17 ms·

EU Formally Accuses Google of Antitrust Violations

165 points by simas 11y ago

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Very excited to see this happen. The US surely wasn't going to do it, but it's well past due.
- baldfat 11y ago
  Can you elaborate on your reasons why? I like to hear both sides of an argument. I see Google not as a monopoly but as a majority holder where people have control of what services they use. Are they abusing this position to the detriment of users and market?
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    The problem is that people don't have control of what services they use. The vertical integration model, used quite successfully by both Google and Apple, is specifically designed to make it unfavorable or impossible to use competitors. At least under the US definition, the practice of "tying" is illegal when you use your monopoly position in one market to try to monopolize another market. By using Search to prioritize promoting their other services, they are trying to capture other markets through their dominance in Search. This is what the law was written to prevent. Most of my issues stem with how they do this in Android though, which is a separate investigation the EU is conducting. Google's Search behavior hurts consumers in a lot of ways. Since Google is the front door to the Internet, effectively, particularly in Europe where their market share is nearly uncontested, being an unfavorable result in Google prevents you from adequately competing. Being "penalized" by Google Search for any reason can put you out of business. And Google is now trying to exact their will on the entire Internet through penalizing sites in Search as a means of activism. For example, choosing to penalize sites for not using HTTPS, or penalizing sites for not using "mobile responsive" design, which has at best, subjective appeal.
    - fixermark 11y ago
      I'm failing to see an issue with penalizing sites for not using HTTPS. Google has incentive to maintain the quality of their search results by being able to make some guarantees that the sites they send visitors to are what they say they are. It's reasonable to extend that to prioritizing sites that can be verified over sites that are easily MITM'd.
      - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
        The quality of a local business cannot be determined by whether or not they cough up $70 a year for HTTPS. The quality of content cannot be determined by whether or not they cough up $70 a year for HTTPS. Penalizing sites for not using it raises the cost of having an opinion or trying to run a business on a nearly arbitrary restriction defined by a monopoly with conflicting business interests who sells web hosting services.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > I see Google not as a monopoly but as a majority holder where people have control of what services they use. Even if people could switch search engine - which they can't given they have only one competitor which isn't very good - it wouldn't make Google's actions fine. Google has a near-monopoly on search. They are abusing their market share.
Goronmon 11y ago
I never understood the antitrust angle towards Google search. Is there some kind of browser or app out there that is forcing people to use Google as their search engine on all their devices?
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  The fact that most people use the default, and that Google mandates the browser be Chrome and the search be Google for all Chrome web browsers (largest desktop market share) and Android devices (largest mobile market share). And that they then prioritize their own products and services in Search as well. The issue isn't "everyone is forced to use Google Search" as much as "Google creates a monopoly through connected use of it's various products and services".
  - mirashii 11y ago
    > and that Google mandates the browser be Chrome and the search be Google for all Chrome web browsers (largest desktop market share) and Android devices (largest mobile market share) No, they don't. You're free to use any browser on your desktop. You're free to use any browser on your Android device. And you're free to go into Chrome settings and use any search engine in Chrome on any of these devices.
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      And much the same could be argued about Microsoft and IE. Yet everyone but Google Chrome failed to overtake IE. Defaults are powerful things, as so very few take the time to change them.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - twrkit 11y ago
        Chrome overtook IE because it is (or at least at the time, was) a superior product.
outside1234 11y ago
Let the EU shakedown for money begin! This has nothing to do with anti-trust and everything to do with extracting a kilo of flesh from a successful non-EU company.
- declan 11y ago
  You might be interested in a classic (well, pre-Microsoft antitrust) book written by a professor who has specialized in antitrust law. I've interviewed him a few times. Excerpt: "Professor Armentano thoroughly researches the classic cases in antitrust law and demonstrates a surprising gap between the stated aims of antitrust law and what it actually accomplishes in the real world. Instead of protecting competition, Professor Armentano finds, antitrust law actually protects certain politically-favored competitors. This is an essential work for anyone wishing to understand the limitations and problems of contemporary antitrust actions." http://www.amazon.com/Antitrust-Monopoly-Anatomy-Independent-Political/dp/0945999623 http://www.amazon.com/Antitrust-Monopoly-Anatomy-Independent...
- tajen 11y ago
  So what? US has signed bilateral trade agreements with EU for that reason. As much as EU may benefit from fines on US companies, it's still a strict application of the law. US also benefits from the strict application of their laws when EU companies try to enter the US market. Actually, EU companies rarely try it. Guess why.
  - outside1234 11y ago
    I think my point is that I can't find a case where an EU company has been threatened with antitrust action in the EU (or the US). Do you have a counter example? (Genuinely curious not trolling) That leads me to believe these laws are "not strictly applied" but politically applied.
    - rlongstaff 11y ago
      Get searching: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm I think you'll find the overwhelming majority are European companies.
baldfat 11y ago
> At issue is whether the company uses its position as the dominant search engine company to muscle out competition from specialized search services, specifically comparison shopping sites, by prioritizing its own Google Shopping search results. Anyone else find shopping with Google Search is almost useless and I always follow up with a search on amazon.com and get a better result?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  No, but then I don't use either Google Search or Amazon for much online shopping -- mostly, I go directly to an appropriate (more focused than Amazon) retailer, though sometimes I use Google Search to find a retailer if I'm searching for something where I don't already know a set of retailers to check.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    I still find better prices from Amazon than NewEgg or other sites. Makes me feel guilty though.
