What an Anti-Google Antitrust Case By the FTC May Look Like 167
hessian writes "It's not certain that Google will face a federal antitrust lawsuit by year's end. But if that happens, it seems likely to follow an outline sketched by Thomas Barnett, a Washington, D.C., lawyer on the payroll of Google's competitors. Barnett laid out his arguments during a presentation here last night: Google is unfairly prioritizing its own services such as flight search over those offered by rivals such as Expedia, and it's unfairly incorporating reviews from Yelp without asking for permission. 'They systematically reinforce their dominance in search and search advertising,' Barnett said during a debate on search engines and antitrust organized by the Federalist Society. 'Google's case ought to have been brought a year or two ago.'"
Still Free (Score:3, Insightful)
Just pointing out, you have the easy option of typing www.bing.com in your address bar if you don't like their results.
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Just pointing out, you have the easy option of typing www.bing.com in your address bar if you don't like their results.
... and you've always been able to go online and download the browser you prefer through Windows, but that hasn't stopped the US or EU governing bodies from slapping Microsoft with nigh endless anti-trust suits.
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Only after starting Internet Explorer then... wait, I already have a web browser? Why would I want to download another one?
This is pretty much how IE6 became the behemoth that it is. IE has an unbreakable advantage over every other browser: it's owned by the vendor whose OS is a monopoly in its market. That's why.
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IE6 benefited from some anti-competitive anti-bundling agreements with the OEMs that Microsoft got wrist slapped for by the DOJ [wikipedia.org].
Because the OEMs couldn't bundle another browser, the main competition, Netscape, basically imploded due to lack of revenue. This left the market without a viable competitor. Giving IE all the space it needed to monopolize the market.
Re:Still Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Only after starting Internet Explorer then... wait, I already have a web browser? Why would I want to download another one?
Your laziness != anti-trust behavior on the part of Microsoft. Now, if Windows somehow tried to prevent you from downloading/installing an alternate browser, I would understand, but that's just not the case.
Not to mention, if Windows didn't come with any browser whatsoever - how would you go about downloading a new one?
This is pretty much how IE6 became the behemoth that it is. IE has an unbreakable advantage over every other browser: it's owned by the vendor whose OS is a monopoly in its market. That's why.
Does OSX come, by default, with any alternate to Safari? No? Then why is MS treated like some kind of James Bond villain, but Apple isn't?
Re:Still Free (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if Windows somehow tried to prevent you from downloading/installing an alternate browser, I would understand, but that's just not the case.
Which is somewhat what they did in preventing OEMs from bundling alternative browsers, which is what got them sued.
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Because, at the time Microsoft controlled almost the entire PC market. Apple were tiny by comparison to where they stand today.
Since Microsoft Windows was installed on every computer and they came with Internet Explorer already included, Microsoft was able to use a monopoly in one industry (PC operating systems) to create a monopoly in another (internet browsers).
As for h
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because they do not own a monopoly on the pc market, and they don't abuse that monopoly to get another monopoly so as to vender lock the world. fortunately it backfired on M$ to a degree because not only were people vendor locked but version locked leading to xp and ie6 still having a huge portion of the market over 10 years after their release and making people realize that ms software is crappy. and that open source or at least standard compliant is the best.
Re:Still Free (Score:5, Informative)
It's funny how quickly people forget history. It wasn't just that they bundled a browser; it went something like this:
- Netscape creates what becomes the standard internet browser and publicly states that they believe it will make the desktop OS irrelevant. MS is afraid of this. Netscape was freely downloadable, but they nagged you to pay them $25 or so to license it.
- MS creates IE, and charges for it, but no one buys it because it sucked.
- MS, still wanting browser market share, starts giving away IE for free. People continue to use Netscape.
- MS bundles IE with Windows and forbids OEMs from adding an alternative browser. Some people switch to IE because it saves them the download step.
- MS creates Front Page, a WYSIWYG HTML editor which was bundled with Office, the already dominant office suite.
