EU gives Google till July to offer fix for search dominance The EU's antitrust head honcho has said that Google has until early July to tell him how it's going to change itself enough to sort out its dominant position in the marketplace. Google has repeatedly made out that it doesn't know what the EU's antitrust division is going on about, but is of course open to conversations with …
The reason they're in a dominant position is because they offer the best service. It's not like there aren't others out there, and its not like Google is pulling a microsoft by having itself put as the dominant search engiine on every browser.
You don't get toolbars that change your search to google with every file you install, you don't have adverts on TV telling you to use google because its better than everything else.
They just have a better service plain and simple. I mean I can understand antitrust suits when it comes to companies who are giving people giant wods of cash to block others out of the market, but google aren't doing that.
I'd rather see them use anti-trust suits against companies that actually are causing harm like british gas, or BT for owning the entire infrastructure.
Quote: "its not like Google is pulling a microsoft by having itself put as the dominant search engiine on every browser"
A: Isn't it???? When did you last see a "use Chrome" ad on Googles search page?
Quote: "You don't get toolbars that change your search to google with every file you install, you don't have adverts on TV telling you to use google because its better than everything else."
A: You have obviosly never installed any free / shareware software recently. Almost every one has a "Install Chrome" 'offer'. As for seeing Googel on TV you've obviously never been in Londons underground system.
Quote: "I mean I can understand antitrust suits when it comes to companies who are giving people giant wods of cash to block others out of the market, but google aren't doing that."
A: See my comment above.
Quote: "Isn't it???? When did you last see a "use Chrome" ad on Googles search page?"
Ads are not monopolistic behaviour. It's Google's homepage, they've got the right to put whatever they want on it. Microsoft doesn't have ads for OpenOffice on their website, Oracle doesn't have ads for SAP products on their website.
Quote: You have obviosly never installed any free / shareware software recently. Almost every one has a "Install Chrome" 'offer'.
This would actually be a valid point if it weren't for the fact that the overwhelmingly dominant desktop OS on the planet comes with IE installed by default. Sure, in recent times they have a browser ballot. Well, guess what. There's a search engine ballot too - they call it the URL bar.
This is about more than just search.
If all Google did was provide search results, then there'd be no case to answer - they would simply be the biggest search engine by being the most preferred. But they have done deals which put them as the default search provider on some platforms (like anything from Apple).
But Google doesn't just do search, they sell all sorts of stuff around it. That's where it gets more "interesting".
Take maps for example. At one time, there were a number of outfits offering mapping services online. Then Google entered the market.
Google clearly uses it's massive reserves and income from other areas (most notably search) in order to pay for it's maps service - which it gave away free. You can argue that maps succeeded because it was better - but it's hard to argue that it wasn't more popular by virtue of being free. While it's not wrong to do well by being batter, it is most definitely wrong to "capture" a market by selling at such a low price that it's impossible for someone else to compete - and that is what Google appear to have done.
Lets look at the key points :
Google have oodles of cash from being dominant in search. They enter another market (eg maps). That will have cost lots of cash, but it's been cross subsidised by their other business. They give maps away online for free - thus killing competition, if you are in business doing maps but don't have an alternative cash cow then you can't compete with free. Then they start charging - some functions were free but are now paid for.
In addition, it's been alleged that when Google starts a new service, they promote it through their search results. Thus anyone searching for maps, wouldn't get "A N Other mapping service" with Google Maps way down the list because it's new and doesn't have any ranking - they get Google Maps right at the top of the list while everyone else is pushed down.
That is exactly what IBM did in years gone past, and what Standard Oil did before them, and what Microsoft did to Netscape with Internet Exploder. In the US it's covered by Anti-Trust laws, in the EU it's called something else but it's still not allowed.
Google has been reading 16th Century history.
Cuius regio, eius religio. A way of saying Fanbois will be Fanbois, except the regio they're after extends from midway between your ears to the known world and whatever some heretic might discover (by mistake) out of sheer spite for our Overlords . The Afterlife remains all yours. The Pope has had the same 0% Interest offer for years.