    - qiaorui 11y ago
      +1
lkbm 11y ago
What would be a viable way for Google to fix this that doesn't hurt users? Sure, have Google Chrome installs start with "What do you want as your default search provider?" But can you do that with Android? How much will it affect Google Now to have it be connecting to a different search provider, and what does that mean? If I enter "1+1", or "weather", or "call Bob" or "navigate home", should it go to my search provider, or to Google Now? (I know the first two currently go to GWS anyway, but why should they?) And if integration of services like shopping on GWS are a problem, does that mean they should be removing the "Shopping" tab and make it just another result? That would suck. (For me, as a user.) I dunno, maybe long-term it allows for more competition and innovation, but short term I don't see solutions that aren't "make your product worse". Even allowing me to choose plug-in search tabs from other services seems iffy.
- whyenot 11y ago
  > What would be a viable way for Google to fix this that doesn't hurt users? If they are prioritizing Google Shopping results, as is alleged, stop doing that or otherwise biasing search results to favor Google products.
  - tajen 11y ago
    This raises a very difficult question: Given the results are personnalized and the algorithm a secret, how can we bring proof? Same question for many companies who can hide behind the absence of measurable data, because they keep it secret.
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      There is a decent likelihood the EU court will mandate Google to provide the court this information. With any luck, some of it will end up public, though Google will probably try to leave the EU as a whole before they'd give up their search formula.
- declan 11y ago
  >What would be a viable way for Google to fix this that doesn't hurt users? Assuming that any of Google's business practices needs to be "fixed" (a claim that's debatable and has been rejected by U.S. FedGov), you've put your finger on the difference between the U.S. and Euro regulatory approaches. The European approach is more inclined to protect competitors that complain about a rival -- in this case Yelp, Microsoft, etc. are doing that. Note protecting competitors from rivals is not the same as protecting competition; in fact, having bureaucrats cripple some firms and favor others can reduce competition and injects politics and lobbying and who-golfs-with-the-commissioner into the process. It also can lead to bizarre results like the lack of a reasonably viable way to "fix" things. The U.S. approach toward dominant firm behavior (well, since the 1970s) has been different. It focuses on intervening when there's consumer harm, or at least tries to. If consumers are not harmed, the logic goes, there is likely no reason for the Feds to intervene. This is why the FTC did not proceed with its case against Google. U.S. law also emphasizes economic analysis, which stands a better chance of grounding the analysis in marketplace reality. A colleague and I wrote about the different EU vs. US antitrust approaches here: http://news.cnet.com/Intel-probe-highlights-EU-U.S.-regulation-tussle/2100-1028_3-5228930.html http://news.cnet.com/Intel-probe-highlights-EU-U.S.-regulati... Note Microsoft enlisted U.S. politicians in its attempt to fend off broad EU antitrust actions; here's my article from 2004: http://news.cnet.com/U.S.-politicos-fire-at-EUs-Microsoft-ruling/2100-1012_3-5178914.html http://news.cnet.com/U.S.-politicos-fire-at-EUs-Microsoft-ru... Google doesn't seem to have the same depth of congressional outreach, especially among Rs predisposed to be skeptical of antitrust actions.
thrownaway2424 11y ago
In which we see a difference between EU and US law. US antitrust law exists to protect the consumer. EU antitrust law, evidently, exists to protect other competitors.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Actually, the difference is that US antitrust law won't go after companies who are friends of half the White House staff and pay off a decent chunk of Congress, whereas the EU doesn't care how big you are, they'll take you down.
  - Goronmon 11y ago
    I think you meant "shake you down".
  - adventured 11y ago
    Feel free to provide numerous examples of US companies avoiding anti-trust by paying off a decent chunk of Congress. You need to prove your assertions when they're that outlandish. Microsoft, IBM, Standard Oil, American Tobacco, Alcoa. Several of the biggest companies in US history, all pursued very aggressively by the US Government on anti-trust. You're clearly wrong.
- AJ007 11y ago
  Thankfully we have leaked documents from the US case. Excerpt from Ben Edelman, whose done a damn good job over the years not only watching Google but also companies involved in abusive adware and spyware practices: 'At the same time, Google systematically applied lesser standards to its own services. Examining Google's launch report for a 2008 algorithm change, FTC staff said that Google elected to show its product search OneBox "regardless of the quality" of that result (footnote 119, citing GOOGLR-00330279-80) and despite "pretty terribly embarrassing failures" in returning low-quality results (footnote 170, citing GOOGWRIG-000041022). Indeed, Google's product search service apparently failed Google's standard criteria for being indexed by Google search (p.80 and footnote 461), yet Google nonetheless put the service in top positions (p.30 and footnote 170, citing GOOG-Texas-0199877-906).' http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html Were consumers hurt if Google de-ranked content which by even Google's own standards were better than its own? May be not, but it certainly peels away any idea of the integrity of algorithmic search. Google's business is under attack from all fronts today. As business owners and those employed by internet businesses we are so fortunate as to not have to rely on Google anymore for our audiences. We have have search from two major app stores, and more if you are international. Social can deliver new users at a greater rate than search. There was a day where Google penalized your company, and the next day you fired everyone. In the next year or so we may start seeing ultra-cheap Chinese smartphones flood the market with Google free Android. Interesting thing commenters here seem to not know, device manufacturers are not allowed to sell any non-Google Android devices if they sell Google Android. Idealy some lines are drawn so Facebook doesn't engage in similar abusive behavior against its users and customers. I don't have high hopes. If anything, the ability to avoid US penalties and the EU's late reaction time probably emboldens behavior by market leaders everywhere.
soxpopuli 11y ago
