Google Hit By New Round Of Antitrust Charges In Europe (bloomberg.com) 39
The European commission has filed a third antitrust charge against Google -- this time it is against the Mountain View-based company's AdSense advertising business. The EU regulator is accusing Google of abusing its dominance in search to benefit its own advertising business, one of company's main revenue stream. A Bloomberg article explains the whole situation: While this is an escalation for the advertising probe, the statement of objections focused on comparison shopping bolsters a case the European Commission first laid out in an antitrust complaint in April 2015. Both of these investigations are in addition to an ongoing antitrust case against Alphabet Inc. for the alleged market-dominance of its Android mobile operating system that the EU filed in April. The antitrust issues are just one strand of a net of regulatory problems entangling the company in Europe. It is facing a separate inquiry
into its use of copyrighted content from European publishers and complaints about its compliance with European "right to be forgotten" rules. A bevy of individual European governments are also investigating the company for alleged underpayment of tax. In response to the latest EU antitrust complaints, Google said that its products "increased choice for European consumers and promote competition," and that will provide a detailed response to the European Commission's claims in the coming weeks. In the past, Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt has said European officials should spend more time trying to promote Europe's own tech sector and less time trying to punish successful American companies.
First? (Score:1)
Bummer for them...
Webster (Score:1)
http://www.merriam-webster.com... [merriam-webster.com]
Android has 71% of the MOBILE market in Europe, including OEM-cusromized versions which aren't what Google published.
Personally, I wouldn't call less than 71% "complete control of the entire supply".
Re: (Score:3)
CTRL+F monopoly
Phrase not found.
Why are you linking to the definition of "monopoly"? TFS doesn't mention "monopoly". None of the linked articles mention it. No one posting here mentioned it until you linked to it.
Re: (Score:2)
Since a company with a monopoly in one market doesn't have to worry about competition there they can raise prices to get extra resources.
I think that you are saying that Google is charging too much for Android to get dominance in another market? The second question, of course, is "which market"?
Now, the way the word monopoly is used in legal cases it typically isn't required to have 100% of the market. 70% is more than enough to be called a monopoly.
It varies, and I don't know how EU has ruled, but 70% is still kinda low. I seem to recall that the claim was the Google is using Android to gain dominance in the "Android app market". Why this isn't the "Cell phone app market" is a question that only those regulators can answer.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sure your mom gave you a cookie for being smart enough to recognize the mono root.
However the legal definition, as is often the case, is different. http://www.blacksacademy.net/c... [blacksacademy.net]
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, this is enforced Free Market.
Free Market stops working if one seller has too much control over the market, therefore, it is the job of a capitalist government to make sure that this does not happen.
Using anything is a choice - even if the seller has complete monopoly - you can just choose not to buy/use the item. This does not make effective monopolies any less damaging.
What if Microsoft released an update that blocks $your_company website from being accessed at the OS level (no matter what browse
Re: (Score:2)
Your monopoly example is completely irrelevant.
Really? If Altavista decided to remove your website from its search results and if Google chose to do the same, which would cause you more damage? Would people decide that Google is a crap search engine and start using another if it does not show your website? Or would they just continue using Google and not visiting your site?
Re: (Score:2)
What if Microsoft released an update that blocks $your_company website from being accessed at the OS level (no matter what browser you use) and instead redirects them to the same service offered by Microsoft - how many people would dump Windows (after all, there are alternatives) just to be able to access your website?
You mean like how whenever you click on an address in an iOS app, you always get Apple Maps, and there is no way to get Google Maps by default? Unlike Android, where once you have multiple maps apps, clicking on an address will ask you which app to use (this time and/or make the default)?
Note, I agree that one of government's purposes is to limit the damage that a monopolistic company can cause. I'm just having trouble seeing both Android's monopoly status and what they're doing to abuse it.
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If iOS was more popular it would get in trouble for this.
From TFA, the complaint seems to be
the company favors its own comparison-shopping service in its search results and that it prevented customers of one of its popular online advertising services from placing ads with rivals and restricted how rival ads were displayed.
The second part ("if you advertise with us, do not advertise with anyone else") could be a problem for Google.
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They could block all banks from processing transactions destined to Google, Alphabet, or whatever shells they set up.
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isn't that what the Alphabet holding company was created for?
It's just one business (Score:2)
> abusing its dominance in search to benefit its own advertising business
Yeah, but those aren't separate businesses. They're the same thing. Google accepts questions (search queries) from users and gives them back answers (relevant information, including information from people who paid to be considered relevant). Even advertising embedded in pages is the same; the page information constitutes an expression of interest in a topic, and the advertisements are intended to answer that interest. That's on
Google using copyrighted content (Score:1)
I see the European publishers still have the old complaint that Google is showing snippets of their news stories, which discourages people from going to the source website.
As alway, the answer is obvious. If they don't want Google to do that, block them with robots.txt and then they won't show anything. It's as easy as that! But of course the publishers know that doing that would greatly reduce their traffic. So they just sit around and whine.
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OH, so if Google would decide to block the website of your company (or the company you work for) from appearing in the results, people would just dump Google so that they can search for your company? Or would they just do business with one of your competitors whose website is not blocked by Google?
Re: (Score:2)
so, it's myfuckingwebsite.org? Or is it myfuckingwebsite.net? Maybe myfuckingwebsite.eu? No, I think it was thefuckingwebsite.com. Nah, probably anonymouscowardsfuckingwebsite.com. Still no. If only there was a way to find the website by entering "Anonymous Coward's fucking website" or even entering what the site is about and finding the address. You know, something like a telephone book.
Re: (Score:2)
So, I need to contact you and meet in person (or at least call you) before I can go to your website?
Internet existed before Google, also people used telephone books and read classified ads more often. Now, if they want to buy your product, they will enter it in Google and buy from whatever website Google can find. If your website is not there (but your competitor's is) then you have a problem.
If I need to have the exhaust system in my car repaired, I will enter "car exhaust repair in $my_city" into Google a
Shakedown. (Score:1)