7 ms·

You might be right, but a company’s abuse of dominant position isn’t defined by the quality of their competitor’s offer.

sunstone 8y ago
Yelp has been horrible since day one. If google has or has not abused its position Yelp is not the standard we would use to determine that.
- camillomiller 8y ago
  This makes no sense. Yelp could be the worst company ever created, but if they had market share and Google worked to seize that market with unfair practices, that counts as abuse of dominant position. There is a dangerous conflation of two very distinct categories in your line of thought.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    The problem comes with the fact that it's possible to game algorithms. We have examples where a poor service or website becomes (remains) popular, because they're good at gaming the system. Eg Pinterest. Or in the case of the example they brought up in the video, where they counted the number of reviews you could game that system by just creating fake reviews or trying to just get more of them through non-organic ways.
    - dazc 8y ago
      'Eg Pinterest' A classic example of a business that Google should be using their dominance against, but aren't.
      - madads 8y ago
        In a roundabout way Google are more like Pinterest than you think. Both utilising other people’s content. All just glorified databases with different UI really. Yelp kind of has original content in people’s opinion of db entries. YouTube however is slightly different since people post short and long form video on which is mostly original. Interesting.
        dazc 8y ago
        'In a roundabout way Google are more like Pinterest than you think. Both utilising other people’s content.' True, which makes me wonder why Google don't just add a bit of Pinterest-style functionality and then start applying search quality guidelines against Pinterest? I know there are copyright issues but I expect Google would do a better job of linking to the original source - something Pinterest seem unable to do at all?
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - obelix_ 8y ago
    If think the point being made is Amazon didn't suffer the same fate as Yelp wrt to book reviews because Amazon had a better product than whatever Google produced.
    - notyourday 8y ago
      You mean Amazon actually has a product. Until yelp started doing deliveries, order now and cashback its product was a content farm. I know a few people in the restaurant industry (owners/managers). They all say the same thing: at best engaging yelp ( and advertising on yelp ) is a non-negative. It does not bring enough new customers to justify its expense.
      - mjcl 8y ago
        The best yelp engagement I saw worked with customers directly: a property manager ran a raffle for half off a months rent. To enter, you just had to leave a review on yelp. They didn’t explicitly ask for good reviews, but the majority were pretty positive. For about the same amount that yelp wanted for sponsorship, they got over 30 real, quality reviews that complimented the recent improvements that had been made.
    - jacksmith21006 8y ago
      Exactly. Do a product search and Amazon one of the top links even though Amazon banned any company on their market place from being allowed to sell several Google products and even hijacked people looking. Yelp sucks so not a top link. Seems to be working in a fair manner.
  - MikkoFinell 8y ago
    > seize that market with unfair practices Please describe what you consider a fair practice to seize a market in general terms.
  - bobdole1234 8y ago
    Google spent billions to develop the huge data processing systems and algorithms to eventually leave Yelp behind, like a freight train leaves a horse behind. Yelp missed the industrialization of their industry by machine. Knowing what you're doing isn't monopolistic.
- pwinnski 8y ago
  The enemy of my enemy is... still horrible.
dazc 8y ago
But, maybe, abusing a dominant position is a lot easier when the competitor's offer is so poor? For a lot of popular queries the results are dominated by paid directories, aggregators and such that offer no great value to consumers. Google's listings tend to be more accurate in terms of location and the reviews more reliable.
dalbasal 8y ago
You are right, at least in the traditional anti-trust-ish legal sense as I understand it. In a wider more pedestrian sense, there is a some kettle-pot-black involved here, at least in my opinion. Yelp's a little monopolistic middle man. Everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp because everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp. Market dominance today is the main ingredient for dominance tomorrow. Everyone uses Google search, maps, phones etc. Google gets all the data & ad revenue. They use this to maintain their dominance. Pick your euphemism for this position: momentum, network effects, buffet's moat, thiel's-monopoly, dominance, viral feedback loops.... Whatever you call it, a restaurant can't opt out of yelp, just like a website can't opt out of google. Their rules are the rules. There is no option B. A downstream company can be harmed when Google competes direct (AKA the terror of 2006), when they redirect traffic to alternative web pages or disrupts market dominance downstream, intentionally or otherwise. This is like Yelp's relationship with restaurants. Yelp can stop sending a restaurant customers. Google can stop sending Yelp users. There are no "market dynamics," no "invisible hands," price signals or whatnot. There is no "market" to impose discipline in the way the laissez-faire idealization does on paper. So... I'm kind of torn. I want to see far more complaints, cases & legislation targeting market dominance, size and monopoly. On the other hand, the hypocrisy...
- andrepd 8y ago
  For what's worth, I never used Yelp in my life. I seem to only remember using Tripadvisor.
- camillomiller 8y ago
  I agree that the matter is multi-faceted, of course. I just wanted to point out that we can't use a competing service's quality to assess whether market dominance was exerted or not. Neither I think it can be an extenuating factor. One isn't any less a murderer if they kill another murderer. Should a different case (maybe a class action) be brought against Yelp for abusing its position and momentum to force restaurants into joining the platform? Probably yes, but it would be a different case which, albeit rightful, has nothing to do with the Yelp-Google case.
  - 8y ago
kinsomo 8y ago
> You might be right, but a company’s abuse of dominant position isn’t defined by the quality of their competitor’s offer. And the assumption that Yelp's offer is of poorer quality is debatable. Google's own algorithm apparently often ranks its content lower than its competitors in organic search results. The second video shows this: they created proof-of-concept plugin that uses Google's own organic search results to power a clone of Google+ local: https://youtu.be/k9UqqmIJW4g https://youtu.be/k9UqqmIJW4g

sunstone 8y ago

Yelp has been horrible since day one. If google has or has not abused its position Yelp is not the standard we would use to determine that.