- MS creates IIS and ASP, technologies which only worked on Windows.
- With Java applets gaining popularity, MS makes applets created with Visual Studio only runnable on Windows.
- MS starts adding features to Front Page which make the generated HTML non standards-compliant, only viewable by IE and only servable by IIS.
- MS add features to Word to allow it to export to HTML which could only be viewed in IE.
- MS adds ActiveX control integration, making IE the only browser which supports it.
- MS muscles ISPs like Earthlink to place ActiveX controls on their main web pages so that they are only viewable by Windows machines running IE.
- People start switching to IE because Netscape doesn't render Front Page pages properly, so they think IE is a better browser.
- Netscape can't make any money and folds, opening the source to their browser, blaming MS's antitrust behavior for their demise.
- Netscape source code is picked up by the community, but can't support things like ActiveX due to wanting cross-platform feature parity.
- With Netscape dead and IE5/6 being used by nearly every web surfer on the planet, MS stops development on it, hindering web innovation.
As you can see, MS did a very good job of making sure that the web was only viewable by machines running IE on Windows and servable only by NT machines running IIS. That is what the antitrust suit was about, browser integration was just one key point in the whole mess.
That was just the browser side of things, they were also found guilty of using private, unpublished Windows APIs in Office so that it was impossible for a 3rd party software developer to compete at the same level as MS. This was why the original ruling was to split MS into an OS company and a software company.
Read http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm [justice.gov] for full details.
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Only after starting Internet Explorer.
I see that you have been misinformed. Although I do not usually go to bat for Microsoft, I am impartial since I use & develop software for all modern OSs regularly. I once thought as you did, but have had my mind changed. Allow me to correct this misconception.
After installing MS Windows XP Pro. I dumped my compiler toolchain into the system and was about to compile Firefox and Chromium when I thought: Wait a minute. There's been a way to get other browsers installed here without using MSIE all alo
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Just pointing out, you have the easy option of typing www.bing.com in your address bar if you don't like their results.
... and you've always been able to go online and download the browser you prefer through Windows, but that hasn't stopped the US or EU governing bodies from slapping Microsoft with nigh endless anti-trust suits.
Not everyone has that ability. Business had a really bad reputation for using default browsers, as centralized IT enforced draconian machine configurations, the result being that much business software and websites were dependent on Microsoft bugs and incompatibilities, tying people into Microsoft operating systems etc.
Google are popular because their products are good, and continuously improving. Microsoft OSes were popular because they had a monopoly position, and the OS stagnated as a result (Win9x and W
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Just pointing out, you have the easy option of typing www.bing.com in your address bar if you don't like their results.
... and you've always been able to go online and download the browser you prefer through Windows, but that hasn't stopped the US or EU governing bodies from slapping Microsoft with nigh endless anti-trust suits.
Not everyone has that ability. Business had a really bad reputation for using default browsers, as centralized IT enforced draconian machine configurations, the result being that much business software and websites were dependent on Microsoft bugs and incompatibilities, tying people into Microsoft operating systems etc.
But that's not Microsoft's doing, its the IT departments of these businesses, so why is MS getting all the blame?
Do you really think the default browser (Explorer) on the defacto default OS (Windows) would default to google for search? People choose google for a reason.
I fail to see what bearing that has on the topic at hand.
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Just pointing out, you have the easy option of typing www.bing.com in your address bar if you don't like their results.
... and you've always been able to go online and download the browser you prefer through Windows, but that hasn't stopped the US or EU governing bodies from slapping Microsoft with nigh endless anti-trust suits.
Not everyone has that ability. Business had a really bad reputation for using default browsers, as centralized IT enforced draconian machine configurations, the result being that much business software and websites were dependent on Microsoft bugs and incompatibilities, tying people into Microsoft operating systems etc.
But that's not Microsoft's doing, its the IT departments of these businesses, so why is MS getting all the blame?
Because MS abused the lock-in. Explorer standards incompatibilities, and further lock in attempts such as ActiveX were clear attempts at abusing their monopoly.