What is a Search Engine? Is this some kind of legally regulated category that says you a) must only return Web results and b) in the form of 10 blue links? Should a search which a search engine knows the direct answer to (word definitions, the current weather or time, etc) send you to another site for the answer. Why are "search engines" prohibited from direct answers, but voice agents like Siri allowed? Is there something fundamentally different between a text box and a voice input? Likewise, if a search engine has indexed data and can return deep links to other sites formatted differently, why is that different? For example, if you search for "Playstation 4" and Google simply returned the first 10 hits (Amazon.com, eBay, Walmart, etc) as a page of 10 blue links like it did in 2006, instead of formatting them in a nice box at the top of the screen with summary price extracted, would this still be illegal? Why is it legal to display organic search results as blue links, but if you display them in a box and call it "Product Search", it's suddenly illegal? This makes no sense to me. The only difference between the Google Product Search box at the top, and displaying the links is simply better visual presentation. The world has moved on from ten blue links. Mobile devices have even more constrained real estate and network latency pushing the need for summarization and smart presentation even further. A new class of consumer expects these devices to almost act like intelligent agents when answering queries. Is the European Commission saying it will be illegal to build JARVIS or the Star Trek computer, because a smarter search that doesn't delegate to other niche search engines, and instead returns direct answers, is unfair competition? At the heart of this seems to be the idea that Google search should return links to other shopping comparison engines instead of direct links to Amazon, et al. That frankly seems like a good way to hurt customer experience. If you have a good product comparison engine these days, you're probably going to end up as a native app anyway. By the time this EU case winds down (Microsoft's took a decade), the traditional web search engine might not even exist anymore.
- pjc50 11y ago
  There is the rather delicate issue of copyright here. If you google for something and the answer is on another page, lifting it from that page is (a) making a copy and (b) potentially depriving the linked page of revenue. There is also the question of using the threat to ban people from your search results (which is calamitous for most businesses) to resolve your disputes with them.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
Now this is interesting > At issue is whether the company uses its position as the dominant search engine company to muscle out competition from specialized search services, specifically comparison shopping sites, by prioritizing its own Google Shopping search results. Google Shopping results suck but when I search for products almost always is an Amazon, Walmart, Target and others linked at the top of the results sometimes higher than the actual company that produces the product. As far as I can tell you can only get their shopping search results by clicking on "Shopping" (at least I can't seem to trigger it without that). I don't understand the issue here. foundem is behind the initial lawsuit and kinda kicked off this whole thing but they're a search engine. If I owned a search company I certainly wouldn't want to be federating queries and indexing them doesn't make sense; why would I index an index when I can just index the source? Am I missing something here? > The European Commission also confirmed that it is opening an investigation into Android as well. Although the operating system is open source, meaning that any manufacturer can install it on the phones and tablets they sell, many core applications, including the Google Play store, are proprietary. Manufacturers must enter into special agreements with Google to include these proprietary apps. The investigation will attempt to determine whether Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications on Android-based phones. I don't understand this one as well. These applications require the use of Google's infrastructure so if you want to use them why shouldn't you agree to handle them as they want? Besides I think Barnes and Noble's nook and Amazon's Fire platforms show this is a non issue.
- rhino369 11y ago
  The issue is that Google by being the default search engine could slowly subsume all the profitable markets that run on the internet. Once they kill off potential competitors then there is no reason to be competitive on price or quality. Think of it as sort of a net neutrality for the search engine. People here are totally okay with telling Comcast they can't leverage their ISP near-monopoly to win the video streaming market. Why should we allow Google to leverage their search monopoly into capturing other internet markets.
  - Goronmon 11y ago
hodder 11y ago
As a user of Google search and Android, I want Google to bundle services. Android would, in my opinion, be impaired if it didn't include Google play, gmail, chrome, and Google Maps. Similarly, Google search would be worse for me if it didn't present me with instantly relevant results like shopping, wikipedia responses, imdb style results, or quick answers to unit conversions and equations. Yes Google leverages its dominance in search and mobile to bundle services, but is this something that the EU should fine Google for? As a consumer, I don't think so.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  As someone who's been trying to find a way to not use Google, I absolutely think the EU should not just fine, but shatter Google for. Because even when I moved to Windows Phone, Google bought out my NFC payment app and shut it down, telling everyone to get Android and Google Wallet. If Google can't crush a competitor in the marketplace, they'll just buy it out and kill it. Which is why rumors they might want to acquire Twitter isn't a shock: They've never succeeded at social.
  - nathanm412 11y ago
    Softcard was shutting down anyways. They really never recovered from heavily investing in branding a product named ISIS and then having to change their name after that budget had been spent. On top of that, the early adopters that would have spread the word of the product were annoyed that the phone carriers were actively blocking Google Wallet installations in order to push ISIS adoption in the beginning. Google Wallet had to change business models and use a reloadable card because the carriers prevented Google from using the secure element on NFC to store the user's actual credit card on their own device. After Softcard began to fold, Google just bought what was left.
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      Nobody cared about Google Wallet. It was never more than a tech industry niche item (aside from being an account for Play Store purchases), and phone carriers only blocked it because Google was trying to create a monopoly. If you understand the history behind the secure element, you'd realize that it was those phone carriers which forced Google to adopt HCE, which allows payment options. Google's plan was to be the sole payment provider across the entire industry. Source: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...
manulp 11y ago
>The investigation will attempt to determine whether Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications on Android-based phones. Shouldn't this also apply to iOS?
