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U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly
- formerly_proven 6y agoIf you are accusing someone of protecting an illegal monopoly, you are implying there is an illegal monopoly. Does this mean they will attempt to split Google up?
- parasubvert 6y agoSplitting up is only one remedy. Often it leads to a consent decree, which is effectively a negotiated but forced settlement (e.g. fines, restructuring, etc.) and contract that binds future behavior.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LatteLazy 6y agoThey were about to do this back in May I think [0]. A few months back, State AGs were all within days of doing the same too, that still hasn't happened either. Call me when a thing happens. [0]. https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/15/21260494/google-antitrust-lawsuit-online-ad-monopoly-texas-justice-department https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/15/21260494/google-antitrust...
- themgt 6y agoOK. You only had to wait an hour[1]: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department and 11 states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet Inc’s Google on Tuesday for allegedly breaking the law in using its market power to fend off rivals. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tech-antitrust-google/u-s-government-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-google-idUSKBN2751OC https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tech-antitrust-google/u-s...
- LatteLazy 6y agoPardon me while I eat this humble pie...
- cageface 6y agoAttorney General William P. Barr, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, has played an unusually active role in the investigation. He pushed Justice Department lawyers to bring the case by the end of September, prompting pushback from attorneys who wanted more time and complained of political influence. He has spoken publicly about the inquiry for months and set tight deadlines for the prosecutors leading the effort. I’m not opposed to some anti trust action across the entire industry but making this a partisan election issue is just going to discredit the whole thing and obscure the real issues.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoEspecially if it ends up being ineffective due to rushing. It is not like Google hires no lawyers.
- toyg 6y agoI hate Trump but here his admin is right to rush things. Unless the issue is put on the books before November, chances are that a Dem administration will quietly scrap it (possibly in exchange for concessions on the surveillance side, considering who represents California...). Obviously this should have been done sooner, but it’s Trump we’re talking about, it’s half a miracle if it gets done at all.
- cageface 6y agoGiven that this case is likely to drag on for years it seems much more important to start it on as solid a legal footing as possible than to slip it past the wire before an election.
- sjg007 6y agoWhy would dems scrap it? That’s complete nonsense.
- GenericsMotors 6y ago>Why would dems scrap it? https://www.projectveritas.com/news/insider-blows-whistle-exec-reveals-google-plan-to-prevent-trump-situation-in-2020-on-hidden-cam/ https://www.projectveritas.com/news/insider-blows-whistle-ex...
- parasubvert 6y agoThis one was obviously coming. The question is what the specific issues outlined in the lawsuit will be, and what possible remedies are. Prominently allowing search engine choice in Chrome, Android, etc. may be one part of it. Splitting search off from the rest of Google might be another. Regulating search overall might be one but that carries a lot of risks.
- tantalor 6y ago> Prominently allowing search engine choice That's already happening in Europe: https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/update-android-search-providers-europe/ https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/updat... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/02/google-to-let-eu-users-choose-their-default-search-provider-on-android.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/02/google-to-let-eu-users-choos...
- nojito 6y agoThey royally screw over DDG https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-elimination/ https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-...
- sct202 6y agoHow are tiny names like Info.com and PrivacyWall are able to pay for slots over DDG? PrivacyWall has like 3 people on LinkedIn. https://www.android.com/choicescreen-winners/ https://www.android.com/choicescreen-winners/
- tantalor 6y agoDDG complains they can't win the auction: search engines who squeeze money out of every last drop of people's personal information (including ISPs and arbitrage players that will participate in next year's auctions) are easily able to outbid search engines like us that respect people's privacy https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-auctions/ https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-auctions/
- ArtWomb 6y agoWatershed moment in how we "price" monopolistic power. It's not "market share" or "barriers to entry" or even engaging in "anti-competitive behavior" anymore. But more about how corporations can control the free flow of information. Much harder to make that case for the government I should imagine. What's surprising to me is how un-monopolistic Google's share of the Cloud + AI market is under its control, considering how many of the techniques were invented there. I'd put it at under 25%. The real behemoth is NVidia + ARM. GPU shortages are endemic. And the cost of a new entrant to the market just to construct a fab is probably $20B+. Ask Intel XE how much they are spending just to keep up ;)
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoChip is probably one of the few spaces, where oligopoly or duopoly makes sense ( though it is still scary ). The entry barriers are not artificial. It is genuinely hard to start from the ground up just based on the level of progress made thus far. With Google that argument is harder. A person could whip up G level search engine, mail, and maybe even youtube equivalent, but moving all those people ( but to make them consider your alternative would be impossibly painful to do ). I will admit that NVidia and ARM scares me, but I am not sure what can be done here.
- opnitro 6y agoRegulation and/or state ownership?
- gipp 6y ago> A person could whip up G level search engine, mail, and maybe even youtube equivalent Hi Dunning, meet Kruger.
- Jugurtha 6y agoThe "This could be built in a week-end" and "Why don't you just [something that only 1/1000 can do and takes so much time]". See also: https://blog.codinghorror.com/code-its-trivial https://blog.codinghorror.com/code-its-trivial
- BearsAreCool 6y agoWhy is it that this is only attacking google search? I'm not that well versed in antitrust legal matters but why isn't there attempts to break up the broader Alpbabet into sensible smaller companies that each do their own thing? In my head that seems like it should be simpler.