Do you really think the default browser (Explorer) on the defacto default OS (Windows) would default to google for search? People choose google for a reason.
I fail to see what bearing that has on the topic at hand.
The topic at hand resulted in comparisons to Microsoft anti-trust issues. I was simply comparing the situations.
Re:Still Free (Score:4, Insightful)
which is why bing (microsoft, oracle, and apple - all in concert) wants to shut down google. The reality is that this is going to either invalidate antitrust altogether, or encourage more antitrust investigation from the EU and the US onto all three of them. They're literally creating evidence by pushing for this.
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But downloading a different browser did not remove IE from your machine. Does Google insist on sending you search results, even if you use Bing?
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It may seem ridiculous today but the internet was a very different place when Microsoft did the things that brought on that lawsuit. Micrsoft succeeded in drawing out the drama for a decade, but the fact remains that they did some very very very dirty things.
Today I with a few keystrokes and clicks I can install chrome in less than a minute and never see IE ever again.
Back then it could take hours to download a browser suite over a modem, and installation was faily complicated compared to installing chrome
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Back then it could take hours to download a browser suite over a modem, and installation was faily complicated compared to installing chrome today.
If it was so hard to download and install a browser, then it seems reasonable to pre-load a browser in the OS to avoid those hassles. If it was wrong for one operating system to bundle a web browser, then it should be wrong for all the operating systems to include. If it is wrong to bundle Internet Explorer because it affects paid browsers like Netscape Navigator and Opera, then it should be wrong for Microsoft to include an FTP client, a TCP/IP protocol stack, Zip file support, and even a text editor becau
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Oh, yes, pre-loading the browser is a great idea. Did you know that one of the biggest things microsoft got in trouble for was forcing companies to not allow them to bundle other browsers with computers they sold?
If you sold a PC with windows, you could not ship it with Netscape
You're either a kid, or are suffering from selective amnesia.
Personally, I worked for a small ISP during the bad old days. I remember quite vividly how microsoft strong-armed IE's marketshare in to existance.
Re:Still Free (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you know that one of the biggest things microsoft got in trouble for was forcing companies to not allow them to bundle other browsers with computers they sold?
You and your other Anonymous Coward friend are wrong. Microsoft never forced companies not to install other browsers. If you look at the judgement against Microsoft [webcitation.org], you see that:
"Microsoft did manage to bundle Internet Explorer 1.0 with the first version of Windows 95 licensed to OEMs in July 1995. It also included a term in its OEM licenses that prohibited the OEMs from modifying or deleting any part of Windows 95, including Internet Explorer, prior to shipment. The OEMs accepted this restriction despite their interest in meeting consumer demand for PC operating systems without Internet Explorer.
...
Microsoft knew that the inability to remove Internet Explorer made OEMs less disposed to pre-install Navigator onto Windows 95. OEMs bear essentially all of the consumer support costs for the Windows PC systems they sell. These include the cost of handling consumer complaints and questions generated by Microsoft's software. Pre-installing more than one product in a given category, such as word processors or browsers, onto its PC systems can significantly increase an OEM's support costs, for the redundancy can lead to confusion among novice users. In addition, pre-installing a second product in a given software category can increase an OEM's product testing costs. Finally, many OEMs see pre-installing a second application in a given software category as a questionable use of the scarce and valuable space on a PC's hard drive."
And later, when discussing Window's use of IE in some cases despite the user selecting another browser as a default (eg. Windows Update), the ruling states:
"By increasing the likelihood that using Navigator on Windows 98 would have unpleasant consequences for users, Microsoft further diminished the inclination of OEMs to pre-install Navigator onto Windows."
So you can see, there was no ban on other browsers for OEMs. They were not allowed to delete portions of Windows (including IE), but they could add their own browser if they wished. Microsoft added IE in the hope that OEMs would be disinclined to bundle Netscape Navigator.