The best the EU could do is to warn Google that some of their members can get a little peevish when you hurt their children and no, a letter of introduction will not be forthcoming.
Indeed, Google is the best search engine for one single reason, ,PAGERANK patent. All other search engines suck because they can't use this.
Will the EU force Google to give up this patent? Surely Larry Page was smart enough to come up with this, then it's win for Google.
As as consumer, I just want to use the best which is why I use Google. Will they make google crap to level the field
The complaint isn't that they are pushing their search on everyone but that they're using their dominance in search to give them an advantage elsewhere which is arguably true. They do use their site to push chrome on at least IE users, there used to be plenty of software offering the google toolbar, now it's chrome which of course defaults to google search.
Though arguably that's minor stuff. What annoys me is tying in google+ to their google accounts so you basically have to use it if you need a google account and pushing, imo, worthless G+ postings into search.
And yes if you do search for things google offers, like maps they feature their product promently and those products are tied into search (ie map results right in the results. I'd argue their maps are the best or atleast the most popular as are many of their other products so maybe they should be higher in the results but if ms got in trouble for tying products together then maybe maps for example should not be tied into the search results.
"[Google isn't] the dominant search [engine] on every browser."
Chrome, FireFox, Safari, and Opera all have Google as the default search engine. Only IE defaults to something else.
"[Google doesn't run] adverts on TV telling you to use google because its better than everything else"
Only it does...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTjHCCU2E4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU
and so forth...
Here's the EU's statement - but don't feel as if you have to read it, and don't feel as though you actually need to know anything about the matter that you are commenting on, and don't feel that you need to be anything other than the ignoramus that you already are :
"Almunia outlined what aspects of Mountain View's biz might be characterised as 'abuses of dominance'.
First, in its general search results on the web, Google displays links to its own vertical search services. Vertical search services are specialised search engines which focus on specific topics – for example restaurants, news or products.
Alongside its general search service, Google also operates several vertical search services of this kind in competition with other players.
In its general search results, Google displays links to its own vertical search services differently than it does for links to competitors. We are concerned that this may result in preferential treatment compared to those of competing services, which may be hurt as a consequence.
Our second concern relates to the way Google copies content from competing vertical search services and uses it in its own offerings. Google may be copying original material from the websites of its competitors such as user reviews and using that material on its own sites without their prior authorisation.
In this way they are appropriating the benefits of the investments of competitors. We are worried that this could reduce competitors' incentives to invest in the creation of original content for the benefit of internet users. This practice may impact for instance travel sites or sites providing restaurant guides.
Our third concern relates to agreements between Google and partners on the websites of which Google delivers search advertisements. Search advertisements are advertisements that are displayed alongside search results when a user types a query in a website's search box.
The agreements result in de facto exclusivity requiring them to obtain all or most of their requirements of search advertisements from Google, thus shutting out competing providers of search advertising intermediation services. This potentially impacts advertising services purchased for example by online stores, online magazines or broadcasters.
Our fourth concern relates to restrictions that Google puts to the portability of online search advertising campaigns from its platform AdWords to the platforms of competitors. AdWords is Google's auction-based advertising platform on which advertisers can bid for the placement of search ads on search result pages provided by Google.
We are concerned that Google imposes contractual restrictions on software developers which prevent them from offering tools that allow the seamless transfer of search advertising campaigns across AdWords and other platforms for search advertising."
(from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/21/joaquin_almunia_google_statement/ )
Close but no cigar.
They are not getting nailed as a result of having grown naturally to a monopoly status because they are the best.
They are getting nailed because they are actively leveraging their monopoly in search to facilitate them entering new markets. They are also distorting markets by offering at zero (or sub-cost) products which serve as a 50-mile scorched earth zone defending their search offering.
That is against a whole raft of monopoly laws on both sides of the ocean and some remedies and covenants on their business practice are long overdue.
Here in Japan google launched a big media offense with TV adverts.
I don't watch a lot of TV so I can not say how many times a day the adverts are shown but I have seen it a few times at friends places. They could not really figure out what the meaning of the adverts was (they are Japanese so they would not have a problem understanding the language). I just noticed that they showed google being used for searching stuff on the net.
