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You are offended because Google is being held to a different standard, and you are right. That's the whole point. Monopolies are held to a different standard. T
by aristus 15y ago
You are offended because Google is being held to a different standard, and you are right. That's the whole point. Monopolies are held to a different standard. This exercise is about determining whether a) Google enjoys a monopoly and b) has abused it to the detriment of competition. The nature of this process is ugly, and everyone involved is self-interested. But I don't think it is a "witch hunt".
The question is not whether Google does good work, or that its search engine is popular on its own brand & merit. It does and it is. The question is whether Google is using its dominance in one area (telling people where things are) to gain dominance in other areas (telling people to use its products over others).
Even if Google's non-search products are objectively better, it can be a bad thing in the long run as the next generation of competitors are locked out by Google's dominance in search.
Defenses like "competition is one click away" are disingenuous, in my opinion. Clicks follow a power-law distribution. But I don't know what the right answer is. This might all be sour grapes. That's what the hearings and investigation are supposed to reveal.
- yoyar 15y agoSo, Google does a bunch of good work and people choose to use their service. The US is bankrupt and the economy is screwed. And the congress is spending time persecuting a successful company. BTW, Google isn't the only one. See: Gibson guitars. It doesn't surprise me that people don't want to do business in the US anymore.
- aristus 15y agoCongress is spending time investigating whether this company has become so successful that it is a defacto a monopoly and has abused its position. These two questions are not settled. Gibson was investigated along with other companies for price-fixing. That's more collusion / cartel stuff, but it also falls under anti-trust. The word "trust" is not an accident. When you do good work and capture the lion's share of a market, you are then subject to a much higher standard than otherwise. Even little things you do can kill whole markets. It's not pretty, and I haven't made up my own mind. But so far this investigation does not appear to be frivolous or arbitrary.
- danmaz74 15y agoActually, the "trust" word in "antitrust" _is_ an accident :) It came about because in the late 19th century it was still forbidden to one company to have business in more than one US state, and even to own stock in companies in other states, so very complicated arrangements had to be created to have a national "corporation" - these arrangements were called "trusts", as the Standard Oil Trusts, which was probably the first one and for sure the most famous (or infamous). Later, the law was changed to allow the modern corporation and trusts were obsoleted.
- magicalist 15y ago> Even if Google's non-search products are objectively better, it can be a bad thing in the long run as the next generation of competitors are locked out by Google's dominance in search. The problem is in how you try to fix this. You could just as easily end up hobbling google with nothing to show for it but enabling the last generation of middlemen to stick around even longer. (Nextag and Expedia come to mind...) > That's what the hearings and investigation are supposed to reveal. Here's hoping. These proceedings aren't big on subtlety, so unless there's a smoking gun, I'm expecting mostly innuendo and posturing from everybody.
- aristus 15y agoThe remedies tend to be forced divestiture (eg, Google forced to some portion of DoubleClick, I forget which one), full breakup (a la AT&T), or huge fines (as with Intel in Europe). None of those are surgical. The breakup of Ma Bell may have helped competition, except that instead of a national monopoly we were saddled with a dozen regional monopolies. It's all a huge mess and I wish I knew the answer.