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Back then it could take hours to download a browser suite over a modem
and imagine how much harder it would have been if you didn't have a browser to start with.
Today I with a few keystrokes and clicks I can install chrome in less than a minute and never see IE ever again.
and the first thing you click on to do that would be - IE
Re:Still Free (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I disagree. The landscape for the internet was damaged horribly by Microsoft's defacto dominance and their tying the browser with the operating system. In fact, Microsoft has even managed to harm MS Windows by taking this route. (By tying the browser to the OS, they have made having multiple versions of MSIE impossible as far as I can tell.. please link me to proof if I am wrong.) And by tying the browser to the OS, a vulnerability in the browser is a vulnerability in the OS and everything hosted by and accessible to the OS. Additionally, they used their OS dominance to affect other markets via their browser and its Microsoft-only compliance. It threatened the very framework of the web at large.
As a result of all the suits against Microsoft, the landscape has changed to favor a standards compliant direction. This is a huge improvement which would never have happened unless Microsoft was discouraged from their intended path.
I don't have an opinion about Google's tactics as to whether or not they are unfair. Users have never been locked into Google. Users choose which search engine they want to use. Bing is the default for "most default desktops" out there anyway. Google doesn't force users to decide which search engine they will use or lock them into anything. Their level of lock-in with Android is a little disturbing but even that's quite a bit of a choice... I could go without access to the Play store... there are alternatives but I can't imagine trusting any of them just yet. Or I could simply go without using any of those services at all.
I don't think what Google does even compares with what Microsoft has done. Google has created a very popular service. I see it as rather similar to TV channels. We all know, for example, that the news on Fox is slanted in a particular way and favors particular parties over others. If Google should be sued for not being 100% neutral, then perhaps Fox should be sued under the same requirements.
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Amazon's Appstore *IS* malware. Since I gave Amazon's Appstore a try, I quickly discovered that every game or app or utility acquired through it becomes tainted by it. If you uninstall the Amazon Appstore, you will find that ALL of the apps you paid for are useless. That is *NOT* what I paid for. On top of that, odd instability began to occur in my phone when I had Amazon's Appstore loaded. It went away with all the apps I had to remove along with the Amazon thing.
Amazon is a shining example of taking
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I noticed wonky google search results the other day when looking for iPhone apps every search kept coming up with android apps high in the results.
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Obviously, you don't own an Android phone and have never owned an Android phone. Your criticisms are bogus. You don't have to have a gmail account to "login to" an Andoid phone. That's just a flat out lie. Unless you set up security, you just turn the phone on.
You actually want us to believe you were looking for iPhone apps on an Android phone? Yeah, sure you were.
If you are going to criticize Android, at least try it first.
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Umm... You don't seem to understand the difference between Google's stock Android and the customized carrier version of Android. You don't seem to understand the difference between hardware problems and Android. You don't seem to understand the difference between apps and the o/s.
You certainly may complain about "Android" all you want, but you really should attempt to differentiate between all the various players and assign the correct responsibility rather than just say "Android, horrible!" Android is r
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hmm when ever i have used a google product android devices chrome etc one of the first things it asks is which search provider i would perfer and list several bing yahoo google ask duck duck go and others when i signed up for other services it works with my other email, if you don't want to hand them you online life you could simply use someone else i bet you will come back though, and not because of vender lock but becuase others services are inferior (with the exception of social) or simply don't exist. I
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if you don't try to sue them first you do.
Apple is the only company they've sued over a phone.
at the time that they sued them regarding FRAND patents they were not owned by Google
so Motoroogle has not in fact ever sued anyone regarding FRAND-pledged patents.
but you know, why let the truth get in the way of a good argument.
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The Venus de Milo is a sculpture, you uncultured coward.
Sour Grapes (Score:5, Insightful)
Why *wouldn't* they prioritize their services and the services of their partners? It's NOT a public service agency, it's a private business, of which there are several significant competitors.
Re:Sour Grapes (Score:5, Insightful)
Also it's not like bing, yahoo and msn search don't do the exact same thing. Bing pimps its services just like google does, hotmail on the front page and a host of other offerings once you actually search.
