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Google admits anti-competitive conduct involving Google Search in Australia

298 points by _p2zi 1y ago

appstorelottery 1y ago
Back in the iPhone 4 era, I had a simple app on the App Store called "3D Coin Toss" that I wrote in a day. With zero promotion, it brought in a predictable ~$700/quarter from ads and an IAP to disable them. Interestingly, all my discoverability came from Google. My app was on the first page of search results, which drove users directly to the App Store. Then, Google decided to compete. Searching for "coin toss" started returning Google's own top-of-page inline coin-tossing app as the very first result. Users could now toss a coin without leaving search results. Unsurprisingly, my user acquisition tanked. It was my first experience with this, and I remember thinking, "Is this fair? Why is Google competing with me?"
- tantalor 1y ago
  Is this a troll comment?
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    I doubt it, but it does highlight how weird the notion of "competition" is when juxtaposed with the notion of "a search engine controls its own results page." (Personally, I resolve the paradox with "The goal is for neither Google nor app developers to 'win', the goal is to make it as easy to flip a coin as possible." Is my keyboard manufacturer competing with both if they put a button in the corner of the keyboard that either lights an LED or doesn't when pressed? Does the coin in my pocket compete with all three?)
    - appstorelottery 1y ago
      I think it's as simple as "if you have a platform - be it OS, marketplace or search engine" - it should be illegal to compete with your platform participants. For example, this law would have played out with Microsoft not being able to create Word (look at the history of what they did to the Windows version of WordPerfect). Amazon would not be able to introduce their own products and compete with their platform sellers. Apple wouldn't be able to take great independent app ideas and assimilate them into their OS. Google wouldn't be able to make a coin tossing app when its core business was successfully creating discovery for mine. Perhaps a law like this would have prevented the formation of the mega-tech corporates that we see now? It's so easy to compete if you own the platform.
      - shadowgovt 1y ago
        Companies frequently aren't trying to build a platform. They're just trying to build products people will buy. I think trying to carve up the world of possible creations into marketplaces like that is sacrificing progress on the altar of capitalism. If Microsoft added a coin flip to the start menu, are they also competing with your app? If somebody makes a keyboard that has a button on it and when you push it It lights one of two LEDs, are they also competing and should the law stop them? Am I competing if I'm carrying a quarter in my pocket? At some point, there's no compelling societal interest to protect your app from more convenient solutions to the end user. In general, protection against monopolies in the United States hinges on harm to the consumer. It's real hard to argue that things are worse for the consumer when Google makes the process of digitally flipping a coin easier than installing an app.
        appstorelottery 1y ago
        I see your point. From the user's immediate perspective, getting a coin flip without an extra click is undeniably easier. But that's zooming in so close that you miss the entire picture. The real question is what happens when that logic is applied to everything. First, it's a coin toss. Then it's the weather. Then a calculator. Then flight prices. Then hotel bookings. Then product reviews. Step by step, the platform that was built to be a portal to a rich and diverse ecosystem of creators becomes a wall that primarily shows you its own products. The "progress" you're describing is the progress of a single entity consuming the ecosystem that once fed it. The ultimate harm to the consumer isn't a slightly less convenient coin toss; it's the eventual death of that vibrant, competitive ecosystem. My tiny app was simply the first course in the platform's long meal of consuming its own creators.
        shadowgovt 1y ago
        Yes, this is entirely possible. It's why American law generally centers anti-trust on consumer harm as the litmus test; if those hotel bookings all have to go through one place, and as a result the hotels are too expensive, that's an issue. This is why Amazon gets to exist (but has now been sued in 2023 because the FTC is seeing behavior that is probably rent extraction). If Google started charging a quarter a coin-flip while leveraging its control over search to suppress the fact you'd made a coin-flip app that was free or flat-rate to purchase, there might be a case there under US law.
  - appstorelottery 1y ago
    No it's not a troll comment. Google "Coin Toss" or "Toss a coin", before the search results you'll find a google-written in browser-app which allows you to toss a coin and get a result. Google literally entered the coin-tossing software solution market! Lol. But not lol. Back then I was furious about it, and yet, did nothing. Forget legal action, I didn't even gripe about it online. This is the first time I've posted or told anyone about it outside of a few friends that didn't understand. I felt powerless to do anything about it. Further - look at AI generated search results being introduced now... same pattern. Why click through when you're got what you need before search results...