- TuringNYC 6y agoTo me, it would be disappointing if they broke up the firm to the point where R&D has to survive w/o subsidies. US science research funding has not kept up. I'm glad the likes of Google have kept pace with corporate R&D. Consider for a moment where self-driving-car technology would be w/o Google subsidizing it. Or mapping technology. Or like a dozen other technologies. Were these supposed to pop up w/ VC struggling from round to round? Many of the VC backed companies themselves have a put option of being acquired by Google/FAANG -- so if that exit is gone, it would be even worse.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- AlexandrB 6y ago> so if that exit is gone, it would be even worse Worse for whom? As a customer, I groan every time a product I use gets acquired by FAANG because I know it's going to get shuttered in a few months. Edit: Or in the case of large acquisitions like Instagram slowly integrated with the parent company's shitty products.
- TuringNYC 6y ago>> Worse for whom? Worse for those in the real world where you have payroll obligations, rent, AWS bills, health insurance, and mortgages. As a customer I feel the same way. However, having been a co-founder and CTO of a startup, let me tell you the real story: - Most startups are not like snapchat, they are not once-in-a-generation unicorns. - Most startups have huge burn, especially consumer-entertainment type startups (imagine how much network bandwidth YouTube was burning before Google purchased them.) - Startups are at the mercy of funding rounds and sometimes the market itsself can get away from you, through no fault of your own startup - FAANG provide a put option -- "whats the worse that can happen? we get acquired by X" which allows people to take on more risk while trying to swing for the fences. - It is arguable how long darling consumer apps could survive as independent when consumers often dont want to pay money. It is a catch 22 -- the startup is told the product has to be free but they are also not allowed to seek bigger coffers to actually subsidize it So in the end -- sure, I agree with you, but who pays? Esp if this is something massive with network effects. Perhaps I can pay for WhatsApp, but can my grandma pay for it with her meager overseas salary? And if she cannot, how is the network sustainable? I'm not saying I disagree with you, but I dont know what the solution is other than the current one.
- theandrewbailey 6y agoMicrosoft was having some antitrust problems when Google was founded, so Google said "don't be evil." Now Google got big enough and lived long enough to become a villain.
- woeirua 6y agoFrankly I’m surprised to see that they’re going after Google first. Amazon and/or Facebook are much more vulnerable to an anti-trust lawsuit, and just based on some of the public information that we already have they have likely engaged in anticompetitive behavior. I fully expect that antitrust action against FB/Amazon will continue regardless of who wins the election.
- gremlinsinc 6y agoNot sure about Facebook, I mean there's reddit, twitter, etc. Each w/ it's own niche...but Amazon, and Apple, imho are the biggest offenders. Amazon would be first on my list.
- basch 6y agoOn one hand, theres no way Facebook is a monopoly. On the other hand, the question isnt really whether it is, but if they are being anticompetitive.
- ToFab123 6y agoThey hold the power to change an elections. No politicians like that.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agounless you are changing them in the direction wanted.
- Mountain_Skies 6y agoShort term, yes, but what guarantee does any political group have that the tech companies won't turn on them at some point? Facebook in particular has an ever graying userbase, which means they're naturally going to continue to lean more and more conservative.
- newbie578 6y agoI do wonder how this will be played out. I cannot see a negative outcome for Google, even if there is one, will it trigger a domino effect among other monopolies (Apple, Facebook, etc.).
- treis 6y agoThis doesn't seem like it's going to work. Given a choice between search engines pretty much everyone is going to choose Google. I think there are definitely areas that Google acts anti-competitively. But search? The competitors are a URL away. And few use them because Google is just flat out better.
- cwxm 6y agoThe question I would posit is: Do the actions from Google that the Justice Department consider to be anti-competitive prevent competitors from becoming better? For example, let's say I could be curious about DuckDuckGo if I had to choose a default search engine when I got an Apple device instead of Google being the default, then that could be revenue to DuckDuckGo for them to improve their search engine.
- ry_co 6y agoRegarding DuckDuckGo, my understanding is that though they have their own web crawler, most of the information is coming from Bing and Yahoo, who are the only direct competitors to Google.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bduerst 6y agoYou're mostly correct. Yahoo has been Bing for years, and DuckDuckGo pulls from Bing and Yandex - the latter being mostly for searches in Russian.
- ColinHayhurst 6y agoI concur. https://www.searchenginemap.com/ https://www.searchenginemap.com/
- llimos 6y agos/an Apple device/Chrome/
- smeeth 6y agoI wish this anti-trust action was around their dumping of free services (mail, docs, calendar) and not search. But no, thanks to Reagan era hand-waving that monopoly power can only harm consumers and not companies we can't have nice things.
- ratww 6y agoBut the dumping of free services also did harm consumers. First it caused consumers to be left with a single choice, and then with none.
- CogentHedgehog 6y agoGoogle definitely needs anti-trust scrutiny. The timing is suspicious though. Could political motivation be at play here? And why didn't Facebook get sued too? They're just as anti-competitive. Was there an implicit protection agreement reached at one of those private dinners Zuckerberg had at the White House? And what about Amazon? There's a whole laundry list of anti-competitive practices happening with their online sales and marketplace.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- CydeWeys 6y agoAnd don't forget the biggest gorilla of the bunch, Apple, with its locked down walled garden that it gets a 30% cut of. Maybe the next administration will give equal scrutiny to all of the big tech companies rather than seemingly targeting just one of them.
