Google at the center of antitrust probes | Hacker News Reader

Google at the center of antitrust probes

reuters.com

25 pointsbchjam11 comments

TFA: [Google] has been accused by competitors of favoring its own services over rivals in its search results

This is what is wrong with antitrust laws. The definition is so vague that anything can be construed as anti-competitive. Hopefully they don't dismantle Google like they dismantled ALCOLA

http://reason.com/archives/2001/11/01/antitrusts-greatest-hi...

Exactly. What company doesn't favor its own products to people who are using something the company provides free of charge?

Favoring your own products is fine when you don't have a market-dominant position. The rules change when you reach a certain level of dominance: that's the gist of antitrust law.

So it doesn't matter if you're doing the same thing you always did, or that other less-dominant companies do regularly. Certain pricing strategies, product-tie-ins, contractual agreements that were legal, stop being legal.

I'd agree that's kind of a mess because there's no bright-line indicator you've crossed the threshold. It has to be argued, via a bunch of somewhat subjective and ad hoc per industry standards, after the allegations of abusive behavior come up.

So perhaps there shouldn't be any antitrust law. Or it should operate on totally different grounds. But given the way it has been legislated and practiced, doing the same thing other rational companies do is not an accepted defense.

It's 'Alcoa', and from the Reason article, it wasn't 'dismantled', just limited in its potential for expansion. (Other companies at other times, like Standard Oil or AT&T, were dismantled.)

Somewhat related... there is a very interesting documentary just released about the break-up of AT&T, how it led to our modern communications networks and the man who was responsible:

  Long Distance Warrior: The story of Bill McGowan, MCI's legendary CEO

PBS Trailer: http://video.wttw.com/video/1949293907/

Hahaha yeah man, the energy crisis of the 70s was because Big Gov broke up Standard Oil!! Totally.

I'm SO SAD Alcoa can't continue to grow :( :( http://www.ncconservationnetwork.org/mainblog/alcoa-worldwid... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eGLnvta... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lnXnXtr...

I wish the government would stay out of these matters. If you don't want to use a single Google product you as a consumer don't have to. Google provides a very high quality product and competitors don't like it. I don't like it when my competition is better than me either but I don't think to file lawsuits about it.

I think these cases is about making a statement rather than improving anything for consumers. The attitude of consumers is pretty clear given that most everyone uses Google. If I felt like I was being deprived of good search results I would switch.

How many people here on HN have wondered if Google is in decline anyway? I know it's occurred to me. What is the government hoping to do with this case?

Exactly. I've had the idea of using Google to find information ingrained in me since elementary school when they taught us how to efficiently search with it. I use Chrome, google apps for business, google talk, android os, and plenty of other wonderful Google products simply because they are high quality products supported by a name I can trust.

I haven't thought much about Google in decline as I see it as almost impossible at this point in time. They have the number one search engine in the world that is used by a crazy 1/6 of the population on Earth. With other tech giants though such as Facebook, I've been thinking recently about whether or not they're declining already or if they'll continue to grow.

This is not Google's year.

Bing grabs market share from Google over past year

Google has lost close to 16 percent of its share, dropping to 63.6 percent from 73.9 percent. At the same time, Microsoft grew its share by 75 percent, jumping to 17 percent from 9.7 percent.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20072914-75/bing-grabs-mar...

Anybody can buy market share if they have deep enough pockets. If it's non-recurring, it doesn't help Bing much in the long run. http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-bing-losing-billion...

Put another way, you could compare Google and Bing to Apple and Dell. One side has most of the profits, the other side has most of the volume. Except in the Google and Bing comparison, Google has both. Microsoft is catching up on volume, but their profit situation is actually deteriorating.

Anyway, I think it's good for the world if we have multiple competing financially viable search engines. Unfortunately that describes only Google right now, because neither Bing nor Yahoo search could survive independent of Microsoft's deep, deep pockets and total lack of regard for shareholders.

why does this not surprise me?

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