6 ms·

Aren't there anti trust laws to prevent this kind of thing?

• samuelizdat 6y ago
  That depends, would Google let us know?
  • rijoja 6y ago
    not if they could avoid it
• adamcstephens 6y ago
  Yes, but they lack enforcement.
• midoBB 6y ago
  Anti-trust in the US tend to not hit the big tech players as much they do other sectors. Also there is actually a debate in the judicial system about the extent of Anti trust laws themselves.
  • sitkack 6y ago
    Chicago school basically published a bunch of position papers that made feudal corporations a legal entity that "aren't monopolies" because the give things away for free. Because the consumer isn't paying, it can't be bad.
• supernovae 6y ago
  Just tell people to stop using google. Go direct.
  • zentiggr 6y ago
    Upvoted - regardless how pointless some people might think this comment is, it really is the ONLY way that Google is going to drop out of its aggregate lead position. Enough people realizing Google is trapping and cannibalizing traffic to the other sites it feeds off of, and choosing to do other things EXCEPT touching Google properties, is THE ONLY way they'll be unseated. No clear legal path to stop a bully means it's an ethical / habit path. Not saying there's any easy way, just that this is it.
    • smaryjerry 6y ago
      I find those little snippets actually mostly worthless, maybe because I’ve seen enough of them taken out of context or basically using a snippet from someone who figured out SEO properly, meanwhile the correct information may be down a couple links or not there at all.
• Majromax 6y ago
  Antiturst laws are hard to enforce in the United States. Monopolies themselves aren't illegal. To be convicted of an antitrust violation, a firm needs to both have a monopoly and needs to be using anticompetitive means to maintain that monopoly. The recent "textbook" example was of Microsoft, which in the 90s used its dominant position to charge computer manufacturers for a Windows license for each computer sold, regardless of whether it had Windows installed or was a "bare" PC. Depending on how you define the market, Google may not even have a monopoly. It's probably dominant enough in web search to count, but if you look at its advertising network it competes with Facebook and other ad networks. In the realm of travel planning (to pick an example from these comments), it's barely a blip. Furthermore, Google can potentially argue it's not being anticompetitive: all businesses use their existing data to optimize new products, so Google could claim that it not doing so would be an artificial straightjacket.
  • pmiller2 6y ago
    Is web search even a "market" independent of ads?
    • rijoja 6y ago
      yes
      • pmiller2 6y ago
        Where's the money?
        • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
          That's like arguing that newspapers are not a market, because it makes money from ads.
          • pmiller2 6y ago
            No, I was asking if web search was a market independent of ads. BTW, newspapers also make money from subscriptions and sales of copies, so your analogy is doubly wrong.
• sangnoir 6y ago
  The current anti-trust doctrine in the US has a goal of protecting consumers - not competition. What Google is doing is arguably great for consumers but awful to their competitors/other organizations. Technically, companies can simply block Google using robots.txt - but in reality that will lose them more money than the current partial disintermediation by Google is costing them - and Google knows this. It's a tall order to convince the courts that Google's actions consumers, or is illegal: after all, being innovative in ways that may end up hurting the competition is a key feature of a capitalist society - proving that a line has been crossed is really hard, by design.
  • speeder 6y ago
    consumers are in this case the advertisers. google has a monopoly on search ads and does enforce it, being a drain on the economy since in many fields you only succeed if you spend on search ads
    • sangnoir 6y ago
      > consumers are in this case the advertisers. If someone could convince the courts that this is correct, then I'm sure Google would lose. However, I bet dollars to donuts Google's counter-arguement would be that the people doing the searching and quickly finding information are also consumers, and they outnumber advertisers and may be harmed by any proposed remediation in favor of advertisers.
    • basch 6y ago
      googles answer to this at yesterdays hearing.. Search isnt a single category. If you break it down, they arent a monopoly. For example. 1/2 of PRODUCT SEARCHES begin on Amazon. It's probably hard to argue Google as a monopoly if who they see as their main competitor has half the market share.
      • jacquesm 6y ago
        That's so disingenuous there should be a new term for it.
• throwaway_kufu 6y ago
  Laws are one thing and enforceability another. In fact Google had to make certain concessions in order for the Google Flights acquisition to get regulatory approval. IIRC a Chinese firewall between Google data and Google Flights...but like many regulations they were likely written by Google lobbyists aka the industry experts. Because at the end of the day Google flights: 1. Still has the built in widget above organic results and 2. They still bid on their own ad spots jacking up costs on competition which is ultimately passed on to consumers.