5 ms·

"We took on Google and they were forced to pay out £2B"

68 points by lispisok 2y ago

valleyjo 2y ago
The whole google shopping case is ridiculous. If you are “big enough” and you change (aka make improvements to) your products you get fined. Foundem could have built a direct relationship with customers but that’s not the direction they went.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  I believe the point of the case is that a similar feature by another Google product wasn't penalized in search results while they were penalized.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  You speak as if the fine was issued for no reason, or that no assessment of the facts and law were conducted. Google did abused their position. That was determined to be true in fact finding.
- GeekyBear 2y ago
  Antitrust law does not forbid a company's decision to compete in a new market. It forbids using your existing monopoly in one market as a weapon against competitors in the new markets you choose to enter. The conduct that was illegal here was burying their comparison shopping competitor's websites in Google search results, not "making improvements" to something.
  - miki123211 2y ago
    I think what GP is arguing here, and that's something I agree with, is that this wouldn't be an issue if Google shopping was available from the start. If Google launched Shopping on the same day they launched search, they could have continued the product and it wouldn't have been an antitrust violation. However, because they changed the product and introduced Shopping when they were already large, they're being treated differently. This approach essentially forces large companies to "calcify", because any improvement to their popular product might be seen as an antitrust violation. It also discourages an MVP approach because if you get too popular too quickly, you're limited in how your MVP can grow.
    - GeekyBear 2y ago
      I would agree that the behavior would not have been illegal before Google had a search monopoly that they could use as a weapon against competitors in other markets.
- worewood 2y ago
  > If you are big and improve you get fined Well, no... You get fined if you make improvements AND use your already big position to bury competition that may compete with your improvement. Google could've just marketed their option along the competitors but no, they had to get rid of the competitors results in search too, and that's the issue
mianos 2y ago
I wonder, at what point, the accounting department works out a market becomes unprofitable and Google withdraws. I guess it's good for some local company to take up the reigns. Maybe that's the long term goal of the EU regulation?
- jsnell 2y ago
  Whatever that point is, it's not in any case relevant to the case at hand. The EU hasn't actually levied that many fines on Google. I think it's three significant cases total in the lifetime of the company, none this decade? (Shopping results in search in 2017, Android in 2018, Ads in 2019, the total fines were about 8B euros). Those numbers are big, and enough to act as a deterrent, but even if I've forgotten about some additional case,m they can't be anywhere near big enough to leave a market where they must be making >10B/year in profit. You're just thinking it's been more frequent than that, because you keep reading reporting on the same fines over and over, as the case works its way through appeals. And in case it makes you feel any better, based on these comments you're not the only one getting fooled into thinking that this is news rather than a case that ended in 2017.
  - yojo 2y ago
    Annual net income last year was $87B. So they’ve been fined a little over one month of profits.
    - mianos 2y ago
      That is why it is just speculation. A lot of people go 'Google will leave that market if it is a hassle', as long as they can make a buck they will stay. That is a lot of fines to pay before it makes much difference.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  Unethical entities being held to account is a good thing, not a bad one. Even the spineless US government is finally reaching their tolerance point and preparing to break Google up.
jeffbee 2y ago
[flagged]
- rstupek 2y ago
  Don't forget EUV lithography
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Yeah, it’s surprising how there’s so few judgements against European companies right? Kinda wonder if there’s some fundamental difference.
IshKebab 2y ago
That screenshot of Foundem absolutely screams spam. Was it really something you'd want in your search results?
- jeffbee 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - nlewycky 2y ago
    > No, literally nobody has ever wanted to be directed to "foundem", which is a scam. Could you defend the statement that "foundem" is a scam? If it really was then that adds important context to the ruling, but I'll need something more concrete than hyperbole.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      Foundem's business model was pay for placement. Paid placement is categorically a scam against the reader.
      - card_zero 2y ago
        Not pay-for-inclusion?
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Does owning the search engine and thus being able to hide your competitors actually make you superior? Is this actually what the consumer wants, or merely what the consumer gets? If they were a scam and a competitor, what does that make Google?
- wruza 2y ago
  But it wasn’t, which hints that detection models should be adjusted. It’s a judgement in the same category as “he looks criminal”.
- manquer 2y ago
Mathnerd314 2y ago
But Google didn't pay 2 billion to the couple - it went to the EU government. So now they have a civil lawsuit...
CamelCaseName 2y ago
I'm confused, Google deprioritized their site in search results, and then several years later launched their own shopping comparison tool. And this is the basis of an unfair competition case? On what basis then should or shouldn't Google deprioritize rankings? If a website offers products for $1 and hides a $99 shipping fee, should they still appear in the search results?
- manquer 2y ago
  > basis of an unfair competition case? It is anti-competitive to kill the competition before you product launch, if you they have active plans to be in the market or already under product development during the same time . Clearly Google was unable to show that it wasn't the case, the onus is on them to show that they didn't even think they would ever get into this space. It would be ridiculous proposition to prove for them given that information discovery and aggregation has always been core to their search business, any competent product manager was thinking about it 5 years before at-least. It is not like they killed competition say in mobile OS space in 2005 and then decided to buy Android couple of years laters to build a competitor to Apple and got sued for that, Search and aggregation of other sites is the foundation of their business .
- GeekyBear 2y ago
  > I'm confused, Google deprioritized their site in search results, and then several years later launched their own shopping comparison tool. The first iteration of comparison shopping on Google, then called Froogle, had launched several years prior to their site. > Created by Craig Nevill-Manning and launched in December 2002, Froogle was different from most other price comparison services in that it used Google's web crawler to index product data from the websites of vendors instead of using paid submissions. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Shopping https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Shopping
burakemir 2y ago
"In summary, it is highly misleading to suggest that Microsoft (or ICOMP) initiated or in any way controlled Foundem’s European complaint or any of Foundem’s other initiatives." Source: http://www.searchneutrality.org/uncategorized/foundem-is-not-a-microsoft-puppet http://www.searchneutrality.org/uncategorized/foundem-is-not...
alwa 2y ago
The deranking in question happened in 2006? Goodness. That’s, what… more than half of the WWW’s lifetime ago? And 7 years since the 2017 judgment? The wheels of justice turn slow and all, but man… this has to come as awfully cold comfort (assuming, as the courts found, this couple was in fact wronged).
- card_zero 2y ago
  It's 100 million for every year they've been in business, plus massive free positive publicity. Doesn't sound awful, even if very slow arriving. Edit: they don't in fact get the money? And have been out of business for 8 years. I take it back, this sucks for them.
tim333 2y ago
While I'm sure there are good arguments on both sides, stuff like this contributes to why the US dominates high tech and the EU lags. If you start a web service searching for things you don't want to be bogged down in court by your competitors saying your results weren't quite as they'd like them.
- xandrius 2y ago
  Yeah but do agree that doing that is not right, correct? Because it's like saying that we should get rid of human rights as that bogs down the US and EU in terms of manufacturing goods, which contributes to hay China dominates high. I'd like to be doing well as a country/region AND uphold some sort of shared moral/legal standards. Sure the EU might make things slow but we do get some top shelf consumer protection with it.

