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I find all this hand wringing over Google to be so tiring. Google is doing what is best for it's customers. Be that advertisers and/or searchers. If they sto

I find all this hand wringing over Google to be so tiring. Google is doing what is best for it's customers. Be that advertisers and/or searchers. If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance. Last I checked, nobody is forced to use google to search for things, nobody if forced (except for perhaps android users) to use Chrome. I'm not a laissez-faire capitalist by any means, but I don't see that Google has an unfair monopoly. They have achieved their dominance because their services are viewed as "best" by the majority of folks out there. Nobody complains when Google suddenly starts delivering more customers to their web properties, only if traffic suddenly dies out.

appleflaxen 9y ago
> I don't see that Google has an unfair monopoly. really? isn't the use of their search engine to squelch competition in local reviews support that they are a monopoly?
mdasen 9y ago
> If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance. That's precisely the issue. It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas. Microsoft had the best operating system and a browser that they wanted people to use. People preferred Netscape, but Microsoft used its OS dominance to kill off Netscape. It is ok to be dominant in a product. You aren't, however, allowed to use the dominance in one product to gain you dominance in other products. Google has dominance in search, but using that to kill off competitors for their lesser-liked products isn't fair. > They have achieved their dominance because their services are viewed as "best" by the majority of folks out there. Their search service is viewed as "best" my most, but that doesn't mean their reviews service is. That's what's at issue. Being the best at one thing shouldn't allow you to stifle people that are better at another thing. That is certainly not best for consumers. If Google were 20% of search traffic, they could do many things because there's no dominance at issue. Since Google is the vast majority of search traffic, they can effectively eliminate most competitors. Starting a reviews site? Your listings will fall below our own regardless of their merit. Starting a videos site, YouTube alternatives will always be shown first even if it's not what the user is looking for. YouTube should be popular on its own merit, not based on Google using its search dominance to choke competitors. Google's reviews should be popular on their own merit, not based on Google using its search dominance to kill off Yelp. I do want to clarify that I'm not saying that Google is guilty of doing this, but that when you get to a certain market dominance, you can kill off competitors that are better than you by starving them rather than by being better than them. It's important that third-parties can compete with Google's non-search services without having Google's search service unreasonably favor Google's non-search services.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  It is ok to be dominant in a product. You aren't, however, allowed to use the dominance in one product to gain you dominance in other products. Unfortunately there are countless counterexamples. It's an interesting ideal, but without court action it's toothless. And court action risks having a chilling effect on certain kinds of positive forces.
  - foota 9y ago
    OP mentions it, but this was what bit Microsoft in United States v Microsoft (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C...)
- notatoad 9y ago
  >It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas I think it's a stretch to say that searching for HVAC business listings and searching for HVAC business reviews are really different markets. If google had an HVAC subsidiary and they suppressed all search results and ads for competing HVAC companies, that would be abusing their dominant position in the search market to create dominance in another market. But is it really monopolistic behaviour to use their web search dominance to succeed in a slightly more specific sector of the web search market? You can use google to find reviews of products and services. They advertise alongside those search results. That is their core business. Yelp is a straight-up competitor. "Google is better than us in the market we compete in" isn't a valid anti-trust complaint.
  - simion314 9y ago
    I think the point here is that Google is not returning the best results but pushing it's own other services on top of the list even if in this case other review services are better.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      And even when the searcher is VERY specific that they want Yelp...it's right in the query.
tuxracer 9y ago
> nobody if forced (except for perhaps android users) to use Chrome Unlike iOS you can install different browsers on Android directly from the Play Store. These can actually be different browsers with their own rendering engines not just alternative UIs on top of Chrome. Firefox on Android for example uses the actual Firefox rendering engine, not Chrome.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  You can, but by default you get Chrome, which is about the same thing people were fighting Microsoft over in the Netscape-IE days, but this time on Android.