CommenterPerson 1y ago
G'Day Aussie friends, and thank you. One small step for a country, and in the right direction.
chollida1 1y ago
How long till we see someone write G$$GLE like script kiddies do with M$FT? So we now have META, MSFT, GOOG, AAPL all with major government actions against them. Maybe its just not possible to get that big without doing something anti competitive?
- jpadkins 1y ago
  Don't Steal. Governments hate competition.
parineum 1y ago
> In the undertaking, Google commits to removing certain pre-installation and default search engine restrictions from its contracts with Android phone manufacturers and telcos. > The three telcos can configure search services on a device-by-device basis, and in ways that may not align with the settings set by Google. They can also enter into pre-installation agreements with other search providers. Before we go patting Australia on the back for helping consumers, all they are really doing for the end user is allowing another corporation to set your defaults. The anticompetitive behavior they are admitting to isn't that they are taking away choice from the end user, it's that they have agreements in place to prevent telocos from forcing their own software on you or signing contracts with Google competitors to force their software on you. Remember this when you're next phone comes with the non-removable Telstra browser.
echelon 1y ago
Oh, that's all? Google is one of the most anticompetitive companies to have ever existed. MaBell has nothing on the new AI overlords. The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane, and the fact that they've made it so companies have to pay to protect their own brand is beyond fucked. It ought to be illegal. And they own the largest media company in the world and have a commanding lead in AI and autonomous vehicles. They're bigger than most countries and are poised for world domination. Break these MFs up already. To think the government got mad at Microsoft for IE. Jeez. We used to have a spine when it comes to antitrust.
- ares623 1y ago
  That spine belonged to the government, which is now owned by the corporations. To be fair, they still have that spine, probably stronger than ever, but it's being used to protect themselves now.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  >The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane X does it too. Instagram does it too. TikTok does it too. YouTube does it too. Reddit does it too. LinkedIn does it too. It's not insane, it's the standard way to monetize a platform. You have an app that takes you to a page to discover content. When discovering content ads are shown. When viewing the content ads are shown from the platform.
  - echelon 1y ago
    Google owns every pane of ingress to the internet. They own the defaults, and that's what matters to 99.9% of normies. They own the web standards and the whole kit and kaboodle. Nevermind app store monopolies, as that's a whole different subject. If I own a brand, I have to pay Google ads to rank for my own brand. Google doesn't like the concept of a "URL bar". It's a search bar. My closet competitors can pay for placement against my trademarked name and there's not a damned thing I can do to stop it. One company should not own all of that surface area. That's practically the whole internet outside of social networks and buying off Amazon. Google just sits there taxing the whole internet. (And half of mobile...) Fixes? Here are a few: 1. Take Chrome away. That's the lynchpin of this racket. 2. Make Google (and Apple) support non-scare wall app installs from the web as a default. No hidden settings menus. (The EU would be great and enforcing this.) Don't let them own login or payments either. 3. Best yet: break the company into pieces. If it was good enough for MaBell, it'll be good enough for Google. It'll be worth more as parts anyway - so much of that value is locked away trying to be the sum of parts. YouTube alone is bigger than Disney and Netflix.
avazhi 1y ago
Just to be clear, Google makes $55m in profits every 2.5 business hours.
- metaphor 1y ago
  Using bottom line of their most recent quarterly income statement[1], and given Google operates 24/7, then that's more like every 4.3 business hours. /s [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204425000062/goog-20250630.htm#ifaa19c3225a747e6a325733488c42840_22 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204425...
  - chillfox 1y ago
    Did you account for the $55 being AUD, and the income statement being in USD?
    - godelski 1y ago
      Shockingly that looks to be really close. Just going with the gp's number's 55m AUD -> 35.87 USD (35.87/55)4.3 = 2.8 tldr: avazhi was right
- mhh__ 1y ago
  Good deal, search and YouTube are both pretty good
  - quantummagic 1y ago
    That really misses the point. That is, fines do nothing if they are a rounding error on revenue.
  - ulfw 1y ago
    If they were that good, why would Google have to waste money pre-installing them as defaults?
    - 1y ago
rs186 1y ago
$55 million is pocket change for Google.
- chillfox 1y ago
  yeah, I think those laws should be updated to be a percentage of global revenue.
  - godelski 1y ago
