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> potentially barring companies like Amazon.com from operating the markets in which they also compete Absolutely bananas that this haven't been fixed yet! How

> potentially barring companies like Amazon.com from operating the markets in which they also compete Absolutely bananas that this haven't been fixed yet! How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it? Obviously for-profit companies will abuse their positions if it'll earn them more money, and fines ends up being the cost of doing business instead of deterrents. How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? They should have been forced to divide their business long time ago. Of course they are gonna use metrics from competitors that only they have access to, in order to make their own product line get better. Why is Google allowed to rank their own products in front of more general results? Try searching for "Earth" on Google and see what the top hit is. Is that really a fair ranking? We don't even know, because no one knows how their algorithm is working, but one thing is clear, Google products consistently rank higher than anything else in the search engine. The list goes on. I'm happy that it's being suggested, I'm just worried how it took so long to get here.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? They should have been forced to divide their busin Depends on how you define “marketplace”. Costco/Walmart/Best Buy/Target/Home Depot/Lowe’s/grocery stores all sell their own brands next to competing brands in their stores. Is their one store the marketplace? It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website.
- starfallg 6y ago
  Antitrust legislation usually kick in when there is a dominant participant in the market that is abusing their position. So shops having their own-brand products competing with products from vendors is fine until the company in question has an effective hold on that market.
- capableweb 6y ago
  It's not just whatever marketplace, anti-monopoly legislation focuses on markets where the players own a significant share of the full market. In the case of Amazon, it seems like they have above 52% of the e-commerce market in the US in 2019 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-commerce-market-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-c...) so probably it's even higher now. When one player now has over half the market, you need to carefully watch what they are doing in order for them not to start exploiting their position. This is why it's different between Amazon and Home Depot, they hold different amount of the market, so even if Home Depot wanted to exploit their position, they probably couldn't. Amazon with their marketshare, can do so much easier. Then there is the issue of specifically Amazon ranking their own products above others in their search results, even if others have better reviews, more purchases, more page views and so on. Then we start getting into "abusing their market position" territory, and this is what is getting investigated now.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Yes, so the issue is not just selling your own products in your own marketplace. > This is why it's different between Amazon and Home Depot, they hold different amount of the market, so even if Home Depot wanted to exploit their position, they probably couldn't. I would say Home Depot has far more control of their markets than Amazon does. Pick any smaller metro, and the only consumer building materials store around is Home Depot or Lowes. The two basically split up all the markets, and if there’s not enough business to sustain both, then there will be just one. But no other store will be able to compete. If you’re a manufacturer and you can’t convince Home Depot or Lowes to stock your item in their store, then you’re not going to reach 90% of people via in store attention (for home improvement stuff). Almost all big box store brands have whittled down to two viable options, or even one in the case of Best Buy. Although, I think that might be the natural state of things given how low profit margins are for retail (low single digit percentages).
    - capableweb 6y ago
      > Yes, so the issue is not just selling your own products in your own marketplace. Of course not, the final issue is companies becoming monopolies and companies abusing their market positions, that is what we want to prevent, in order to foster innovation and open markets. > I would say Home Depot has far more control of their markets than Amazon does Maybe you're right, I know nothing about what's going on on the ground of the US. So if Home Depot do have more control of their market than what Amazon has of the e-commerce market (more than 50%), then they should also be under watch to see what "strategies" they employ to get more profits. Just because the House is now investigating technology companies doesn't mean that hopefully whatever legislation comes out of this, cannot be applied to other industries.
- squarefoot 6y ago
  > It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website. Not if the different website becomes hard to find because first pages of Google's search results are sold to better bidders.
  - basch 6y ago
    googles front page for any term is already "what we think is best." it's their discretion, their opinion, they have no obligation to be fair. if somebody paid for rank, the FTC requires them to disclose the sponsorship.
- mindslight 6y ago
  > It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website. That seems like it must be true - Going to Lowe's instead of Home Depot takes getting to know a different store layout, and likely at least an extra half hour if you still have to go to HD. But evidently, by the way people talk about ordering everything from Amazon (despite its numerous problems) and look at you like you have three heads if you talk about going to even say just Target.com, there seems to be some counterintuitive hurdle for switching websites that's actually worse than for physical stores. Perhaps because web widgets are so un-affordanced that figuring out a new one can actually be hard, or that the majority of orders are reorders, or the smaller stakes dopamine feedback from getting what you need while sitting down, or the dark forest feeling makes people extremely conservative. Whatever it is, it exists. Of course there are also plenty of people who have no problem switching between online stores at the drop of a hat. I'd posit that these people have a model of buying based on manufacturers, viewing the web stores as mere means to some ends, and understand credit card chargeback policies. For example I buy a decent amount of stuff from Zoro (whose descriptions can be lacking), and so I often end up referencing manufacturers' catalogs directly. Which are fantastically informative and easy to read (single PDF, well-specified comparison tables, no middle clicking dozens of search results, no page load lag, no flipping between tabs to spot a minute difference hidden by web chaff, no surveillance, etc), but I'm certainly paying a fixed effort overhead to get to that point. Whatever the case for such stickiness is, I think one of the best tech reforms possible would be to mandate open APIs. As Amazon (et al) are stores, then their business is selling specific products for specific prices. This data should be openly available such that it can be retrievable by every user agent (no CAPTCHA harassment), and ideally, orders placed through the same system. This would enable price competition as well as UI competition, rather than the two being bundled as they are now.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > But evidently, by the way people talk about ordering everything from Amazon (despite its numerous problems) and look at you like you have three heads if you talk about going to even say just Target.com, there seems to be some counterintuitive hurdle for switching websites that's actually worse than for physical stores. I think there is truth to this since I personally for a long time would go to Amazon for everything. Over time I have shifted to using them less and less. However I think it’s just a matter of consumer maturity. Apple Pay has done a lot to make it easier for me to buy from 3rd party websites. There is a lot of money to be made in services to help the rest of the web be more competitive to Amazon. We are just at a certain stage in the cycle. That’s what concerns me about getting the government involved. These ‘monopolies’ have arisen very quickly - on the order of a decade. Things can change in the marketplace just as fast.
- darksaints 6y ago