  - tuxracer 9y ago
    That case created a misconception that refuses to die... There's nothing inherently illegal about having a default app or product. There's also nothing inherently illegal about having a popular app or product. The reason Microsoft got in trouble is because it was not only found that they had a monopoly in a particular market, but that they obtained some of that market share illegally through shady contracts effectively forbidding OEMs from offering alternative OSes, etc... They were then found to have used that illegally obtained monopoly to take over a completely different market in part by bundling IE with Windows and punishing OEMs who sought to including alternate browsers and completely disallowing the removal of IE.
  - pound 9y ago
    one more thing to mention about that default chrome on android: you cannot install ad-blocker there. you may install firefox and still will have a lot of time links opened in built-in chrome, on android
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    The difference being that Apple has a huge percentage of the market share and Android isn't the only game in town.
    - 9y ago
the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
> Google is doing what is best for it's customers. But is it? Because right now I basically can't stop using Google services at this point because they pushed out many others from the market. I would however greatly prefer some competition in the field.
- nradov 9y ago
  Which Google services no longer have competition?
  - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
    Google Search for a start. Youtube is effectively standing alone in the space. Google Maps is completely dominating the space (in particular there is nothing that replaces the Earth product or the parts of Earth in maps). Gmail is taking over the world over here. Most local mail solutions are irrelevant at this point and the only real alternative to gmail even intentionally is outlook now. Chrome effectively took out the rest of the bunch as well, at least on desktop and Android. Lastly Google's ad business is something nobody can avoid.
    - nradov 9y ago
      Bing, Vimeo, Here, Yahoo Mail, Firefox Some ad blockers can block Google AdSense.
      - acdha 9y ago
        Do you run a website where those are significant traffic? It's been a long time since not-Google search has been more than a rounding error in my experience, with the exception of Yandex for Russia and Baidu for China if you have content for those audiences. Vimeo and Firefox are trying but the trajectory has not been good.
        nradov 9y ago
        The question was about alternatives to Google services (which do exist in almost every category), not about the share of traffic that websites receive from various search engines. If websites want to avoid being overly dependent on Google then they're going to have to get creative and figure out ways to drive traffic other than search.
haltingthoughts 9y ago
Looking at what is best for consumers is missing the point. The point is that when companies use leverage in one market to help themselves or hurt competitors unfairly in other markets it stifles competition. It's hard to be a web browser company when it comes bundled with the OS. Do you really want a world where you choose Apple, Google, or Amazon once for everything everywhere and that is the only choice you get? Or do you want Unix philosophy for businesses and mix and match however you feel?
- baddox 9y ago
  Isn't stifling competition only bad if it harms consumers? I don't understand how what's best for consumers isn't the point.
  - SwellJoe 9y ago
    As long as there is credible competition, market forces work. When Google (or MS, or Amazon, or...) successfully destroy all of their competition, that's when consumers suffer, and that's when it's too late for regulators to effectively solve the problem. See the cable/telco duopolies for an example of that problem in action. So, sure. The fight to destroy all competitors is good for consumers while it lasts. Once it's over and there's a monopoly or cartel (as in the case of last-mile internet), the consumer is at the mercy of the monopolist. History indicates the monopolist will not be benevolent. History also indicates the monopolist will leverage their increased power to manipulate the legal environment to prevent new competitors from springing up. In addition to the telcos, the fossil fuel industry is an example of that lately; despite renewables being cheaper and creating more jobs, more than half of our elected officials in the US are working hard to ensure another decade of fossil fuel energy dominance.
  - haltingthoughts 9y ago
    I should have said looking at whether it is harming consumers now isn't the point. It's how it harms consumers over time. The chilling effect on innovation, the monoculture/fragility, the lock-in will hurt consumers in the long run.
MichaelBurge 9y ago
These anti-trust laws were originally created to whack railroad companies, which had huge capital investments and "natural monopolies". Google does have some investment in its data centers, but people never make the explicit argument that the $11 billion/year in data centers is what causes them to be a monopoly. They make the much more abstract "market dominance" argument that I don't buy. The only thing that I'd consider a monopoly in the same spirit would be the ISPs. It's stupid to dig up the streets twice just for "competition", so there's a natural monopoly. And it'd probably cost untold billions to rebuild it.
