back to article WORLD+DOG line up to SLAM Google after anti-trust case unveiled

Although EU competition commissioner (and Borgen inspiration) Margrethe Vestager made clear that her decision to slap Google with a statement of objections is about consumers, that hasn't stopped the US firm's Euro detractors queuing up to cheer her decision. Representatives of Fairsearch and ICOMP – both organisations set up …

  1. knarf

    There is someone as MS laughing their head off

    Maybe chromebooks will give you a browser choice

  2. Pen-y-gors

    I must be missing something

    If I search Google for "left-handed underpants" I get a list of results which shows websites mentioning that term. There are also adverts at various places on the page, clearly marked. At the top is a box clearly marked 'Sponsored' and 'Buy left-handed underpants at Google'.

    What's the problem? Giving lists of websites for search terms is what Google does. There are adverts in a prominent position which pay for my search. How else does the Commish expect Google to earn any income?

    If I search the Marks and Spencer website for "left-handed underpants" I would be quite happy if the M&S own-brand ones come at the top of the results list. If I open a copy of the free Co-op magazine and see adverts on the front page for co-op products, what is wrong with that? Why is Google to be treated any differently to other businesses? It's their website.

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: I must be missing something

      It comes down to how those websites are shown I think.

      Through various different updates that Google do the rankings of the left handed underpants websites change, and then the websites are playing catch up because a website may be affected by the update. So the underpants website that was 3rd could be demoted to 13th place overnight because of the change Google did. I'm sure you can understand the impact of this change on the business from lost custom.

      The problem then is that website owners don't know how Google updates will view their website, so websites losing position on the search results are scrabbling around to try and fix it. However, the quick way to fix it, really, is to pay for adverts on Google which will bump you up to the top of the page. This costs money, and depending on the keywords you're targeting will dictate how much you pay per word per click.

      The ultimate issue is that Google is not a search engine company. It's an advertising company, and it relies on the clicks of these adverts not the organic search results for income. They make it bloody hard to get on to the first page, so desperately companies purchase advertising space at the top of the page.

      This, obviously, doesn't take in to consideration Google's other operations, which wouldn't help Google's cause.

      1. Tom 35

        Re: I must be missing something

        Your crappy left handed underpants store paid an SEO company to push them up above the other store with better selection and prices. The SEO company creates fake likes, tweets and AstroTurf reviews boosting the placement of the site.

        Now Google kills off the SEO crap and the page drops back to where it belongs.

        SEO company... wah Google is being mean to us, wah.

        Crappy pants... wah why did Google take our top spot away, we paid good money for that, wah.

        It's not Google that makes it hard to get on the first page, if your site should be on the fist page. It's the SEO BS.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I must be missing something

          Just, the biggest SEO company is actually Google...

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Mage Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: I must be missing something

      Also the use of EVERY google service, free and paid to abuse privacy in a way that breaks the law in every EU country and probably many outside EU. Simply to try and do advertising more effectively.

    4. John Latham

      Re: I must be missing something

      You missed "accused of abusing its dominant position in the European search market by systematically favouring its own comparison shopping product in its general search results pages".

      It's not about the search monopoly itself, it's about how it uses that to favour its own products.

    5. tom dial Silver badge

      Re: I must be missing something

      The "problem", for Foundem, is that you do not receive a nondescript page with a block for each distinct brand of left handed underpants which, if you click it, leads to a price comparison page containing large numbers of duplicates, each one showing a vendor and price for the specific brand of left handed underwear. If you want to get a list of various vendors for various brands of something, it is better to use Google, or probably DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, or Bing (in some order)

      The Foundem site, for "tablets", returns in order two graphics tablets, followed by Acai, Dishwasher, Spirulina, Cleansing Herb, Tomato Lycopene, and Dishwash tablets before a Techair Neoprene Universal Tablet Sleeve.

      To be fair, it also shows a link for "Sony TABLETS" with a price range of 35 -525 GBP; following the link provides a list, extending for 6 pages, of 89 links for Xperia charging docks, all identical. The other three at least zero in on the most likely item, tablet computers. DuckDuckGo arguably is the best of the lot as it provides a link to information about tablets in general as well as places to buy one.

    6. big_D Silver badge

      Re: I must be missing something

      The biggest problem with Google at the moment is that the results are becoming more and more orientated around shopping and less and less around information.

      If I search for a handbook on a device, often the first 2 pages are just lists of shops, sponsored shops and sponsored links to the product name and comparison sites. If I am looking for the handbook, it is more than likely that I've already bought the bloody thing and I don't want to know how much it damned well costs, I want to find out more information about it!