  All of those companies buy their inventory and take on the full risk of potentially not selling it. They're retailers, not marketplaces.
  - gruez 6y ago
    Not sure about the other stores, but that's not always true for walmart, which has at least some goods on consignment. https://blog.softwareag.com/in-future-retailers-may-be-missing-something-inventory https://blog.softwareag.com/in-future-retailers-may-be-missi...
    - darksaints 6y ago
      Consignment is still a stocking risk. They are on the hook for holding costs. Amazon doesn't do shit with marketplace inventory. Sellers are either stocking it themselves, or they are explicitly paying amazon to hold it in their inventory. The difference matters because retail stores always have an incentive to sell the things they stock. Even pure consignment stores will refuse to consign items that they don't think they can sell. Amazon has zero incentive to sell marketplace merchant stock, as they bear zero cost to not sell it. So anytime they start to compete against their merchants, they can effectively hide competitors listings in a back room out of sight and never have to deal with the consequences of doing so.
- ABCLAW 6y ago
  >Costco/Walmart/Best Buy/Target/Home Depot/Lowe’s/grocery stores all sell their own brands next to competing brands in their stores. These are almost all 'control brands'; similar or identical products from the same suppliers, but they don't have marketing spend allocated to them. The delta in sales between the control brands and the 'brand-name' ones allows you to calculate goodwill.
  - yoz-y 6y ago
    Not in my experience. Except for very well known brands like Coca Cola and Mars, the store-brand products are always front and center in all shelves, and all in-store marketing (flyers, catalogs, promotions) is for the store branded products. This is for Carrefour, Franprix and Monoprix, not sure how it is in the US.
    - bagacrap 6y ago
      Target creates knock offs (Up+Up brand) for almost all the household products they sell. They're placed directly next to the item from the known brand, such as Neutrogena. I would say if anything, the known brand item is more front and center, but it's impossible to ignore the adjacent facsimile that's 2/3 the price.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        FYI, “knock offs” has the same meaning as counterfeit. Target sells “generics” under their Up+Up brands.
        basch 6y ago
        knockoff means imitation https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knockoff https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knockoff https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/knockoff https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/knockof...
        6y ago
- laurent92 6y ago
  Should Costco/Walmart be allowed to sell products along competing ones in their own marketplace? No! Of course! I’d like to see how well they would perform on Target/Best Buy shelves, they probably wouldn’t sell at all. Therefore the only origin for their success is an abuse of marketplace ownership, and it has distorted the market, and therefore has harmed consumers by simply reducing quality brand’s ability to scale, by imposing higher shelf costs for the same brand exposure, and therefore fewer sales. Although it’s not a monopoly — and another law should be drafted against competing on a marketplace you own.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Should Costco/Walmart be able to sell their own brands on their own website? Should retailers who sell other brands be able to sell their own brand at all? > and therefore has harmed consumers by simply reducing quality brand’s ability to scale, by imposing higher shelf costs for the same brand exposure, and therefore fewer sales. How come brand name items cost more on the brand’s website compared to Walmart’s brands on Walmart’s website? There is no shelf cost online.
    - laurent92 6y ago
      Isn’t it because resellers like Walmart always require lower prices than what the brand sells publicly, otherwise brands would always undercut all their resellers? It is the case with electronics, I don’t know for food.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        I doubt it, that would be ascribing immense sway to Walmart over other enormous companies like Procter and Gamble, Unilever, etc. What is more likely is this is a simple example of price discrimination or price segmentation. Theoretically, you can earn the most money by selling each item at the maximum price the buyer is willing to pay. But if the buyers all have varying levels of income or willingness to pay, how do you scale this? Obviously, you can't barter with every single person for every $5 bottle of lotion. What you can do is create various brands, and maybe differentiate the products slightly, or maybe not. Similar to binning with silicon chips where the chips with higher probabilities of performing better and longer get sold for higher. So Walmart can go to Johnson and Johnson and say hey, you're selling Lubriderm for $5, make me some lotion that's similar or lower in quality (but still acceptable to Walmart), and we'll sell that for $4. Now, J&J get to sell their $5 lotion to people willing to pay $5, and a cheaper line to people wanting to pay less, but they don't have to lose the people paying $5. And they do this in many, many layers. P&G, Unilever, J&J, and others all have countless brands they use to hit various price points. And the products may be the same, or may be marginally less in quality. And maybe it behooves some people to pay more for the extra assurance of quality.
- com2kid 6y ago
  For an increasing number of product lines, Walgreens is selling only their house brand. Last time I needed one, I was unable to buy an effective bandage wrap in person, I had to order online. My local Walgreens only had their own house brand "self stick" type that doesn't really stick at all. Went to buy some wrist braces, again, only their house brand. Many styles of wrist braces exist, they sold one type, the type I didn't want. For some house brands, such as Costco, they provide a huge competitive force in the marketplace. An example is Costco Diapers, which are rated really well, and basically establish a price at which other "name brands" have to complete. There is a possibility that they are creating a downwards pressure on the price of diapers overall. (Or that they are colluding to ensure prices don't fall too far, huh, never thought of that angle before!) My local grocery store's brand is generally untrustworthy. I hate it when they are the only option for buying something. The 3 times I have tried their yogurt coated pretzels I have gotten an upset stomach, and I normally have an iron stomach that allows me to eat street food around the world with aplomb. Funny enough their house brand "sweetened flavored sparking water" is really my preferred brand, so they get it right some of the time. But from one perspective, isn't this argument hypocritical of us? If I go to a baker, I kinda expect everything in the bakery to be "store brand", and in fact many bakeries been scandalized for not selling their own goods! Heck if I go to my local farmer's market I expect what the farmer sells what they grew, and again if they are just reselling produce, social media scandal! This entire idea of stores being a "marketplace" for multiple brands is only a recent aberration. So maybe what are seeing is just things are just slowly returning to a world where everything is "store branded".
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    > This entire idea of stores being a "marketplace" for multiple brands is only a recent aberration. Replace marketplace with platform, anyone who calls themselves a platform and competes on the “kill all competitors” level should be regulated as common carrier/public space. There are numerous ways to identify platforms vs marketplaces and not all of them are related to total market penetration. But I think the legislation should look in that direction, give the FTC the power to declare a company a platform in its space and then allow it to regulate that company in the same way utilities are regulated but obv updated for the internet age. I think the biggest hinderance to this sorta thing is that all law makers are increasingly biased and refuse to acknowledge their favor. They pretend instead that they are in fact impartial and any appearance to the contrary is simply necessary due to the importance of the issue at hand, or the extremists involved (“I’m really a centrist, they’re just nazis, so I appear to be far left” and vice versa).
eecc 6y ago
> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? Nope, total Apple and Oranges. Forbidding other HTML rendering engines on iOS, prevented other massive players (Google) from forcing their browser platform onto Apple’s user base and Electron-ized Apple’s ecosystem making iOS a marginal runtime. Or worse, Adobe could have spun their own Adobe Flash app “now with web access too!”. It’s not competitive advantage, it’s strategy
- jiofih 6y ago
  How different is that from Microsoft and IE?
  - lallysingh 6y ago
    iOS isn't 90%+ of the phone market.
    - MagnumOpus 6y ago
      IOS is 100% of the iPhone market though, given that unlike Windows in the PC market, Apple disallows installing an alternative OS, and an alternative app store in addition to disallowing alternate browsers.
      - eecc 6y ago
        So? Go buy an Android device. You’re blaming a manufacturer for being 100% of its own product market?!
    - jiofih 6y ago
      In some markets it’s pretty close (US teenagers for example).
      - tobylane 6y ago
        Is there a relevant law or court case that takes sectors of consumers into account? That one could be more relevant because they are vulnerable, or less relevant because the devices are bought in their parents name.
heavenlyblue 6y ago
> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? They now allow it by the way. I don't know why. I am using Firefox on iOS and it was supported for at least half a year AFAIK. Your point still stands obviously.
- kwyjobojoe 6y ago
  It's not really Firefox. They have to use the same engine as the Apple browser.
- capableweb 6y ago
  I should have been more clear. I'm not talking about the "browser shell" (the UI for tabs, settings and so on) but about the "rendering engine" which in the case of Firefox is Gecko on PC, but since Apple has this arbitrary restriction, is Webkit on iOS, which is the same engine everyone on iOS is forced to use, no matter what. So yes, you're using Firefox, but you're still using the same rendering engine for your browser, as any other browser on iOS. Effectively limiting how powerful browsers can be on iOS, as Apple has full control over Webkit and doesn't allow anything else, literally anti-competitive behavior.
  - twobitshifter 6y ago
    On Desktop, how many rendering engines are there out there today? 3? Most browser creators cannot afford to create their own rendering engine, so we get Gecko, WebKit, or Blink. With this in mind, when you’re asking for alternative rendering engines, you’re really asking for Google to be able to get their hooks into iOS. It would be nice if Mozilla were free to develop their own engine but that’s not without downside and the most likely outcome is an iOS dominated by Chrome and ad-tracking.
    - spideymans 6y ago
      > It would be nice if Mozilla were free to develop their own engine but that’s not without downside and the most likely outcome is an iOS dominated by Chrome and ad-tracking The impacts go beyond iOS. The reality is that Safari is the only thing standing in the way of Google having IE-style dominance of browser usage share. As of now, Chromium has just under 80% usage share. If Chromium were as dominant as iOS as it is on desktop, it’s usage share would likely exceed 90% Alternate engines are a fine idea in principle, but we need to consider whether a Chromium monopoly on the web is indeed an improvement from the status quo.
Black101 6y ago
Another problem with Google is their popups... I.E.: If you are not using Chrome, and visit Google.com, they will let you know. That is how they got so many people to switch to it.
- verdverm 6y ago
  fwiw, I just started using MS products again and they do the same thing. I'm not switching because I tried them and Google still has superior products
  - Black101 6y ago
    It never made me switch to Chrome (still use Firefox), but I think that it made a lot of people switch... by having a daily popup telling them that they are using the wrong browser.
    - SuchAnonMuchWow 6y ago
      no, what made people switch was that chrome is the default browser on android
      - verdverm 6y ago
        Firefox slowness sent me there and Chromes account management is what keeps me there
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - twobitshifter 6y ago
    You think chrome is superior to the new Edge Browser which is based on chromium?
zffr 6y ago
WebKit on iOS has special sandbox privileges not available to other user frameworks. I think it allows it to spawn other processes, and do special stuff to increase its performance and decrease energy consumption. It seems like an engineering challenge to expose these features to arbitrary 3rd party frameworks in a way that doesn’t allow these features to be abused. Not sure of Apple’s full motives, but I think this is at least part of the reason other rendering engines are not supported.
- traib 6y ago
  > WebKit on iOS has special sandbox privileges not available to other user frameworks. Okay so WebKit cannot be used as is, but then why forbid other alternatives [1]? Seems like a Catch-22. > It seems like an engineering challenge to expose these features to arbitrary 3rd party frameworks in a way that doesn’t allow these features to be abused. How does literally every single other platform manage this? AFAIK none of Android, Windows, the many Unix-like OSs, even Apple's MacOs have such restrictions on browser apps. And I think it'd be unfair to characterize the users of those other platforms as being "abused" by their browser apps. E.g. Firefox seems pretty trustworthy. [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ - "2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript."
  - robbiemitchell 6y ago
    What prohibited browsers are you referring to?
    - traib 6y ago
      I was mainly referring to how every browser app on iOS is forced have Safari underneath. The wiki page on Firefox for iOS [1] mentions this in some detail - it cannot use Gecko like it does on desktop and Android, it must use WebKit instead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS
marderfarker2 6y ago
Maybe they rank higher because their product is superior? I mean is there really anything better than Google Earth?
- egman_ekki 6y ago
  The actual Earth is, arguably, a bit better, imo.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    Weird, I typically get websites in my search results, how do I enable celestial bodies?
- kthartic 6y ago
  I don’t think that was their point. Why is Google Earth ranked higher than, oh I dunno, Earth?
  - sgc 6y ago
    Google earth is just one more website about the earth, and you can't get the real thing through your tiny tubes. If more people searching for earth want to use that website to explore the real earth rather than say, read the wikipedia article about the earth (and most obviously more people use GE than visit that one page on the wiki), it is correct for it to be ranked higher according to most typical search algorithms. OPs point is perfectly valid, it's just not a great example.
- e-clinton 6y ago
  Key word in your statement being “maybe”. No one knows for sure if they’re exploiting their advantages or not. That’s really the biggest issue: the lack of transparency. I think if companies want to participate in their own marketplaces, they need to be required to publish all data they have that could potentially give them an edge. This obviously isn’t possible in many cases, so companies will just not go through the trouble.
- tarboreus 6y ago
nova22033 6y ago
Is that really a fair ranking? We don't even know, We kinda know because people keep using Google. If people thought the results weren't good, they would switch to bing.
- Mordisquitos 6y ago
  The terms "fair ranking" and "good results" are not synonymous. We do not know if Google provides a fair ranking.
prepend 6y ago
> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple is not. Microsoft compelled their hardware partners to not do business with competitors, Apple is vertical regards to hardware. While I like protocols and interoperability, it’s hard to achieve that through antitrust laws because antitrust focuses on consumer harm and without monopoly power that’s hard to show. I’m trying to think of any anti-trust for non-monopolies or threat of monopoly and can’t. Should my NAS have to include third party browsers just because they have a browser?
- osrec 6y ago
  The mobile phone market is an oligopoly, with each participant pushing their own (sometimes terrible) agendas. Given that Apple is very deliberately resisting the adoption of PWAs in order to protect their app store, I think it's fair to say they're playing dirty. I mean, why are they restricting other browsers from using their own web views?! So that they can't implement annoying web push notifications (which users can turn off anyway)?! That's a terrible excuse to hold the web back, and it annoys the heck out of me. Especially given the number of apps in the app store with a bunch of security issues and equally annoying push notifications.