- iscrewyou 6y agoThat’s not a monopoly. It’s something to scrutinize but it’s not a monopoly.
- grapevan 6y agoIt really depends on market definition to be honest. If one were to define a market for native app distribution services on iOS smartphones, then I think there is a real argument that Apple is a monopolist that is extracting monopoly rents.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoAnd there is a strong case for defining the market that way, because it represents a discrete set of customers. Approximately none of the people who use the iOS app store also use Google Play, because it doesn't work on their phones. Whereas if you say "the Walmart market for windshield wipers" that isn't a discrete set of customers, because the same people can walk across the street to Target and buy windshield wipers for the same car over there.
- tsjq 6y agoIs this a yet another election stunt ?
- tsjq 6y agoWould the structuring of Alphabet ensure that no solid change comes out of this case, even in the best case judgement scenario?
- known 6y ago"If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. And if it stops moving subsidize it" --Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
- use-net 6y agoway to go!
- stevespang 6y agoBill Gates used the same contracts to maintain Windows monopoly. Google is also a bastion of liberals.
- jonprobably 6y agoIf, on a whim, google blocks your name or business, what do you do? I found out by accident, and I think they have too much control. Earlier this year, Google suspended my ad words account. I don't know why but think it was their mistake. The sites and ads were ethical and well within their terms. Still, I’ve sent emails and letters without progress. It's frustrating not having an avenue to resolve the issue. Even more so because I'm in tech and though I understood these things. More so because I worked at google for a long time. In the suspension dialog they warn all accounts under my name or the domain names linked to the ad words account will be blocked. I don't depend on ad words. If I did, I would be completely out of luck. I'm not aware of an alternative ads network or search engine.
- Hamuko 6y ago>How do you survive on the web if google, on a whim, blocks your name, or business? What, as an individual?
- sova 6y agoOP likely means "as a company reliant on web discovery for clients"
- na85 6y ago>Google’s a monster. If they don’t want you on the net, there’s nothing you can do. That's hyperbole. I'm on the net and Google can't stop me by any white-hat means. I have a website hosted on non-Google infrastructure on a domain name registered with a non-Google registrar, and I don't rely on advertising to pay the bills. Have you considered a more ethical revenue stream that doesn't involve advertising and surveillance? There is life after AdWords.
- jonprobably 6y agoIf you are banned from AdWords, it affects your ranking in search.
- tk75x 6y ago
- unityByFreedom 6y agoRegional broadband ISP monopolies should have been dealt with first. Change my view.
- derivagral 6y agoWhen they started adding those "This site works better in Chrome" popups on their web properties I was fairly shocked; didn't MS get in trouble for essentially this & Windows/IE?
- the_only_law 6y agoI'm guessing I just don't understand the Microsoft/ IE antitrust case because everytime I read about it makes no sense what was done that was illegal.
- cma 6y agoIt wasn't illegal if they had done it without having a monopoly share.
- nycticorax 6y agoThis seems to be getting a lot of downvotes, but I think it's correct, strictly speaking. There are a lot of business practices that are legal up until the point where you've acquired sufficient market power. After that, antitrust law applies. Similarly, regulators don't care if two companies with negligible market share want to merge, but they may care a lot if the two dominant players in a market want to merge.
- sova 6y agoMicrosoft released an Operating System where the main portal of entry to the internet was also their own product. Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive behavior to dissuade users from having alternative browsers installed -- which is similar to a shopping mall starting its own jewelry store to compete with outside jewelry stores renting space in the mall. There are certain behaviors that are kosher, and there are certain behaviors that destroy competition in unsavory ways. Ultimately, the illegality was not able to be shown, and Microsoft started a [not-so-good] trend of acquiring competition rather than dissuading its existence and adoption. This is in some ways a lot worse than finding them guilty.
- ehsankia 6y ago
- uladzislau 6y ago#splitthemup I would say ;)
- use-net 6y agodismantle all monopolies!
- bbqmaster999 6y agoAntitrust was a disaster for Bell Labs, which gave us inventions like the transistor and Unix. Nothing as noteworthy after the breakup and string of acquisitions. In the same way I’m worried for all the moon shoot projects at these big companies if they are broken up. I suggest reading the Idea Factory and then see how you feel about breaking up big tech.
- AlexandrB 6y agoBell also forced you to rent their telephones if you wanted phone service. The old Bell was a disaster for consumers and Bell Labs does not excuse their monopolistic practices. As a counterpoint consider Xerox PARC, which brought us the GUI and Ethernet without Xerox fucking over their customers (too much). Edit: I find it funny that someone posting on "Hacker" News is defending a monopoly that extracts an ad tax from every startup and kills many innovative new companies by acquihire.
- bbqmaster999 6y agoYou really find it funny that someone on HN is defending the company whose resources and internal innovation culture lead to advances that are foundational to all the technology we work on today? So maybe they charged too much for their phone service, big deal. I’d argue that their contributions to science and engineering outweigh that.
- AlexandrB 6y agoSomehow, it's much rarer to see someone on HN defending the government, whose resources and internal innovation culture lead to advances that are foundational to all the technology that we work on today. So maybe they charged too much taxes, bid deal. I’d argue that their contributions to science and engineering outweigh that.
- throwaway2048 6y agoname some foundational advances Google has made. Throwing 100x more resources at AI ideas from the 70s isn't an foundational advance.