    Hell, even country revenue would be a big boost.
judge123 1y ago
Is anyone actually going to switch their default search engine on their phone now? We're so locked into the Google ecosystem. Feels like a slap on the wrist that won't change user habits one bit.
- justinclift 1y ago
  https://kagi.com/stats https://kagi.com/stats
- LeoPanthera 1y ago
  Plenty of people, including me, have no real desire to switch.
- ethan_smith 1y ago
  DuckDuckGo's market share has grown to around 2.5% globally despite the friction, suggesting that a meaningful minority of users will switch when given clearer choices.
  - godelski 1y ago
    I'm one of those people. It seems like all search engines give pretty similar results, so why not use the one with more privacy? I can even do a quick LLM ask on DDG and with different models. Helpful when search terms are not getting the right match. I think most people's judgement about DDG is from a few uses and from some time ago. It's worth giving it a shot if you haven't in awhile. But give it a real shot, like use it for a few days to get over the "I hate it because it's different" game that our minds play. And a major benefit now is you don't just get a fucking popup on your phone every time you're just trying to search something. Like seriously, wtf google. Needy much?
    - PunchTornado 1y ago
      because behind DDG is bing, microsoft, one of the evilest companies on earth.
qwertytyyuu 1y ago
Damn, it still surprises me that Google search pre installed, is not just a normal thing. As in it is pre install because Google pays for it, not because vendors thinks it’s the better search. Seeems more obvious when written out like this
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  People had the same reaction back in the days when Microsoft was actively paying and bullying PC makers to preinstall Windows.
  - asadotzler 1y ago
    And they got skewered when they began using those contracts to explicitly exclude Netscape from those PCs. It's one thing to pay for distribution, it's another to use your Windows monopoly to bully OEMs into not distributing your competition.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
SilverElfin 1y ago
Why aren’t these discouraged with such massive fines that the board and shareholders oust executives? Just another example of how weak the laws are from stopping unfair competition by mega corps. Small businesses and even rich startups have the decks stacked against them.
- laser_eagle 1y ago
  [dead]
- lowwave 1y ago
  A educated guess would be that the establishments intentionally want to have these monopolies around, so they stand down on the antitrust stuff, and in they would get total control and surveillance. That is how you get these guy like Peter Thiel going to Standford to recommend everyone to start a monopoly as their business model. In reality these guy (groups with low cost access to capital) have no clue how to really run a business they are just heavily subsidize by the establishment.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  The punishment should be percentage of government ownership. This dilutes the shareholders shares, which punishes who needs to be punished, but avoids the 'your fines will shut down the company' argument. Also when the government has ownership they have access to much more internal visibility and just general hassle. No company wants that.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  This was a settlement, if the fines were massive, the settlement wouldn't have come as easily. And then if you start fining companies from other countries a lot, it becomes a trade issue and things get messy. In the worst case those companies just pull out of your market, and you are left with small businesses and startups but that might not make up for the services that the mega-corps were providing, and that might have adverse effects on other businesses in your country. So what happens is that they wind up going with non-massive fines to enforce compliance as a trade off (like you wouldn't deal out the death penalty for someone who was caught stealing).
ThaFresh 1y ago
and the proceeds will be returned to the consumers who were affected by this?....
thrown-0825 1y ago
Definitely not anti-competitive in the rest of the world though. Google is a plague, and the sooner its gone the better.
- fblp 1y ago
  Actually, Google has faced major antitrust enforcement globally for similar conduct: EU: Already fined Google €8+ billion across multiple cases, including specifically for Android pre-installation requirements. Just issued new violations under the Digital Markets Act. US: Federal judge ruled in Aug 2024 that Google illegally maintained search monopoly through exclusive default agreements including on mobile. DOJ seeking various remedies including divesting Chrome. This case is still in progress.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    I believe your sarcasm detector is overdue for service.
Aurornis 1y ago
> Telstra and Optus to only pre-install Google Search on Android phones they sold to consumers, and not other search engines. > In return, Telstra and Optus received a share of the revenue Google generated from ads displayed to consumers when they used Google Search on their Android phones. So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited.
- asadotzler 1y ago