68 points by lispisok 2y ago

The whole google shopping case is ridiculous. If you are “big enough” and you change (aka make improvements to) your products you get fined. Foundem could have built a direct relationship with customers but that’s not the direction they went.

lesuorac 2y ago
I believe the point of the case is that a similar feature by another Google product wasn't penalized in search results while they were penalized.
HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
You speak as if the fine was issued for no reason, or that no assessment of the facts and law were conducted. Google did abused their position. That was determined to be true in fact finding.
GeekyBear 2y ago
Antitrust law does not forbid a company's decision to compete in a new market. It forbids using your existing monopoly in one market as a weapon against competitors in the new markets you choose to enter. The conduct that was illegal here was burying their comparison shopping competitor's websites in Google search results, not "making improvements" to something.
- miki123211 2y ago
  I think what GP is arguing here, and that's something I agree with, is that this wouldn't be an issue if Google shopping was available from the start. If Google launched Shopping on the same day they launched search, they could have continued the product and it wouldn't have been an antitrust violation. However, because they changed the product and introduced Shopping when they were already large, they're being treated differently. This approach essentially forces large companies to "calcify", because any improvement to their popular product might be seen as an antitrust violation. It also discourages an MVP approach because if you get too popular too quickly, you're limited in how your MVP can grow.
  - GeekyBear 2y ago
    I would agree that the behavior would not have been illegal before Google had a search monopoly that they could use as a weapon against competitors in other markets.
worewood 2y ago
> If you are big and improve you get fined Well, no... You get fined if you make improvements AND use your already big position to bury competition that may compete with your improvement. Google could've just marketed their option along the competitors but no, they had to get rid of the competitors results in search too, and that's the issue

mianos 2y ago

I wonder, at what point, the accounting department works out a market becomes unprofitable and Google withdraws. I guess it's good for some local company to take up the reigns. Maybe that's the long term goal of the EU regulation?