- redm 6y agoI’m much more interested in the Ad-tech Monopoly. The Doubleclick merger should have never been approved. “Other states are still considering their own cases related to Google’s search practices, and a large group of states is considering a case challenging Google’s power in the digital advertising market, The Wall Street Journal has reported. In the ad-technology market, Google owns industry-leading tools at every link in the complex chain between online publishers and advertisers. The Justice Department also continues to investigate Google’s ad-tech practices.” [1] [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-file-long-awaited-antitrust-suit-against-google-11603195203?mod=djemalertNEWS https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-file-long...
- scumcity 6y agoWherefore? FB and other such platforms are much better at display ads technology, as they don't care about user privacy at all. User tracking is the only real discriminator when it comes to display ads, where as search queries are very discriminating.
- mtgx 6y agoI agree, considering how much money they still make with Display Ads, and its potential to make so much more, it's amazing to me how Display Ads are still like 1/10 the quality of Facebook ads as a product for advertisers, and Facebook Ads is also a mess with all the bugs and random algorithm changes they make on a weekly basis, so that's saying something. It's not just about targeting. But the algorithm is also 10x worse and the UX is 10x worse, and often it's on purpose to get as much "dumb money" as they can, while of course shooting themselves in the foot, because the better long strategy would be to actually make it a quality product that gives people results.
- llimos 6y agoDuckDuckGo claim to make significantly less money per search than Google does, which seems to disprove that search queries are enough of a discriminator on their own. Source: https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-elimination/ https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-... Despite DuckDuckGo being robustly profitable since 2014, we have been priced out of this auction because we choose to not maximize our profits by exploiting our users. In practical terms, this means our commitment to privacy and a cleaner search experience translates into less money per search. This means we must bid less relative to other, profit-maximizing companies.
- criley2 6y agoShame for anyone who wanted a real shot at this case. The Trump admin is pushing an un-finished rush-job against Google because it's 14 days before the election and the administration is desperate for any hail mary to turn the polls around. Based on this alone, a political rush-job, you have to imagine Google will crush this. And there won't really be an opportunity to try again. Hard to not see this as a generational chance for Google to take total advantage of the political cluster-F in America and dominate the next decade or two.
- cblconfederate 6y agoWould be good for technology if they would be forced to at least divest Androidola. Ideally their ad monopoly would be broken but it seems a long shot
- sciurus 6y agoIs the text of the DoJ's filing publicly available? EDIT: Ars Technica is hosting it at https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/gov.uscourts.dcd_.223205.1.0_1.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/gov.u...
- r721 6y ago>DOJ's antitrust suit against Google has been filed in federal court in DC, here's the complaint: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7273457/10-20-20-US-v-Google-Complaint.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7273457/10-20-20-... https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1318560860680425474 https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1318560860680425474 UPD https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-monopolist-google-violating-antitrust-laws https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-monop...
- treis 6y agoI'm dumbfounded. Of all the things in the tech world they chose Google paying Apple, Samsung, et.al. to be the default search engine to sue over. That's not really evidence of Google blocking competition. That's evidence of phone manufacturers using their power in one market (phone sales) to extract cash out of another (search/ads).
- whimsicalism 6y ago> That's not really evidence of Google blocking competition. That's evidence of phone manufacturers using their power in one market (phone sales) to extract cash out of another (search/ads). No, I think it is a pretty clear example of rent-seeking on Google's behalf. > phone manufacturers using their power in one market Who has more market power - the disparate group of phone vendors who are legally barred from coordinating on things like this or the single actor that controls the only operating system package tenable for those phone vendors to use?
- treis 6y ago>Who has more market power The ones getting paid tens billions of dollars annually seems like the obvious answer to me.
- whimsicalism 6y ago> The ones getting paid tens billions of dollars annually seems like the obvious answer to me. So what, the seller on any side of a transaction is the one who has the market power? To make it simpler: if there was one employer in the entirety of Earth and 7 billion people who wanted a job - since the employer is paying the employee, the employee would have the market power?
- op03 6y agoThis should be done in collaboration with all other countries who are claiming the same thing. Global monopolists have to be handled globally.
- mrkramer 6y agoNothing will happen just like with Microsoft. DOJ is only doing this to scare them to ease and liberal their services. Google achieved dominant market position through legal and fair market competition. If you want to regulate them introduce Internet Search Engine laws do it the same for Internet Social Networks and Internet Social media. They are not breaking Google up that's for sure. Listen what Larry Page said "data in data out" with Facebook and with Google. If internet service allows you to export your data and move it to the competing service there are no problems. "You don't want to be holding your users hostage. We want there to be a competitive market, we want other companies to be able to do things so we think it's important that you as users of Google can take your data and take it out if you need to or take it somewhere else." [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfmQkNKo_0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfmQkNKo_0A
- grishka 6y ago> You don't want to be holding your users hostage. Except that's exactly want you're doing in case of social media. Even with the ability to move your data, you can't simply move platforms because network effects lock you in. I'm really looking forward to ACCESS Act.
- newacct583 6y agoMicrosoft lost their case and was ordered broken up. They were saved in the DC Circuit who rejected the remedy, and then by the incoming Bush administration who had the DoJ back off the case and settle. It's very easy to imagine that (as with many things from that era) had a few hundred votes in Florida gone differently Microsoft's windows empire would now be just a memory. It was very close. It was certainly not the wrist slap you're imagining.