  It's not about who made money directly. It's about Google using its market dominance to increase its market dominance. Telstra and Optus are not accused of abusing their market dominance because they don't have anything like market dominance so they are hardly a concern in this particular situation.
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  > So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited. Kind of like how Microsoft was found[0] to do something similar with PC manufacturers? 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- sethaurus 1y ago
  > Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited. Profiting isn't the misdeed, artificially suppressing competition is. Only Google experienced the benefit of suppressed competition, and that's why they were the ones paying the kickback, not receiving it.
svat 1y ago
If I'm reading this correctly, this is about the deals Google had, between December 2019 and March 2021, with Telstra, Optus and TPG (apparently Australia's three largest telecommunications companies), to be the default (and only) pre-installed search engine on Android phones sold by those companies, and those companies would in return be paid by Google some fraction of its search-ads revenues. Some things I'm curious about, and would be helpful context: - Why did they stop in 2021, and is it normal for these things to take 4+ years to resolution? - Does Google have similar deals in other countries, e.g. in the US does it have similar deals with T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T? If yes are they are similarly anticompetitive, and if not why not? - Similar question about the agreements Google has with Mozilla and Apple, to be the default search engine on their browsers. - Roughly how much would this deal have been worth to Google? I imagine it's not very likely the providers would have chosen a different default search engine, though without this deal they'd likely have more options pre-configured so users would have had more choice (and this I imagine is the primary anti-competitiveness complaint in the first place).
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  Google has had these deals in many other countries with both carriers and manufacturers. In many cases, that agreement has already been found completely illegal (possibly why they stopped here). The deal is the Android MADA and you can find examples of it going back over a decade.
- guyomes 1y ago
  > Does Google have similar deals in other countries Wikipedia has pages on antitrust cases against Google in the world [0] and specifically in U.S. [1,2] and in European Union [3]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Antitrust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Antitrust [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2023) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google_by_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google...
SwtCyber 1y ago
Pretty wild that it took this long for something so obviously anti-competitive to come to light formally. I mean, locking in default search exclusivity on millions of devices in exchange for ad revenue kickbacks? Classic textbook behavior.
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  It's been well-known since 2014. It's taken a lot of momentum to get to the point governments actually decided to do something about it.
  - hulitu 1y ago
    > It's taken a lot of momentum and a lot of lobby money.
    - ocdtrekkie 1y ago
      The amount of money Google has funneled into politicians on every side of the aisle definitely helped keep the gravy train going a long time.
- Quarrel 1y ago
  This is for 14 months of behaviour mostly in 2020. The telcos had already settled their side more than a year ago. It isn't that long in terms of regulator response, believe it or not. It came about out of an inquiry that released a report in 2021, that was further investigated and reported to government in 2022 and 2023. Without knowing the inside story, this may have been gearing up to major litigation (the only way to fine someone in Australia), but settled at the last minute. Suing someone like Google comes with a lot of discovery time, particularly if they are trying to not be cooperative (and I have no idea if they were or not in this case). That said, if you think this behaviour is bad, you should see what they pay Apple per year. Or even Mozilla.
quitit 1y ago
It’s my opinion that Telstra, TPG and Optus should also be fined, since they were taking part and a beneficiary of the anti-competitive behaviour - they were willing parties. This isn’t naive behaviour, this sits neatly under the definition of anti-competitive behaviour and bears similarity Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour involving PC vendors.
Nanachi 1y ago
To the surprise of no one. Either way, Telstra should never have been privatised and Optus should've been slapped with bigger fines.
elAhmo 1y ago
Once there is some meaningful effect on the bottom line, revenue, market cap, criminal liability for shareholders, this is just a waste of time. Googles revenues and profits grew significantly from 2019/2021, even if they get the massive fine, it will be insignificant for the company, as well as for the executives who made the decision to go with something like this. Similar as with Meta and their MITM approach when they bought Onavo to spy on users.

