome. Unfortunately, Google spends a lot on lobbying and cozying up with the government, so I doubt we will see such enforcement in the US.
    - julianmarq 9y ago