- antsar 11y ago
  Yes. And that doesn't detract from the validity of the claims against Google.
  - manulp 11y ago
    Absolutely. I'm just a bit surprised that such charges have never been brought against Apple.
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      That's more than likely because Apple has never really held market dominance for a substantial period of time.
      - cromwellian 11y ago
        Thanks to Android and Google. If Google had never released Android, you might be looking at an even more locked in monopoly, one far worse than the Wintel Duopoly of the 90s.
        ocdtrekkie 11y ago
        And then Apple would be in the same boat Google is in now. Of course, had Google been willing to create an open source OS without using an illegal trust to maintain control of it... well, then everyone would be in the clear.
        tdkl 11y ago
        Not really. Majority of the Android market are cheap devices, not 700$ ones.
Aoyagi 11y ago
This might help http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/what_did_google_do_wrong/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/what_did_google_do_w...
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Writing in their PhD paper in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin described paid advertising as “insidious”, because it “often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results”. Absolutely hilarious.
undefined0 11y ago
In addition to this, Google currently deprioritizes other video search engines over YouTube because of the recent DMCA algorithm change, as Google forwards DMCA's to YouTube and doesn't impact the search ranking for YouTube per notice. It's completely unfair.
1971genocide 11y ago
I wouldn't be suspicious until I read ".. fine of 6.4 billion .." What ? Even BP didn't get that big of a fine when they polluted half of the Atlantic Ocean. I don't understand what EU's problem is. If they don't like google and android please ask your tech graduates to create their own. The EU is an funny organization. they are not democratically elected. Their policies is the reason half of EU is bankrupt. The EU should be fined for bankrupting entire generations of young people in Greece and promoting the largest transfer of wealth from poor European nations to rich European nations. Even assuming Google did participate in behaviour that is anti-competitive that market that google dominates was created by google ! I like china's approach to this where they forced their countrymen to create powerful competitor to google. The emphasis should be promotion of wealth creation and not redistribution. Why doesn't Europe have its own homegrown search giant ? An EU company would clearly have massive advantage due to the language barrier. The EU should be paying people to create companies to compete with google. Or atleast make it a priority to do so. What happens when google refuses to pay the fine and starts backtracing or treating the EU market as "not worth it", has the EU though about how it will effect consumers ?
- rbehrends 11y ago
  > I wouldn't be suspicious until I read ".. fine of 6.4 billion .." EU fines for anticompetitive behavior are assessed as a percentage of turnover. As a basic rule, it is set at up to 30% of annual sales related to the infringement (modified by aggravating and mitigating factors) multiplied by the duration of the infringement, plus a base amount of 15%-25%, and capped at 10% of annual turnover.
- Atropos 11y ago
  The fine amounts being thrown around are mostly bad journalism. The law allows a fine of up to 10% of annual turnover, but even in most hard-core cartel cases, they will not go into the upper bound. And especially in this case, it is not clear if Google will be fined in the end at all - the Motorala SEP case ended without a fine as well: http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/04/eu-settles-sep-antitrust-case-with.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/04/eu-settles-sep-antitrust-...
- Tarang 11y ago
wstrange 11y ago
Google's competitors should spend more time improving their products and less time complaining to the EU. As an example, google flight search is just hands down better than the alternatives. It is ultra fast (a killer feature) and has a simple but intuitive UI.
- 1971genocide 11y ago
  I agree. I am someone who constantly tries out alternative google services. consumers are always looking for better deals. If there were better search engines, email clients, etc than google people will be switching in droves. The reality is there isn't and the solution is not to fine these companies but to promote the creation of competitors. Given that there is 60% youth unemployment in may europeans countries I do not see why this is so hard. This lawsuit just seems like a nice way for lawyers to pocket some money from the wealth that was created by google at the expense of google and the consumers.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Honestly, if you constantly tried out alternative services, you'd probably have left Google already. I did, and I found many competitors' services faster, smoother, higher performance, and more configurable. Unfortunately, they have terrible market share because of Google's anticompetitive business practices.
    - wstrange 11y ago
      Can you give me some examples for flight search?
      - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
        I actually can't. My response to the above comment was pretty generic. I don't fly often, and when I do, it's generally airline specific because of mileage programs.
      - sirkneeland 11y ago
father_of_two 11y ago
As an EU citizen and consumer, here's my message to European Commission: SCREW YOU! I would like to know why is it so hard (and expensive) to buy a car on a foreign EU country and legalize it on other, I don't know why am I still paying robbery-like roaming "costs", I don't how is it possible to be considered fiscal resident simultaneous on 2 different countries and why citizens has still to resort to individual country-to-country specific deals to avoid double taxation within EU. And I could just keep going on... BUT they are worried with a freaking search engine! Piss off.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > I don't know why am I still paying robbery-like roaming "costs" The EU has brought down roaming every year, and it'll be soon abolished. > why citizens has still to resort to individual country-to-country specific deals to avoid double taxation within EU because we don't have a federal Europe
mark_l_watson 11y ago
While I am in general a fan of Google (like AppEngine, Android, etc. contracted at Google in 2013), it is important to prevent harming markets due to effective monopolies. One problem is that anti-competitive practices may cause long term harm to markets while making consumers happy short term. Really a tough issue to deal with fairly. I did notice something odd today in Google search results: I searched for "surface 3" and the link I wanted was a top paid for ad link. In the past, I could look down the page and see similar unpaid links, but not today.
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165 points by simas 11y ago