Just Horseshit legal wrangling try to slow Google down.
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That's the textbook definition of anti-trust behavior: Using your dominance in one market (search) to give yourself an unfair advantage in another market (travel agency, clog dancing, etc.)
Also, it's really fucking illegal.
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I would hardly call Google putting their services closer to the top as unfair.
What would you call it if you were the one pushed off the first page because Google rigged the game?
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Re:Sour Grapes (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but that is not the proven fact you pretend it is. There is no proof at all that Google tweaks its results to put its own services at the top of the list. You have assumed guilt that has never been established in order to "prove" that Google is guilty.
Even companies are assumed innocent until proven guilty. That's called "justice" and if you don't like it, tough.
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And they are more than free to do so, unless they are determined to be a monopoly. Then the rules change.
Re:Sour Grapes (Score:4, Informative)
Because they are leveraging their monopoly to unfairly compete with similar services (as it clearly states in the summary).
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Because they are leveraging their monopoly...
Which "monopoly" is that? Last time I checked there were several competitors including Bing which has market share that is not insignificant.
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Search+Adsense combination. Have you heard of anyone buying ads from bing? Very few do, it is pretty much insignificant.
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Er, no, Ads support free search engine (they cannot exist without each other). It is a valid combination in my opinion. And GM does have a monopoly on Chevrolet (are you denying it by any chance :) ).
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There are lots of different cars available, but if you want a Chevy, you have to go to GM, but that doesn't make them subject to antitrust action for having a monopoly.
Similarly, there are lots of different means of advertising (or so my TV and magazines tell me), but if you want your ads to show up along with Google search results, you have to advertise with Google. That doesn't make them a monopoly. Google doesn't even have a monopoly if you only
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but if you want your ads to show up along with Google search results, you have to advertise with Google. That doesn't make them a monopoly. Google doesn't even have a monopoly if you only limit it to web advertising.
That is not what I meant by a monopoly. Google has pretty much cornered the search engine ad market. They are leveraging it to promote Google Finance, Maps, Flighs, so on.
Re:Sour Grapes (Score:4, Insightful)
You really don't understand how this works. It's exactly the opposite. They promote Search, Finance, Maps (what's Flighs?) so they can sell ads.
"The search engine ad market" is not something subject to a monopoly, anymore than "the market for Chevrolets" is, which was my original point. It's the advertising market, which is very much bigger than just Google. Google doesn't even have an ad presence on Bing or Yahoo or Yandex or Baidu (as a seller - they appear to actually pay for ads on those sites), so a claim that they've "cornered the search engine ad market" is simply laughable. They've cornered the Google search ad market, just as GM has cornered the Chevrolet market. That in no way gives them a monopoly, of any sort.
Beyond that, they certainly haven't cornered the advertising market, even if you limit it to the Internet - there a lots of "free" services paid for with advertising - Facebook is an example, as is craigslist. But, I suppose you'd just say that Facebook has a monopoly over "the social media advertising market."
Meh.
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You're probably getting better average placement without paying extra for it due to the low utilization, that could explain the conversion rate
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There is absolutely no proof that Google does "prioritize their services and the services of their partners". Google says they don't and the anti-Google folks claim Google does (but with no proof).
Now, why is it assumed that what the anti-Google folks claim is true but what the Google folk claim is false? Why do that? Why not either assume innocence "until proven guilty" or, at least, recognize that there are opposing claims, neither of which is proven and either might be true. Why assume guilt when not
Re:Sour Grapes And Dynamic web pages.. (Score:2)
The biggest problem for those other Web Sites.. is Dynamic web pages.. I.E.. There is nothing to link too.. by Google or 3rd parties, thus the site gets a lower ranking.
