5 ms·

I know a lot of people kind of scoff at the idea of breaking up Google because they happen to offer the best product, but here are the 4 points mentioned >The

by rtpg 12y ago

I know a lot of people kind of scoff at the idea of breaking up Google because they happen to offer the best product, but here are the 4 points mentioned >The manner in which Google displays its own vertical search services compared with other, competing products > How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews - to include within its own services > The exclusivity Google has to sell advertising around the search terms people use > Restrictions on advertisers from moving their online ad campaigns to rival search engines First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the right to publish its own services. I don't see how Google gets away with the second point for non-CC'd material. This definitely doesn't fall under fair-use (people don't land on the website of the copyright owner because it's copied by google => devalue the work) Third point is... don't know what precedent there is for forcing a company to open up its network apart from ISPs/telecoms. The fourth point seems like huge abuse of monopoly. I wasn't aware of these restrictions before, and definitely seems to go against "don't be evil".

matthewmacleod 12y ago
First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the right to publish its own services. That changes once a company becomes a monopoly, specifically because it leads to market distortion. We've got rules against this sort of thing for a reason…
- rtpg 12y ago
  I always thought that anti-trust laws kicked in when the power was abused, so to speak.
  - tomp 12y ago
    Power is abused here, though. Google is using it's monopoly/dominant market position in search to build up it's market share in maps/local/social/whatever.
    - Oletros 12y ago
      > Power is abused here, though Can you link to the EU ruling stating that?
    - mike_hearn 12y ago
      That's a highly controversial and tricky argument to make, though. Is Google Maps a separate product that's being illegal tied to web search? Or is it actually a search engine for physical places, an integrated part of the one unified Google Search Engine? It could be argued either way, but if you try and imagine what it'd take to make Google Maps "pluggable" in google.com search .... well, that would be a tremendous technical challenge. Competitors would have to be able to process every web search Google does, to decide if it contains a location. That's a lot of traffic. And they have to respond as fast as Google's own servers, despite not being in the same buildings. This sort of thing suggests they're really one unified product, but I doubt such technical details would have much impact on what is a fundamentally political process.
    - tomjen3 12y ago
      No, search is also for things like positions, local businesses, etc. And no I don't want to be prompted to customize my google experience by choosing any of X providers for maps, etc. I want the answer to my gooddam search query, stat.
adrianb 12y ago
> First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the right to publish its own services. Microsoft was forced to include a browser choice screen and not use IE by default on Windows computers sold in the EU. The same happens here - you have different responsibilities when you're in a dominant position.
- bad_user 12y ago
  Problem is Microsoft is no longer dominating the market of operating systems, especially if you're counting mobile devices and absolutely every OS now comes with a bundled browser that you cannot uninstall. So apparently, if the US would have decided to break Microsoft, it would have been a huge mistake, potentially killing a big software company that was disrupted by newer technology anyway. So you know, abusive companies should be punished. But lets be honest here, politicians are targeting the likes of Microsoft, Google or Apple not for our own good, but because they see a huge pie that isn't theirs and want a piece of it, with people forgetting that these companies have defined the huge markets they are dominating in. And I'm saying this as a European citizen that had plenty of diatribes against all 3 companies mentioned here - but I do not believe in government interventions when it comes to software and yes, I don't believe in net neutrality either.
  - meowface 12y ago
    I believe net neutrality is important because telcos are not the same as software companies. Anyone can theoretically compete with a software company; if you're a telco with billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and you're the only option for a huge chunk of the country, the only people who even have a chance of competing are companies of similar size (like Google). For many people in the US, they're completely stuck with Comcast or Verizon and likely will be for decades to come (Google Fiber's complete roll out will obviously take a very long time). They either have to move, or suck it up.
Brakenshire 12y ago
Yeah, the idea of actually breaking up Google is in my opinion foolish, but the idea of introducing limited regulations to try to lessen the impact on other markets from its monopoly position in search, seems perfectly reasonable. For instance, if there was a rule which legislated minimum standards for transferring services elsewhere, as per your last point, that seems to be something it would be difficult to complain about. Also, I want to see the text of the adopted statement, because the comments in the press release, and in previous stories, have only said, to paraphrase "regulation may be necessary to unbundle search from commercial services". That doesn't scream "wants to break up the company" to me. Is that really being proposed?
jedc 12y ago
I believe the fourth point was something that has already been changed in the AdWords API Ts & Cs almost two years ago, as a result of the FTC settlement. http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/updates-to-adwords-api-terms-and.html http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/updates-to-...
probably_wrong 12y ago
> I don't see how Google gets away with the second point for non-CC'd material. This is how I've been told it went by in Germany: there was a law drafted[1] that said publishers should get compensation for snippets of their articles in search results. This was a law apparently drafted directly in response to Google's practices. So Google sent a letter to most publishers, asking for royalty-free access to their content, or otherwise they would not show up anymore on Google's services. All publishers agreed to sign that, because being removed from Google means losing a decent amount of your ad income. That's how they get away with it. [1] https://gigaom.com/2013/03/01/german-parliament-passes-google-tax-law-forcing-royalty-payments-for-news-snippets/ https://gigaom.com/2013/03/01/german-parliament-passes-googl...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  The law was passed, not only drafted! But it was pointless: http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/kapitulation/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/kapitulation/ The German government made themselves look like fools. They were easily manipulated by a literal handful of newspaper magnates (primarily the boss of Axel Springer) whose positions were nonsensical - they were complaining about being in Google News without compensation, but didn't use robots.txt to take themselves out of it. Surely that would have been the start of any normal business negotiation? Why would any change to the law have been needed at all? So after wasting vast amounts of time in changing the law, the German government learned a hopefully important lesson - they were being used as pawns in a game to try and extract free money from a foreign company and the actual complaints were meritless. A tiny amount of technical literacy would have gone a long way.
- fafner 12y ago
  This law makes me angry. How could have anybody been so stupid? Did the publishers really think Google would just hand them over money? Google announced even before it passed that they'd drop the content. They underestimated what power Google has and if they drop you from the index then you lose not them. Now they are all handing over royalty-free access to Google. But all other companies and people still have to pay. I mean the publishers think they can make at least a bit of money that way. But they again don't seem to realise that this only strengthens Google because all (potential) competitors have to pay... The Google folks must be really celebrating over this. A law specifically designed to target Google has only strengthened them.