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

Very excited to see this happen. The US surely wasn't going to do it, but it's well past due.

baldfat 11y ago
Can you elaborate on your reasons why? I like to hear both sides of an argument. I see Google not as a monopoly but as a majority holder where people have control of what services they use. Are they abusing this position to the detriment of users and market?
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  The problem is that people don't have control of what services they use. The vertical integration model, used quite successfully by both Google and Apple, is specifically designed to make it unfavorable or impossible to use competitors. At least under the US definition, the practice of "tying" is illegal when you use your monopoly position in one market to try to monopolize another market. By using Search to prioritize promoting their other services, they are trying to capture other markets through their dominance in Search. This is what the law was written to prevent. Most of my issues stem with how they do this in Android though, which is a separate investigation the EU is conducting. Google's Search behavior hurts consumers in a lot of ways. Since Google is the front door to the Internet, effectively, particularly in Europe where their market share is nearly uncontested, being an unfavorable result in Google prevents you from adequately competing. Being "penalized" by Google Search for any reason can put you out of business. And Google is now trying to exact their will on the entire Internet through penalizing sites in Search as a means of activism. For example, choosing to penalize sites for not using HTTPS, or penalizing sites for not using "mobile responsive" design, which has at best, subjective appeal.
  - fixermark 11y ago
    I'm failing to see an issue with penalizing sites for not using HTTPS. Google has incentive to maintain the quality of their search results by being able to make some guarantees that the sites they send visitors to are what they say they are. It's reasonable to extend that to prioritizing sites that can be verified over sites that are easily MITM'd.
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      The quality of a local business cannot be determined by whether or not they cough up $70 a year for HTTPS. The quality of content cannot be determined by whether or not they cough up $70 a year for HTTPS. Penalizing sites for not using it raises the cost of having an opinion or trying to run a business on a nearly arbitrary restriction defined by a monopoly with conflicting business interests who sells web hosting services.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > I see Google not as a monopoly but as a majority holder where people have control of what services they use. Even if people could switch search engine - which they can't given they have only one competitor which isn't very good - it wouldn't make Google's actions fine. Google has a near-monopoly on search. They are abusing their market share.

Goronmon 11y ago

I never understood the antitrust angle towards Google search. Is there some kind of browser or app out there that is forcing people to use Google as their search engine on all their devices?

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
The fact that most people use the default, and that Google mandates the browser be Chrome and the search be Google for all Chrome web browsers (largest desktop market share) and Android devices (largest mobile market share). And that they then prioritize their own products and services in Search as well. The issue isn't "everyone is forced to use Google Search" as much as "Google creates a monopoly through connected use of it's various products and services".
- mirashii 11y ago
  > and that Google mandates the browser be Chrome and the search be Google for all Chrome web browsers (largest desktop market share) and Android devices (largest mobile market share) No, they don't. You're free to use any browser on your desktop. You're free to use any browser on your Android device. And you're free to go into Chrome settings and use any search engine in Chrome on any of these devices.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    And much the same could be argued about Microsoft and IE. Yet everyone but Google Chrome failed to overtake IE. Defaults are powerful things, as so very few take the time to change them.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - twrkit 11y ago
      Chrome overtook IE because it is (or at least at the time, was) a superior product.

outside1234 11y ago

Let the EU shakedown for money begin! This has nothing to do with anti-trust and everything to do with extracting a kilo of flesh from a successful non-EU company.

declan 11y ago
You might be interested in a classic (well, pre-Microsoft antitrust) book written by a professor who has specialized in antitrust law. I've interviewed him a few times. Excerpt: "Professor Armentano thoroughly researches the classic cases in antitrust law and demonstrates a surprising gap between the stated aims of antitrust law and what it actually accomplishes in the real world. Instead of protecting competition, Professor Armentano finds, antitrust law actually protects certain politically-favored competitors. This is an essential work for anyone wishing to understand the limitations and problems of contemporary antitrust actions." http://www.amazon.com/Antitrust-Monopoly-Anatomy-Independent-Political/dp/0945999623 http://www.amazon.com/Antitrust-Monopoly-Anatomy-Independent...
tajen 11y ago
So what? US has signed bilateral trade agreements with EU for that reason. As much as EU may benefit from fines on US companies, it's still a strict application of the law. US also benefits from the strict application of their laws when EU companies try to enter the US market. Actually, EU companies rarely try it. Guess why.
- outside1234 11y ago
  I think my point is that I can't find a case where an EU company has been threatened with antitrust action in the EU (or the US). Do you have a counter example? (Genuinely curious not trolling) That leads me to believe these laws are "not strictly applied" but politically applied.
  - rlongstaff 11y ago
    Get searching: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm I think you'll find the overwhelming majority are European companies.

baldfat 11y ago

> At issue is whether the company uses its position as the dominant search engine company to muscle out competition from specialized search services, specifically comparison shopping sites, by prioritizing its own Google Shopping search results. Anyone else find shopping with Google Search is almost useless and I always follow up with a search on amazon.com and get a better result?