- mupuff1234 6y ago
  Apple has about 60% share of mobile phones in the US. I'd say it definitely should be considered a monopoly.
xxs 6y ago
>Try searching for "Earth" on Google and see what the top hit is. Is that really a fair ranking? As shocking as it is Microsoft's "bing" does the same... Some more: duckduckgo.com does the same as well. (ok it uses microsoft's stuff underneath) To be fair I am surprised with the results.
jjk166 6y ago
> Try searching for "Earth" on Google and see what the top hit is. Is that really a fair ranking? We don't even know, because no one knows how their algorithm is working, but one thing is clear, Google products consistently rank higher than anything else in the search engine. If you search "earth" on bing or duckduckgo, google earth is the first result for both.
impulser_ 6y ago
Bing.com has Google Earth first on the list as well. I think you are overreacting to how many searches give Google products as the first result. The only products that do rank high are literally the most popular products. What do you think they should rig the results against themselves? Why would that help people?
Jasper_ 6y ago
> We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? What happened was that the DOJ did everything they could to get Microsoft broken up. They got pretty much the entire country on their side, and during the trials they extracted some hilarious quotes from Microsoft and Bill Gates, like arguing about the definition of the word "ask", the infamous "knife the baby" email. Details emerged about their "Embrace-Extend-Extinguish" policy and their plans to try and bulldoze the free software movement. Popular perception of Bill Gates and Microsoft at that time sunk to an all-time low [0], picturing Gates as a greedy global capitalist, and Microsoft as a cartoonishly evil company. There was no small fix, the only option left was to to shatter Microsoft into multiple pieces, the way Bell Labs had gone. That's what the final ruling said. Then George W. Bush comes in, clears out basically the entirety of the DOJ, guts them to a fifth of their size, and tells them "never do that again". The case then went to appeal, where it was reduced from a mandatory break-up to a small fine. The DOJ never went after big tech again. Bill Gates resigned as CEO, and decided to go into philanthropy to clear their image, like many capitalists do. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE
- saurik 6y ago
  FWIW, looking just at your final paragraph (as I agree strongly with everything you said, but feel a need to note that it wasn't all a complete waste of time): Bill Gates was effectively forced out of his own company after nearly driving the company to destruction by provoking a judge with his arrogance, and the Microsoft that was left after this mess--notably run by Steve Balmer--had a very difficult time hiring strong talent or having any reasonable strategy for its offerings, and as such was no longer organizationally able to maintain some basic technologies that had become mired in the antitrust case (such as Internet Explorer, which was trivially disrupted by Chrome, and is now effectively gone).
deleted 6y ago
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kortilla 6y ago
> The list goes on. I'm happy that it's being suggested, I'm just worried how it took so long to get here. Because this is a Gish Gallop of weak individual reasons batched together to make it seem like a stronger obvious argument when it’s not. > How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it? They don’t. Amazon and Facebook both make a fortune from ads. You need to be more specific. > How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? Go to a store, this is what Walmart, Albertsons/Safeway, Costco, etc have been doing for longer than any of the FAANGs have existed. > How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? The same reason you can’t put software you want on a Xbox/PlayStation/Switch. > Why is Google allowed to rank their own products in front of more general results? Because it’s their algorithm to do with what they want. If they want to erode public trust by using it to advertise their products, that’s their choice. Other things they adjust the algorithm to do: filter malware, filter porn (by default), filter unreliable sites, etc. You’re going to have a really hard time defining what’s “fair” for a black box algorithm to do.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- echelon 6y ago
  > > How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it? > They don’t. Amazon and Facebook both make a fortune from ads. Yes, but they own search ads and a large percentage of web ads (though the non-siloed web is becoming less and less relevant each year), and they do everything in their power to put people into their ad funnel. They control 50% of the mobile OS, 70%+ of the browser monoculture, and nearly 100% of search. They can order sites according to which ones use AdSense or AMP, neuter ad blocking (especially of AdSense), and collect behavior across the web even when website owners don't want it. They're fucking up an entire set of technologies to further their goals. That's not monopolistic. That's horrific. I don't think we even have a term to describe this yet, it's so bad. We're all getting Big Teched.
  - 6y ago
umvi 6y ago
Walmart sells walmart brand generic stuff don't they?
ehutch79 6y ago
Shouldn't this also affect cable companies and what not?
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Microsoft didn't ban anything. They commited the mortal sin of bundling notepad.exe and freezing out text editor innovation... or something like that.
notyourwork 6y ago
> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? How can Microsoft control what games you play on Xbox or how can Nintendo control what games you play on switch? Why are grocery stores allowed to sell private brand products that compete? I'm worried we don't quite have a good grip on how to solve this problem.
SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
How can grocery stores be allowed to own food brands when they're also marketplaces! How can Aldi be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace?
- foobar33333 6y ago
  Is it a good thing that supermarkets have their own brands, typically cloning other packaging/branding and being at a price advantage due to not paying supermarket fees? Is this something we should try to protect? All of these "What about x" points just make me think that we need to go further and stop those as well rather than using them as a justification to not bother.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
    I generally agree. But the "status quo" is to allow exclusivity deals all over by default, and it's worth recognizing that when trying to craft messages for lawmakers.
dequor 6y ago
Not to deter from the point but DDG also returns Google Earth as a first result of the search for Earth. The algorithms can be (and are) manipulated; it's called SEO. Fun example is an image search of "white couple".
mandeepj 6y ago
> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? Ha! Did you even check? Chrome is available from a long time
- noisem4ker 6y ago
  Commenter should have said "other web browser engines" to be more precise.
mongol 6y ago
Strangely enough, I get lot of Google Earth top hits on DDG. Seems Google excels at SEO.
sfifs 6y ago
There's a long way to go and it's not very clear who will prevail. In general in US jurisprudence, "consumer welfare" is the key consideration in antitrust over the last few decades and monopolization and vertical integration are not considered problems unless there is consumer harm due to it. This is different from how antitrust is looked at pretty much anywhere else in the world ( and i personally think its preferable). This book [1] has been very influential in influencing the approach. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox
coding123 6y ago
It's a rough road to fight that. Trader joes sells non-branded but also branded products. Albertsons/Safeway/Vons sells O brand stuff (the organics), Open Nature, Signature, Primotaglio, etc... Kroger sells a boat load of branded products as well. So it won't be just amazon that would be affected by something like that. However - having only read the article and not the actual bill, maybe it's only affecting "tech".

