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Comment by FreakyT | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty clear that this and other their other specifically anti-Google rulings are about protectionism and nothing more.

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what are they protecting? Its not as if there are small european based search engines that are failing to compete with Google who would benefit fromt his action.

It's just a ploy to grab headlines and appear relevant, nothing will come of it.

There's a distinct category of "edgy" activist types which have decided Google must be some sort of evil monopoly on the internet by a sheer failure of understanding of why infrastructure business models can be monopolies, whereas "being a popular search engine" really isn't.

Being a monopoly is not necessarily a bad thing. It can lead to consumers being negatively affected but that is not a foregone conclusion. YKK, the zip manufacturer, has effectively had a monopoly on zips for a long time but they produce high quality goods at a low price. The consumer gets a great deal and the monopoly knows to keep the customer happy to keep their market position.

Google do search better than anyone else. Before Google I would use 2 or 3 search engines but once Google proved their Quality I had no reason to go elsewhere.

I think YKK is a bad example here, considering they were fined for beign part of a cartel in Europe (2007). That doesn't seem like something that benefits customers or gets them a great deal.

I was unaware of that, however I do know that they produce a quality good at a low price. they kept other manufacturers out of the industry for a long time simply by producing a quality good at such a low price it was not worth the capital outlay to get into the market for the small profit (per unit) available. now of course the chinese can make things for fractions of what it costs elsewhere so almost all alternative zip maufacturers are low quality chinese manufacturers.

Newspapers. They claim that google is stealing their "content" , as if newspapers produced much original content.

There isn't yet an EU based competitor for this protectionism to make sense. But if there was, I see no reason why the EU shouldn't try to help it gain market share. It's in their interest for various reasons and more competition in search would really benefit everyone but Google.

Protectionism never makes sense, but in this case it is to benefit newspapers.

It's being done on behalf of Google competitors who have been complaining loudly in Europe. And it's being done on behalf of German publishers who want some extra extortion money and they're using the government to get it.

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