      But what the EU is looking into (looking into, not currently prosecuting), is whether advertisers and sponsors get preferential placement, compared to more relevant results, among other things.

      One are I do agree is bogus is shopping comparison sites moaning about their ranking. If I am searching for something, the last thing I want in the list of results are links to other search engines!

      Idealo seem to get themselves well ranked though, for example and when searching for a handbook, their price comparison links often fill half of the first page for a handbook search, even though they don't even have any relevant information about the product in question, let alone the handbook!

  3. DKM
    IT Angle

    Errr.. and who or what FORCES me to use Google...??

    Just a thought - Bing, Wolfram alpha, alta-vista and so on ad infinitum.. and wasn't there once a French (?) 'EU endorsed' search engine intended to destroy the eveil American beast?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Nobody forces you

      It's just that almost 3 people out of 4 do.

      And the biggest alternative to Google is currently Baidu, capturing the Chinese market. You do your searches in Chinese ? Don't think so.

      So you're down to the 2nd-biggest alternative, Yahoo!, with just over 6% of market share. That's 1 person out of 20. Bing is 1 point less. What is left, your ad infinitum if you prefer, is 1% all wet. So that means that 1 out of 10 non-Chinese people do not use Google.

      Which, conversely, means that 9 out of 10 non-Chinese people use Google. And Chinese people use Baidu.

      Google has a monopoly on search results. Baidu has a monopoly on Chinese search results.

      Nobody else counts.

      1. Richard Jones 1
        Flame

        Re: Nobody forces you

        Google got where it is by being the first one to get things more or less right. Has anyone tried those alternative sites? From time to time I have and as a way of passing time and gaining nothing else it worked splendidly, but as a way of finding anything remotely useful, well even a chocolate teapot is streets better than most of the dross. Interestingly my biggest problem is finding that a Google search has returned one of those dross engines as a possible useful result - they never are.

        My gripe is that the '+' and '-' operators no longer allow me to filter out the stupid stuff and I cannot now do +'this is what I want', or any other control mechanism to limit rubbish.

        Still at least Google no longer offer me stupid entries like suggesting I might be searching for 'The Hotel Screwdriver' or 'The Hotel Ark Welder'.

        I guess we will be forced to get used to some crap alternatives. Note if 'cant-find-it-for-me' works for you fine and good luck, they just do not work for me.

  4. Reg Torso
    Meh

    What's the evidence of abuse?

    I have to say I simply don't get it. What does Google do that harms me as a user? I'm not saying I love Google unconditionally, and if they are 'doing evil' then I'm open to evidence.

    And I say this as someone who bitterly resents the way Microsoft has forced me to buy their products by virtue of the fact that Windows was bundled with PCs --- yes you could buy without but you were still paying the MS tax.

    When MS used IE to distort the interoperability of the web we started to come close to an MS monoculture that would have required me to continue to pay that tax, both as a device user and service provider thanks to proprietary tech like IIS, Silverlight, MSWord etc. etc.

    But when I sit at my computer or use my phone I don't feel I have no option but to use Google for search, or maps, or mail or whatever. I can switch away if I choose without penalty and use interoperable formats and protocols and this is in large part due to Google investing in tech that countered the MS monoculture (sponsoring Firefox, developing Chrome etc).

    MS always used to say their critics were simply sore losers, and I'm sure that was true for some cases, but with Google's critics I really only can see sore losers complaining. No?

    1. MissingSecurity

      Re: What's the evidence of abuse?

      I happen to feel the same way. Based on what I am reading, the commission doesn't have anything actually showing anti-competitive tactics, it's just an assumption because they both offer product and services. In fact based on the other articles, it would appear Google is ready to plaster these groups with statistics showing exactly that Google Services are more relevant that some of these other complaints.

      In the interest of disclosure, I am unholy American, and so my presumption is that this commission is more politics than presence, and they are going to have have a legal case to move this forward. Or can these guys just go "I think your wrong, PAY US!"

      1. Jagged

        Re: What's the evidence of abuse?

        "Based on what I am reading, the commission doesn't have anything actually showing anti-competitive tactics,"

        - I believe there is evidence of Google blacklisting services more popular than theirs. So not just putting their crap first, but pretending others do not exist. Then unfortunately, due to Google's market leading position, those sites are starved of traffic and soon cease to exist.

        1. Indolent Wretch

          Re: What's the evidence of abuse?

