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Google AMP gets a shock to its system as advisor quits, lawsuit claims foul play

74 points by chriszhang 6y ago

darig 6y ago
If abusing your browser market share and search market share at the same time at the highest possible levels is foul, then this lawsuit should be the easiest case to prove of all time.
onetimemanytime 6y ago
>>...and that the company went so far as to hinder non-AMP ads "by giving them artificial one second delays" to convince publishers not to use header bidding. Isn't this criminal, as in facing jail time? And this was not done by a rogue person, execs debated this and entire teams implemented and knew about this.
- pjc50 6y ago
  What law would it be breaking? What is the likelihood of that law being enforced against a multi billion dollar business?
  - fzzzy 6y ago
    Anticompetitive Tying. Google used the existing ad monopoly to try to gain a news distribution monopoly. Pretty low.
  - yostrovs 6y ago
    Looks like fraud to me. The webpages were made slow by Google and the reason given was different than the cause of the slowdown.
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    PURPOSEFULLY interfered with someone else's product by making it slower. Like Pepsi finding a way to dilute Coke's concentration in each bottle.
- fakedang 6y ago
  Not criminal, but certainly grounds for antitrust.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  It’s not criminal, nor should it be, or do you want it to be. Among other things, criminal law requires a higher level of proof. Whatever benefit you hope for would be nullified by far fewer actual prosecutions and convictions.
jsnell 6y ago
The component parts of this story have been extensively discussed this month. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25466416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25466416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718
bassman9000 6y ago
"At this point in time with the AMP project, Google can’t retroactively release the control it had in AMP’s adoption. And we can’t go back to a pre-AMP web to start over [...]" Why not? Someone with AMP knowledge knows why? Wouldn't it be as easy as removing a few tags?
- WhyNotHugo 6y ago
  Actually, we pretty much can. Anyone _not_ using Google's search engine and browser is still living on a non-AMP word, and is able to access the web pretty much fine.
- nightcracker 6y ago
  Load of horseshit. Google could make every single AMP URL redirect to the real page and scrap the whole thing tomorrow.
  - fzzzy 6y ago
    Yes. Straight up lie. Do they know that? It seems like lying would be bad damage control, but I guess fud works
- rpdillon 6y ago
  This caught my eye as well. The quote is pulled from the final paragraph of this EFF blog post: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/googles-amp-canonical-web-and-importance-web-standards-0 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/googles-amp-canonical-... That post also doesn't really explain, but justifies its position by linking to the AMP blog: https://blog.amp.dev/2018/02/13/amps-new-horizons/ https://blog.amp.dev/2018/02/13/amps-new-horizons/ That page is basically trumpeting the massive adoption of AMP. So my read here is that the author is viewing this a bit like Flash: yes, we could kill it, but it would take years, because of the billions of pages that use it, as well as the custom markup it uses, along with the unique caching structure discussed in the EFF post. I don't find that particularly compelling, but I can see the reasoning. It may be a case where it would be possible to just redirect all traffic away from AMP, but that would kill page speed, and therefore search ranking, for those using it. Theoretically possible? Sure. Practical? Possibly not.

74 points by chriszhang 6y ago

If abusing your browser market share and search market share at the same time at the highest possible levels is foul, then this lawsuit should be the easiest case to prove of all time.

onetimemanytime 6y ago

>>...and that the company went so far as to hinder non-AMP ads "by giving them artificial one second delays" to convince publishers not to use header bidding. Isn't this criminal, as in facing jail time? And this was not done by a rogue person, execs debated this and entire teams implemented and knew about this.

pjc50 6y ago
What law would it be breaking? What is the likelihood of that law being enforced against a multi billion dollar business?
- fzzzy 6y ago
  Anticompetitive Tying. Google used the existing ad monopoly to try to gain a news distribution monopoly. Pretty low.
- yostrovs 6y ago
  Looks like fraud to me. The webpages were made slow by Google and the reason given was different than the cause of the slowdown.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  PURPOSEFULLY interfered with someone else's product by making it slower. Like Pepsi finding a way to dilute Coke's concentration in each bottle.
fakedang 6y ago
Not criminal, but certainly grounds for antitrust.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
It’s not criminal, nor should it be, or do you want it to be. Among other things, criminal law requires a higher level of proof. Whatever benefit you hope for would be nullified by far fewer actual prosecutions and convictions.

jsnell 6y ago

The component parts of this story have been extensively discussed this month. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25466416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25466416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718

bassman9000 6y ago

"At this point in time with the AMP project, Google can’t retroactively release the control it had in AMP’s adoption. And we can’t go back to a pre-AMP web to start over [...]" Why not? Someone with AMP knowledge knows why? Wouldn't it be as easy as removing a few tags?

WhyNotHugo 6y ago
Actually, we pretty much can. Anyone _not_ using Google's search engine and browser is still living on a non-AMP word, and is able to access the web pretty much fine.
nightcracker 6y ago
Load of horseshit. Google could make every single AMP URL redirect to the real page and scrap the whole thing tomorrow.
- fzzzy 6y ago
  Yes. Straight up lie. Do they know that? It seems like lying would be bad damage control, but I guess fud works
rpdillon 6y ago
This caught my eye as well. The quote is pulled from the final paragraph of this EFF blog post: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/googles-amp-canonical-web-and-importance-web-standards-0 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/googles-amp-canonical-... That post also doesn't really explain, but justifies its position by linking to the AMP blog: https://blog.amp.dev/2018/02/13/amps-new-horizons/ https://blog.amp.dev/2018/02/13/amps-new-horizons/ That page is basically trumpeting the massive adoption of AMP. So my read here is that the author is viewing this a bit like Flash: yes, we could kill it, but it would take years, because of the billions of pages that use it, as well as the custom markup it uses, along with the unique caching structure discussed in the EFF post. I don't find that particularly compelling, but I can see the reasoning. It may be a case where it would be possible to just redirect all traffic away from AMP, but that would kill page speed, and therefore search ranking, for those using it. Theoretically possible? Sure. Practical? Possibly not.