camillomiller 8y ago
This makes no sense. Yelp could be the worst company ever created, but if they had market share and Google worked to seize that market with unfair practices, that counts as abuse of dominant position. There is a dangerous conflation of two very distinct categories in your line of thought.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  The problem comes with the fact that it's possible to game algorithms. We have examples where a poor service or website becomes (remains) popular, because they're good at gaming the system. Eg Pinterest. Or in the case of the example they brought up in the video, where they counted the number of reviews you could game that system by just creating fake reviews or trying to just get more of them through non-organic ways.
  - dazc 8y ago
    'Eg Pinterest' A classic example of a business that Google should be using their dominance against, but aren't.
    - madads 8y ago
      In a roundabout way Google are more like Pinterest than you think. Both utilising other people’s content. All just glorified databases with different UI really. Yelp kind of has original content in people’s opinion of db entries. YouTube however is slightly different since people post short and long form video on which is mostly original. Interesting.
      - dazc 8y ago
        'In a roundabout way Google are more like Pinterest than you think. Both utilising other people’s content.' True, which makes me wonder why Google don't just add a bit of Pinterest-style functionality and then start applying search quality guidelines against Pinterest? I know there are copyright issues but I expect Google would do a better job of linking to the original source - something Pinterest seem unable to do at all?
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- obelix_ 8y ago
  If think the point being made is Amazon didn't suffer the same fate as Yelp wrt to book reviews because Amazon had a better product than whatever Google produced.
  - notyourday 8y ago
    You mean Amazon actually has a product. Until yelp started doing deliveries, order now and cashback its product was a content farm. I know a few people in the restaurant industry (owners/managers). They all say the same thing: at best engaging yelp ( and advertising on yelp ) is a non-negative. It does not bring enough new customers to justify its expense.
    - mjcl 8y ago
      The best yelp engagement I saw worked with customers directly: a property manager ran a raffle for half off a months rent. To enter, you just had to leave a review on yelp. They didn’t explicitly ask for good reviews, but the majority were pretty positive. For about the same amount that yelp wanted for sponsorship, they got over 30 real, quality reviews that complimented the recent improvements that had been made.
  - jacksmith21006 8y ago
    Exactly. Do a product search and Amazon one of the top links even though Amazon banned any company on their market place from being allowed to sell several Google products and even hijacked people looking. Yelp sucks so not a top link. Seems to be working in a fair manner.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  > seize that market with unfair practices Please describe what you consider a fair practice to seize a market in general terms.
- bobdole1234 8y ago
  Google spent billions to develop the huge data processing systems and algorithms to eventually leave Yelp behind, like a freight train leaves a horse behind. Yelp missed the industrialization of their industry by machine. Knowing what you're doing isn't monopolistic.
pwinnski 8y ago
The enemy of my enemy is... still horrible.

dazc 8y ago

But, maybe, abusing a dominant position is a lot easier when the competitor's offer is so poor? For a lot of popular queries the results are dominated by paid directories, aggregators and such that offer no great value to consumers. Google's listings tend to be more accurate in terms of location and the reviews more reliable.

dalbasal 8y ago

You are right, at least in the traditional anti-trust-ish legal sense as I understand it. In a wider more pedestrian sense, there is a some kettle-pot-black involved here, at least in my opinion. Yelp's a little monopolistic middle man. Everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp because everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp. Market dominance today is the main ingredient for dominance tomorrow. Everyone uses Google search, maps, phones etc. Google gets all the data & ad revenue. They use this to maintain their dominance. Pick your euphemism for this position: momentum, network effects, buffet's moat, thiel's-monopoly, dominance, viral feedback loops.... Whatever you call it, a restaurant can't opt out of yelp, just like a website can't opt out of google. Their rules are the rules. There is no option B. A downstream company can be harmed when Google competes direct (AKA the terror of 2006), when they redirect traffic to alternative web pages or disrupts market dominance downstream, intentionally or otherwise. This is like Yelp's relationship with restaurants. Yelp can stop sending a restaurant customers. Google can stop sending Yelp users. There are no "market dynamics," no "invisible hands," price signals or whatnot. There is no "market" to impose discipline in the way the laissez-faire idealization does on paper. So... I'm kind of torn. I want to see far more complaints, cases & legislation targeting market dominance, size and monopoly. On the other hand, the hypocrisy...

andrepd 8y ago
For what's worth, I never used Yelp in my life. I seem to only remember using Tripadvisor.
camillomiller 8y ago
I agree that the matter is multi-faceted, of course. I just wanted to point out that we can't use a competing service's quality to assess whether market dominance was exerted or not. Neither I think it can be an extenuating factor. One isn't any less a murderer if they kill another murderer. Should a different case (maybe a class action) be brought against Yelp for abusing its position and momentum to force restaurants into joining the platform? Probably yes, but it would be a different case which, albeit rightful, has nothing to do with the Yelp-Google case.
- 8y ago

kinsomo 8y ago

> You might be right, but a company’s abuse of dominant position isn’t defined by the quality of their competitor’s offer. And the assumption that Yelp's offer is of poorer quality is debatable. Google's own algorithm apparently often ranks its content lower than its competitors in organic search results. The second video shows this: they created proof-of-concept plugin that uses Google's own organic search results to power a clone of Google+ local: https://youtu.be/k9UqqmIJW4g https://youtu.be/k9UqqmIJW4g