Google Sued by YouTube Rival Rumble over Search Rankings
wsj.com
wsj.com
Google does its fair share of shitty things with search and ads, but I'm kind of skeptical that this is one of them.
You align the incentives by breaking up Google. They have no business promoting their other revenue streams in their own search results.
You wouldn't expect a map created by a company to hide streets where rival businesses are located for example, or your doctor to avoid disclosing a potential treatment because it's done by a rival health provider.
Funnily enough, I remember this being one of the differentiating factors that made people love google when they were starting to become popular - "our ads are unintrusive and clearly separated from actual content".
Google and Microsoft use their successful products to promote and keep competition out for other products.
Microsoft got slapped for Internet Explorer, but somehow Google gets away with shoving Chrome and the Android certification program which is basically "you either bundle all our other products, or we'll make you incompatible with Play Services".
See, that's been Google's defense in most of these cases; they (claim to) defer EVERYTHING to "the algorithm", a magic, top secret, unknowable and ineffable deity that calls the shots, so that Google themselves can deny culpability when it comes to anti-trust cases like this. They insist HARD on minimizing human intervention in search results and rankings, because if they allow it, they become more liable.
The manual indexes were explicitly editorialised and pushed their own services, and that was ok. Google is just an index service, if you don't like it's results go elsewhere.
If Google tweaks the algorithm (or tells their human rankers) to prefer Google properties then it is an abuse of power and something that I think is morally wrong.
Not manual, so OK. Right?
Personally, I think a company should conform to a single NCL category (like trademarks)
It is unfair competition when a megacorp can compete at loss to establish dominance in a new sector - yet these megacorps do it regularly. Buying their way in, or providing a service at a loss until the competition is eradicated.
Youtube is the perfect example of a loss leader. Impossible to provide for "free" unless you own a massive ad network and substantial global infrastructure. It is simply "unfair" that it exists in its current form. You cant run youtube off google ads - only google can do that, because they get both the publishers share and the ad networks share of the revenue split!
In a sense in a situation like this you can consider the customer to be essentially all of us as a group. Therefore as a group it makes sense for us to negotiate terms with the service provider, hence I think there's a reasonable role for government to regulate. After all our elected representatives are there to do exactly that - represent us and our interests.
Honestly I would prefer minimal or no regulatory intervention. I don't think the degree of any harm being done currently is sufficient to make imposing regulation worth the risks of getting those regulations wrong and making things worse for users. I think the degree of any current abuses are relatively trivial from a user perspective, however I do accept the basic principle that regulation may be necessary and appropriate, and companies like google need to know that and act accordingly.
In reality I'm a Brit and these are mainly US companies, so it's mainly up to you guys, but I'm sure the EU and other governments, should look at this.
If a person trusts Google (or YouTube) to decide what they see or host their content, then that is the person's choice. Google have a long history of unchallenged market dominance because they provide, frankly, better service than the alternatives. Not because of shady tricks, but because Google is a technically amazing company. But at some point they will cease to be technically amazing and sink back to being average, and then the market will open up space for some competitors.
I'd love to see innovative advertising models to break AdWords and redirect profits from Google to the advertisers. That'd be an improvement. Getting the government and judges involved to decide how to rank search results is not an improvement. I do not want any US administration, or US Congress, or US appointed judge deciding what I should see in my searches. Nothing good will come of that.
Even if those barriers were overcome, the exceptionality of such a feat as taking down one of the big guys makes it really likely that the competing services that potentially succeed google, facebook, amazon et all are going to be just as monopolistic, so it's not clear at all that we would end up better off at all.
> I do not want any US administration, or US Congress, or US appointed judge deciding what I should see in my searches. Nothing good will come of that.
That's of course a matter of preference or ideology (and perhaps partly me being a European) but I do prefer government oversight over monopolies rather than unregulated wild west business areas - admitting it's prone to failure, as both systems are. I do have issues with the US part of it, but we don't have supranational regulatory bodies - perhaps something that we should work for, although it is very unlikely to happen successfully considering the ever diverging interests of the US, the EU and China.
> They are currently pushing all the people I watch off YouTube, so wherever they go to I'll follow.
Out of curiosity, who do you regularly watch that has been pushed off the platform?
Harshly but speaking honestly, this attitude is why Google is in America and not in the EU. Google is better at ranking search results than any parliament or regulator on the planet.
They are in America because the US government knows to leave them to it.
> Out of curiosity, who do you regularly watch that has been pushed off the platform?
No-one formally banned yet, but people like Chris Martenson, Joe Rogan, a couple of libertarian types. The usual suspects. I don't like their odds of being on YouTube in 5 years. They 'spread disinformation'.
If I'm wrong then I'll stick with YouTube. I don't mind what they decide to do, even if I have opinions on whether it is good or bad.
That's great up to a point but I feel like that point is in the past. Companies need freedom to innovate but beyond that point they will use the freedom to commit abuses. Incidentally the government also represents the targets of those abuses.
America certainly has a better track record launching innovative tech, that's indisputable. But I don't think the reasons can be waved away as simply "lack of regulation". There are dozens of variables: some related to the different market environment, like having to support dozens of languages to reach the whole European market vs being able to reach more than 300 million users just with english in America; some related to European bureaucracy making harder to start businesses and raise capital; some related to the culture in the US being more entrepreneurial...
In any case, American companies being better at disrupting the market doesn't really take away from the fact that it's lead to a monopolistic situation, and that said situation is having unwanted consequences.
> Google is better at ranking search results than any parliament or regulator on the planet.
