4 ms·

This is ridiculous.

s3r3nity 13y ago
Not sure why this was up-voted as a productive comment, but I'll bite. Why is this ridiculous? I mean when you hold almost 99% of the search market (in Europe at least...in the US there's a bit more competition) you can't pull off these kinds of anti-competitive moves. Google has a bunch of smart people, and they knew that they weren't going to win this case -- what they were doing was blatantly against antitrust laws.
- magicalist 13y ago
  Even in Europe where it's approaching 90%, 99% is quite a stretch. And "what they were doing was blatantly against antitrust laws" is just a ridiculous statement (and kind of puts the lie to your earlier more "measured" response. I mean seriously, was it "blatant" or was it "sketchy"?). At the very least it would have been a very complicated antitrust case. I don't think anyone but Fairsearch would argue that anything was blatantly against antitrust law (and the settlement would certainly not have only involved including competitor's shopping results if it had been).
  - s3r3nity 13y ago
    1) I concede the market share point (it is closer to 90% -- the point was more that the US is about 60-70%, a much smaller portion.) 2) If you read up a bit on antitrust law and/or were a smaller specialized/vertical search site competing with Google, I believe you would disagree. Take, for example, Nextag, or Mapquest back in the day. Nextag's traffic declined significantly simply because Google put its own results on top of the SERP ("search engine results page.") Same thing happened with Google Maps pushing out competitors by putting its own maps product on top of other products (though there is understandably some difficulty to prove whether or not that's due to the signal of the user or the preferential treatment of the Search provider. I think that's why you don't hear too much about this point, as it would require Google revealing details about their algorithm.) Given the significant market positioning, by law you cannot use market dominance and scale in one market to push out competitors in another (i.e. definition of anticompetitive behavior.) For example, imagine Amazon was a lot younger and just starting out in the current search climate. If Google comes along and starts putting its own recommendations for shopping at the top of the SERP in a market where it has total search dominance, Amazon would be dust. Imagine also if Google decided "Hey, since Twitch.tv won't sell to us, let's start putting our own results for game streams at the top of the SERP, and relegate Twitch.tv a few inches down on the SERP," Twitch.tv would plummet (at least in the EU / international market.)
jonchang 13y ago
s3r3nity, you are hellbanned for some reason. These four posts of yours are marked dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7243851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7243851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  How can you see his posts if he's hellbanned?
  - judk 13y ago
    Showdead in user prefs

This is ridiculous.

Not sure why this was up-voted as a productive comment, but I'll bite. Why is this ridiculous? I mean when you hold almost 99% of the search market (in Europe at least...in the US there's a bit more competition) you can't pull off these kinds of anti-competitive moves. Google has a bunch of smart people, and they knew that they weren't going to win this case -- what they were doing was blatantly against antitrust laws.

magicalist 13y ago
Even in Europe where it's approaching 90%, 99% is quite a stretch. And "what they were doing was blatantly against antitrust laws" is just a ridiculous statement (and kind of puts the lie to your earlier more "measured" response. I mean seriously, was it "blatant" or was it "sketchy"?). At the very least it would have been a very complicated antitrust case. I don't think anyone but Fairsearch would argue that anything was blatantly against antitrust law (and the settlement would certainly not have only involved including competitor's shopping results if it had been).
- s3r3nity 13y ago
  1) I concede the market share point (it is closer to 90% -- the point was more that the US is about 60-70%, a much smaller portion.) 2) If you read up a bit on antitrust law and/or were a smaller specialized/vertical search site competing with Google, I believe you would disagree. Take, for example, Nextag, or Mapquest back in the day. Nextag's traffic declined significantly simply because Google put its own results on top of the SERP ("search engine results page.") Same thing happened with Google Maps pushing out competitors by putting its own maps product on top of other products (though there is understandably some difficulty to prove whether or not that's due to the signal of the user or the preferential treatment of the Search provider. I think that's why you don't hear too much about this point, as it would require Google revealing details about their algorithm.) Given the significant market positioning, by law you cannot use market dominance and scale in one market to push out competitors in another (i.e. definition of anticompetitive behavior.) For example, imagine Amazon was a lot younger and just starting out in the current search climate. If Google comes along and starts putting its own recommendations for shopping at the top of the SERP in a market where it has total search dominance, Amazon would be dust. Imagine also if Google decided "Hey, since Twitch.tv won't sell to us, let's start putting our own results for game streams at the top of the SERP, and relegate Twitch.tv a few inches down on the SERP," Twitch.tv would plummet (at least in the EU / international market.)

jonchang 13y ago

s3r3nity, you are hellbanned for some reason. These four posts of yours are marked dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7243851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7243851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7246429

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
How can you see his posts if he's hellbanned?
- judk 13y ago
  Showdead in user prefs