Opinions on the decision will sure differ among readers, but I think the decision is in place with the majority of EU citizens' consensus.
As for the decision, it may seem unfair for Google, but the European commission has to look at the bigger picture: its search dominance is so big that it gives Google an unfair advantage when competing in other business sectors, driving others out of competition even if they have a much better product. That's not good for society in the long run
It now integrates tons of specialized results such as embedded videos and smart answers to direct questions. It will only move further and further away from simple lists of sites as their AI improves.
I fear this fine will deter innovation here as any special results Google adds will be scrutinized heavily. It's also very possible the complex data they need for it's 'smart' results aren't available by integrating with other 3rd party services (at least not initially), which is likely why Google even created these competing services in the first place.
If Google was merely a Yellow Pages style service as it was previously then I'd be more sympathetic to the idea of distorted rankings favouring Google services but that's becoming less and less the typical user experience.
Well, I'm primarily agains the idea of giving a single, non democratically controlled non-international entity, so much power.
To the point where I don't care if Google is forced to stop innovating in being a "one stop shop" for the internet if that means more distributed sources and more distributed (even if lower quality and with fewer resources) innovation.
Sometimes, when it comes to society, it's best to have less technology more uniformly distributed than a single source of highly advanced technology.
Google could partner with other companies to do integration in their search engine for those smart results but then they'd just be giving another company an unfair advantage.
I don't see how you could stop this without crippling the type of answers Google provides. Besides maybe offering open tools they could automously integrate with.
Google pushed for adding metadata so any web developer can add things like star ratings and pricing directly to SERPs. But the adoption has been limited and limited compared to a full custom integration with a web service they control.
But regardless Google is a monopoly that we can't really do much about. Plenty of people have tried to compete and failed so there will be some consequences of that.
Considering how important the tool is to the world I'm quite the opposite. I'd rather let Google have a few specialized subsites which they can dominate a few markets with ease, in exchange for not severely limiting the potential of their technology - a technology we are all stuck using for the foreseeable future.
Maybe or maybe not, but fining seems like a step in the right direction.
>I don't see how you could stop this without crippling the type of answers Google provides.
As I wrote above, I'm all for crippling them if that's what it takes. But turning them into some kind of public infrastructure is another way.
The fine is focused on Google Shopping. I'd say the biggest competitors are Amazon and eBay.
While I'm unsure if the EU can effectively do something about Google as a search engine monopoly, I'm pretty sure Google can be beaten in the e-commerce sector.
Step by step, down the giants. Claiming the resolution of the matter in a single step is unrealistic.
My concern is that even one step like the fine here will significantly chill their innovation with their search service in every category. As they will see adding any special advanced listings in search results as a big risk of being fined.
We're stuck with this giant so I'm not sure why you want to down it when there won't be comparable alternatives popping up in it's place.
This isn't just Google shopping being pushed further down the results ranking but how the shopping subsite is deeply integrated into the search results.
Which is why I said the proposed solution is regressing search engines back to simple directories which harms customers for some neglible gain for other small companies.
Exploiting your existing user base, in order to get traction for your next service, that in your opinion gives an added value, is not what I’d call innovation. If your new product or service is really innovative, then you don’t need this kind of tricks to get traction, users will come to you (because of the added value your new service gives to them).
The early Google was innovative, and won over the other search engines because of that.
If you are not able to get traction without this, then what you call innovation is not innovative, and you’re overestimating your product. For me (and apparently for the eu commission too), the rest is simple propaganda. Some find comfortable to believe it, probably because it’s profitable for them.
I don’t know what is the climate inside Google, but if this is able to significantly chill their “innovation”, then I think that they’re simply waiting for the next big thing in tech.
And it really sucks at web search today, compared to before (~10-15 years ago).
This is personal opinion of course but your argument depends on all this innovation always being an improvement to society. But Google innovates to improve its profits, which sometimes aligns with public interest, and sometimes not.
If it doesn't necessarily improve things for society, why would a company have a right to innovate despite everything else? Especially if you have to weigh it against the abuse of market dominance power to stifle competition (also deterring innovation, btw).
Because of that dominance, it deserves, no, requires scrutiny much, much more than not being deterred innovation. The latter is a "nice thing", the former is a necessity. Sorry but if you're that big, that dominant, of course we're going to scrutinize your responsibilities. If that's going to mean less fancy features, sad but so be it, the alternative is letting Google abuse all that power unchecked!
edit: I think coldtea said it better (in this same subthread) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14645033
This will kill two birds with one stone--firstly it will correct the economic damage Google has caused by abusing their monopoly position. Secondly it will make it harder for them to maintain and abuse their monopoly in the future.
The software industry today is filled with companies who seek to establish a monopoly so that they can extract monopoly rents. This behavior almost always skirts the boundaries of legality, and it's getting worse. Companies are being created with the explicit business model of throwing huge sums of money at illegal activity in order to establish market dominance--see Uber.
Monopolies are not good for markets and this belief is already reflected in our antitrust laws. We need to give those laws some teeth and come up with creative solutions that don't just punish bad behavior, but also encourage competition.
Even better: Make Google pay them directly. I don't know if that is possible on European level, but here in Germany, fines are often paid directly from the criminal to the non-profit, which is usually chosen in a round-robin-like fashion from the local non-profits in the criminal's (or court's) region.
Umm, it says so in the article, the googling was unnecessary.
That said, as far as I know (I'll keep an eye on it), I haven't always received an instant check in Chrome when dealing with a captcha.
No, it also works on other browsers. I know because I exclusively use Safari and I encounter this one-click-captcha thing regularly.
The thing is it only works on browsers you use regularly. It looks like they are analysing/tracking the behaviour of your browser (using google ads and other assets embedded in web pages) and determine if your browsing behaviour matches that of a human.
Google owns the server, Google owns the client, Google owns DNS, Google owns domains, Google even owns > 50% of mobile. It's way too much ownership under one roof.
Pretty sweet deal, yeah? 99% of the population gets an easy checkbox, and all the people who care just need to fill out some questions to prove they're not a bot. It's not like you're blocked from using the form.
In what alternate reality ?
Whether or not that number is correct, it's definitely a significant portion of the population doing it.
The worst part is when you need to prove to Google who you are when already logged in to a (non-Google) online store that you have purchased from previously. That is just rediculous and seems to be getting more common. At least those are not impossible, but still. I do not know if Google has anything to do with promoting that use but if they do they should be held responsible for that (as well as the businesses that use such things).
You can't have your cake and eat it too, either you are for privacy and should expect the hassles this create or you want the convenience and have to pay with your privacy for it.
I don't really understand why are you pressing so much on this issue, you have choices with tradeoffs, as most things in life.
You're acting like these are immutable laws of the universe rather than properties of google's design decisions.
I think your point wouldn't encounter as much resistance (or at least different resistance) if you just said something to the effect of "devoply, you're in the X% of users that google tolerates providing a sub-standard experience to, and I don't give a fuck either."
When I tried again with chromium it got instantly verified.
I'm more interested in seeing how much of her work will actually hold up in court. Better to focus on 10 good cases, than spread yourself thin on 30 and lose 80% of them. I guess she'll be long gone by then. The joys of politics.