"The EU's antitrust head honcho has said that Google has until early July to tell him how it's going to change itself enough to sort out its dominant position in the marketplace."
An easy strategy - just be like Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing.
Whether or not Google would be advised to do this is another question.
The EU seems to have a problem with simple success through being smart (i.e. a long way from what Microsoft was getting away with when it established the dominance of Windows and IE). Google don't force me to use their search engine. I could to to Bing or Yahoo or Wolfram but why should I when Google usually does the job? Post above upvoted for good measure.
"The EU seems to have a problem with simple success through being smart (i.e. a long way from what Microsoft was getting away with when it established the dominance of Windows and IE). Google don't force me to use their search engine. I could to to Bing or Yahoo or Wolfram but why should I when Google usually does the job? Post above upvoted for good measure."
Nicely put except that it has nothing to do with the matter at hand. The EU complaint is about Google abusing its dominant market position.
But then again, most of the commenters here didn't bother to read the links either.
1. Mirror.co.uk
2. Ahram online
3. IrishCentral
Are all fed from Google News - not direct organic searches of their website.
Whether You Tube is the largest video sharing site in the world and deserves to get top billing, or Google Maps or Google News is what the case is about. I'm not saying they shouldn't or they should. This is why there is an investigation. No-one has been found guilty of anything yet.
If, for instance Google can prove that the Maps, News and You Tube teams have no access to the search engine's secret algorithm to affect SEO and that the fact they are top results in Google hasn't unduly affected their pagerank in the past then they would walk away scott free. If their results are planted at the top and any competitive services are buried simply due to them being a competitor then they will walk away with fines and sanctions.
However, it is most likely to be somewhere in the middle and that's what the investigation will look at.
The overall point was - read the claims of the EU to see what they are investigating, try out some tests to see if Google stuff tends to appear top and consider whether that could be cause for concern - the Ireland examples weren't a result of trying 100 different searches to prove the point they were both the first thing that popped into my head.
"We don't like that you are the best at what you do, that you are making money, and that you are bloody Yanks so you aren't under our thumbs and paying taxes to us.
Now, we want you to tell us how you will remedy this situation. I'm sure you can image some remedies that might make things better. By the way, are you planning on picking up the lunch tab? - I hear you Americans 'tip' pretty well, ifyouknowwhatimean.
Well, we have to make a quick run to the WC - oh look, we dropped this empty plain white envelope on the table. Oh well, we'll just pick it up when we get back from the WC. Hopefully, it won't blow away - maybe you guys can find something to weigh it down with?
After all, it's such a nice business you have here - it would be a shame if something were to happen to it."
With this year's series of Lord Sugar's Apprentice, England got two strong new brands to change that: Grandeur and "English Wine Sparkling" :-)
(Beer, because even those brands aren't strong enough to compete with the most popular drink.)
I think you just hit the nail on the head.
Now if they'd have made it so that you had to use Google in order to use the Internet, and that changing search providers would mean having to re-learn everything you know about computers.. If they'd have strong-armed entire industries into helping them to lock billions of people into paying a tax to them.. If they did their damndest to try to ruin any kind of innovation they can find via spurious patent allegations and downright illegal threats.. then it'd have taken decades for the EU to finally turn around and demand that they very nicely please put a little notification saying "hey, Yahoo exists, don't you know" on their web page the first time you ever load it.. if they don't mind terribly. Thanks.
Beginning to look like they're trying very hard to get Google to provide an excuse to do nothing, some offer that has no material effect. If nothing else they must be aware of just how expensive checking if there's any unfair behaviour in the ranking system will be.
If comment seen elsewhere is true, at least some of the supposed contractual strongarm claims are simply false, probably made up by the vertical search scum agitating for this. Very easy to say "we don't do that now and won't start doing it".
The sticky bit is ensuring the scumbags don't get to bypass proper ranking of their useless sites.
If you're wondering what exactly this EU dude wants Google to work towards remedying, I suggest looking here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/21/joaquin_almunia_google_statement/
It's neatly linked in the article, put I do understand the desire to immediately post in the comments - so now it's neatly pointed out here as well :)
OK. I read it.