lotsofpulp 6y ago

> How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? They should have been forced to divide their busin Depends on how you define “marketplace”. Costco/Walmart/Best Buy/Target/Home Depot/Lowe’s/grocery stores all sell their own brands next to competing brands in their stores. Is their one store the marketplace? It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website.

starfallg 6y ago
Antitrust legislation usually kick in when there is a dominant participant in the market that is abusing their position. So shops having their own-brand products competing with products from vendors is fine until the company in question has an effective hold on that market.
capableweb 6y ago
It's not just whatever marketplace, anti-monopoly legislation focuses on markets where the players own a significant share of the full market. In the case of Amazon, it seems like they have above 52% of the e-commerce market in the US in 2019 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-commerce-market-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-c...) so probably it's even higher now. When one player now has over half the market, you need to carefully watch what they are doing in order for them not to start exploiting their position. This is why it's different between Amazon and Home Depot, they hold different amount of the market, so even if Home Depot wanted to exploit their position, they probably couldn't. Amazon with their marketshare, can do so much easier. Then there is the issue of specifically Amazon ranking their own products above others in their search results, even if others have better reviews, more purchases, more page views and so on. Then we start getting into "abusing their market position" territory, and this is what is getting investigated now.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Yes, so the issue is not just selling your own products in your own marketplace. > This is why it's different between Amazon and Home Depot, they hold different amount of the market, so even if Home Depot wanted to exploit their position, they probably couldn't. I would say Home Depot has far more control of their markets than Amazon does. Pick any smaller metro, and the only consumer building materials store around is Home Depot or Lowes. The two basically split up all the markets, and if there’s not enough business to sustain both, then there will be just one. But no other store will be able to compete. If you’re a manufacturer and you can’t convince Home Depot or Lowes to stock your item in their store, then you’re not going to reach 90% of people via in store attention (for home improvement stuff). Almost all big box store brands have whittled down to two viable options, or even one in the case of Best Buy. Although, I think that might be the natural state of things given how low profit margins are for retail (low single digit percentages).
  - capableweb 6y ago
    > Yes, so the issue is not just selling your own products in your own marketplace. Of course not, the final issue is companies becoming monopolies and companies abusing their market positions, that is what we want to prevent, in order to foster innovation and open markets. > I would say Home Depot has far more control of their markets than Amazon does Maybe you're right, I know nothing about what's going on on the ground of the US. So if Home Depot do have more control of their market than what Amazon has of the e-commerce market (more than 50%), then they should also be under watch to see what "strategies" they employ to get more profits. Just because the House is now investigating technology companies doesn't mean that hopefully whatever legislation comes out of this, cannot be applied to other industries.
squarefoot 6y ago
> It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website. Not if the different website becomes hard to find because first pages of Google's search results are sold to better bidders.
- basch 6y ago
  googles front page for any term is already "what we think is best." it's their discretion, their opinion, they have no obligation to be fair. if somebody paid for rank, the FTC requires them to disclose the sponsorship.
mindslight 6y ago
> It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website. That seems like it must be true - Going to Lowe's instead of Home Depot takes getting to know a different store layout, and likely at least an extra half hour if you still have to go to HD. But evidently, by the way people talk about ordering everything from Amazon (despite its numerous problems) and look at you like you have three heads if you talk about going to even say just Target.com, there seems to be some counterintuitive hurdle for switching websites that's actually worse than for physical stores. Perhaps because web widgets are so un-affordanced that figuring out a new one can actually be hard, or that the majority of orders are reorders, or the smaller stakes dopamine feedback from getting what you need while sitting down, or the dark forest feeling makes people extremely conservative. Whatever it is, it exists. Of course there are also plenty of people who have no problem switching between online stores at the drop of a hat. I'd posit that these people have a model of buying based on manufacturers, viewing the web stores as mere means to some ends, and understand credit card chargeback policies. For example I buy a decent amount of stuff from Zoro (whose descriptions can be lacking), and so I often end up referencing manufacturers' catalogs directly. Which are fantastically informative and easy to read (single PDF, well-specified comparison tables, no middle clicking dozens of search results, no page load lag, no flipping between tabs to spot a minute difference hidden by web chaff, no surveillance, etc), but I'm certainly paying a fixed effort overhead to get to that point. Whatever the case for such stickiness is, I think one of the best tech reforms possible would be to mandate open APIs. As Amazon (et al) are stores, then their business is selling specific products for specific prices. This data should be openly available such that it can be retrievable by every user agent (no CAPTCHA harassment), and ideally, orders placed through the same system. This would enable price competition as well as UI competition, rather than the two being bundled as they are now.
- zepto 6y ago
  > But evidently, by the way people talk about ordering everything from Amazon (despite its numerous problems) and look at you like you have three heads if you talk about going to even say just Target.com, there seems to be some counterintuitive hurdle for switching websites that's actually worse than for physical stores. I think there is truth to this since I personally for a long time would go to Amazon for everything. Over time I have shifted to using them less and less. However I think it’s just a matter of consumer maturity. Apple Pay has done a lot to make it easier for me to buy from 3rd party websites. There is a lot of money to be made in services to help the rest of the web be more competitive to Amazon. We are just at a certain stage in the cycle. That’s what concerns me about getting the government involved. These ‘monopolies’ have arisen very quickly - on the order of a decade. Things can change in the marketplace just as fast.
darksaints 6y ago
All of those companies buy their inventory and take on the full risk of potentially not selling it. They're retailers, not marketplaces.
- gruez 6y ago
  Not sure about the other stores, but that's not always true for walmart, which has at least some goods on consignment. https://blog.softwareag.com/in-future-retailers-may-be-missing-something-inventory https://blog.softwareag.com/in-future-retailers-may-be-missi...
  - darksaints 6y ago