- jimbob45 6y agoIt seems clear to me that MS didn’t just accidentally forget to develop IE for 5+ years in the early 2000s. They did so because they needed to avoid the antitrust inspectors. Given that Chrome exists in its current form today because of a lack of competition, I don’t know how you can claim that the antitrust stuff did “nothing”.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ecf 6y agoHow are these antitrust lawsuits not partisan hit-jobs? "...Acting under the direction of the Attorney General Of the United States, and the states of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas..."
- ehsankia 6y agoIt definitely seems like a political hit job. It's unfortunate because the Democrats were working on some good stuff too, but it seems like Republicans wanted to rush this out before the election to help their chances.
- beezle 6y agoUnfortunately what much of our elected officials (state and national) do is based on "like" and "dislike" rather than actual law. In the case of Google/FB/Twitter, both have many dislikes rooted at best weakly in law (IMO, IANAL)
- jmull 6y agoI can't help but wonder if this isn't simply a political move.
- comeonseriously 6y agoOh, come on. Go after the ISPs! But, maybe this is retaliation because Google never built Trump's COVID website.
- amelius 6y agoWhat happens to our data when Google is broken up into small companies?
- summerlight 6y agoNot sure if this is going to make a strong case in the court at least in the current legal framework. For many cases, competition is a click away; Search is straightforward, and for Ads it's merely a matter of budget allocation (thanks to FB and Amazon, there's some real competitions). To prove that this is objectively harmful to consumers, a lot more works would be required for DoJ. I don't see any good arguments in the filing other than ambiguous "reducing consumer choices, stifling innovation". Now I can understand why lawyers were concerned with this half-baked accusation in a NYT article. Probably legislation approaches proposed by Democrats is a right way to handle this case. I'm afraid that this immature lawsuit may give Google and other tech giants political exemptions to the future antitrust regulations potentially enabled by the reformed bill. Maybe Biden administration will decide to just drop it in favor of reforming the bill?
- simonh 6y agoNote that having a functional monopoly through simply being popular is not illegal, it's practices which unfairly protect or exploit that market power that can be illegal. The article goes into some candidates for activities that might be judged abuses, such as buying the default search slot on iPhones. Another might be unfairly promoting Google properties, and artificially burying competitors in search results. Another area that might be looked at is Google providing various free services such as Gmail and Google Docs, essentially subsidised by search revenue, in order to squeeze out competitors from possible revenue streams. Having said that, this is mostly a shakedown. If Google would just set up a PAC and cough up I'm sure this will all just go away.
- InTheArena 6y agoThis won't last at all. As soon as Biden is elected, Democrats will continue to make public statements, but will accept dollars, and then magically after the midterms it will go away.
- Grimm1 6y agoI'm obviously biased here given I manage an alternative search engine, but I really think this will mean good things for competition in the search space. Every other search engine besides Google currently has < 10% of market combined and having literally founded a search engine because of how bad I found Google's results I can't believe that continued domination is from a quality standpoint. I wholeheartedly believe they do not rank the top results appropriately and that means it actively harms consumers in favor of ads and sponsored results.
- zxcvbn4038 6y agoI think this has been a long time coming and probably needs to happen. My ad-hoc monopoly test has always been customer service. When your a monopoly you don’t really care about consumers because you don’t have to. Look at your local DMV, your local cable company, and Google. What do they have in common? They act in their own self interest over consumer’s interests. They take anti-consumer actions with impunity and are dismissive of all complaints. They go through great lengths to turn their problems into your problems. I’m hoping that this leads to adblock being fully supported in chrome again with all the proper hooks to be able to filter content. I also hope this leads to greater privacy and a right to be forgotten for all. Most of all I hope this leads to Google answering the phone instead of hiding behind their algorithms. (Even when I was working at a top 5 web site the only way we could contact anyone at Google was Twitter and former college roommates that happened to work there).
- johnghanks 6y agoSorry but is it really a monopoly when the reason you're a "monopoly" is that your products are just plain better than the competition?
- transperceneige 6y agoWell, maybe they are better because competition doesn't stand a chance due to anti-competitive practices?
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.is/mW60L https://archive.is/mW60L
- Crontab 6y agoI find it interesting that the Trump administration was only joined in this action by Republican-led states.
- pb77 6y agoI am more concerned about paying money for service and still get exploited. Samsung tv is pushing ads and i don't enable network service, it still keeps pushing it. Google is pushing to convert my nest to google account ( I bought nest before it was google ). I am switching my phone from android to iphone. It seems that US could pass better laws to govern the interests of paying customers. I wanted to buy oculus but with the new facebook enforecement of login,i decided to skip it. Ring is used by amazon to give your video to police, i am not against giving video to police with my consent.
- Fishysoup 6y agoUnder any other administration I'd support this (i still do, provided the motivation is legitimate anti-trust concerns). But it's pretty obvious that the cheeto prince just doesn't want his hate speech banned or his dissidents having a platform.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads into political flamewar. It helps nothing and just makes the thread worse (more predictable and nasty). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kevmo 6y agoOK, now do Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and probably half of the Fortune 500 as well. To those saying "Do X first" -- the DOJ Antitrust Division has an army of lawyers, and they can bring many cases at once.
- abvdasker 6y agoThe timing of this lawsuit warrants a good deal of skepticism.