298 points by _p2zi 1y ago

Back in the iPhone 4 era, I had a simple app on the App Store called "3D Coin Toss" that I wrote in a day. With zero promotion, it brought in a predictable ~$700/quarter from ads and an IAP to disable them. Interestingly, all my discoverability came from Google. My app was on the first page of search results, which drove users directly to the App Store. Then, Google decided to compete. Searching for "coin toss" started returning Google's own top-of-page inline coin-tossing app as the very first result. Users could now toss a coin without leaving search results. Unsurprisingly, my user acquisition tanked. It was my first experience with this, and I remember thinking, "Is this fair? Why is Google competing with me?"

tantalor 1y ago
Is this a troll comment?
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  I doubt it, but it does highlight how weird the notion of "competition" is when juxtaposed with the notion of "a search engine controls its own results page." (Personally, I resolve the paradox with "The goal is for neither Google nor app developers to 'win', the goal is to make it as easy to flip a coin as possible." Is my keyboard manufacturer competing with both if they put a button in the corner of the keyboard that either lights an LED or doesn't when pressed? Does the coin in my pocket compete with all three?)
  - appstorelottery 1y ago
    I think it's as simple as "if you have a platform - be it OS, marketplace or search engine" - it should be illegal to compete with your platform participants. For example, this law would have played out with Microsoft not being able to create Word (look at the history of what they did to the Windows version of WordPerfect). Amazon would not be able to introduce their own products and compete with their platform sellers. Apple wouldn't be able to take great independent app ideas and assimilate them into their OS. Google wouldn't be able to make a coin tossing app when its core business was successfully creating discovery for mine. Perhaps a law like this would have prevented the formation of the mega-tech corporates that we see now? It's so easy to compete if you own the platform.
    - shadowgovt 1y ago
      Companies frequently aren't trying to build a platform. They're just trying to build products people will buy. I think trying to carve up the world of possible creations into marketplaces like that is sacrificing progress on the altar of capitalism. If Microsoft added a coin flip to the start menu, are they also competing with your app? If somebody makes a keyboard that has a button on it and when you push it It lights one of two LEDs, are they also competing and should the law stop them? Am I competing if I'm carrying a quarter in my pocket? At some point, there's no compelling societal interest to protect your app from more convenient solutions to the end user. In general, protection against monopolies in the United States hinges on harm to the consumer. It's real hard to argue that things are worse for the consumer when Google makes the process of digitally flipping a coin easier than installing an app.
      - appstorelottery 1y ago
        I see your point. From the user's immediate perspective, getting a coin flip without an extra click is undeniably easier. But that's zooming in so close that you miss the entire picture. The real question is what happens when that logic is applied to everything. First, it's a coin toss. Then it's the weather. Then a calculator. Then flight prices. Then hotel bookings. Then product reviews. Step by step, the platform that was built to be a portal to a rich and diverse ecosystem of creators becomes a wall that primarily shows you its own products. The "progress" you're describing is the progress of a single entity consuming the ecosystem that once fed it. The ultimate harm to the consumer isn't a slightly less convenient coin toss; it's the eventual death of that vibrant, competitive ecosystem. My tiny app was simply the first course in the platform's long meal of consuming its own creators.
        shadowgovt 1y ago
        Yes, this is entirely possible. It's why American law generally centers anti-trust on consumer harm as the litmus test; if those hotel bookings all have to go through one place, and as a result the hotels are too expensive, that's an issue. This is why Amazon gets to exist (but has now been sued in 2023 because the FTC is seeing behavior that is probably rent extraction). If Google started charging a quarter a coin-flip while leveraging its control over search to suppress the fact you'd made a coin-flip app that was free or flat-rate to purchase, there might be a case there under US law.
- appstorelottery 1y ago
  No it's not a troll comment. Google "Coin Toss" or "Toss a coin", before the search results you'll find a google-written in browser-app which allows you to toss a coin and get a result. Google literally entered the coin-tossing software solution market! Lol. But not lol. Back then I was furious about it, and yet, did nothing. Forget legal action, I didn't even gripe about it online. This is the first time I've posted or told anyone about it outside of a few friends that didn't understand. I felt powerless to do anything about it. Further - look at AI generated search results being introduced now... same pattern. Why click through when you're got what you need before search results...