    Consignment is still a stocking risk. They are on the hook for holding costs. Amazon doesn't do shit with marketplace inventory. Sellers are either stocking it themselves, or they are explicitly paying amazon to hold it in their inventory. The difference matters because retail stores always have an incentive to sell the things they stock. Even pure consignment stores will refuse to consign items that they don't think they can sell. Amazon has zero incentive to sell marketplace merchant stock, as they bear zero cost to not sell it. So anytime they start to compete against their merchants, they can effectively hide competitors listings in a back room out of sight and never have to deal with the consequences of doing so.
ABCLAW 6y ago
>Costco/Walmart/Best Buy/Target/Home Depot/Lowe’s/grocery stores all sell their own brands next to competing brands in their stores. These are almost all 'control brands'; similar or identical products from the same suppliers, but they don't have marketing spend allocated to them. The delta in sales between the control brands and the 'brand-name' ones allows you to calculate goodwill.
- yoz-y 6y ago
  Not in my experience. Except for very well known brands like Coca Cola and Mars, the store-brand products are always front and center in all shelves, and all in-store marketing (flyers, catalogs, promotions) is for the store branded products. This is for Carrefour, Franprix and Monoprix, not sure how it is in the US.
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    Target creates knock offs (Up+Up brand) for almost all the household products they sell. They're placed directly next to the item from the known brand, such as Neutrogena. I would say if anything, the known brand item is more front and center, but it's impossible to ignore the adjacent facsimile that's 2/3 the price.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      FYI, “knock offs” has the same meaning as counterfeit. Target sells “generics” under their Up+Up brands.
      - basch 6y ago
        knockoff means imitation https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knockoff https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knockoff https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/knockoff https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/knockof...
        6y ago
laurent92 6y ago
Should Costco/Walmart be allowed to sell products along competing ones in their own marketplace? No! Of course! I’d like to see how well they would perform on Target/Best Buy shelves, they probably wouldn’t sell at all. Therefore the only origin for their success is an abuse of marketplace ownership, and it has distorted the market, and therefore has harmed consumers by simply reducing quality brand’s ability to scale, by imposing higher shelf costs for the same brand exposure, and therefore fewer sales. Although it’s not a monopoly — and another law should be drafted against competing on a marketplace you own.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Should Costco/Walmart be able to sell their own brands on their own website? Should retailers who sell other brands be able to sell their own brand at all? > and therefore has harmed consumers by simply reducing quality brand’s ability to scale, by imposing higher shelf costs for the same brand exposure, and therefore fewer sales. How come brand name items cost more on the brand’s website compared to Walmart’s brands on Walmart’s website? There is no shelf cost online.
  - laurent92 6y ago
    Isn’t it because resellers like Walmart always require lower prices than what the brand sells publicly, otherwise brands would always undercut all their resellers? It is the case with electronics, I don’t know for food.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I doubt it, that would be ascribing immense sway to Walmart over other enormous companies like Procter and Gamble, Unilever, etc. What is more likely is this is a simple example of price discrimination or price segmentation. Theoretically, you can earn the most money by selling each item at the maximum price the buyer is willing to pay. But if the buyers all have varying levels of income or willingness to pay, how do you scale this? Obviously, you can't barter with every single person for every $5 bottle of lotion. What you can do is create various brands, and maybe differentiate the products slightly, or maybe not. Similar to binning with silicon chips where the chips with higher probabilities of performing better and longer get sold for higher. So Walmart can go to Johnson and Johnson and say hey, you're selling Lubriderm for $5, make me some lotion that's similar or lower in quality (but still acceptable to Walmart), and we'll sell that for $4. Now, J&J get to sell their $5 lotion to people willing to pay $5, and a cheaper line to people wanting to pay less, but they don't have to lose the people paying $5. And they do this in many, many layers. P&G, Unilever, J&J, and others all have countless brands they use to hit various price points. And the products may be the same, or may be marginally less in quality. And maybe it behooves some people to pay more for the extra assurance of quality.
com2kid 6y ago
For an increasing number of product lines, Walgreens is selling only their house brand. Last time I needed one, I was unable to buy an effective bandage wrap in person, I had to order online. My local Walgreens only had their own house brand "self stick" type that doesn't really stick at all. Went to buy some wrist braces, again, only their house brand. Many styles of wrist braces exist, they sold one type, the type I didn't want. For some house brands, such as Costco, they provide a huge competitive force in the marketplace. An example is Costco Diapers, which are rated really well, and basically establish a price at which other "name brands" have to complete. There is a possibility that they are creating a downwards pressure on the price of diapers overall. (Or that they are colluding to ensure prices don't fall too far, huh, never thought of that angle before!) My local grocery store's brand is generally untrustworthy. I hate it when they are the only option for buying something. The 3 times I have tried their yogurt coated pretzels I have gotten an upset stomach, and I normally have an iron stomach that allows me to eat street food around the world with aplomb. Funny enough their house brand "sweetened flavored sparking water" is really my preferred brand, so they get it right some of the time. But from one perspective, isn't this argument hypocritical of us? If I go to a baker, I kinda expect everything in the bakery to be "store brand", and in fact many bakeries been scandalized for not selling their own goods! Heck if I go to my local farmer's market I expect what the farmer sells what they grew, and again if they are just reselling produce, social media scandal! This entire idea of stores being a "marketplace" for multiple brands is only a recent aberration. So maybe what are seeing is just things are just slowly returning to a world where everything is "store branded".
- vxNsr 6y ago
  > This entire idea of stores being a "marketplace" for multiple brands is only a recent aberration. Replace marketplace with platform, anyone who calls themselves a platform and competes on the “kill all competitors” level should be regulated as common carrier/public space. There are numerous ways to identify platforms vs marketplaces and not all of them are related to total market penetration. But I think the legislation should look in that direction, give the FTC the power to declare a company a platform in its space and then allow it to regulate that company in the same way utilities are regulated but obv updated for the internet age. I think the biggest hinderance to this sorta thing is that all law makers are increasingly biased and refuse to acknowledge their favor. They pretend instead that they are in fact impartial and any appearance to the contrary is simply necessary due to the importance of the issue at hand, or the extremists involved (“I’m really a centrist, they’re just nazis, so I appear to be far left” and vice versa).

