Group of Google critics calls for EU antitrust action
uk.reuters.com
uk.reuters.com
Aside from that, can someone explain to me the reason this should require any sort of legal action taken against Google? I understand people not liking this behavior, but that's a reason to stop using Google, not to form this antitrust response. Additionally, it always seems to me that actions like Google's are fine until a company becomes to big, at which point it is suddenly decided that it is unfair. Why do we even care about fairness now? Nothing about the resources one has at one's disposal ever seems fair in business. It all seems very arbitrary.
If I create a Search engine I can't compete on quality with Google because they will buy the default spot on all devices, then with this money from search+ads they buy their way into other markets(video,music,file sharing).
Many times I am wondering is Google pushing this youtube results on top when I search something because this results are more relevant or is because they make money from youtube views.
Could a video platform compete with youtube if Google searches will put youtube results first ?
We should not expect business to not do what makes money. The problem is that sometimes it goes against some other values like freedom, safety, innovation.
Than it is the time to take action. This is the time when action should be taken
It's the fact that it's big what makes it unfair and scary(1). It's literally called "antitrust" (2)
(1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(business)#/media/File:S...
For the image in your first link, I don't see the issue as Standard Oil being powerful in itself, but rather the government having the power to create regulation and subsidies for businesses that would cause it to be a target of a trust in the first place. I believe the only way to get corporate money out of politics is to take the government out of economics completely. (of course they could still prosecute businesses for illegal action, but they could not solidify a business' power through subsidies or regulation)
What it's an illegal or legal action comes from the power of government to create regulation. Any business at that level will have incentive to try to write the laws. They could even try to create subsidies that increase profits.
At the end of the day, you need rules, the question is who define the rules, some democratic process or money?
Similarly, companies won't generally elect to weaken their bargaining position with employees, such as paying higher wages, reducing working hours, providing PTO or fair hiring/firing practices.
One of the main purposes of government is to represent the will and interests of the general person, whether that's internationally or in collaboration with the companies that provide jobs.
Agreed, but I think the force to combat this should be unions purely through collective bargaining rather than either side using regulation backed by the monopoly on force that is the government.
"One of the main purposes of government is to represent the will and interests of the general person"
I hold a stripped back view of the government. That it's proper function should only be to protect the rights of individuals via it's monopoly on force. Of course, 'what are an individual's rights?' is a whole other conversation. The government does provide many legitimate services, but they are things that I think can, and should, be done privately. The fact that the government has the monopoly on force is one of the reasons why it's purview should be so restrained.
We should probably approach it differently. Instead of targeting specific companies, implement policies to hinder all companies from growing massive.
The larger the company, the greater the power. The greater the power, the larger the impact of any possible abuses. So to prevent abuses that people can't work around easily, prevent the companies from getting too big in the first place.
Is there anything morally superior about small companies? Not really. But large companies have power inherent to their size, so we can try to level the playing field at least to balance out that power. Take away the power, reintroduce alternatives to the market, and everyone is incentivized to behave better.
If the small company really were truly better (and by a large magnitude), they would have a chance. After all, how did google beat the original behemoth of yahoo?
Far from it. We know that markets perform best when there is lots of choice. Monopolies are bad for various reasons, but one of them is that it can be leveraged to gain a monopoly in other markets, as described by a sibling comment.
This is market economy 101, you could read up on the context of anticompetitive legislation.
Thats literally how anti-trust laws works. Once a company gets too big, certain anti-competitive actions become illegal.
> Why do we even care about fairness now?
It is not really about fairness. Instead, it is that if a company is large enough, certain actions negatively effect the market much more.
If a company is large, then people have few other others, and anti-competitive actions have a worse effect on the market.
If a company is small, it doesn't matter very much if a company is behaving anti-competitively, because people can just use a competitor.
Thats the justification.
Disclaimer: I worked at Google Search but no longer work at Google or own any stocks.
I thought the Ads was the money maker for Google and Google Search is simply supporting Ads to make more money.
Summary:
Google without Ads but with Search = $0
Google without Search but with Ads = >$0
No. It's targeted advertising
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204420...
> google search and other 2020: 21,319 (millions)
> Google advertising: 29,867 (millions)
On another note, do you have an opinion on YaCY (https://yacy.net/) ?
But for the rest of us who live either outside that bubble or outside of the US in general, lots of good has come out of EU, even startups, that we rely on daily.
[1] https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/end-to-end-encryption-euro...
What sort of other legislation could they do to push Google out of the way in a way that doesn't actively discriminate against Google but also applies to all companies (both inside and outside the EU)?
Also, since the EU cannot mandate a breakup of Google, how would this actually be framed?
Fines are a fast and easy political win against these "evil foreign tech giants". Just like rent seeking.
Bootstrapping an ecosystem capable of spawning and growing global market leaders is hard. And it would require some very unpopular measures.
- Weak/Non-Existent non-compete
- Make it easier to hire and fire employees
- Competitive approach to retaining talent
- Lower tax rate for tech companies instead of endless government grants/subsidies
The last one in particular is critical. In some EU countries, you can already justify your 5th employee's complete salary having a dedicated "accountant" whose only job is to apply for government grants.
The only way would be to completely block the GAFAMs (and their Russian and Chinese equivalents of course) from operating in the EU. Only then alternatives might actually be able to gain a foothold.
Why not simply compete? Europe sure has the brains, give them the freedom to use them!
> “Many of us may not have the strength and resources to wait until such regulation really takes effect,” they said.
That act seems to do basically what they want and it seems that it would take effect in the next year or two. Does it take longer?
Can we assume that Search will be separated from any hardware/data related issues?
I just want a service that gives me the most relevant result as the first option, with no distractions.
There's also too much duplicate junk: it would be nice to search for a song title and not being given 20 pages of copycat lyrics websites. Or 20 pages of copycat guitar tab websites. Also: software aggregators, Wikipedia mirrors, Stack Overflow mirrors, Github mirrors. I mean they're all the same, maybe just aggregate them together?
Would also be nice to be able to filter out, or at least de-emphasise things like: piracy download sites, fake download sites, fake ebook sites. Of course that would need some curation.
Sorry if it's rude, but that's my take on it - a public subsidies scam. The hatred for US companies in the EU can't justify everything.