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I hate to break it to everyone, but "dominance" does not equal "profits." How do I know this? I was in Google Patent Litigation, and there were tons of suits a

I hate to break it to everyone, but "dominance" does not equal "profits." How do I know this? I was in Google Patent Litigation, and there were tons of suits against Maps. In all of these, the plaintiff strains as hard as they can to find some connection to Ads, because that's where the money is. Maps doesn't bring in much money. I'm not going to quote figures here. In some countries, they were paying someone per search for data, because they didn't have their own map data yet. Maybe that's changed. "Oh, but imputed revenue!" you say? Well, no one has ever succeeded in defining that and proving it. You can be certain that Google won't ever do it, even internally, because that would end up in Discovery.

rwmj 4y ago
Surely there's some synergistic benefit? I would hardly use a search engine these days unless relevant searches pulled up a map (not to mention the associated restaurant reviews etc).
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  See the quote about "imputed revenue." There's a big gulf between "makes sense" to "quantifiable in court."
ipsum2 4y ago
Isn't the connection that Maps runs ads?
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  that wasn't the case 8 years ago.
jtrip 4y ago
> since Google's rise to mapping dominance, it has put the screws to developers with anti-competitive terms and rising prices. In 2018, Google Maps hiked the price by more than 1,400 percent, and many developers were forced to stop using Google Maps or go bankrupt. > The US Justice Department began an investigation of Google Maps earlier in the year over concerns about car app bundling and anti-competitive terms of service. >When Uber held its IPO in 2019, the company reportedly paid $58 million for Google Maps API access over the previous three years, and that was mostly before the Google Maps price hike. I think things have changed since that suit. Let's see if the gov can do something.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  My data is from around 2014. "since Google's rise to mapping dominance" is risible. It's had dominance since the early 2000's. I'm not in touch with the Litigation team and if I were, they certainly wouldn't tell me, but I'd be surprised if plaintiffs have stopped going after the Ads money. I'd bet that still dwarfs whatever pittance Maps brings in.

rwmj 4y ago

Surely there's some synergistic benefit? I would hardly use a search engine these days unless relevant searches pulled up a map (not to mention the associated restaurant reviews etc).

AlbertCory 4y ago
See the quote about "imputed revenue." There's a big gulf between "makes sense" to "quantifiable in court."

ipsum2 4y ago

Isn't the connection that Maps runs ads?

AlbertCory 4y ago
that wasn't the case 8 years ago.

jtrip 4y ago

> since Google's rise to mapping dominance, it has put the screws to developers with anti-competitive terms and rising prices. In 2018, Google Maps hiked the price by more than 1,400 percent, and many developers were forced to stop using Google Maps or go bankrupt. > The US Justice Department began an investigation of Google Maps earlier in the year over concerns about car app bundling and anti-competitive terms of service. >When Uber held its IPO in 2019, the company reportedly paid $58 million for Google Maps API access over the previous three years, and that was mostly before the Google Maps price hike. I think things have changed since that suit. Let's see if the gov can do something.

AlbertCory 4y ago
My data is from around 2014. "since Google's rise to mapping dominance" is risible. It's had dominance since the early 2000's. I'm not in touch with the Litigation team and if I were, they certainly wouldn't tell me, but I'd be surprised if plaintiffs have stopped going after the Ads money. I'd bet that still dwarfs whatever pittance Maps brings in.