euske 9y ago
I find it amusing how their argument is similar to the MS' antitrust argument in 90s. Microsoft: "An OS should include everything. Third party apps aren't needed. It's only good for consumers." Google: "A search engine should include everything. Third party websites aren't needed. It's only good for consumers."
- bdcravens 9y ago
  More interesting is the HN (and elsewhere) crowd that never relents on Google apologetics, yet presumably would be (and among those older, were) among the Microsoft critics.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    People's allegiances and opinions often settle in when they're younger, and they will stick to those brand loyalties for decades into the future. A lot of us grew up (or got into tech) during the Microsoft lawsuit days, which set in that view, and when Google came around, they were a breath of fresh air. It's really hard for people to realize that times have changed and the tables have turned.
  - criddell 9y ago
    You're describing me and it pretty much comes down to trust. I trust Google a lot more than I ever trusted Microsoft back when they were the bully.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      Why do you trust Google a lot more? What did they do to deserve your trust?
      - nashashmi 9y ago
        They gave things away for free.
        9y ago
guessbest 9y ago
For me Google is the best search on technical issues and research. When it comes down to touchy political and social issues, Bing and DuckDuckGo beat Google every time. In fact I don't even use Google to look up things I see in the news. It is always skewed. I completely avoid Google News.
- millisecond 9y ago
  Honest question, how is it skewed? Not a fan of google news myself for other reasons but never felt they forced a PoV.
  - ionised 9y ago
    They filter and service your results based on what they think you want to see. Filter bubbling.
annexrichmond 9y ago
> Google is doing what is best for it's customers except it has been shown that the organic search results rank Yelp listings higher than Google's Local listings thus they are, in fact, displaying worse results at the top. Unless you believe Google's search product sucks I think this proves they aren't doing what's best for customers at all, they are doing what's best for them. Keep in mind they are trying to develop Google Maps into a social review platform where you can write reviews, order delivery, etc. that seems similar to Yelp. Is it not clear they are using their Search monopoly to get more content on their own, currently worse, local reviews platform to have it become more dominant in the long run?
- themacguffinman 9y ago
  Except if you look at the screenshot in Stoppelman's tweet, it's clear that Google's Local listings are displayed as advertisements. The Local section is unambiguously tagged as "Sponsored". Yelp and Local rankings aren't comparable. Unless you think Google shouldn't be allowed to run their own advertising systems?
cakedoggie 9y ago
Wow, what a childish attitude.
nashashmi 9y ago
I like Google too. And I like the search engine returning products if it thinks they are relevant. But the issue behind EU commission was that they found Google purposely lower the ranks of relevant competitor's results nearly off the front page without merit. The typical argument is that Google can do that because it is their search agent. But they did not express it explicitly in their terms of service.
quadrangle 9y ago
It's not about whether a monopoly is fair or "unfair", it's about whether it provides power that they can abuse and is thus worse for the public interest. Google got their monopoly fairly enough, maintain it through a mix of fair and questionable practices, and definitely uses their monopoly now in ways that are anti-competitive.
vadym909 9y ago
Whoah. Hold on. The problem is not with Google offering a Review service for HVAC companies. If the Google reviews are more comprehensive and valuable than Yelp- by all means have them show up in the organic listings- for that matter even use up your own budget to take up the sponsored space. But don't pretend that you've now got a new feature as part of search (taking up the sponsored box as a legal maneuver) that offers a similar service like Yelp and that it is part of your Google Search service. That is PURE EVIL.
georgeecollins 9y ago
The problem is that Google does what customers want selectively. For example, I don't think I want my search results to be as dominated by ads as they are today. Once the competition is beaten, they may change their priorities from giving the customer and the partners what they want, to doing what is best for Google. Compare youtube of five years ago to now. There are many more ads and many more restrictions on how partners can place ads. If youtube had started with those rules and that much advertising I think it would have been less successful. There is a pattern for all internet companies where they say to users and partners: look how great our platform is. And then when they achieve dominance they change the rules. The best protection is competition.