dragonwriter 11y ago
No, but then I don't use either Google Search or Amazon for much online shopping -- mostly, I go directly to an appropriate (more focused than Amazon) retailer, though sometimes I use Google Search to find a retailer if I'm searching for something where I don't already know a set of retailers to check.
- baldfat 11y ago
  I still find better prices from Amazon than NewEgg or other sites. Makes me feel guilty though.
  - qiaorui 11y ago
    +1

lkbm 11y ago

What would be a viable way for Google to fix this that doesn't hurt users? Sure, have Google Chrome installs start with "What do you want as your default search provider?" But can you do that with Android? How much will it affect Google Now to have it be connecting to a different search provider, and what does that mean? If I enter "1+1", or "weather", or "call Bob" or "navigate home", should it go to my search provider, or to Google Now? (I know the first two currently go to GWS anyway, but why should they?) And if integration of services like shopping on GWS are a problem, does that mean they should be removing the "Shopping" tab and make it just another result? That would suck. (For me, as a user.) I dunno, maybe long-term it allows for more competition and innovation, but short term I don't see solutions that aren't "make your product worse". Even allowing me to choose plug-in search tabs from other services seems iffy.

whyenot 11y ago
> What would be a viable way for Google to fix this that doesn't hurt users? If they are prioritizing Google Shopping results, as is alleged, stop doing that or otherwise biasing search results to favor Google products.
- tajen 11y ago
  This raises a very difficult question: Given the results are personnalized and the algorithm a secret, how can we bring proof? Same question for many companies who can hide behind the absence of measurable data, because they keep it secret.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    There is a decent likelihood the EU court will mandate Google to provide the court this information. With any luck, some of it will end up public, though Google will probably try to leave the EU as a whole before they'd give up their search formula.
declan 11y ago
>What would be a viable way for Google to fix this that doesn't hurt users? Assuming that any of Google's business practices needs to be "fixed" (a claim that's debatable and has been rejected by U.S. FedGov), you've put your finger on the difference between the U.S. and Euro regulatory approaches. The European approach is more inclined to protect competitors that complain about a rival -- in this case Yelp, Microsoft, etc. are doing that. Note protecting competitors from rivals is not the same as protecting competition; in fact, having bureaucrats cripple some firms and favor others can reduce competition and injects politics and lobbying and who-golfs-with-the-commissioner into the process. It also can lead to bizarre results like the lack of a reasonably viable way to "fix" things. The U.S. approach toward dominant firm behavior (well, since the 1970s) has been different. It focuses on intervening when there's consumer harm, or at least tries to. If consumers are not harmed, the logic goes, there is likely no reason for the Feds to intervene. This is why the FTC did not proceed with its case against Google. U.S. law also emphasizes economic analysis, which stands a better chance of grounding the analysis in marketplace reality. A colleague and I wrote about the different EU vs. US antitrust approaches here: http://news.cnet.com/Intel-probe-highlights-EU-U.S.-regulation-tussle/2100-1028_3-5228930.html http://news.cnet.com/Intel-probe-highlights-EU-U.S.-regulati... Note Microsoft enlisted U.S. politicians in its attempt to fend off broad EU antitrust actions; here's my article from 2004: http://news.cnet.com/U.S.-politicos-fire-at-EUs-Microsoft-ruling/2100-1012_3-5178914.html http://news.cnet.com/U.S.-politicos-fire-at-EUs-Microsoft-ru... Google doesn't seem to have the same depth of congressional outreach, especially among Rs predisposed to be skeptical of antitrust actions.

thrownaway2424 11y ago

In which we see a difference between EU and US law. US antitrust law exists to protect the consumer. EU antitrust law, evidently, exists to protect other competitors.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Actually, the difference is that US antitrust law won't go after companies who are friends of half the White House staff and pay off a decent chunk of Congress, whereas the EU doesn't care how big you are, they'll take you down.
- Goronmon 11y ago
  I think you meant "shake you down".
- adventured 11y ago
  Feel free to provide numerous examples of US companies avoiding anti-trust by paying off a decent chunk of Congress. You need to prove your assertions when they're that outlandish. Microsoft, IBM, Standard Oil, American Tobacco, Alcoa. Several of the biggest companies in US history, all pursued very aggressively by the US Government on anti-trust. You're clearly wrong.
AJ007 11y ago
Thankfully we have leaked documents from the US case. Excerpt from Ben Edelman, whose done a damn good job over the years not only watching Google but also companies involved in abusive adware and spyware practices: 'At the same time, Google systematically applied lesser standards to its own services. Examining Google's launch report for a 2008 algorithm change, FTC staff said that Google elected to show its product search OneBox "regardless of the quality" of that result (footnote 119, citing GOOGLR-00330279-80) and despite "pretty terribly embarrassing failures" in returning low-quality results (footnote 170, citing GOOGWRIG-000041022). Indeed, Google's product search service apparently failed Google's standard criteria for being indexed by Google search (p.80 and footnote 461), yet Google nonetheless put the service in top positions (p.30 and footnote 170, citing GOOG-Texas-0199877-906).' http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html Were consumers hurt if Google de-ranked content which by even Google's own standards were better than its own? May be not, but it certainly peels away any idea of the integrity of algorithmic search. Google's business is under attack from all fronts today. As business owners and those employed by internet businesses we are so fortunate as to not have to rely on Google anymore for our audiences. We have have search from two major app stores, and more if you are international. Social can deliver new users at a greater rate than search. There was a day where Google penalized your company, and the next day you fired everyone. In the next year or so we may start seeing ultra-cheap Chinese smartphones flood the market with Google free Android. Interesting thing commenters here seem to not know, device manufacturers are not allowed to sell any non-Google Android devices if they sell Google Android. Idealy some lines are drawn so Facebook doesn't engage in similar abusive behavior against its users and customers. I don't have high hopes. If anything, the ability to avoid US penalties and the EU's late reaction time probably emboldens behavior by market leaders everywhere.