One thing that struck me was that in one paragraph Google may be copying: "Google may be copying original material from the websites of its competitors such as user reviews and using that material on its own sites without their prior authorisation." In the next paragraph they are copying "In this way they are appropriating the benefits of the investments of competitors."
How did that happen? Deliberate misdirection or error in translation?
Maps is a bad example because Bing Maps is better at least in the UK (Has Ordinance Survey Landranger or Explorer maps available).
(The alternatives cost a fortune (Memory Map / Viewranger)
If they are using the OS data for routing then that should be far better than anyone else as well.
(At least better than Google / Navteq or Teleatlas anyway).
My other half, for reasons I don't understand, likes to use Bing maps. I prefer Google maps. 9 times out of 10 Google gives the best route, with the most accurate destination from a post code. Bing is often two or three streets out. Oh, and the OS connection with Bing is irrelevant when you can go to the OS website.
(OS = Ordnance Survey, the semi-government controlled mapping service for the UK, for those who may not know)
seems a perfectly logical and fair way of doing business, unless you are in a different political environment where all your in-area people can't offer a free service that competes.
For example, I was a long time member/user of a number of web sites that decided to use Zuckerburg's crappy web site to login in. Since I have never and will never, ever use FB I decided to take my interest elsewhere.
Same applies to Google, I am no supporter of their offerings other than search and maps so I simply don't use their services. At the office all our searches are caught on our network and redirected through a computer that really anonymises our IP, etc.'
Just because MS and others can't better Google that is not a governance problem.
If Google allows it's search to acquire serial numbers for it's very own charged software, it seems to me they are handling things petty fairly. Cheeking the Google take down requests recently it appears tat MS is the largest reqester yet Google still services it's requests.
If someone is so upset with Google search, let them go use Bing and see gow long they stay there.
FU EU.
"So a company offers a freebie and promotes it's ow stuff first ...seems a perfectly logical and fair way of doing business"
It may be logical, and fairness is a matter of opinion, but it's also pretty clearly illegal. (Since you seem to be unable to understand the problem, you'll just have to take my word for it.)
I don't get the EU's objection. The mere fact of a monopoly, in and of itself, should not be an antitrust concern, unless that monopoly is attained and maintained by illicit means (i.e. a racket), like the following, for example:
"Gateway also faulted another provision of the new licensing agreement, which requires PC makers to pay a Windows royalty on every PC shipped, even if it didn't include Windows."
Now that is an illicit monopoly, because it forces consumers to pay for a non-optional "bundle" (Windows) that's nearly universally tied to another (PCs). It's nearly impossible to avoid by simply "voting with your wallet", because there's almost nowhere else to go. Consumers are limited to a tiny range of mediocre and expensive alternatives, from a tiny and ever-diminishing minority of independent (i.e. not in Microsoft's "channel" racket) vendors, most of whom don't even ship outside the US.
I may be compelled to pay for an unwanted third-party operating system "bundle" every time I buy a PC, but how exactly am I compelled to even use Google at all, much less pay them anything? Frankly I'm not sure Google even qualifies as a monopoly. Unlike Windows is with PCs, search engines are not exclusively tied to Web browsers, and no one is forced to pay Google first (or at all) before switching to another.
Am I the only one who finds it incredible that the EU is so eager to jump all over Google, just because a majority voluntarily choose to use its purely optional and largely free services, for which there are many common alternatives, but just shrugs its shoulders at Microsoft blatantly conspiring with OEMs to force non-optional Windows "bundles" on PC buyers?
This reeks of "Screw Google" lobbying.
It believe it's wrong to suggest the EU are 'eager' to do anything here, they're pretty conspicuously giving Google several opportunities to nix this. Their problem is an organised campaign to force them to act which I'd call it a conspiracy if it weren't being done in the open.