appleflaxen 9y ago

> I don't see that Google has an unfair monopoly. really? isn't the use of their search engine to squelch competition in local reviews support that they are a monopoly?

mdasen 9y ago

> If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance. That's precisely the issue. It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas. Microsoft had the best operating system and a browser that they wanted people to use. People preferred Netscape, but Microsoft used its OS dominance to kill off Netscape. It is ok to be dominant in a product. You aren't, however, allowed to use the dominance in one product to gain you dominance in other products. Google has dominance in search, but using that to kill off competitors for their lesser-liked products isn't fair. > They have achieved their dominance because their services are viewed as "best" by the majority of folks out there. Their search service is viewed as "best" my most, but that doesn't mean their reviews service is. That's what's at issue. Being the best at one thing shouldn't allow you to stifle people that are better at another thing. That is certainly not best for consumers. If Google were 20% of search traffic, they could do many things because there's no dominance at issue. Since Google is the vast majority of search traffic, they can effectively eliminate most competitors. Starting a reviews site? Your listings will fall below our own regardless of their merit. Starting a videos site, YouTube alternatives will always be shown first even if it's not what the user is looking for. YouTube should be popular on its own merit, not based on Google using its search dominance to choke competitors. Google's reviews should be popular on their own merit, not based on Google using its search dominance to kill off Yelp. I do want to clarify that I'm not saying that Google is guilty of doing this, but that when you get to a certain market dominance, you can kill off competitors that are better than you by starving them rather than by being better than them. It's important that third-parties can compete with Google's non-search services without having Google's search service unreasonably favor Google's non-search services.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
It is ok to be dominant in a product. You aren't, however, allowed to use the dominance in one product to gain you dominance in other products. Unfortunately there are countless counterexamples. It's an interesting ideal, but without court action it's toothless. And court action risks having a chilling effect on certain kinds of positive forces.
- foota 9y ago
  OP mentions it, but this was what bit Microsoft in United States v Microsoft (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C...)
notatoad 9y ago
>It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas I think it's a stretch to say that searching for HVAC business listings and searching for HVAC business reviews are really different markets. If google had an HVAC subsidiary and they suppressed all search results and ads for competing HVAC companies, that would be abusing their dominant position in the search market to create dominance in another market. But is it really monopolistic behaviour to use their web search dominance to succeed in a slightly more specific sector of the web search market? You can use google to find reviews of products and services. They advertise alongside those search results. That is their core business. Yelp is a straight-up competitor. "Google is better than us in the market we compete in" isn't a valid anti-trust complaint.
- simion314 9y ago
  I think the point here is that Google is not returning the best results but pushing it's own other services on top of the list even if in this case other review services are better.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    And even when the searcher is VERY specific that they want Yelp...it's right in the query.

tuxracer 9y ago

> nobody if forced (except for perhaps android users) to use Chrome Unlike iOS you can install different browsers on Android directly from the Play Store. These can actually be different browsers with their own rendering engines not just alternative UIs on top of Chrome. Firefox on Android for example uses the actual Firefox rendering engine, not Chrome.

ekianjo 9y ago
You can, but by default you get Chrome, which is about the same thing people were fighting Microsoft over in the Netscape-IE days, but this time on Android.
- tuxracer 9y ago
  That case created a misconception that refuses to die... There's nothing inherently illegal about having a default app or product. There's also nothing inherently illegal about having a popular app or product. The reason Microsoft got in trouble is because it was not only found that they had a monopoly in a particular market, but that they obtained some of that market share illegally through shady contracts effectively forbidding OEMs from offering alternative OSes, etc... They were then found to have used that illegally obtained monopoly to take over a completely different market in part by bundling IE with Windows and punishing OEMs who sought to including alternate browsers and completely disallowing the removal of IE.
- pound 9y ago
  one more thing to mention about that default chrome on android: you cannot install ad-blocker there. you may install firefox and still will have a lot of time links opened in built-in chrome, on android
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  The difference being that Apple has a huge percentage of the market share and Android isn't the only game in town.
  - 9y ago