jsnell 2y ago
Whatever that point is, it's not in any case relevant to the case at hand. The EU hasn't actually levied that many fines on Google. I think it's three significant cases total in the lifetime of the company, none this decade? (Shopping results in search in 2017, Android in 2018, Ads in 2019, the total fines were about 8B euros). Those numbers are big, and enough to act as a deterrent, but even if I've forgotten about some additional case,m they can't be anywhere near big enough to leave a market where they must be making >10B/year in profit. You're just thinking it's been more frequent than that, because you keep reading reporting on the same fines over and over, as the case works its way through appeals. And in case it makes you feel any better, based on these comments you're not the only one getting fooled into thinking that this is news rather than a case that ended in 2017.
- yojo 2y ago
  Annual net income last year was $87B. So they’ve been fined a little over one month of profits.
  - mianos 2y ago
    That is why it is just speculation. A lot of people go 'Google will leave that market if it is a hassle', as long as they can make a buck they will stay. That is a lot of fines to pay before it makes much difference.
HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
Unethical entities being held to account is a good thing, not a bad one. Even the spineless US government is finally reaching their tolerance point and preparing to break Google up.

jeffbee 2y ago

[flagged]

rstupek 2y ago
Don't forget EUV lithography
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Aeolun 2y ago
Yeah, it’s surprising how there’s so few judgements against European companies right? Kinda wonder if there’s some fundamental difference.

IshKebab 2y ago

That screenshot of Foundem absolutely screams spam. Was it really something you'd want in your search results?

jeffbee 2y ago
[flagged]
- nlewycky 2y ago
  > No, literally nobody has ever wanted to be directed to "foundem", which is a scam. Could you defend the statement that "foundem" is a scam? If it really was then that adds important context to the ruling, but I'll need something more concrete than hyperbole.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    Foundem's business model was pay for placement. Paid placement is categorically a scam against the reader.
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Not pay-for-inclusion?
- card_zero 2y ago
  Does owning the search engine and thus being able to hide your competitors actually make you superior? Is this actually what the consumer wants, or merely what the consumer gets? If they were a scam and a competitor, what does that make Google?
wruza 2y ago
But it wasn’t, which hints that detection models should be adjusted. It’s a judgement in the same category as “he looks criminal”.
manquer 2y ago

Mathnerd314 2y ago

But Google didn't pay 2 billion to the couple - it went to the EU government. So now they have a civil lawsuit...

CamelCaseName 2y ago

I'm confused, Google deprioritized their site in search results, and then several years later launched their own shopping comparison tool. And this is the basis of an unfair competition case? On what basis then should or shouldn't Google deprioritize rankings? If a website offers products for $1 and hides a $99 shipping fee, should they still appear in the search results?

manquer 2y ago
> basis of an unfair competition case? It is anti-competitive to kill the competition before you product launch, if you they have active plans to be in the market or already under product development during the same time . Clearly Google was unable to show that it wasn't the case, the onus is on them to show that they didn't even think they would ever get into this space. It would be ridiculous proposition to prove for them given that information discovery and aggregation has always been core to their search business, any competent product manager was thinking about it 5 years before at-least. It is not like they killed competition say in mobile OS space in 2005 and then decided to buy Android couple of years laters to build a competitor to Apple and got sued for that, Search and aggregation of other sites is the foundation of their business .
GeekyBear 2y ago
> I'm confused, Google deprioritized their site in search results, and then several years later launched their own shopping comparison tool. The first iteration of comparison shopping on Google, then called Froogle, had launched several years prior to their site. > Created by Craig Nevill-Manning and launched in December 2002, Froogle was different from most other price comparison services in that it used Google's web crawler to index product data from the websites of vendors instead of using paid submissions. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Shopping https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Shopping

burakemir 2y ago

"In summary, it is highly misleading to suggest that Microsoft (or ICOMP) initiated or in any way controlled Foundem’s European complaint or any of Foundem’s other initiatives." Source: http://www.searchneutrality.org/uncategorized/foundem-is-not-a-microsoft-puppet http://www.searchneutrality.org/uncategorized/foundem-is-not...

alwa 2y ago

The deranking in question happened in 2006? Goodness. That’s, what… more than half of the WWW’s lifetime ago? And 7 years since the 2017 judgment? The wheels of justice turn slow and all, but man… this has to come as awfully cold comfort (assuming, as the courts found, this couple was in fact wronged).

card_zero 2y ago
It's 100 million for every year they've been in business, plus massive free positive publicity. Doesn't sound awful, even if very slow arriving. Edit: they don't in fact get the money? And have been out of business for 8 years. I take it back, this sucks for them.

tim333 2y ago

While I'm sure there are good arguments on both sides, stuff like this contributes to why the US dominates high tech and the EU lags. If you start a web service searching for things you don't want to be bogged down in court by your competitors saying your results weren't quite as they'd like them.

xandrius 2y ago
Yeah but do agree that doing that is not right, correct? Because it's like saying that we should get rid of human rights as that bogs down the US and EU in terms of manufacturing goods, which contributes to hay China dominates high. I'd like to be doing well as a country/region AND uphold some sort of shared moral/legal standards. Sure the EU might make things slow but we do get some top shelf consumer protection with it.