- dvduval 6y agoGoogle used to be more in tune with small businesses. Now they are so focused on that ad money (mostly from big corporations), that so many small businesses are getting squeezed out. Rather than helping small businesses grow, that keep taking parts of the market small businesses previously made some or all of there revenue from. And of course Google gets tax breaks that are not available to small businesses because they can do accounting tricks. It's just not a level playing field anymore.
- thisisnico 6y agoAs a small business, this is why I'm focused on Facebook Advertising. It's very easy to focus local.
- dvduval 6y agoIf search weren't part of the equation I could see how that might benefit some small businesses but definitely there is a clear Monopoly on search. Don't you agree?
- thisisnico 6y agoI do agree that there is a clear monopoly on search.
- dang 6y agoAll: there are multiple pages of comments in this thread. You can reach them via the More link at the bottom of each page, or like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24836520&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24836520&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24836520&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24836520&p=3 For those wanting the real thing, the Justice Dept complaint is here (thanks to r721 below): https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7273457/10-20-20-US-v-Google-Complaint.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7273457/10-20-20-...
- mediaman 6y agoMany DOJ attorneys resigned from this case in protest of it being brought to bear too quickly. Bill Barr, US Attorney General, overruled senior DOJ attorneys who felt that it was impossible to bring a strong case against Google by rushing it before the election. As a result, this complaint being brought is considered legally weak, and it gives Google's legal team a huge advantage in fighting it. If the decision to accelerate the case, at the cost of its strength, causes the complaint to fail, it'll probably be the last antitrust case against Google we'll see for some time. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/us/politics/google-antitrust-justice-department.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/us/politics/google-antitr...
- karmasimida 6y agoYep. I doubt not Google has a very competent legal team.
- davidw 6y agoI think there are legitimate things worth investigating Google for. And other big tech companies too. But right now? Just before an election? Hand it off to career DoJ people and let them bring it some time next year.
- makerofspoons 6y agoThat would make sense if the goal was to actually win the case. The actual goal is optics and to feed the victim complex of one side of the "culture war" ahead of the election.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrisco255 6y agoThe AG could be replaced by a new administration and the case could get tabled.
- 6y ago
- peacefulhat 6y agoDepends on how they split it up, but this could be very bad for consumers. One of the plans is to spin off Chrome which sounds like a total disaster for web standards. Probably go with an obnoxious monetization scheme beyond licensing Google search if that didn't work out for the smaller Mozilla team.
- chanfest22 6y agoGoogle does a bunch of things that are less than ideal. What this complaint alleges doesn't seem to be one of those things. Here's Google's response: https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/response-doj/ https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/respo...
- actuator 6y ago@dang makes sense to add this in the top level comment as well, lest people create separate threads for this.
- permo-w 6y agoHow did google get their own top level domain?
- wmf 6y agoThey bought it. A TLD costs $200K or more.
- ehsankia 6y agoA lot of other brands have them, but they use it only for redirects and not as their main domain like Google does. Example: experience.apple
- ayushgta 6y agoBrand TLD: https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD
- bduerst 6y agoMany brands have their own TLDs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#Brand_top-level_domains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom...
- hardtke 6y agoThe media reporting as well as Google's response is entirely focussed on the consumer monopoly on search, but the DOJ complaint focusses equally on potential anti-competitive practices in the search advertising market. The DOJ describes the situation well here: 110. There are barriers to entry in these advertising markets that protect Google’s advertising monopolies. Most critically, search advertising of any kind requires a search engine with sufficient scale to make advertising an efficient proposition for businesses. Specialized search engines require significant investment, including the cost of populating and indexing relevant data, distribution, developing and maintaining a search algorithm, and attracting users. Search advertising of any kind also requires (1) a user interface through which advertisers can buy ads, (2) software to facilitate the sales process, and (3) a sales and technical support staff. The same barriers to entry that apply to general search services also protect Google’s general search text advertising monopoly. Declaring search advertising an illegal monopoly would not only open up the possibility for structural changes (requiring them to license the search advertising to other search engines, giving aggregators the ability to buy search advertising on google.com) but also exposes them potentially to large payments to advertisers who have been harmed in the past.
- jmnicolas 6y agoWhat I wonder is why would you sue Google before Amazon? Yes Google is a monopoly, but IMO Amazon is much worse. I'm not thinking about the cloud business which has plenty competition, but the retail stuff. They undercut the competition until it dies then they're the sole business around. Case in point: a couple weeks ago I bought a 16 TB hard drive for my personal server. It was something like 420€ on Amazon and about 600€ on my local Newegg equivalent. While I would have bought it locally for a couple dozen euros more, there was no way I would spend almost 200€ more for the same thing. I know that long term it's bad for me and I hate myself for it but I still went with Amazon.
- codersarepeople 6y agoBut Amazon doesn't have anywhere close to a monopoly on retail? There are many more options for retail, in particular buying a HDD, than there are for search. And while it's clear that Amazon does engage in some anti-competitive behavior, the pricing you complain about doesn't really have to do with Amazon; the seller set that price, not Amazon.
- grumple 6y agoNot all monopolies are unlawful, and not all laws regarding anti trust require a monopoly.
- ShamelessC 6y agoStill trying to grasp what is legally considered a monopoly in this country. I've come to consider it as "market leader of a sufficiently large market with a history of anti-competitive practices." Is that essentially accurate?