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago

> Google is doing what is best for it's customers. But is it? Because right now I basically can't stop using Google services at this point because they pushed out many others from the market. I would however greatly prefer some competition in the field.

nradov 9y ago
Which Google services no longer have competition?
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  Google Search for a start. Youtube is effectively standing alone in the space. Google Maps is completely dominating the space (in particular there is nothing that replaces the Earth product or the parts of Earth in maps). Gmail is taking over the world over here. Most local mail solutions are irrelevant at this point and the only real alternative to gmail even intentionally is outlook now. Chrome effectively took out the rest of the bunch as well, at least on desktop and Android. Lastly Google's ad business is something nobody can avoid.
  - nradov 9y ago
    Bing, Vimeo, Here, Yahoo Mail, Firefox Some ad blockers can block Google AdSense.
    - acdha 9y ago
      Do you run a website where those are significant traffic? It's been a long time since not-Google search has been more than a rounding error in my experience, with the exception of Yandex for Russia and Baidu for China if you have content for those audiences. Vimeo and Firefox are trying but the trajectory has not been good.
      - nradov 9y ago
        The question was about alternatives to Google services (which do exist in almost every category), not about the share of traffic that websites receive from various search engines. If websites want to avoid being overly dependent on Google then they're going to have to get creative and figure out ways to drive traffic other than search.

haltingthoughts 9y ago

Looking at what is best for consumers is missing the point. The point is that when companies use leverage in one market to help themselves or hurt competitors unfairly in other markets it stifles competition. It's hard to be a web browser company when it comes bundled with the OS. Do you really want a world where you choose Apple, Google, or Amazon once for everything everywhere and that is the only choice you get? Or do you want Unix philosophy for businesses and mix and match however you feel?

baddox 9y ago
Isn't stifling competition only bad if it harms consumers? I don't understand how what's best for consumers isn't the point.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  As long as there is credible competition, market forces work. When Google (or MS, or Amazon, or...) successfully destroy all of their competition, that's when consumers suffer, and that's when it's too late for regulators to effectively solve the problem. See the cable/telco duopolies for an example of that problem in action. So, sure. The fight to destroy all competitors is good for consumers while it lasts. Once it's over and there's a monopoly or cartel (as in the case of last-mile internet), the consumer is at the mercy of the monopolist. History indicates the monopolist will not be benevolent. History also indicates the monopolist will leverage their increased power to manipulate the legal environment to prevent new competitors from springing up. In addition to the telcos, the fossil fuel industry is an example of that lately; despite renewables being cheaper and creating more jobs, more than half of our elected officials in the US are working hard to ensure another decade of fossil fuel energy dominance.
- haltingthoughts 9y ago
  I should have said looking at whether it is harming consumers now isn't the point. It's how it harms consumers over time. The chilling effect on innovation, the monoculture/fragility, the lock-in will hurt consumers in the long run.