eecc 6y ago

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? Nope, total Apple and Oranges. Forbidding other HTML rendering engines on iOS, prevented other massive players (Google) from forcing their browser platform onto Apple’s user base and Electron-ized Apple’s ecosystem making iOS a marginal runtime. Or worse, Adobe could have spun their own Adobe Flash app “now with web access too!”. It’s not competitive advantage, it’s strategy

jiofih 6y ago
How different is that from Microsoft and IE?
- lallysingh 6y ago
  iOS isn't 90%+ of the phone market.
  - MagnumOpus 6y ago
    IOS is 100% of the iPhone market though, given that unlike Windows in the PC market, Apple disallows installing an alternative OS, and an alternative app store in addition to disallowing alternate browsers.
    - eecc 6y ago
      So? Go buy an Android device. You’re blaming a manufacturer for being 100% of its own product market?!
  - jiofih 6y ago
    In some markets it’s pretty close (US teenagers for example).
    - tobylane 6y ago
      Is there a relevant law or court case that takes sectors of consumers into account? That one could be more relevant because they are vulnerable, or less relevant because the devices are bought in their parents name.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? They now allow it by the way. I don't know why. I am using Firefox on iOS and it was supported for at least half a year AFAIK. Your point still stands obviously.

kwyjobojoe 6y ago
It's not really Firefox. They have to use the same engine as the Apple browser.
capableweb 6y ago
I should have been more clear. I'm not talking about the "browser shell" (the UI for tabs, settings and so on) but about the "rendering engine" which in the case of Firefox is Gecko on PC, but since Apple has this arbitrary restriction, is Webkit on iOS, which is the same engine everyone on iOS is forced to use, no matter what. So yes, you're using Firefox, but you're still using the same rendering engine for your browser, as any other browser on iOS. Effectively limiting how powerful browsers can be on iOS, as Apple has full control over Webkit and doesn't allow anything else, literally anti-competitive behavior.
- twobitshifter 6y ago
  On Desktop, how many rendering engines are there out there today? 3? Most browser creators cannot afford to create their own rendering engine, so we get Gecko, WebKit, or Blink. With this in mind, when you’re asking for alternative rendering engines, you’re really asking for Google to be able to get their hooks into iOS. It would be nice if Mozilla were free to develop their own engine but that’s not without downside and the most likely outcome is an iOS dominated by Chrome and ad-tracking.
  - spideymans 6y ago
    > It would be nice if Mozilla were free to develop their own engine but that’s not without downside and the most likely outcome is an iOS dominated by Chrome and ad-tracking The impacts go beyond iOS. The reality is that Safari is the only thing standing in the way of Google having IE-style dominance of browser usage share. As of now, Chromium has just under 80% usage share. If Chromium were as dominant as iOS as it is on desktop, it’s usage share would likely exceed 90% Alternate engines are a fine idea in principle, but we need to consider whether a Chromium monopoly on the web is indeed an improvement from the status quo.

Black101 6y ago

Another problem with Google is their popups... I.E.: If you are not using Chrome, and visit Google.com, they will let you know. That is how they got so many people to switch to it.

verdverm 6y ago
fwiw, I just started using MS products again and they do the same thing. I'm not switching because I tried them and Google still has superior products
- Black101 6y ago
  It never made me switch to Chrome (still use Firefox), but I think that it made a lot of people switch... by having a daily popup telling them that they are using the wrong browser.
  - SuchAnonMuchWow 6y ago
    no, what made people switch was that chrome is the default browser on android
    - verdverm 6y ago
      Firefox slowness sent me there and Chromes account management is what keeps me there
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- twobitshifter 6y ago
  You think chrome is superior to the new Edge Browser which is based on chromium?

zffr 6y ago

WebKit on iOS has special sandbox privileges not available to other user frameworks. I think it allows it to spawn other processes, and do special stuff to increase its performance and decrease energy consumption. It seems like an engineering challenge to expose these features to arbitrary 3rd party frameworks in a way that doesn’t allow these features to be abused. Not sure of Apple’s full motives, but I think this is at least part of the reason other rendering engines are not supported.

traib 6y ago
> WebKit on iOS has special sandbox privileges not available to other user frameworks. Okay so WebKit cannot be used as is, but then why forbid other alternatives [1]? Seems like a Catch-22. > It seems like an engineering challenge to expose these features to arbitrary 3rd party frameworks in a way that doesn’t allow these features to be abused. How does literally every single other platform manage this? AFAIK none of Android, Windows, the many Unix-like OSs, even Apple's MacOs have such restrictions on browser apps. And I think it'd be unfair to characterize the users of those other platforms as being "abused" by their browser apps. E.g. Firefox seems pretty trustworthy. [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ - "2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript."
- robbiemitchell 6y ago
  What prohibited browsers are you referring to?
  - traib 6y ago
    I was mainly referring to how every browser app on iOS is forced have Safari underneath. The wiki page on Firefox for iOS [1] mentions this in some detail - it cannot use Gecko like it does on desktop and Android, it must use WebKit instead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS

marderfarker2 6y ago

Maybe they rank higher because their product is superior? I mean is there really anything better than Google Earth?

egman_ekki 6y ago
The actual Earth is, arguably, a bit better, imo.
- jjk166 6y ago
  Weird, I typically get websites in my search results, how do I enable celestial bodies?
kthartic 6y ago
I don’t think that was their point. Why is Google Earth ranked higher than, oh I dunno, Earth?
- sgc 6y ago
  Google earth is just one more website about the earth, and you can't get the real thing through your tiny tubes. If more people searching for earth want to use that website to explore the real earth rather than say, read the wikipedia article about the earth (and most obviously more people use GE than visit that one page on the wiki), it is correct for it to be ranked higher according to most typical search algorithms. OPs point is perfectly valid, it's just not a great example.
e-clinton 6y ago
Key word in your statement being “maybe”. No one knows for sure if they’re exploiting their advantages or not. That’s really the biggest issue: the lack of transparency. I think if companies want to participate in their own marketplaces, they need to be required to publish all data they have that could potentially give them an edge. This obviously isn’t possible in many cases, so companies will just not go through the trouble.
tarboreus 6y ago

nova22033 6y ago

Is that really a fair ranking? We don't even know, We kinda know because people keep using Google. If people thought the results weren't good, they would switch to bing.

