Microsoft Behind Google Complaints To EC 346
justice4all writes to share that some of the recent complaints to the European Commission about Google have apparently been coming from Microsoft. "A lawyer for Microsoft confirmed that the software giant told the US Department of Justice and the European Commission how Google’s business practices may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising. [...] 'Google’s algorithms learn less common search terms better than others because many more people are conducting searches on these terms on Google. These and other network effects make it hard for competing search engines to catch up. Microsoft’s well-received Bing search engine is addressing this challenge by offering innovations in areas that are less dependent on volume. But Bing needs to gain volume too, in order to increase the relevance of search results for less common search terms.'"
What algo? (Score:4, Informative)
Google’s algorithms learn less common search terms better than others because many more people are conducting searches on these terms on Google.
I don't think that is how pagerank or keyword search works.
But Bing needs to gain volume too, in order to increase the relevance of search results for less common search terms.
Sounds like Microsoft is doing it wrong. That is a chicken-and-egg problem no matter whether Google exists or not.
-molo
Given the monopoly by the people (Score:5, Informative)
Giving Google the monopoly now would be the worst thing to do.
And would you like to know who has given Google their dominant position? You. Me. And Everyone else that thought that Yahoo, Microsoft, Excite, Alta Vista and the rest sucked. Google earned their way to the top by providing a better product. It wasn't given to them by government fiat.
Unlike some markets where immense cost is a barrier to entry, there is no such limitation for a new search engine to begin crawling the internet with their own algorithms and produce search results. Sure, you need servers and disk space, but ANY business endeavor will require some resources. Google's results were not so much superior amounts of hardware, but better algorithms. They simply did it better.
And now they are getting complaints that they are too successful? Bunch of communists.
Re:For once the system works (Score:1, Informative)
Microsoft were not punished for their monopolistic behaviour (and what does that even mean by the way?) They were punished for their anti-competitive behaviour!
Re:Microsoft Behind Google Complaints To EC (Score:2, Informative)
In what way does Bing suck?
its results are horrible, that is how.
Just in case you want to file a complaint (Score:4, Informative)
Just in case you want to file a complaint against a dominant company operating on European markets, just use this form. [europa.eu]
Re:Microsoft Behind Google Complaints To EC (Score:5, Informative)
Could you perhaps provide an example of a search query that Google does substantially better than Bing?
Bing's [committeet...oggers.org] problems [software.coop] are [webroot.com] well [alug.org.uk] known [taranfx.com].
Could you provide a reason you've been living under a rock for the past 6 months, but suddenly decided to pop out to troll for MS?
Re:Makes sense really (Score:5, Informative)
The way they've implemented their analytics software makes it dead easy to block. Google even lets me use Bing as my search engine in Chrome. It's 3rd on the list, just after Yahoo and not hidden away further down like Google is on IE if you want to pick a new search provider. This only covers the tip of the iceberg and doesn't go into the efforts MS has made, up until recently, to lock in documents to Windows or trying to break Java to make their version different or all the other shit they've done.
Google is by no means perfect but they have a long way to go before catching up to Microsoft in the shitty tactics department.
Re:Makes sense really (Score:4, Informative)
actualy good did .
when google maps came out they allowed 3rd party devs to use the API to pull images for their apps as long as the all was designed to keep the per user request rate and transfer rate under a certain amount. this allowed for a lot of really useful info to be added to existing GPS apps..
when they released android they narrowed the focus of that agreement so that for smart phones it only applies to it - meaning that my win mobile GPS app that could use it and had been using it for years and was released under that it could - now can't - and Google actively blocks it.
while yes you can say but it was free - well Google hasn't given me a way to pay for it EXCEPT to get an android device and another program that may or may not do what i need it to.
they may not be as openly blatant was MS with their ways.. but they are can be just as slimy with a bait and switch.
Re:Given the monopoly by the people (Score:3, Informative)
And now they are getting complaints that they are too successful? Bunch of communists.
Spot on. It seems to me that MS primary complaint is that Google's product is so good that they can't catch up. Really? What happened to Capitalism? Free market? Not to mention that I don't buy the argument, for two reasons.
One, the basic algorithm had nothing to do with what users click on after they search, and I don't know how much weight that gives to links now. My guess is: not all that much. I frequently click on multiple links in a search, and, if I'm not happy, I change the query. I doubt Google's analysis of user behavior is that sophisticated that it can distinguish between a successful and a failed search.
Two, the long-tail argument is nonsense in the context of a monopoly. Them being successful in rare queries does not translate to being successful overall. On the contrary: when I test out a search engine, I use common queries where I know the results already. So the engine better be successful on the common stuff - where apparently, there's no network effect that Google can exploit.
I'm not shocked that MS is trying that bullshit, but I'm kinda shocked and disappointed by how many techies buy that argument.
Re:Google make me nervous (Score:3, Informative)
When Google released Buzz, it was a reminder that if they wanted to break gmail pretty badly, they'd be able to, and we'd have no recourse. With software on your own computer, you can at least refrain from running the upgrade.
Except, of course, GMail works with POP and IMAP so you can run your own software on your own computer, in fact you can run pretty much any e-mail program because it does a reasonable job of adhering to open published standards, unlike MS's e-mail offerings.