I ran into this problem in Federal lawsuit filed in 2004, where a Large MNC was suing one of it's former manufacturing reps/distributor. One of claims of it's lawsuit was than the former rep was ranked higher (for TM product name), than the manufacturer.. Mind you the rep had removed nearly all references to the products on it's web site
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It is like claiming that McDonalds opens too many restaurants, they'll have to add KFC to their menu. It is complete malarky, and not at all what "anti-trust" is about. Anti-trust is about two things: preventing price-fixing between competitors, and preventing monopolies from using the monopoly to expand into other markets. For example, if you have a monopoly on arcade video games, you can't use that to force customers to also sell your brand of energy drink in their store. If you're putting ads for your ow
Google prioritizing its own services (Score:2)
The horror! Are we also going to demand that Ford dealerships be forced to sell Chevys and Chryslers?
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No, because GM and Chrysler have their own affiliated car dealerships. But if Ford Motor Company owned 90% of the car dealerships, it would create an unfair marketplace for car manufacturers, because Ford would be using their dominance in the car dealership industry to give themselves an unfair advantage in the car manufacturing industry.
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No, Ford would have to have a monopoly and that would be fine. They can open however many dealerships they want. You seem to be confusing a natural market advantage with unfairness. Having a monopoly is not unfair.
What would be unfair is if they forced service stations to give a discount to customers with Fords, and if they didn't comply they would have to pay double for diagnostic equipment.
Notice in your example they are just using the natural advantage of owning dealerships and being a car manufacturer.
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Google's search engine is so synonymous with "search the web" that we call searching the web "googling". I'm not saying that Google is guilty, but I am saying there is enough to build an antitrust case on (and IBM did win its antitrust case, so it's not a death sentence).
Microsoft didn't own operating systems, but they did use their near-total market share to try to take over the browser market, and the EU pegged them for it.
Hold on. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they guilty of anti-trust issues if the algorithms put their results first, not due to manipulation, but due to popularity?
Re:Hold on. (Score:5, Informative)
Are they guilty of anti-trust issues if the algorithms put their results first, not due to manipulation, but due to popularity?
Not exactly. The entire premise of Google originally was to put results at the top that had the most links to pages which matched keywords and phrases the user entered. But as people started gaming the system by adding links to their site in forums like Slashdot, Reddit, etc., spamming the web to inflate their index rating, Google had to start tweaking the algorithms and making manual changes to attempt to exclude such attempts. In the process of doing this, the manual ranking of certain websites based on other factors (like traffic rankings on Alexis, etc.), became very complicated. In an attempt to monetize their search results as well as provide a way for monied interests to promote their websites without spamming the indexes, they introduced sponsored links, then google ad words, etc. But the spam continues, and so Google finally opted to manually tweak rankings of many vendors, including their own, to put them on the first 10 results consistently.
So yes, they are manipulating the results, but then... every search engine has to thanks to spammers trying to inflate their ranking.
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But the spam continues, and so Google finally opted to manually tweak rankings of many vendors, including their own, to put them on the first 10 results consistently.
You were doing so well, until you left facts behind and entered fantasy-land. Google has said that they occasionally mark sites down manually, generally when they're caught misbehaving (for example [slashdot.org]). But they say that they never raise anyone, and nobody has produced any evidence that they do. Lots of whining, but no evidence.
So the complaints that google puts itself higher in the results seem to be pointless.
Though many of the complaints are about the one-off results at the top and side, like if you sear
I just searched airline reservations (Score:3)
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Google corrupt? How about Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thomas Barnett is the "Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust" and also a former lawyer for Microsoft.
Thomas is pushing for antitrust legislation against Google, right now. Thomas has previously Thom rejected Google's claims against Microsoft.
Looks a little suspecious to me.
How to stop android (Score:2)
Break up Google and make them a small player without the funding to continue development on 'side projects' such as android and there non-advertisement/search based cloud products.
More important of a story would be 'what will internet life be after google', as its not a matter of if, but when they get beat down by the Feds, pushed along by Google's competition.
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Competition that time and time again has proven completely incapable of producing search products that the large majority of users, consumers and businesses want.