Mordisquitos 6y ago
The terms "fair ranking" and "good results" are not synonymous. We do not know if Google provides a fair ranking.

prepend 6y ago

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple is not. Microsoft compelled their hardware partners to not do business with competitors, Apple is vertical regards to hardware. While I like protocols and interoperability, it’s hard to achieve that through antitrust laws because antitrust focuses on consumer harm and without monopoly power that’s hard to show. I’m trying to think of any anti-trust for non-monopolies or threat of monopoly and can’t. Should my NAS have to include third party browsers just because they have a browser?

osrec 6y ago
The mobile phone market is an oligopoly, with each participant pushing their own (sometimes terrible) agendas. Given that Apple is very deliberately resisting the adoption of PWAs in order to protect their app store, I think it's fair to say they're playing dirty. I mean, why are they restricting other browsers from using their own web views?! So that they can't implement annoying web push notifications (which users can turn off anyway)?! That's a terrible excuse to hold the web back, and it annoys the heck out of me. Especially given the number of apps in the app store with a bunch of security issues and equally annoying push notifications.
mupuff1234 6y ago
Apple has about 60% share of mobile phones in the US. I'd say it definitely should be considered a monopoly.

xxs 6y ago

>Try searching for "Earth" on Google and see what the top hit is. Is that really a fair ranking? As shocking as it is Microsoft's "bing" does the same... Some more: duckduckgo.com does the same as well. (ok it uses microsoft's stuff underneath) To be fair I am surprised with the results.

jjk166 6y ago

> Try searching for "Earth" on Google and see what the top hit is. Is that really a fair ranking? We don't even know, because no one knows how their algorithm is working, but one thing is clear, Google products consistently rank higher than anything else in the search engine. If you search "earth" on bing or duckduckgo, google earth is the first result for both.

impulser_ 6y ago

Bing.com has Google Earth first on the list as well. I think you are overreacting to how many searches give Google products as the first result. The only products that do rank high are literally the most popular products. What do you think they should rig the results against themselves? Why would that help people?

Jasper_ 6y ago

> We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? What happened was that the DOJ did everything they could to get Microsoft broken up. They got pretty much the entire country on their side, and during the trials they extracted some hilarious quotes from Microsoft and Bill Gates, like arguing about the definition of the word "ask", the infamous "knife the baby" email. Details emerged about their "Embrace-Extend-Extinguish" policy and their plans to try and bulldoze the free software movement. Popular perception of Bill Gates and Microsoft at that time sunk to an all-time low [0], picturing Gates as a greedy global capitalist, and Microsoft as a cartoonishly evil company. There was no small fix, the only option left was to to shatter Microsoft into multiple pieces, the way Bell Labs had gone. That's what the final ruling said. Then George W. Bush comes in, clears out basically the entirety of the DOJ, guts them to a fifth of their size, and tells them "never do that again". The case then went to appeal, where it was reduced from a mandatory break-up to a small fine. The DOJ never went after big tech again. Bill Gates resigned as CEO, and decided to go into philanthropy to clear their image, like many capitalists do. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE

saurik 6y ago
FWIW, looking just at your final paragraph (as I agree strongly with everything you said, but feel a need to note that it wasn't all a complete waste of time): Bill Gates was effectively forced out of his own company after nearly driving the company to destruction by provoking a judge with his arrogance, and the Microsoft that was left after this mess--notably run by Steve Balmer--had a very difficult time hiring strong talent or having any reasonable strategy for its offerings, and as such was no longer organizationally able to maintain some basic technologies that had become mired in the antitrust case (such as Internet Explorer, which was trivially disrupted by Chrome, and is now effectively gone).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kortilla 6y ago

> The list goes on. I'm happy that it's being suggested, I'm just worried how it took so long to get here. Because this is a Gish Gallop of weak individual reasons batched together to make it seem like a stronger obvious argument when it’s not. > How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it? They don’t. Amazon and Facebook both make a fortune from ads. You need to be more specific. > How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? Go to a store, this is what Walmart, Albertsons/Safeway, Costco, etc have been doing for longer than any of the FAANGs have existed. > How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? The same reason you can’t put software you want on a Xbox/PlayStation/Switch. > Why is Google allowed to rank their own products in front of more general results? Because it’s their algorithm to do with what they want. If they want to erode public trust by using it to advertise their products, that’s their choice. Other things they adjust the algorithm to do: filter malware, filter porn (by default), filter unreliable sites, etc. You’re going to have a really hard time defining what’s “fair” for a black box algorithm to do.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
echelon 6y ago
> > How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it? > They don’t. Amazon and Facebook both make a fortune from ads. Yes, but they own search ads and a large percentage of web ads (though the non-siloed web is becoming less and less relevant each year), and they do everything in their power to put people into their ad funnel. They control 50% of the mobile OS, 70%+ of the browser monoculture, and nearly 100% of search. They can order sites according to which ones use AdSense or AMP, neuter ad blocking (especially of AdSense), and collect behavior across the web even when website owners don't want it. They're fucking up an entire set of technologies to further their goals. That's not monopolistic. That's horrific. I don't think we even have a term to describe this yet, it's so bad. We're all getting Big Teched.
- 6y ago

umvi 6y ago

Walmart sells walmart brand generic stuff don't they?

ehutch79 6y ago

Shouldn't this also affect cable companies and what not?

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

Microsoft didn't ban anything. They commited the mortal sin of bundling notepad.exe and freezing out text editor innovation... or something like that.

notyourwork 6y ago

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? How can Microsoft control what games you play on Xbox or how can Nintendo control what games you play on switch? Why are grocery stores allowed to sell private brand products that compete? I'm worried we don't quite have a good grip on how to solve this problem.

SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago

How can grocery stores be allowed to own food brands when they're also marketplaces! How can Aldi be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace?

foobar33333 6y ago
Is it a good thing that supermarkets have their own brands, typically cloning other packaging/branding and being at a price advantage due to not paying supermarket fees? Is this something we should try to protect? All of these "What about x" points just make me think that we need to go further and stop those as well rather than using them as a justification to not bother.
- SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
  I generally agree. But the "status quo" is to allow exclusivity deals all over by default, and it's worth recognizing that when trying to craft messages for lawmakers.

dequor 6y ago

Not to deter from the point but DDG also returns Google Earth as a first result of the search for Earth. The algorithms can be (and are) manipulated; it's called SEO. Fun example is an image search of "white couple".

mandeepj 6y ago

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? Ha! Did you even check? Chrome is available from a long time

noisem4ker 6y ago
Commenter should have said "other web browser engines" to be more precise.

mongol 6y ago

Strangely enough, I get lot of Google Earth top hits on DDG. Seems Google excels at SEO.

sfifs 6y ago

There's a long way to go and it's not very clear who will prevail. In general in US jurisprudence, "consumer welfare" is the key consideration in antitrust over the last few decades and monopolization and vertical integration are not considered problems unless there is consumer harm due to it. This is different from how antitrust is looked at pretty much anywhere else in the world ( and i personally think its preferable). This book [1] has been very influential in influencing the approach. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox

coding123 6y ago

It's a rough road to fight that. Trader joes sells non-branded but also branded products. Albertsons/Safeway/Vons sells O brand stuff (the organics), Open Nature, Signature, Primotaglio, etc... Kroger sells a boat load of branded products as well. So it won't be just amazon that would be affected by something like that. However - having only read the article and not the actual bill, maybe it's only affecting "tech".