- grumple 6y agoNo. Again, you can have a monopoly and not be breaking any laws. Being a monopoly is not illegal. Being an uncompetitive monopoly is. [1] But it is also illegal to engage in anti competitive behavior even if you don’t have a literal monopoly. [2] “Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.” [1] 1. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a... 2. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices
- baby 6y agoflagged because people are commenting on the title and not the content due to the paywall
- ur-whale 6y agohttps://archive.is/mW60L https://archive.is/mW60L
- cblconfederate 6y agoMicrosoft was sued in 1998, the same year that google was founded. So, a startup from 2020 is bound to be the next Google. DOJ seems to be targeting really where it hurts, their search dominance. Google® has benefited enormously from the positive feedback loop adoption->investment->more adoption, and as the similar cases in EU have shown , it's hard to break. Even if phones in EU allow you to select an engine, i select google. If the DOJ seriously intends to act they will have to come up with a plan that allows competitors (all of which will be inferior in the beginning) to enter the market and evolve. It will be interesting to watch the stock market reaction to this news. It's probably going to keep going up because it's completely decoupled from reality
- residentfoam 6y agoWhere was the antitrust in all these years ? I think it is a little too late now. Companies like Google have grown to the size where it is now impossible to stop them from being a monopoly. I don't think there is anything, anyone in the world can do to really allow a fair competition in the space. As for the fines that e.g EU has inflicted to Google in recent years, they are simply ridiculous, considering Google's revenues.
- sam0x17 6y agoAnti-trust law really has broad authority if they can make this stick. Just because this is tech doesn't make it special. The EU fines were nothing. If this goes well, it would be a forced dismantling similar to what happened in the early 1900s. Google would have to win the case or cease having any U.S. presence whatsoever to get away from this.
- libeclipse 6y agoI hope there's a mention of how Google locks out third party browser developers by refusing to let them implement widevine, their DRM solution.
- sam0x17 6y agoForgot about the monopoly -- how about outright fraud? As someone who used to operate a domain parking service, I've seen evidence numerous times of google taking away publisher earnings because of alleged clickfraud, but then not refunding advertisers for those same clicks. I know of three advertisers who were appearing in AdSense ads on a publisher page back in 2009 that Google refused to pay out because of "click fraud", and none of these advertisers received refunds or any indication that they were defrauded. Google took the money that was supposed to go to the publisher, kept it, and didn't refund the advertisers. They probably never do. I ended up paying $800 out of my pocket to compensate my users for the lost revenue. I have also worked with hundreds of advertisers in the SEO space, and I have never, ever, seen someone say they had ad money refunded because of click fraud, yet I've seen plenty of publisher earnings held back because of supposed click fraud. Google's fight against click fraud is really just a fight against paying out to publishers, full stop. Google also used to do this crazy shit (don't know if they still do as I'm not in that space anymore) where they would change the TOS at midnight and then retroactively block the past month's earnings on hundreds of accounts that are violating the seconds-old TOS. Pretty sure that is illegal as well. If you think about it, Google has zero incentive to stop real click-fraud, especially if their chosen course of action is to just keep the money and not have to pay publishers or refund advertisers. This space needs regulation, and it's needed it for over a decade. I will happily forward what I have if someone knows how to get in touch with investigators.
- extropy 6y agoI would assume Google just shows more ads on other sites to compensate for the fraudent clicks. Why should they give you money back when they can just fulfill their side of the contract by showing ads to non fraudent users.
- sam0x17 6y agoIt's funny that never actually occurred to me as a possibility. I would have to get in touch with the advertisers to see if that data is still in their account (which may be possible, I'll see what I can do). It's also not sufficient even if they do that. Many advertisers will run a time-sensitive campaign -- free traffic 3 weeks later in those scenarios is worthless. I actually doubt google does this because if they did it would be most easily implemented as an account credit. They just keep the money and hope no one ever holds them accountable for anything.
- burtonator 6y agoAnti-trust legislation is pointless. It's only enforced selectively and for political reasons. It would be FAR FAR FAR better to just enforce proper taxation policy so that companies like google actually pay taxes. Right now FANG have completely unfair competitive advantages that they SHOULD NOT have. WTF does Facebook get to build a campus TAX FREE just because they are Facebook. If you tried to do a startup your company wouldn't get these advantages.
- kazinator 6y agoThus, you must think monopolies and price-fixing cartels and whatnot are fine; the only "sin" is tax evasion.
- feralimal 6y agoThis is surely theatrics, given that Google has always been a quasi-governmental/military corporation: "In-Q-Tel sold 5,636 shares of Google, worth over $2.2 million, on November 15, 2005.[9] The shares were a result of Google's acquisition of Keyhole, Inc, the CIA-funded satellite mapping software now known as Google Earth.[10]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel
- redm 6y agoIn reference to the default search engine partnership between Google and Apple: "Though Google and Apple have been tight-lipped on how much their deal is worth, the lawsuit projects that it accounts for between 15% and 20% of Apple’s annual profits. That means Google pays as much as $11 billion, or roughly one-third of Alphabet’s annual profits, to Apple for pole position on the iPhone. In return, Apple-originated search traffic adds up to half of Google search volume, the government says. Google declined to comment on that statistic, and representatives said they weren’t aware of the “Code Red” language included in the lawsuit." [1] Thats a lot of revenue and if they clouded, this case may have legs. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-exclusive-search-deals-with-apple-at-heart-of-u-s-lawsuit-11603221146 https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-exclusive-search-deals-...