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Really? Bing is actually pretty nice. I expect their low use is more to do with Google being embedded in everyone's mind (mine included) and being Good Enough.
Sure there was a time Google were way out in front, but I honestly don't think that's the case these days. Now it's just familiar and comfortable and does the job.
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Indeed. You'd have more luck finding stuff on microsoft.com website via Google than via Microsoft's own search!
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My experience with Bing is that its search results are pretty dismal compared to Google's. At the end of the day, whatever you think of Google, the fact remains that it has superior search algorithms.
Delist whiners (Score:2)
Maybe Google should just delist any companies complaining about Google unfairly prioritizing their own products over their competitors. It is their search engine, their advertising platform, and so on.
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That'd be pretty much a textbook example of anti-trust behavior. Are you trying to get them broken up by the DOJ?
Would it be "text book?" antitrust? (Score:2)
Comcast pushes their own pay-per-view shows, and not the shows on other premium channels.
Thomas Barnett is the "Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust" and also a former lawyer for Microsoft. That looks a little suspecious to me.
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From whence comes the requirement that Google put anybody in their search engines?
I'd love to see an anti-trust action against Google---initiated by the spammers and keyword stuffers that Google constantly delists. Maybe that'd show people how ludicrous it is to think Google "has" to include anyone in their search engines. Of course I'm sure there'd be howls of "but that's different!" and the hypocrisy would be lost on most everyone.
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You have it backwards. It's not about putting everybody in. It's about why they take them out.
If a site is already indexed and Google wants to delist it, they can't do so "just because". They have to apply the same standards to all sites. And their standard is to provide the most useful search results that they can find from the entire Internet. If someone is gaming the system to gain an enhanced rank, Google can delist the site and defend their decision by pointing out that the site failed to meet the stan
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I haven't read Google's TOS explicitly, but virtually every IT company I've ever dealt with---and especially the ones that provide free services---has a catch-all clause in their TOS that says something like "we can terminate your access to our service for any reason without notice, cause, or explanation." If Google doesn't have something like this, they damn well should.
Nobody is entitled to use Google. And certainly nobody is entitled to derive the absolutely free benefits from having Google list them in
Reinforce their dominance (Score:2)
They systematically reinforce their dominance in search and search advertising
A.K.A. They make their product easier to use and better, and that's bad because MS and Apple don't like it!
I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not trying to troll or start a flame war. I really am just curious.
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How come no one goes after Apple? They downright refuse anything that competes with their equivalent app. How is that not antitrust?
They don't have a monopoly. Apple sells less than 50% of the smart phones worldwide. Google gets, what, 90% or more of web searches?
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Interesting. It's worth noting that that's a U.S.-specific number, and that globally they are indeed around 90% (Bing is at about 4.5%), but I suppose the U.S. numbers may be the only ones that matter in this particular discussion?
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They don't have a monopoly. Apple sells less than 50% of the smart phones worldwide. Google gets, what, 90% or more of web searches?
Apple sells 100% of the iPhone aps in their App store, and prevents users from installing any other app stores. If that's not anti-competitive "monopoly" of a market I don't know what is. Don't like the iPhone, don't buy it. I could say the same about using Google's search engine. Seriously, your logic is just plain fucked.
It costs nothing to get listed on Bing, Duck Duck Go, Altavista, etc... So, even if Google does 90% of the search market they're not preventing folks from using alternatives at
Because MS is okay with Apple (Score:3)
Thomas Barnett is the "Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust" and also a former lawyer for Microsoft.
Thomas is pushing for antitrust legislation against Google, right now. Thomas has previously Thom rejected Google's claims against Microsoft.
Looks a little suspecious to me.
I think it's fairly clear that Microsoft is behind this. This has Microsoft's M.O. all over it. Remember MS execs going to work for Acacia just before Acacia sued Redhat?
Permission (Score:2)
Doesn't Google now own Yelp? Why would they have to ask for permission? Here is Yelps' Privacy policy [yelp.com]. It looks ok to me.