CommenterPerson 1y ago

G'Day Aussie friends, and thank you. One small step for a country, and in the right direction.

chollida1 1y ago

How long till we see someone write G$$GLE like script kiddies do with M$FT? So we now have META, MSFT, GOOG, AAPL all with major government actions against them. Maybe its just not possible to get that big without doing something anti competitive?

jpadkins 1y ago
Don't Steal. Governments hate competition.

parineum 1y ago

> In the undertaking, Google commits to removing certain pre-installation and default search engine restrictions from its contracts with Android phone manufacturers and telcos. > The three telcos can configure search services on a device-by-device basis, and in ways that may not align with the settings set by Google. They can also enter into pre-installation agreements with other search providers. Before we go patting Australia on the back for helping consumers, all they are really doing for the end user is allowing another corporation to set your defaults. The anticompetitive behavior they are admitting to isn't that they are taking away choice from the end user, it's that they have agreements in place to prevent telocos from forcing their own software on you or signing contracts with Google competitors to force their software on you. Remember this when you're next phone comes with the non-removable Telstra browser.

echelon 1y ago

Oh, that's all? Google is one of the most anticompetitive companies to have ever existed. MaBell has nothing on the new AI overlords. The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane, and the fact that they've made it so companies have to pay to protect their own brand is beyond fucked. It ought to be illegal. And they own the largest media company in the world and have a commanding lead in AI and autonomous vehicles. They're bigger than most countries and are poised for world domination. Break these MFs up already. To think the government got mad at Microsoft for IE. Jeez. We used to have a spine when it comes to antitrust.

ares623 1y ago
That spine belonged to the government, which is now owned by the corporations. To be fair, they still have that spine, probably stronger than ever, but it's being used to protect themselves now.
charcircuit 1y ago
>The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane X does it too. Instagram does it too. TikTok does it too. YouTube does it too. Reddit does it too. LinkedIn does it too. It's not insane, it's the standard way to monetize a platform. You have an app that takes you to a page to discover content. When discovering content ads are shown. When viewing the content ads are shown from the platform.
- echelon 1y ago
  Google owns every pane of ingress to the internet. They own the defaults, and that's what matters to 99.9% of normies. They own the web standards and the whole kit and kaboodle. Nevermind app store monopolies, as that's a whole different subject. If I own a brand, I have to pay Google ads to rank for my own brand. Google doesn't like the concept of a "URL bar". It's a search bar. My closet competitors can pay for placement against my trademarked name and there's not a damned thing I can do to stop it. One company should not own all of that surface area. That's practically the whole internet outside of social networks and buying off Amazon. Google just sits there taxing the whole internet. (And half of mobile...) Fixes? Here are a few: 1. Take Chrome away. That's the lynchpin of this racket. 2. Make Google (and Apple) support non-scare wall app installs from the web as a default. No hidden settings menus. (The EU would be great and enforcing this.) Don't let them own login or payments either. 3. Best yet: break the company into pieces. If it was good enough for MaBell, it'll be good enough for Google. It'll be worth more as parts anyway - so much of that value is locked away trying to be the sum of parts. YouTube alone is bigger than Disney and Netflix.

avazhi 1y ago

Just to be clear, Google makes $55m in profits every 2.5 business hours.

metaphor 1y ago
Using bottom line of their most recent quarterly income statement[1], and given Google operates 24/7, then that's more like every 4.3 business hours. /s [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204425000062/goog-20250630.htm#ifaa19c3225a747e6a325733488c42840_22 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204425...
- chillfox 1y ago
  Did you account for the $55 being AUD, and the income statement being in USD?
  - godelski 1y ago
    Shockingly that looks to be really close. Just going with the gp's number's 55m AUD -> 35.87 USD (35.87/55)4.3 = 2.8 tldr: avazhi was right
mhh__ 1y ago
Good deal, search and YouTube are both pretty good
- quantummagic 1y ago
  That really misses the point. That is, fines do nothing if they are a rounding error on revenue.
- ulfw 1y ago
  If they were that good, why would Google have to waste money pre-installing them as defaults?
  - 1y ago

rs186 1y ago

$55 million is pocket change for Google.

