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Comment by geekrax | Hacker News Reader

Here is what I don't understand:

If Amazon can block Google products from their marketplace, can't Google also block Amazon from showing in the search results?

If blocking Amazon from search results falls under anti-trust laws, why doesn't the first one fall under same laws?

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Amazon is not a monopoly, Google is. Retail is ENORMOUS and even in the area of online retail, which is still only a minor segment of all retail sales, Amazon still only has something like 30-50% marketshare depending on the type of good/week of the year. There is no "search" outside of the Web and google controls 90%+ of it.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, you're correct

You don't have to be a monopoly to illegally use market power in one market to influence a different one. It all comes down to the lawyers.

They probably can but that will be next level escalation. Amazon is one of the biggest spenders on Google ads and Google drives a lot of traffic to Amazon, so this will materially hurt both companies. I don't see that happening very soon.

I wouldn't think so. Google got a $2.7B fine for showing shopping ads in search results, because it was an "illegal advantage". They would almost certainly say the same thing about deleting Amazon search results.

https://www.recode.net/2017/6/27/15878980/europe-fine-google...

> If blocking Amazon from search results falls under anti-trust laws, why doesn't the first one fall under same laws?

Market share.

Amazon has less than 20% of the consumer electronics market share. Google has more than 80% of the search market share. It makes a real difference. No one cares if a small store with no market share refuses to sell something. Amazon is big enough that there's some concern, but 20% to 80% is a big difference.

Yes Google should block Amazon since they blocked Google. Amazon has now pulled Twitch from the Roku. Amazon anti competitive behavior needs to be checked and good to see Google finally pushing back.

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