I still find it hard to understand why this makes sense. Don't companies make exclusive deals all the time, and whoever bids higher will get such deals? Why is it different for Google this time?
> Google understands there is no genuine competition for the defaults because it knows that its partners cannot afford to go elsewhere. Time and again, Google’s partners have concluded that it is financially infeasible to switch default GSEs or seek greater flexibility in search offerings because it would mean sacrificing the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars that Google pays them as revenue share.
[...]
> That was the key takeaway from the testimony of Neeva’s founder and former Google Senior Vice President of Ads and Commerce, Dr. Ramaswamy. The court found him to be a particularly compelling witness. He put it best. When the court asked why Google pays billions in revenue share when it already has the best search engine, he answered that the payments “provide an incredibly strong incentive for the ecosystem to not do anything”; they “effectively make the ecosystem exceptionally resist[ant] to change”; and their “net effect . . . [is to] basically freeze the ecosystem in place[.]” Tr. at 3796:8–3798:22 (Ramaswamy). No one would ever describe a competitive marketplace in those terms. When the distribution agreements have created an ecosystem that has a “strong incentive” to do “nothing,” is “resist[ant] to change,” and is “basically [frozen] in place,” there is no genuine “competition for the contract” in search. It is illusory.
I’d encourage you to read the decision, I just pulled two paragraphs from a pretty exhaustive document.
I’m not following… the search engine would be the one paying the billions.
Because it's a monopoly, and paying over the odds for these placements, it does not allow for a competitive marketplace. These payments create significant barriers to entry for other companies to even try and increase their market share given all the frictionless access points are blocked by Google not because of superior product but payments. These payments from a monopoly have a disproportionate impact on the market by limiting opportunities for everyone else in a significant manner.
(Kind of, in a competitive market, a company can block 1-2 pathways. Here google pretty much blocked every entry point.)
The thing is the deals are a revenue sharing deal - Google gives 1/3 of the revenue to Apple. With microsoft, the number could be 100% and would still not reach a significant number for Apple. Mozilla would jump at it, and I hope Google still invests in them as part of a grant or something while not getting anything in return.
Longer term, yeah they'll probably just make their own search engine.
I highly doubt Google would give Mozilla anything. The only reason I think they would would be to appease Chrome monopoly concerns, but I don't think Chrome is even at risk of that. It's not the default browser on any platform other than ChromeOS and some Android devices.
It's hard to even consistently distinguish a monopoly - is it market share? Earning power? Barriers to entry?
"I know it when I see it," as it is difficult at best to rely on distinctive actions or indicators considering the fluidity of business dynamics and the market landscape.
It would change the shape, but not the definition.
So are a lot of laws and regulations. Doesn't make them any less valid.
That would be the difference of an anti-competition monopoly vs just a monopoly.
But if you or I are operate a monopoly (whether a natural monopoly or an artificial monopoly) and we make the same kind of exclusive deal, then: That may not be fine. We have laws (like the Sherman Act) that can restrict this sort of thing only if a monopoly becomes involved.
And to be clear: It's generally OK to have a monopoly (good fuckin' job, mate! you totally own your market! all the spoils for you!). But it's generally not OK to use that monopoly status in an anticompetitive way.
Companies with monopoly power must work with different rules.
Having monopoly power is not illegal, abusing it is.
A pretty good argument could be made that Apple would likely have built up and/or acquired it's own search engine by now if Google wasn't paying such obscene amounts. Apple was previously involved in talks with Microsoft to purchase Bing, and even acquired an ai search startup founded by ex-googlers (LaserLike).
They pay Apple alone around 20 billion per year. There is no way anyone else can even think about competing with that. It's not because they happened to get the highest bid. It's because they're paying for the elimination of anyone else getting a foothold.
Interesting that they limit the case to mobile browsers. I guess MS share is significant enough on desktop.
is it against the law?
IANAL, but I would think not.
I mean, many people put links to their other products or services on the web page of one of their products or services.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Search results include: "Explore maps of Detroit on HERE[0], Google Maps[0], OpenStreetMap[0] [...]"
[0] insert link
how the heck is google's " 'giving' themselves something for free", considered wrong? even if it is billions of dollars?
in which alt world is it wrong of you to 'give' yourself a 100 dollars? or even billions? of your own money? or even billions worth of advertising space? both the giver and the receiver are you, right? you are not stealing anything from anyone.
then what the heck is the problem? maybe I am dumb, but I fail to see it.
in your own words, they are giving it to themselves, right?
they are not taking that money away from anyone else.
and note: I am not a Google shill. I criticized them, with some justifications that I gave, roughly about a day ago. check my comments. I try to be objective, though of course I may sometimes fail at that.
interested to hear what you have to say about all this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
>A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.
how is Google a monopoly according to the above definition in Wikipedia?
they have competitors like bing, duckduckgo, kagi, and some others that i have read about here on hn recently.
and I do not know about the others, but at least bing and duckduckgo have existed for many years.
so again, how are they a monopoly?
to repeat, quoting from the Wikipedia definition of monopoly:
>A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.
(italics mine)
can you really not see the difference between 90% search share held by Google, which means 10% share held by others, vs. absence of competition? it is blindingly obvious.
I am leaving this thread. I don't argue with people who either don't get it, or seem to be operating under false pretences.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-05/google-lo...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/20/google-...
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/yes-google-has-a-mon...
[4] http://www2.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco211f/lectures/monopo...
half the links (i.e. 1 and 2) you quoted above don't work for me. paywalls or signup required? clever you, eh? not!
and link 4 is too long and verbose. I searched for the word effective, but did not find it in the initial part on the screen.
aaannnddd ... you are quoting journalists (!) as though they are automatically competent authorities? and even judges' decisions sometimes get reversed by higher courts. so effectively you have no point. hee ... hee ... hee ...
looks like, in your arguments, you thrive on appeals to faux authority, and nothing else, particularly not on reasoning.
so, tata, bye bye, dude.
this sort of argument is below me.
bless you. you need it.
they are because a judge just ruled they are. answering questions like this is the reason the courts exist, and they just answered this question.
or they might not actually be a monopoly, there's still a possibility of appeal, but there's really no more definitive answer than a judge's ruling. antitrust law is fuzzy, and depends a lot on the courts to interpret it.
but they are not a monopoly according to the Wikipedia definition that I cited in another subthread, and linked to above, though.
and courts can be packed, which, i have been reading, has happened with the us supreme court.
if you're asking how they're a monopoly, i answered you. if you want to debate whether the judge was right or wrong, maybe phrase your question less like a question.
okay, i will. in fact, i also answered you, so I'll just link to my other answer again:
and judges are human, and therefore fallible.
and that judge's ruling can be overturned by an appeals court. and the appeals court's ruling can again be overturned by an even higher court.
such things have happened many times in the past.
so that means that the courts are no more reliable than Wikipedia.
qed. case dismissed. ;)
What about of money are they allowed to pay?
Will there be a state-run auction?