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I feel like the more blatant monopoly abuse by Google is how they use the Google search homepage to shill their other products. They effectively give themselves
by ren_engineer 2y ago
I feel like the more blatant monopoly abuse by Google is how they use the Google search homepage to shill their other products. They effectively give themselves billions of dollars in free advertising
- fuzztester 2y agohow is that abuse, though? is it against the law? IANAL, but I would think not. I mean, many people put links to their other products or services on the web page of one of their products or services.
- TheCleric 2y agoIt is, if you are leveraging one monopoly to attempt to gain more. This is what happened with Microsoft and Internet Explorer (via the Windows monopoly)[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- magicalist 2y agoHad Microsoft merely provided advertised IE with Windows there never would have been a suit. Even bundling alone would have been a hard case to make. They did far more than just ship IE with Windows.
- TheCleric 2y agoOh I agree. I merely meant that they were leveraging an existing monopoly to try to create another one via unfair practices.
- fuzztester 2y agolinking to my answer in other parts of this thread, since the point and my reply are the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41166997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41166997
- ncruces 2y agoBecause it's much better for the consumer to search for a city, get an interactive map right there on the search results, but no link to jump to Google Maps so they can get an estimate on how long it takes to get there, because that'd be bundling.
- ssl-3 2y agoSearch term: "Detroit" Search results include: "Explore maps of Detroit on HERE[0], Google Maps[0], OpenStreetMap[0] [...]" [0] insert link
- ren_engineer 2y agoI'm talking more about them posting new product launches, I/O livestream, gmail pinned to the top, etc. Embedded stuff in search results is fine for the most part, although their intent their is primarily to prevent click throughs to other sites and increase the chances of an ad click
- fuzztester 2y ago>They effectively give themselves billions of dollars in free advertising how the heck is google's " 'giving' themselves something for free", considered wrong? even if it is billions of dollars? in which alt world is it wrong of you to 'give' yourself a 100 dollars? or even billions? of your own money? or even billions worth of advertising space? both the giver and the receiver are you, right? you are not stealing anything from anyone. then what the heck is the problem? maybe I am dumb, but I fail to see it. in your own words, they are giving it to themselves, right? they are not taking that money away from anyone else. and note: I am not a Google shill. I criticized them, with some justifications that I gave, roughly about a day ago. check my comments. I try to be objective, though of course I may sometimes fail at that. interested to hear what you have to say about all this.
- j_maffe 2y agoThey're giving themselves money by abusing their monopoly status. Sure, in a totally free market, it looks innocent. There are laws against this because monopolies are damaging to any market it's in and ends up hurting the end user.
- fuzztester 2y agopardon me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly >A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing. how is Google a monopoly according to the above definition in Wikipedia? they have competitors like bing, duckduckgo, kagi, and some others that i have read about here on hn recently. and I do not know about the others, but at least bing and duckduckgo have existed for many years. so again, how are they a monopoly?
- TheCleric 2y agoDepending on the metric, Google has 90% of the search engine market. Yes they have competition in a literal sense, but not in a meaningful sense.
- fuzztester 2y agohow are they a monopoly, as I asked another person in this same thread, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41166997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41166997
- notatoad 2y ago>how are they a monopoly they are because a judge just ruled they are. answering questions like this is the reason the courts exist, and they just answered this question. or they might not actually be a monopoly, there's still a possibility of appeal, but there's really no more definitive answer than a judge's ruling. antitrust law is fuzzy, and depends a lot on the courts to interpret it.
- fuzztester 2y ago>they are because a judge just ruled they are. but they are not a monopoly according to the Wikipedia definition that I cited in another subthread, and linked to above, though. and courts can be packed, which, i have been reading, has happened with the us supreme court.
- notatoad 2y agoif you want to beleive a wikipedia definition based on historical caselaw, instead of an actual judge's decision, then i guess sure, do whatever you want. if you're asking how they're a monopoly, i answered you. if you want to debate whether the judge was right or wrong, maybe phrase your question less like a question.
- fuzztester 2y ago>if you're asking how they're a monopoly, i answered you. if you want to debate whether the judge was right or wrong, maybe phrase your question less like a question. okay, i will. in fact, i also answered you, so I'll just link to my other answer again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41167248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41167248