An unholy alliance of sleazy failed 'vertical search' companies who've spent years trying to game Google search without success and arch competitor Microsoft (and no doubt some I've forgotten|not noticed) compiled 400 pages of allegations and dumped them on the EU. Hard to do nothing faced with that but the EU have tried hard, presenting just 4 concerns last month to Google, 1 of which appears to be false (or if I'm feeling charitable is a mistake, a contractual restriction from a *different* Google 'product' where it's actually defensible).
Microsoft are in a difficult position, Bing is just successful enough no-one would take their complaint seriously, so they're hovering in the background padding the complaint. The other scum are really complaining that 'Search Engine Optimisation' isn't working for them, what they really want is PageRank crippled so SEO does work or bypassed so they don't even need SEO.
I'd love to know how many of them genuinely believe they have good products that would succeed in a PageRank free free for all. Instead of sinking completely without trace, without even Google to find them with.
Excellent points, although I still don't see what the EU expects Google to do about it, or even that there is anything that needs to be done at all.
The complaint basically amounts to: "You have a perfectly legitimate and non-exclusionary monopoly, which your inept competitors don't like, so stop it!" The EU should dismiss this nonsense with prejudice. Personally, I'd also like to see the complainants prosecuted.
I still find it amazing that the EU considers this a worthy pursuit, and yet they don't even blink at the blatantly anti-competitive nature of Windows "bundling". Of course, I'm being a little disingenuous with that statement. He who wields the biggest lobbyists...
Sorry, we are unable to perform your search for you, as EU legislators have decided that we are too popular. Please help us to stay within the law by using a different search engine. At least a few times.
I'm no fan of Google as an all-powerful all-knowing international monopoly --- but I, along with many, many others, continue to use it. Google can hardly be blamed for that. Unlike certain other software monopolies, it does not force itself on me (well, I block their ads). I could easily change the default search engine in Firefox, which, as it is, offers me a a drop-down-menu selection.
I wanted to find out who else is doing similar stuff. While Bing comes to mind, it pissed me off with totally off topic results when I tried it, so I never went there again. So I went to the old search pastime instead: Yahoo. Remember them? Well... I typed "Chelmsford" and I got a bunch of related points of interest on the left. Clicked on one and... oh, look, a map result right on top, just like Google. Maps are provided by Nokia rather than Yahoo itself, but what's really the difference? I just wanted to make sure, so I typed "Chelmsford High Street": map as first thing. I looked for ads. "Chelmsford" displayed ads, "Chelmsford High Street" was ad-free... I wanted to see who does their ads, and my face fell off: Microsoft Advertising. Wow, Yahoo really don't do much these days, do they? So Microsoft advertise on BOTH Yahoo AND Bing. How nice of them. I then typed "1+1". Oh, look, calculator, just like Google's. Not as good as Google's though. It can't do unit conversions. I bet they don't have Easter eggs either. They don't have Docs, they don't have Drive, even their autocomplete sucks (first suggestion was what I wanted like three times, but pressing enter didn't select it, yet arrow down selects the second one, thus I have to press up again just to get my lucky result). I went to their maps. I'm centred on London, but I want directions from Chelmsford. Chelmsford, Essex, not MA. I figured I was on the global (US) site, so I switched to the UK one: autocomplete works great on the UK site as long as you want London.
I notice Yahoo has a bunch of extra services in its offer. But they're not bloody searching through them. Why? And they wonder why they're in the gutter. Google could say to the EU this: oh, hey, we'll just help Yahoo catch up, how's that? No, not Bing. They're able to take care of themselves (into the ground, we hope), but Yahoo... they could really use some help. Yahoo could have been just like Google, if they weren't a bunch of idiots.
Oh, and I went to the "shopping" section of Yahoo, searched for "16gb laptop" and the first 5 results are fucking tablets? First three results are iPads.
How can Google NOT be on top with competition like this?
Just for measure, I went to DuckDuckGo (obscure little Google wannabe I found out about on Udacity - I mean, who searches for "search engine"?) It feels like Google when it was just a little kid. It also does the calculator - with unit conversion mind you. They don't go maps or docs (who else does anyway?) And they seem to be referring a lot to third parties for their vertical search. They probably do some stuff that not even Google do, like I'm seeing in their "more goodies" page: http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html - problem is nobody ever heard of them (yet).