by rtpg 12y ago

matthewmacleod 12y ago

First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the right to publish its own services. That changes once a company becomes a monopoly, specifically because it leads to market distortion. We've got rules against this sort of thing for a reason…

rtpg 12y ago
I always thought that anti-trust laws kicked in when the power was abused, so to speak.
- tomp 12y ago
  Power is abused here, though. Google is using it's monopoly/dominant market position in search to build up it's market share in maps/local/social/whatever.
  - Oletros 12y ago
    > Power is abused here, though Can you link to the EU ruling stating that?
  - mike_hearn 12y ago
    That's a highly controversial and tricky argument to make, though. Is Google Maps a separate product that's being illegal tied to web search? Or is it actually a search engine for physical places, an integrated part of the one unified Google Search Engine? It could be argued either way, but if you try and imagine what it'd take to make Google Maps "pluggable" in google.com search .... well, that would be a tremendous technical challenge. Competitors would have to be able to process every web search Google does, to decide if it contains a location. That's a lot of traffic. And they have to respond as fast as Google's own servers, despite not being in the same buildings. This sort of thing suggests they're really one unified product, but I doubt such technical details would have much impact on what is a fundamentally political process.
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    No, search is also for things like positions, local businesses, etc. And no I don't want to be prompted to customize my google experience by choosing any of X providers for maps, etc. I want the answer to my gooddam search query, stat.

adrianb 12y ago

> First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the right to publish its own services. Microsoft was forced to include a browser choice screen and not use IE by default on Windows computers sold in the EU. The same happens here - you have different responsibilities when you're in a dominant position.