soxpopuli 11y ago

What is a Search Engine? Is this some kind of legally regulated category that says you a) must only return Web results and b) in the form of 10 blue links? Should a search which a search engine knows the direct answer to (word definitions, the current weather or time, etc) send you to another site for the answer. Why are "search engines" prohibited from direct answers, but voice agents like Siri allowed? Is there something fundamentally different between a text box and a voice input? Likewise, if a search engine has indexed data and can return deep links to other sites formatted differently, why is that different? For example, if you search for "Playstation 4" and Google simply returned the first 10 hits (Amazon.com, eBay, Walmart, etc) as a page of 10 blue links like it did in 2006, instead of formatting them in a nice box at the top of the screen with summary price extracted, would this still be illegal? Why is it legal to display organic search results as blue links, but if you display them in a box and call it "Product Search", it's suddenly illegal? This makes no sense to me. The only difference between the Google Product Search box at the top, and displaying the links is simply better visual presentation. The world has moved on from ten blue links. Mobile devices have even more constrained real estate and network latency pushing the need for summarization and smart presentation even further. A new class of consumer expects these devices to almost act like intelligent agents when answering queries. Is the European Commission saying it will be illegal to build JARVIS or the Star Trek computer, because a smarter search that doesn't delegate to other niche search engines, and instead returns direct answers, is unfair competition? At the heart of this seems to be the idea that Google search should return links to other shopping comparison engines instead of direct links to Amazon, et al. That frankly seems like a good way to hurt customer experience. If you have a good product comparison engine these days, you're probably going to end up as a native app anyway. By the time this EU case winds down (Microsoft's took a decade), the traditional web search engine might not even exist anymore.

pjc50 11y ago
There is the rather delicate issue of copyright here. If you google for something and the answer is on another page, lifting it from that page is (a) making a copy and (b) potentially depriving the linked page of revenue. There is also the question of using the threat to ban people from your search results (which is calamitous for most businesses) to resolve your disputes with them.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

Now this is interesting > At issue is whether the company uses its position as the dominant search engine company to muscle out competition from specialized search services, specifically comparison shopping sites, by prioritizing its own Google Shopping search results. Google Shopping results suck but when I search for products almost always is an Amazon, Walmart, Target and others linked at the top of the results sometimes higher than the actual company that produces the product. As far as I can tell you can only get their shopping search results by clicking on "Shopping" (at least I can't seem to trigger it without that). I don't understand the issue here. foundem is behind the initial lawsuit and kinda kicked off this whole thing but they're a search engine. If I owned a search company I certainly wouldn't want to be federating queries and indexing them doesn't make sense; why would I index an index when I can just index the source? Am I missing something here? > The European Commission also confirmed that it is opening an investigation into Android as well. Although the operating system is open source, meaning that any manufacturer can install it on the phones and tablets they sell, many core applications, including the Google Play store, are proprietary. Manufacturers must enter into special agreements with Google to include these proprietary apps. The investigation will attempt to determine whether Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications on Android-based phones. I don't understand this one as well. These applications require the use of Google's infrastructure so if you want to use them why shouldn't you agree to handle them as they want? Besides I think Barnes and Noble's nook and Amazon's Fire platforms show this is a non issue.

rhino369 11y ago
The issue is that Google by being the default search engine could slowly subsume all the profitable markets that run on the internet. Once they kill off potential competitors then there is no reason to be competitive on price or quality. Think of it as sort of a net neutrality for the search engine. People here are totally okay with telling Comcast they can't leverage their ISP near-monopoly to win the video streaming market. Why should we allow Google to leverage their search monopoly into capturing other internet markets.
- Goronmon 11y ago

hodder 11y ago

As a user of Google search and Android, I want Google to bundle services. Android would, in my opinion, be impaired if it didn't include Google play, gmail, chrome, and Google Maps. Similarly, Google search would be worse for me if it didn't present me with instantly relevant results like shopping, wikipedia responses, imdb style results, or quick answers to unit conversions and equations. Yes Google leverages its dominance in search and mobile to bundle services, but is this something that the EU should fine Google for? As a consumer, I don't think so.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
As someone who's been trying to find a way to not use Google, I absolutely think the EU should not just fine, but shatter Google for. Because even when I moved to Windows Phone, Google bought out my NFC payment app and shut it down, telling everyone to get Android and Google Wallet. If Google can't crush a competitor in the marketplace, they'll just buy it out and kill it. Which is why rumors they might want to acquire Twitter isn't a shock: They've never succeeded at social.
- nathanm412 11y ago
  Softcard was shutting down anyways. They really never recovered from heavily investing in branding a product named ISIS and then having to change their name after that budget had been spent. On top of that, the early adopters that would have spread the word of the product were annoyed that the phone carriers were actively blocking Google Wallet installations in order to push ISIS adoption in the beginning. Google Wallet had to change business models and use a reloadable card because the carriers prevented Google from using the secure element on NFC to store the user's actual credit card on their own device. After Softcard began to fold, Google just bought what was left.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Nobody cared about Google Wallet. It was never more than a tech industry niche item (aside from being an account for Play Store purchases), and phone carriers only blocked it because Google was trying to create a monopoly. If you understand the history behind the secure element, you'd realize that it was those phone carriers which forced Google to adopt HCE, which allows payment options. Google's plan was to be the sole payment provider across the entire industry. Source: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-verizon-and-google-wallet-and-why-the-carrier-is-still-allowed-to-block-it/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...