- ju-st 6y agoAs comparison: "The new search deal will ensure Google remains the default search engine provider inside the Firefox browser until 2023 at an estimated price tag of around $400 million to $450 million per year." https://www.zdnet.com/article/sources-mozilla-extends-its-google-search-deal/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sources-mozilla-extends-its-go...
- spideymans 6y agoAnd now we see why Android exists, and how immensely valuable it is to Google.
- elihu 6y ago> Apple-originated search traffic adds up to half of Google search volume, the government says. That doesn't seem plausible. It seems like it ought to be more like 10-20% of search volume going by market share. Unless Apple users are for some reason doing more searches than Android and Windows users. I could see how maybe ad revenue from Apple users is disproportional to their market share because they're generally wealthier.
- titanomachy 6y agoMaybe they're referring to US traffic only for some reason? The iPhone has something like 50% market share in the US.
- nojito 6y agoWow...did not know that Apple has a RSA with Google...that's pretty cut and dry exclusionary agreement to preserve their monopoly.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y agoThe original complaint, from DOJ not the altered one from DocumentCloud: https://web.archive.org/web/20201020151204/https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1328941/download https://web.archive.org/web/20201020151204/https://www.justi...
- mortdeus 6y agoThe stupidity of this argument could be boiled down to the government trying to file an antitrust lawsuit on the Rolling Stones having an ongoing monopoly on rock music because movie directors are still deciding to use their superiorly popular (and in my opinion superiorly written) music over all the modern hacks. I dont think this is an issue of antitrust, rather an issue of regulation. You regulate the internal affairs of the oil industry not because you still care about the monopoly Standard Oil once hand on the market, but rather because you care about how they can directly operate in such a way that has been proven to cause more harm than good. (e.g. this is why california is so up tight about getting your car "smogged") There is a debate that needs to be had regarding how the power of big tech flies in the face of the 1st amendment when it comes to how internal bias can harm the public in the same sense that somebody yelling "fire" in a crowded theater can cause trouble. But this doesn't fall under antitrust and I think distracting the real issue with this kind of lawsuit is just another way for Washington to feint like they are "actively" trying to do something about the problem while in reality allowing for the problem to persist into the long term future.
- Joeri 6y agoBut to build a competitive search engine you need massive engineering, network and hardware resources; or put simply you need a lot of money. To fund that very expensive to operate but necessarily free search product you need lots of ad revenue, for which you need advertisers, which only pay for ads on the dominant search engine. Maybe it is a lot easier for google to stay on top than for others to get to that level? And is the market really open when competitors face a sky-high barrier to entry?
- julienb_sea 6y agoI mean, there have been some very well funded attempts to compete with Google. Bing is the main one I am referring to. Bing has the technical chops to theoretically compete with Google but their product offering as a whole is not as good, and people prefer the Google option. It is possible to try and compete with Google, and more will try, but it will be very difficult to create a more complete overall package.
- 6y ago
- TLightful 6y agoObvious, monopoly is obvious.
- ChuckMcM 6y agoWhile we were competing with Google for search traffic some of the points the Justice Department makes became pretty self evident. How could a new startup compete with a company that paid billions of dollars a year to have search traffic directed to them? That always amazed me that the better the search results of other engines the more it costs Google to force that traffic their way. The other thing which I found hilarious was that "search engine marketing"[1] was forbidden by their contracts. [1] SEM is a practice where you buy a google advertisement on search which points to a page about the search query with Google ads on it. (except you share the revenue of those clicks). Perhaps not surprisingly you can make good money on this with highly contested clicks (Mortgages, Credit Cards, Insurance, Etc.)
- ausjke 6y agoCan I pay for search, like say $15 a month or something like that, that let me search with my privacy and free of ads? Ok let's call this a premium version of google search.
- Osiris 6y ago> Google used "exclusionary agreements and anticompetitive conduct" For a long time, I've felt that any contract that specifically prevents a party from engaging in business with any other party should be considered anti-competitive and illegal. I understand why businesses like them, but I can't see how they ever benefit customers. Exclusivity contracts were the backbone of big enterprises accused of monopolistic behavior, like Intel and Microsoft, and I'm sure many others. Can anyone give me a good case for why exclusivity contracts (contracts that ban a company from engaging with a competitor) are good for consumers?
- cdmckay 6y agoDoesn’t Qualcomm do this too?
- acituan 6y agoA game theoretic advantage, “we will only invest in our end product x which uses your y if you agree not supporting competitors for a period of time “ in which x is beneficial to the end user but not worth the cost/risk with competition. This is the same idea with patents; I’ll sink costs to deeper R&D in exchange for safer prospects of profiting from it.
- tomohawk 6y agoIt is illegal, if you're a monopolist. You can be a monopoly, but you can't do things like this if you are.
- ummonk 6y agoIf this lawsuit eventually succeeds, would it strike a fatal blow to Mozilla's revenue?
- hokumguru 6y agoIf the DOJ bars google from paying for search placement in other products... does Mozilla continue to exist?
- zelon88 6y agoI'm not going to weigh in on the side of Google here, but it is ironic how butthurt the capitalists got once a liberal tech giant made capitalism it's bitch.
- adam12 6y agoOh, what happened to the Google of 2005? :(
- MichaelMoser123 6y ago<author deleted his comment because his doesn't have much to say>
- utopcell 6y agoSo, which is the better Search engine that Google is allegedly suppressing with its "monopolistic" practices ?
- babesh 6y agoThe market power that big tech enjoys is partly why tech compensation is so high.