chillfox 1y ago
yeah, I think those laws should be updated to be a percentage of global revenue.
- godelski 1y ago
  Hell, even country revenue would be a big boost.

judge123 1y ago

Is anyone actually going to switch their default search engine on their phone now? We're so locked into the Google ecosystem. Feels like a slap on the wrist that won't change user habits one bit.

justinclift 1y ago
https://kagi.com/stats https://kagi.com/stats
LeoPanthera 1y ago
Plenty of people, including me, have no real desire to switch.
ethan_smith 1y ago
DuckDuckGo's market share has grown to around 2.5% globally despite the friction, suggesting that a meaningful minority of users will switch when given clearer choices.
- godelski 1y ago
  I'm one of those people. It seems like all search engines give pretty similar results, so why not use the one with more privacy? I can even do a quick LLM ask on DDG and with different models. Helpful when search terms are not getting the right match. I think most people's judgement about DDG is from a few uses and from some time ago. It's worth giving it a shot if you haven't in awhile. But give it a real shot, like use it for a few days to get over the "I hate it because it's different" game that our minds play. And a major benefit now is you don't just get a fucking popup on your phone every time you're just trying to search something. Like seriously, wtf google. Needy much?
  - PunchTornado 1y ago
    because behind DDG is bing, microsoft, one of the evilest companies on earth.

qwertytyyuu 1y ago

Damn, it still surprises me that Google search pre installed, is not just a normal thing. As in it is pre install because Google pays for it, not because vendors thinks it’s the better search. Seeems more obvious when written out like this

makeitdouble 1y ago
People had the same reaction back in the days when Microsoft was actively paying and bullying PC makers to preinstall Windows.
- asadotzler 1y ago
  And they got skewered when they began using those contracts to explicitly exclude Netscape from those PCs. It's one thing to pay for distribution, it's another to use your Windows monopoly to bully OEMs into not distributing your competition.

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SilverElfin 1y ago

Why aren’t these discouraged with such massive fines that the board and shareholders oust executives? Just another example of how weak the laws are from stopping unfair competition by mega corps. Small businesses and even rich startups have the decks stacked against them.

laser_eagle 1y ago
[dead]
lowwave 1y ago
A educated guess would be that the establishments intentionally want to have these monopolies around, so they stand down on the antitrust stuff, and in they would get total control and surveillance. That is how you get these guy like Peter Thiel going to Standford to recommend everyone to start a monopoly as their business model. In reality these guy (groups with low cost access to capital) have no clue how to really run a business they are just heavily subsidize by the establishment.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
The punishment should be percentage of government ownership. This dilutes the shareholders shares, which punishes who needs to be punished, but avoids the 'your fines will shut down the company' argument. Also when the government has ownership they have access to much more internal visibility and just general hassle. No company wants that.
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
This was a settlement, if the fines were massive, the settlement wouldn't have come as easily. And then if you start fining companies from other countries a lot, it becomes a trade issue and things get messy. In the worst case those companies just pull out of your market, and you are left with small businesses and startups but that might not make up for the services that the mega-corps were providing, and that might have adverse effects on other businesses in your country. So what happens is that they wind up going with non-massive fines to enforce compliance as a trade off (like you wouldn't deal out the death penalty for someone who was caught stealing).

ThaFresh 1y ago

and the proceeds will be returned to the consumers who were affected by this?....

thrown-0825 1y ago

Definitely not anti-competitive in the rest of the world though. Google is a plague, and the sooner its gone the better.

fblp 1y ago
Actually, Google has faced major antitrust enforcement globally for similar conduct: EU: Already fined Google €8+ billion across multiple cases, including specifically for Android pre-installation requirements. Just issued new violations under the Digital Markets Act. US: Federal judge ruled in Aug 2024 that Google illegally maintained search monopoly through exclusive default agreements including on mobile. DOJ seeking various remedies including divesting Chrome. This case is still in progress.
- thfuran 1y ago
  I believe your sarcasm detector is overdue for service.