The point is not that a regulator should rank results, but that there should be a set of enforced good practices regarding how the search/ranking system and the company's personal interests can interact, how should the data extracted from users be handled, etc.
In theory, if we end up deciding that social networks, messaging systems, internet search and the like have become so necessary to consider access to them a basic right, I wouldn't be opposed to developing public-funded alternatives freely available to the public.
In practice however, I fully agree that the chances of public bodies feature matching private alternatives are almost nil, and that's just one of the many points that make it unfeasible. So we have to settle for making sure that private actors play clean, and possibly funding potential alternatives to help the market be more diverse.
The sheer amount of technological progress that gets consolidated in the largest companies creates a lot of societal dependencies that would be catastrophic to undo. It reminds me of the work done to lift families in developing nations out of poverty through new jobs, then being unable to move those jobs domestically without it looking like there is now a tangible entity to blame for plunging those families into poverty again.
But I’ve heard and seen Google’s auctioning trademarked keywords in their search ads. That should be illegal. You hold a trademark, others should not bid on that. It’s a kind of self dealing, no actually racketeering/protection. I’m glad Europe is looking into it. Maybe? The new admin will look into it, though I have my doubts.
If I type AT&T or ATT I want AT&T's website listed first. If I type Google I want google to come first and not Yandex or Baidu. If I type Mazda that's who I want listed first, not Peugeot...
You can put all those bidders second if you like.
Why not have the trademark office charge trademark owners right to maintain trademark fees.
It’s just unseemly. I believe the EU is looking at this situation, so I’m not alone in this view.
Most trademarks that contain everyday words must explicitly state no ownership claim of such words, but instead claim ownership of the shape of the word (and sometimes color) within a specific context, ie. "Apple".
For most trademarks, this usually means shape of the logo is what is protected, not the word used inside the logo.
So while you could create a lawn mowing service called "Apple" without any legal issue, you cannot use the exact shape of the letters (ie, font) in the Apple logo.
The wider problem is that even if they don’t have the right to the broader usage of the term, they do have billions more dollars than you and can sue you into submission. Even when the apple happens to be a different fruit: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/354644
I wonder why
So who can bid on the keyword "Apple"? Does Apple Computer get exclusivity? What about Apple Cosmetics? Apple Travel Agency? Apple Corps? Imagine telling Greg Apple of Apple Plumbing that he can't advertise using his own last name!
Even if you let everyone with a relevant trademark bid on keywords, you're still gonna have problems because so many trademarks are normal words. Should a random orchard that hasn't obtained a trademark containing the word "Apple" be able to place apple ads?
At least with Ads you need to attribute a competitor's trademark to your competitor.
Matt’s apple orchard may or may not be trademarked. They may be registered in their state, but not likely nationally.
The money is in the big marks. Matt is not going to bid against Apple. Matt might bid against his neighbor on generic terms or on business name. His neighbor may bid on generic terms but not on his business name. That’d be tawdry.
Google Soap. Parler French School. Stripe Flags. Square Foods. etc.
However, what you described is not a conflict search “Windows” and you get www.microsoft.com etc, but search “Storm Windows” and no search engine is going to show you www.microsoft.com/... as the top entry.
It is however a reason not to choose single word trademarks.
https://www.infocubic.co.jp/en/blog/website-design/how-japan...
So in practice, I think differentiating the area of trademark is something that could be done.
No idea how widely used or effective this is though.
If she's selling ads, she should not pretend to not hear me say KitchenAid unless KitchenAid pays her enough to "understand" KitchenAid.
Retailers have income streams beyond what shoppers provide directly. They sell access to your attention like Google and Facebook.
You need to actively scroll past the ads. They aren't after the organic results. They are at the top, you need to ignore them or click them. It comes in b/w you and the first result.
Now if they were getting supplied by both, then asking the same, that would be a better analogy.
This seems insane to me. I can't believe how hungry for legislation people are. If I own a store I should be able to stock anything I want and arrange it however I want. Why should the US government get a say in that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone_Ltd._v._Google,_....
There have been earlier legal challenges to this practice as well, but none has resulted in a clear opinion that it is unlawful.
Of course, Google’s dominance allows them to do this without much damage ... for now.
That sounds a lot like the US vs Microsoft (2001) antitrust case, where MSFT were sued for preinstalling IE on Windows without giving users other options, that Microsoft eventually lost. No doubt there's a lot more to it but Google bundling Google apps on Android does seem like pretty dodgy ground given the history of companies bundling their own software with OSes.
If I search "rumble big tech censorship", the rumble video shows up before Youtube. For other queries, why would they expect some random small video site to show up higher than the #1 video site? The article is behind a paywall, does anyone have more details on the claims here?
Even so, I very much share your skepticism that this is actionable or even improper. The idea that it's unlawful for your search algorithm to not translate "on rumble" to "site:rumble.com" would be... quite a precedent.
I don't know exactly what they did to their search engine, but whatever they did, it's an absolute travesty. It used to be that if you searched for something long enough, you would eventually find it, no matter how obscure the thing you were looking for was. Now, it's almost impossible to catch them red-handed and prove anything, as archiving millions of Google webpages is really not an option, but I'm convinced that they are for example removing results of old news stories. I thought I might be going crazy, but no, other people had noticed how garbage Google has become too, including those who I know privately and don't get political at all.
This is plain false. The lawsuit is about search results, and those have nothing to do with someone paying to be higher. That only applies to ads results, which doesn't seem to be the issue here.