So... what should Google do to kick the competition to get off their asses and, you know, compete? If I, who am looking for some good competition, can't really find any, what can Google do about it?
Memories are short aren't they? I remember when Google launched and word of mouth spread like wildfire across the net. There were at least a dozen search engines bookmarked in my browser and I'd switched to aggregated results from many of them in a desperate attempt to get relevant results.
Google wiped out AltaVista in less than a year just by being better, with nothing but pure search available. I can't even remember the names of any other search services now. The legions of SEO services, the continual gaming of Pagerank has seriously damaged Googles search quality, a better search could still do to Google what Google did to Altavista. That is after all the entire point of vertical search engines, limit the scope so you can afford to do it better. Yet few of them even try to be better.
Bing fails because they aren't trying to be better at search, they aren't trying to be better at services. They're deliberately trying to build a sticky web to trap users, copying the integration Google evolved but skipping on the quality of each component.
Quite frankly I don't know what they've been smoking as of late but I think they're doing an awfully poor job here.
Microsoft was the all out bad guy because they supplied their OS with one single browser, but with all the means to install others. That obviously wasn't the way the EU wanted it so a change was demanded; all to prevent "IE domination" (by the time it got implemented other browsers were already easily eating away IE's market share, but hey; whatever gets the EU going...).
So basically they showed their muscles when it was already too late; a change had already been set in motion by Mozilla & Google.
This is no different IMO. Some EU official apparently woke up and suddenly realized "OMG, Google is the number one search engine. Monopoly alert!".
Which makes me wonder: What have those idiots been doing the past 5 years or so? Too busy travelling between Brussels & Strasbourg I assume, maybe even while using Google maps or something ?
Its not as if the /whole world/ couldn't have seen this coming, right from the moment where "To Google" was actually being added to several (also international!) dictionaries. Another miss for the EU.
My take on the matter? I think they seek money, nothing more and nothing less. Google is an American multi-billion company (so a very welcome target), the EU needs money, so who cares if they demand the impossible? Money is money after all.
In case you haven't heard: The EU isn't doing too well as of late and several countries are trying hard to pour millions and millions of Euro's into this monstrosity, even if it means they have to raise taxes (quite heavily too) to make it happen. This is what is currently going on in the Netherlands.
As such my conclusion: EU seeks money here.
Am I the only one that appreciates other Google products within their own search listings?
A quick way of getting into maps with a Google search of a post code, with a brief look at the standard web search, and if relevent news search.
Or if I'm shopping, news, web and shopping results all in one page, and mostly relevent and useful.
You may hate them but they provide an amazing service compared to what we put up with in the early days and all of this built on text ads that are easily ignored, or sometimes useful in my experience, it ain't half bad.
Even if they do have to make changes I hope they are only for anonymous users, I'm happy with the info I hand over and as such want the best experience possible, who is some EU bureaucrat to tell me that I have to be offered an inferior product just because they lack market share. This shit annoys me on many levels, but mostly because older members of my family know how to use and enjoy using Google products, as far as they are concerned google is their portal to the net, on a few occasions they've followed emailed links an ended up on yahoo or Microsoft versions of search or maps and every time I get a phone call asking to put it back to normal. As far as I'm concerned the more Google can do to keep them contained and relatively safe, the better.
I don't quite see what EU hope to gain from this. If you accept that Google's dominance in search allows it to enter other markets that are unrelated to search and that's not 'good'. Then aren't you pretty much saying once a company enters a market its stuck within the confines of that market? Isn't that pretty damn stupid?
Yes Google probably did use the profits from search to give Maps away for free, but when it entered it wasn't the only product and it wasn't the only free product, it just was, in most peoples opinion, better. Google didn't abuse the search to get it there though, a link to maps was added, but the integration of maps and search didn't happen for quite a while afterwards, Maps was already dominant by then.
I doubt anyone could argue Google has ever plastered a new product all over their search site, and even if they did, are the EU really trying to say that a company can't advertise its own products on its home page?
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