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Google to Comply with EU Search Demands to Avoid More Fines
- tareqak 9y agoTechmeme summary: Google says it's sharing a plan to comply with EU shopping search demands today; the search giant had initially said it “respectfully disagreed” with the ruling
- tareqak 9y agoWhat's wrong with my posting of this summary?
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIt is kinda surreal that a company obeying the law is headline news. Note that they appear to have responded on the final day allowed. Throughout this process, Google has repeatedly asked for extensions to review the claims or come up with a response for all of these cases. It seems like, knowing the result, Google has attempted to draw out this process as long as legally possible. The PR damage from keeping this case ongoing presumably pales in comparison to the profit from their unlawful conduct.
- tareqak 9y agoI find it interesting how the fiduciary duty towards shareholders given priority over obeying the law. My initial instinct is to basically assume that the former requires the latter in some way.
- charlesdm 9y agoThe fine makes it worth complying. It's 5% of global daily revenue per day, which is significant. It's also not tax deductible. If the fine would be $10,000 a day, Google wouldn't care.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoThere's no fiduciary duty to maximize profits for shareholders. Google was under no legal obligation to break the law here.
- dmitrygr 9y agoIs your name Wesley Mouch by chance?
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoI don't read Rand so I couldn't tell you. But corporate fiduciary duty is extremely misunderstood. Google would not have violated any fiduciary duty by refusing to engage in the actions which have attracted this attention and it would not have violated any fiduciary duty by fessing up and paying the fine. EDIT: after reading the conservapedia entry on Wesley I found this comment a lot funnier. Unfortunately I couldn't be Mouch, it was said of him that "What I like most about you, Mouch, is that you do not talk too much" and I don't think anyone has ever accused me of that. (:
- tareqak 9y agoSorry then, my understanding was incorrect. I'm not sure where to look for the precise definition of "fiduciary". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary fiduciary: A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=744 http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=744 fiduciary: 1) n. from the Latin fiducia, meaning "trust," a person (or a business like a bank or stock brokerage) who has the power and obligation to act for another (often called the beneficiary) under circumstances which require total trust, good faith and honesty. 2) adj. defining a situation or relationship in which a person is acting as a fiduciary for another. http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=745 http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=745 fiduciary relationship: n. where one person places complete confidence in another in regard to a particular transaction or one's general affairs or business. http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=599 http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=599 duty of care: n. a requirement that a person act toward others and the public with the watchfulness, attention, caution and prudence that a reasonable person in the circumstances would use.
- amelius 9y agoIsn't the search bar at Amazon.com doing essentially the same thing?
- btian 9y agoEU doesn't think Amazon.com is a monopoly. That's also why Apple has no problem bundling Safari in their OS.
- delecti 9y agoIt's also because Apple makes their devices. MS was mandating IE being included alongside Windows to other companies.
- polishTar 9y agoThe crazy thing is that in product search (which is what the lawsuit was all about), they're even larger than Google.
- s17n 9y agoI don't think that the eu has considered the question of whether Amazon is a monopoly. Ironically this decision pretty much ensures that they will be, at least in the eu.
- Coding_Cat 9y agoThis is not yet something to fear at all. If Amazon is even available in your part of Europe it tends to not be that great. There are plenty of online stores in Europe though.
- toyg 9y agoI know the UK will soon not be "part of Europe", but Amazon is pretty great here. I know a few people in Italy who are over the moon about amazon.it as well. I don't know about other countries.
- cdumler 9y ago
- Teknoman117 9y agokinda interesting that EU law requires you to reduce the usefulness of your products if you have too much success...
- ars 9y agoIt's called janteloven in Nordic countries, I suspect other parts of the EU have a similar idea.
- icebraining 9y agoGoogle isn't being punished for being big, but for how they use their dominant position.
- Hermel 9y agoIt is a trade-off between short-term and long-term usefulness. If Google is using its market power to protect its own services from competition, that leads to less consumer choice and less usefulness in the long run, as fewer competitors will survive.
- hadrien01 9y agoWell actually, in that case, Google would be forced to show relevant results and stop discriminating rival sites in favor of its own shopping search service.
- 9y ago
- avar 9y agoNPR's Planet Money had a great recent episode summarizing the whole situation. It includes an interview with one of the people whose complaint led to the EU's initial investigation: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/04/541643346/episode-787-google-is-big-is-that-bad http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/04/541643346/episo...
- Animats 9y agoNo, Google is merely talking about complying. They haven't actually done anything yet. They have until September 28 to do something, if they can't stall further.
- readams 9y agoEd Felten's article on this from a couple of months ago provides an excellent analysis. https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/06/28/european-authorities-fine-google-for-search-tactics/ https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/06/28/european-authoritie... "At this point, I need to put some of my cards on the table and admit that I know more about this topic, having worked on the FTC’s investigation which asked some of the same questions. But that investigation was confidential, for good reasons, and I will not violate that confidentiality. All I’ll say is that the FTC had the legal power to compel answers to factual questions about Google’s practices (and an obligation to keep the answers confidential) and, having conducted a thorough investigation, the FTC decided not to bring a case against Google."
- flexie 9y agoSo 'Trust me, I can't say why, but they are okay'. FTC applies US rules, the EU Commission applies EU law. You can stay clear of one while still violating the other.
- sametmax 9y agoAnd given that Google is an American companies, there is a strong possibility that they got helped for the FTC that they will not have with the EUC.
- Aissen 9y agoYou seem to forget that a fundamental number: while Google Search has between 68% and 80% market share in the US, it has between 90% and 95% in most of Europe. The difference between being a monopoly or not.
- yoz-y 9y agoInteresting. Is this because Bing/Yahoo have better regional results in US? I try to use duck duck go when I can but I can definitely see that for local searches it is worse than Google.
- rasz 9y agoIn related news Intel still hasnt paid its fine for directly bribing retailers and computer manufacturers in exchange for refusing to sell AMD processors.
- ilaksh 9y agoGoogle _is_ a monopoly and so are Amazon, Microsoft, Uber, Walmart, and several others. I think we will eventually replace these oversized companies with something like sophisticated semantic protocols.