How Washington fumbled the future: The antitrust case against Google | Hacker News Reader

How Washington fumbled the future: The antitrust case against Google

politico.com

8 pointsanbende4 comments

Apparently, a big piece of the decision by the FTC not to take Google to court was the recommendation of the two economists on the panel:

The pair suggested that advertisers had plenty of alternatives to doing business with Google: Display ads could take the place of search ads, or companies could move their advertising to offline sources like radio or television. For both those assertions, the economists cited a study by Google and two academic papers funded by grants from Google.

A big part of not pursuing this case appears to have been based on the idea that Google was not the only choice for advertising. Currently Google is facing stiff competition from Facebook and Amazon in online ads, even while it maintains its massive market share in search. So did the FTC make a mistake or did they just not make the decision many wanted? (genuinely curious what people think)

I think it's more of a questions of what choice do publishers have now?

And what about all the bundling? Try getting YouTube off your phone. How much change/innovation and choice do you have as a consumer? What happens if you get kicked off? Did you deserve it was there a real review. How many times has someone come out in public and complained and then reinstated. What about all the people that might have ben banned and shouldn't have. I just don't get if people are so anti socialism why is having a private company as a monopoly so palatable. To me either why no alternative in the matter.

I think you raise important points about bundling and banning. I'm constantly terrified that Google will just lock me out of all my email and other Google accounts. What would I do? I don't have a massive social media following. I'd really be in a tough spot.

I've also gone through bouts of YouTube addiction - like, seeking professional help YouTube addiction. And it's tricky when such a high percentage of video is hosted on YouTube - training videos, news, etc.

I agree with you that there are some real problems here.

So how much of this was true during the FTC probe back in 2012? And what should be done now?

Maybe the FTC just needs more time to be right.

Little known fact --- Amazon is doing an end run around Google's advertising business.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/25/an-amazon-search-i...

What Google does with regard to advertising actually detracts from the usability of their search engine. The info you're really looking for keeps getting buried under ad BS that you don't really want.

Google sells advertising, Amazon sells products --- and advertising. Google attracts people looking for information and annoys them with ads. Amazon attracts people looking for products and gives them ads that are actually relevant to the product they're looking for.

In other words, ads on Amazon will likely always be better targeted and more effective --- and less annoying.

If enough businesses would just say no to annoying people with advertising on Google the antitrust issue will take care of itself. But no one ever got fired for burning money with Google.

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