Aurornis 1y ago

> Telstra and Optus to only pre-install Google Search on Android phones they sold to consumers, and not other search engines. > In return, Telstra and Optus received a share of the revenue Google generated from ads displayed to consumers when they used Google Search on their Android phones. So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited.

asadotzler 1y ago
It's not about who made money directly. It's about Google using its market dominance to increase its market dominance. Telstra and Optus are not accused of abusing their market dominance because they don't have anything like market dominance so they are hardly a concern in this particular situation.
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
> So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited. Kind of like how Microsoft was found[0] to do something similar with PC manufacturers? 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
sethaurus 1y ago
> Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited. Profiting isn't the misdeed, artificially suppressing competition is. Only Google experienced the benefit of suppressed competition, and that's why they were the ones paying the kickback, not receiving it.

svat 1y ago

If I'm reading this correctly, this is about the deals Google had, between December 2019 and March 2021, with Telstra, Optus and TPG (apparently Australia's three largest telecommunications companies), to be the default (and only) pre-installed search engine on Android phones sold by those companies, and those companies would in return be paid by Google some fraction of its search-ads revenues. Some things I'm curious about, and would be helpful context: - Why did they stop in 2021, and is it normal for these things to take 4+ years to resolution? - Does Google have similar deals in other countries, e.g. in the US does it have similar deals with T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T? If yes are they are similarly anticompetitive, and if not why not? - Similar question about the agreements Google has with Mozilla and Apple, to be the default search engine on their browsers. - Roughly how much would this deal have been worth to Google? I imagine it's not very likely the providers would have chosen a different default search engine, though without this deal they'd likely have more options pre-configured so users would have had more choice (and this I imagine is the primary anti-competitiveness complaint in the first place).

ocdtrekkie 1y ago
Google has had these deals in many other countries with both carriers and manufacturers. In many cases, that agreement has already been found completely illegal (possibly why they stopped here). The deal is the Android MADA and you can find examples of it going back over a decade.
guyomes 1y ago
> Does Google have similar deals in other countries Wikipedia has pages on antitrust cases against Google in the world [0] and specifically in U.S. [1,2] and in European Union [3]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Antitrust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Antitrust [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2023) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google_by_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Google...

SwtCyber 1y ago

Pretty wild that it took this long for something so obviously anti-competitive to come to light formally. I mean, locking in default search exclusivity on millions of devices in exchange for ad revenue kickbacks? Classic textbook behavior.

ocdtrekkie 1y ago
It's been well-known since 2014. It's taken a lot of momentum to get to the point governments actually decided to do something about it.
- hulitu 1y ago
  > It's taken a lot of momentum and a lot of lobby money.
  - ocdtrekkie 1y ago
    The amount of money Google has funneled into politicians on every side of the aisle definitely helped keep the gravy train going a long time.
Quarrel 1y ago
This is for 14 months of behaviour mostly in 2020. The telcos had already settled their side more than a year ago. It isn't that long in terms of regulator response, believe it or not. It came about out of an inquiry that released a report in 2021, that was further investigated and reported to government in 2022 and 2023. Without knowing the inside story, this may have been gearing up to major litigation (the only way to fine someone in Australia), but settled at the last minute. Suing someone like Google comes with a lot of discovery time, particularly if they are trying to not be cooperative (and I have no idea if they were or not in this case). That said, if you think this behaviour is bad, you should see what they pay Apple per year. Or even Mozilla.

quitit 1y ago

It’s my opinion that Telstra, TPG and Optus should also be fined, since they were taking part and a beneficiary of the anti-competitive behaviour - they were willing parties. This isn’t naive behaviour, this sits neatly under the definition of anti-competitive behaviour and bears similarity Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour involving PC vendors.

Nanachi 1y ago

To the surprise of no one. Either way, Telstra should never have been privatised and Optus should've been slapped with bigger fines.

elAhmo 1y ago

Once there is some meaningful effect on the bottom line, revenue, market cap, criminal liability for shareholders, this is just a waste of time. Googles revenues and profits grew significantly from 2019/2021, even if they get the massive fine, it will be insignificant for the company, as well as for the executives who made the decision to go with something like this. Similar as with Meta and their MITM approach when they bought Onavo to spy on users.