manulp 11y ago

>The investigation will attempt to determine whether Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications on Android-based phones. Shouldn't this also apply to iOS?

antsar 11y ago
Yes. And that doesn't detract from the validity of the claims against Google.
- manulp 11y ago
  Absolutely. I'm just a bit surprised that such charges have never been brought against Apple.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    That's more than likely because Apple has never really held market dominance for a substantial period of time.
    - cromwellian 11y ago
      Thanks to Android and Google. If Google had never released Android, you might be looking at an even more locked in monopoly, one far worse than the Wintel Duopoly of the 90s.
      - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
        And then Apple would be in the same boat Google is in now. Of course, had Google been willing to create an open source OS without using an illegal trust to maintain control of it... well, then everyone would be in the clear.
      - tdkl 11y ago
        Not really. Majority of the Android market are cheap devices, not 700$ ones.

Aoyagi 11y ago

This might help http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/what_did_google_do_wrong/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/what_did_google_do_w...

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Writing in their PhD paper in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin described paid advertising as “insidious”, because it “often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results”. Absolutely hilarious.

undefined0 11y ago

In addition to this, Google currently deprioritizes other video search engines over YouTube because of the recent DMCA algorithm change, as Google forwards DMCA's to YouTube and doesn't impact the search ranking for YouTube per notice. It's completely unfair.

1971genocide 11y ago

I wouldn't be suspicious until I read ".. fine of 6.4 billion .." What ? Even BP didn't get that big of a fine when they polluted half of the Atlantic Ocean. I don't understand what EU's problem is. If they don't like google and android please ask your tech graduates to create their own. The EU is an funny organization. they are not democratically elected. Their policies is the reason half of EU is bankrupt. The EU should be fined for bankrupting entire generations of young people in Greece and promoting the largest transfer of wealth from poor European nations to rich European nations. Even assuming Google did participate in behaviour that is anti-competitive that market that google dominates was created by google ! I like china's approach to this where they forced their countrymen to create powerful competitor to google. The emphasis should be promotion of wealth creation and not redistribution. Why doesn't Europe have its own homegrown search giant ? An EU company would clearly have massive advantage due to the language barrier. The EU should be paying people to create companies to compete with google. Or atleast make it a priority to do so. What happens when google refuses to pay the fine and starts backtracing or treating the EU market as "not worth it", has the EU though about how it will effect consumers ?

rbehrends 11y ago
> I wouldn't be suspicious until I read ".. fine of 6.4 billion .." EU fines for anticompetitive behavior are assessed as a percentage of turnover. As a basic rule, it is set at up to 30% of annual sales related to the infringement (modified by aggravating and mitigating factors) multiplied by the duration of the infringement, plus a base amount of 15%-25%, and capped at 10% of annual turnover.
Atropos 11y ago
The fine amounts being thrown around are mostly bad journalism. The law allows a fine of up to 10% of annual turnover, but even in most hard-core cartel cases, they will not go into the upper bound. And especially in this case, it is not clear if Google will be fined in the end at all - the Motorala SEP case ended without a fine as well: http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/04/eu-settles-sep-antitrust-case-with.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/04/eu-settles-sep-antitrust-...
Tarang 11y ago

wstrange 11y ago

Google's competitors should spend more time improving their products and less time complaining to the EU. As an example, google flight search is just hands down better than the alternatives. It is ultra fast (a killer feature) and has a simple but intuitive UI.

1971genocide 11y ago
I agree. I am someone who constantly tries out alternative google services. consumers are always looking for better deals. If there were better search engines, email clients, etc than google people will be switching in droves. The reality is there isn't and the solution is not to fine these companies but to promote the creation of competitors. Given that there is 60% youth unemployment in may europeans countries I do not see why this is so hard. This lawsuit just seems like a nice way for lawyers to pocket some money from the wealth that was created by google at the expense of google and the consumers.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Honestly, if you constantly tried out alternative services, you'd probably have left Google already. I did, and I found many competitors' services faster, smoother, higher performance, and more configurable. Unfortunately, they have terrible market share because of Google's anticompetitive business practices.
  - wstrange 11y ago
    Can you give me some examples for flight search?
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      I actually can't. My response to the above comment was pretty generic. I don't fly often, and when I do, it's generally airline specific because of mileage programs.
    - sirkneeland 11y ago

father_of_two 11y ago

As an EU citizen and consumer, here's my message to European Commission: SCREW YOU! I would like to know why is it so hard (and expensive) to buy a car on a foreign EU country and legalize it on other, I don't know why am I still paying robbery-like roaming "costs", I don't how is it possible to be considered fiscal resident simultaneous on 2 different countries and why citizens has still to resort to individual country-to-country specific deals to avoid double taxation within EU. And I could just keep going on... BUT they are worried with a freaking search engine! Piss off.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> I don't know why am I still paying robbery-like roaming "costs" The EU has brought down roaming every year, and it'll be soon abolished. > why citizens has still to resort to individual country-to-country specific deals to avoid double taxation within EU because we don't have a federal Europe

mark_l_watson 11y ago

While I am in general a fan of Google (like AppEngine, Android, etc. contracted at Google in 2013), it is important to prevent harming markets due to effective monopolies. One problem is that anti-competitive practices may cause long term harm to markets while making consumers happy short term. Really a tough issue to deal with fairly. I did notice something odd today in Google search results: I searched for "surface 3" and the link I wanted was a top paid for ad link. In the past, I could look down the page and see similar unpaid links, but not today.

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