back to article Google urged to rethink mobile in crunch EU antitrust talks

Brussels' antitrust watchdog is reportedly trying to strong-arm Google into making sweeping changes to its mobile services. It's understood the European Union's competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia waited until the final stages of negotiations over fair practices with the web colossus before bringing up the matter. Google …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ...I'm sorry, but...

    ...do we really need an administation to handle these sorts of things for us? A governments first priority is defending the intergrity of the nation. This issue of whether or not google might be trying to promote itself ahead of its rivals surely must be the least important thing the government are dealing with... and yes I know it's the EU... that is our government, the sh1ps in westminster are just for show. I suppose this is all part of making sure the UK has influence at the top table or a presence on the worlds stage... right, ok, carry on then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ...I'm sorry, but...

      The EU has a duty to protect the interests of EU businesses. If Google is abusing its monopoly position to put itself in front pf EU companies then they absolutely must be investigated.

      1. Tinker Tailor Soldier
        Thumb Down

        Re: ...I'm sorry, but...

        The EU has the position to ensure fair competition of ANY businesses within its jurisdiction. I'm not taking a position on whether Google is a monopoly and/or has abused it position. But your statement is violently parochial and seems to match what the commission is really up to.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is Joaquin Almunia up for his yearly review?

    I've got some feedback

    The guys an idiot

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I reckon I could cmoe up with some competition for Google but I'm too busy cocking about with implementing cookie law shite and installing VPN kit

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dear me

    Google is accused of stifling rivals by favouring its own products in search results.

    Here is a novel idea. Why don't Google sue the EU for favouring EU member nations against non EU member nations?!

    These guys are fucking idiots of the highest order

  5. BigGdog

    Another illogical decision from the eurocrats! I am in no way prevented from installing competing services on my android phone. Try saying the same thing about Apple!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No need. You fandroids are doing exactly what you accuse Apple fans of doing.

  6. auburnman
    Stop

    'Antitrust' has to be one of the most non-explanatory descriptors I have ever heard; El Reg, please don't let this term get any foothold over here. What's wrong with calling it 'competition law'? Even if I had never heard of either concept before I can reasonably infer that 'competition law' regulates competition, and from the context you can usually further infer the competition in question is probably between companies. 'Antitrust' sounds like a Steven Seagal film.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      err...

      It's trust as in the national trust, a group of like minded individuals or groups acting in concert. It means the law is there to prevent a company or companies unfairly grabbing a market for themselves.

      1. bygjohn

        Re: err...

        Surely the OP's point was that this is a US term that has to be explained as you have just done, whereas if the article used the clearer UK term, no explanation would have been needed.

  7. Paul Webb
    Meh

    Why isn't there anything about 'rethinking mobile' in the actual story?

    The other stuff can wait wait until next week when there might actually be something to write about.

    1. jai

      Re: Why isn't there anything about 'rethinking mobile' in the actual story?

      oh good, i feared it might just have been me that couldn't find it in the article. i was worried my friday-fatigue was worse than usual this week

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How much is this Dutch Inquisition costing the members of the EU?

    AC Dear Me... I couldn't agree more. Same to BigGdog... When will anyone figure out that all this Antitrust "posturing" by the EU does not matter one whit and will not result in any cost saving/improvement in service? How much money is being spent (thrown away) chasing Google? No one escapes the Inquisition!!!!!

    Would the EU like to have Google start dropping member nations from it's search algorithims? Google has no need to "favor" anyones website but in most cases it is the website itself that determines page rankings by properly describing itself and promulgating the right keywords. I see page rankings that make no sense all the time so you can't honestly be using that as the determining factor, can you? Oh, yeah the EU is well known for being arbitrary and capricious so that's all the proof they need.

    The web designers are as guilty as anyone in these cases. So are the people who browse the web as they help create the page ranking by clicking on the links. How is there outward malice aforethought on the part of Google? Real proof is required or it didn't happen and it's just another case of outright EU discrimination against American Companies.

    Funny, I seem to remember when when the Europeans started ISO standards and required all other companies to conform to a hoakey "quality" process that was really more about preventing US competition than it was about quality. Looks like they will stoop to anything to mess with Google and Microsoft.

    Google and MS should just say "piss off" to the the EU and wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth to begin. Let the EU use Opera, Open/Libre Office and Linux and see how that works out for the great unwashed billions. Has anyone ever told you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?

    1. Fibbles

      Re: How much is this Dutch Inquisition costing the members of the EU?

      You do realise that when a software company pulls out of a region the people who live there don't suddenly stop using that company's software? They continue on regardless. The only difference is that now there is no MegaCorp demanding license fees. For an example see MS Windows installations in Iran.

  9. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

    Killing me softly with it's mung

    If you mess up your search query, Google will help you compound it with its Image search propensity to fuch up.

    And it has killed Google Groups.

    I am out of there, soonest!

    Hey! I just realised there is now a massive opportunity to do exactly what Google was good at.

    Imagine a company starting up with all the ground-work done for them and no dirty little secrets kept.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google: cheers. EU: help your best and share their knowledge

    Perhaps Google should submit a dossier of, say, 800+ pages of EU developers that have jobs largely because of their infrastructure? Take Google IO with ~1 million folk dialing in. The tickets sell out within a fraction of a second to all intensive purposes (agreed swag doesn't help...G please charge next time).

    Now for some comments on their products....Google Maps...can _anyone_ seriously come up with a viable competitor?! Let alone an EU one. Come on...ESRI may be the 'most advanced' GIS software but if anyone has used their wares they will know that the difference in quality is an order of magnitude - and reliability / scalability are a big factor. I could say the same about GMail etc.

    The EU simply does not have outstanding organisations like Google et. al. and whilst the EU continues to hemorrhage money from their EU projects to increase participation and spread knowledge/wealth rather than getting the job done (like US/China) by the best folk it will continue to suffer.

    I will finish by saying that Google can open source many of its (high quality) products* and despite of this it can continue to dominate. It does this because it has a monopoly on talent / 'excellence' not merely technology.

    * e.g. android.

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