Or does Microsoft want Google to ask permission from the business owners actually being reviewed? Allowing only positive reviews would make the entire point of having reviews completely useless if you ask me, but then, may be that's Microsoft's aim, to make the web more difficult to search and more difficult to filter for everyone.
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Google does not own Yelp. Beyond that, I have no idea what agreements, if any, are in place between them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelp,_Inc [wikipedia.org].
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Google doesn't own Yelp, and the issue is one of content ownership. Yelp worked hard to develop a site where users can come and share reviews. It wants people to come to its site so that it can make money on them. By incorporating data directly from Yelp without permission in such a way that the user is given exactly what they're looking for and has no need to go to Yelp itself, Google is stealing those page views and thus stealing Yelp's profits (quick note: though they used to do this, they may have stopp
seriously? (Score:2)
If this is a bad thing, why is it that when I go to one big grocery store, they sell their own made stuff for cheaper? Then when I go to another big grocery store, they sell their own stuff for cheaper. And oddly enough, the stores don't sell their own lines in the other stores. But the big name foods have no problem selling in both stores, even though their stuff is usually sold for more money.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem like any anti-trust here, but normal business practice.
Re: (Score:2)
If this is a bad thing, why is it that when I go to one big grocery store, they sell their own made stuff for cheaper?
Your argument might have some teeth if it didn't overlook the fact that the re-branded Stop & Shop bread is made by the same factory that makes the re-branded Big Y bread. They are both selling the same product made by the same factory, just with different packaging.
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Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So, fail.
The real point you miss is that a store can sell whatever they want. The regulations come in when they use their position to lean on another business. Selling your own brands you're not leaning on anybody, not manipulating anything, you're just competing.
If they told a supplier that they had to increase their price to other stores, and if they didn't they would get put on the worst shelf, then that is the sort of thing that would be manipulation... and is actually okay
Not the reason I use Google (Score:2)
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Does CBS have to advertise NBC shows? (Score:2)
What is wrong with Google advertising their own products, or services?
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I'm not sure it's really advertising...
For example, I can ask Google "What time is it in Hanoi?" [google.com] the first result is the answer. The second, third, etc. results are for various sites which offer a similar service.
I got my answer from Google. I don't need to go to those sites.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps legal but evil tactics aren't good business.
Make up your mind FTC (Score:5, Insightful)
So wait, which is it? Google is unfairly prioritizing their own services, or unfairly indexing others? Yelp is their competitor. They have their own competing service in Google Places.
You can't have it both ways. You can't say on the one hand that they're "stealing" when they index other people's content and you can't argue that they're being anti-competitive if they don't have enough of other people's content, or other people's content not highly enough ranked. And, bottom line, Google has flatly denied that they do this. They have been explicit in stating that they do not tinker with their algorithm to make their services show up higher than others--so unless you have some evidence they're lying, then what's your case going to be?
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And why can't you have it both ways? It's to Google's advantage to link to other's content "piecewise" when that content is superior to what Google offers (or if that is the impression of most internet users anyways). In such case, Google may get as much ad revenue as the linked-to site.
And it's clearly also to Google's advantage to make one or two brief links to their own service, "top-level" at the same time. i.e. "Here's what you were probably looking for (please glance at our ads before clicking on
I did have one criticism for Google . . . (Score:2)
(Google): "Nice digital snapshot collection you got there . . . be a shame if someone was to wave an electromagnet over your JPEG's there, buddy."
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Not about Search Results (Score:2)
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"online advertising" is just a tiny aspect of "advertising". e.g. look at how much is spent on TV commercials. Google is nowhere near the monopoly in "advertising". Or are you saying that when $HUGECOMPANY spends $10m on marketing, $9.99m of that goes to google?
Re: (Score:2)
No, no case has been filed. And if it is filed, they still have to convince the Judge that they even have an accusation of real manipulation. None of that has happened. This is just PR stuff to tarnish Google, not an actual case of regulatory action.