bad_user 12y ago
Problem is Microsoft is no longer dominating the market of operating systems, especially if you're counting mobile devices and absolutely every OS now comes with a bundled browser that you cannot uninstall. So apparently, if the US would have decided to break Microsoft, it would have been a huge mistake, potentially killing a big software company that was disrupted by newer technology anyway. So you know, abusive companies should be punished. But lets be honest here, politicians are targeting the likes of Microsoft, Google or Apple not for our own good, but because they see a huge pie that isn't theirs and want a piece of it, with people forgetting that these companies have defined the huge markets they are dominating in. And I'm saying this as a European citizen that had plenty of diatribes against all 3 companies mentioned here - but I do not believe in government interventions when it comes to software and yes, I don't believe in net neutrality either.
- meowface 12y ago
  I believe net neutrality is important because telcos are not the same as software companies. Anyone can theoretically compete with a software company; if you're a telco with billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and you're the only option for a huge chunk of the country, the only people who even have a chance of competing are companies of similar size (like Google). For many people in the US, they're completely stuck with Comcast or Verizon and likely will be for decades to come (Google Fiber's complete roll out will obviously take a very long time). They either have to move, or suck it up.

Brakenshire 12y ago

Yeah, the idea of actually breaking up Google is in my opinion foolish, but the idea of introducing limited regulations to try to lessen the impact on other markets from its monopoly position in search, seems perfectly reasonable. For instance, if there was a rule which legislated minimum standards for transferring services elsewhere, as per your last point, that seems to be something it would be difficult to complain about. Also, I want to see the text of the adopted statement, because the comments in the press release, and in previous stories, have only said, to paraphrase "regulation may be necessary to unbundle search from commercial services". That doesn't scream "wants to break up the company" to me. Is that really being proposed?

jedc 12y ago

I believe the fourth point was something that has already been changed in the AdWords API Ts & Cs almost two years ago, as a result of the FTC settlement. http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/updates-to-adwords-api-terms-and.html http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/updates-to-...

probably_wrong 12y ago

> I don't see how Google gets away with the second point for non-CC'd material. This is how I've been told it went by in Germany: there was a law drafted[1] that said publishers should get compensation for snippets of their articles in search results. This was a law apparently drafted directly in response to Google's practices. So Google sent a letter to most publishers, asking for royalty-free access to their content, or otherwise they would not show up anymore on Google's services. All publishers agreed to sign that, because being removed from Google means losing a decent amount of your ad income. That's how they get away with it. [1] https://gigaom.com/2013/03/01/german-parliament-passes-google-tax-law-forcing-royalty-payments-for-news-snippets/ https://gigaom.com/2013/03/01/german-parliament-passes-googl...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mike_hearn 12y ago
The law was passed, not only drafted! But it was pointless: http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/kapitulation/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/kapitulation/ The German government made themselves look like fools. They were easily manipulated by a literal handful of newspaper magnates (primarily the boss of Axel Springer) whose positions were nonsensical - they were complaining about being in Google News without compensation, but didn't use robots.txt to take themselves out of it. Surely that would have been the start of any normal business negotiation? Why would any change to the law have been needed at all? So after wasting vast amounts of time in changing the law, the German government learned a hopefully important lesson - they were being used as pawns in a game to try and extract free money from a foreign company and the actual complaints were meritless. A tiny amount of technical literacy would have gone a long way.
fafner 12y ago
This law makes me angry. How could have anybody been so stupid? Did the publishers really think Google would just hand them over money? Google announced even before it passed that they'd drop the content. They underestimated what power Google has and if they drop you from the index then you lose not them. Now they are all handing over royalty-free access to Google. But all other companies and people still have to pay. I mean the publishers think they can make at least a bit of money that way. But they again don't seem to realise that this only strengthens Google because all (potential) competitors have to pay... The Google folks must be really celebrating over this. A law specifically designed to target Google has only strengthened them.