MichaelBurge 9y ago

These anti-trust laws were originally created to whack railroad companies, which had huge capital investments and "natural monopolies". Google does have some investment in its data centers, but people never make the explicit argument that the $11 billion/year in data centers is what causes them to be a monopoly. They make the much more abstract "market dominance" argument that I don't buy. The only thing that I'd consider a monopoly in the same spirit would be the ISPs. It's stupid to dig up the streets twice just for "competition", so there's a natural monopoly. And it'd probably cost untold billions to rebuild it.

euske 9y ago

I find it amusing how their argument is similar to the MS' antitrust argument in 90s. Microsoft: "An OS should include everything. Third party apps aren't needed. It's only good for consumers." Google: "A search engine should include everything. Third party websites aren't needed. It's only good for consumers."

bdcravens 9y ago
More interesting is the HN (and elsewhere) crowd that never relents on Google apologetics, yet presumably would be (and among those older, were) among the Microsoft critics.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  People's allegiances and opinions often settle in when they're younger, and they will stick to those brand loyalties for decades into the future. A lot of us grew up (or got into tech) during the Microsoft lawsuit days, which set in that view, and when Google came around, they were a breath of fresh air. It's really hard for people to realize that times have changed and the tables have turned.
- criddell 9y ago
  You're describing me and it pretty much comes down to trust. I trust Google a lot more than I ever trusted Microsoft back when they were the bully.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Why do you trust Google a lot more? What did they do to deserve your trust?
    - nashashmi 9y ago
      They gave things away for free.
      - 9y ago

guessbest 9y ago

For me Google is the best search on technical issues and research. When it comes down to touchy political and social issues, Bing and DuckDuckGo beat Google every time. In fact I don't even use Google to look up things I see in the news. It is always skewed. I completely avoid Google News.

millisecond 9y ago
Honest question, how is it skewed? Not a fan of google news myself for other reasons but never felt they forced a PoV.
- ionised 9y ago
  They filter and service your results based on what they think you want to see. Filter bubbling.

annexrichmond 9y ago

> Google is doing what is best for it's customers except it has been shown that the organic search results rank Yelp listings higher than Google's Local listings thus they are, in fact, displaying worse results at the top. Unless you believe Google's search product sucks I think this proves they aren't doing what's best for customers at all, they are doing what's best for them. Keep in mind they are trying to develop Google Maps into a social review platform where you can write reviews, order delivery, etc. that seems similar to Yelp. Is it not clear they are using their Search monopoly to get more content on their own, currently worse, local reviews platform to have it become more dominant in the long run?

themacguffinman 9y ago
Except if you look at the screenshot in Stoppelman's tweet, it's clear that Google's Local listings are displayed as advertisements. The Local section is unambiguously tagged as "Sponsored". Yelp and Local rankings aren't comparable. Unless you think Google shouldn't be allowed to run their own advertising systems?

cakedoggie 9y ago

Wow, what a childish attitude.

nashashmi 9y ago

I like Google too. And I like the search engine returning products if it thinks they are relevant. But the issue behind EU commission was that they found Google purposely lower the ranks of relevant competitor's results nearly off the front page without merit. The typical argument is that Google can do that because it is their search agent. But they did not express it explicitly in their terms of service.

quadrangle 9y ago

It's not about whether a monopoly is fair or "unfair", it's about whether it provides power that they can abuse and is thus worse for the public interest. Google got their monopoly fairly enough, maintain it through a mix of fair and questionable practices, and definitely uses their monopoly now in ways that are anti-competitive.

vadym909 9y ago

Whoah. Hold on. The problem is not with Google offering a Review service for HVAC companies. If the Google reviews are more comprehensive and valuable than Yelp- by all means have them show up in the organic listings- for that matter even use up your own budget to take up the sponsored space. But don't pretend that you've now got a new feature as part of search (taking up the sponsored box as a legal maneuver) that offers a similar service like Yelp and that it is part of your Google Search service. That is PURE EVIL.

georgeecollins 9y ago

The problem is that Google does what customers want selectively. For example, I don't think I want my search results to be as dominated by ads as they are today. Once the competition is beaten, they may change their priorities from giving the customer and the partners what they want, to doing what is best for Google. Compare youtube of five years ago to now. There are many more ads and many more restrictions on how partners can place ads. If youtube had started with those rules and that much advertising I think it would have been less successful. There is a pattern for all internet companies where they say to users and partners: look how great our platform is. And then when they achieve dominance they change the rules. The best protection is competition.