          I believe there is evidence of Google downgrading vertical search sites in it's results based on the sensible assumption that when you've gone to a search engine to search you are unlikely to want a different search engine prominently in the results.

        2. tom dial Silver badge

          Re: What's the evidence of abuse?

          "... evidence of Google blacklisting services more popular than theirs ..."

          Please identify one such site, along with the corresponding Google site or service.

    2. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Re: What's the evidence of abuse?

      > What does Google do that harms me as a user?

      Did you actually read the article ?

      The accusation si simple - they use their dominant position in search to stifle competition. Note I said dominant not monopoly - they don't, as you point out, have a monopoly, but they are very much dominant - to the point where for the vast majority of "internet" users, Google == the internet (ie if it's not on the first page of a search then it doesn't exist).

      People can argue about the last bit, but it's true for a very large number of people - and it's been made worse by certain browsers now combining the search and address fields such that I now have to put http:// in front of local server names to avoid doing a search on their name :-(

      So say you come up with a spiffy new idea for mousetraps, but it competes with google's own mousetrap service. The accusation is that Google will push you down the search results and push their service up the list - thus people who don't already know about your mousetrap service will never see it because they'll not read that far down the list and will have clicked Google's link (near or at the top) first.

      So you sit there, quite happy that you get a mousetrap service "free" and wonder where the harm is - oblivious to the fact that someone actually has a far better mousetrap service - but they can't market it without trying to outspend Google.

      This is the harm - not that Google is "fleecing" you, but that it's stifling competition and innovation because it has the power to kill dead anything it thinks might threaten it's own services. Thus you don't get to see that spiffy new and much better mousetrap - and you don't complain because you don't know that you're missing anything.

      The have been a good few "new mousetrap" vendors who claim that Google has done just that.

      The other side is that if Google aren't currently offering a mousetrap service, but see that someone else is doing so quite successfully, then they have the power to do their own mousetrap service. It doesn't need to be better because they can shove it to the top of the results. Then much the same thing happens, those that don't already know about the existing better mousetrap will start using Google's service because it's the top link. The existing service will slowly wither unless it's already reached critical mass to survive by word of mouth - few have.

      The result is the same - Google's mousetrap service "wins", the other fizzles out. You as the user will probably never know that you are missing out unless you happened to be one of the early users of the better service.

      This is not about Google offering a good search service - which is does, mostly. It's about then being able to massage the results to favour their own services.

      I don't think most people would complain if all they did was search - and treated everything equally. I don't think too many would complain if they offered various services but treated them exactly the same as they treated others.

      But there does seem to be some evidence, based on various reports I've read, that Google does two things :

      1) It uses the income it gets from being the dominant (almost monopoly) search engine to be able to cross subsidise into any other field it wants to take over. Put simply, it can pick a target and throw money at it in a way few others can do.

      2) When it does decide it wants to be in a field, it can push it's own service to the top of the list in a way no other vendor can.

      The net result is that better mousetraps don't happen - we get the same old mousetrap, with occasional tweaks, but really only as good as it needs to be to avoid people realising that it's actually a pile of old crock. *THAT* is the consumer harm.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's the evidence of abuse?

      Oh yes, the "mysterious" Microsoft tax... and it says what kind of buyer you are. Only low-end consumer PCs come with a preinstalled bundled OEM license you may have issue to get the money back. Business PC always come with the option of a bundled license or not, because most business have volume licensing and don't buy OEM licenses. No MS "tax". Or you can get an assembled PC and it never comes with a "forced" OEM license (for the matter, it may even be illegal to get one if you assemble the PC yourself...). And sure, all those using pirated Windows licenses have been forced to get them, a strange form of "MS tax", one that MS was actually paying itself.

      There's always been alternatives to Microsoft, Windows and Office (Apple, OS/2, Lotus, Wordperfect, then Linux, OpenOffice), why you never used it?

      IIS is as proprietary as Apache - it does run static HTML, CGI, PHP, Python, whatever you like. Sure, it also run some MS technologies, why not? You can also run Apache on Windows, if you like. Silverlight? Isn't Flash proprietary as well? And when Microsoft has ever hindered the development and installation of a competitive product?

      And the Google tax? I may not use Google, but every damned site that use Google Analytics sends my data to Google without my consent (unless I use a blocker, how many do?). Every time I mail someone and directly or indirectly it ends in gmail my mail gets analyzed by Google. Site using Google as their internal search engine, again, sends data to Google - isn't this a "Google tax" you have to pay too, and even worse, often without even knowing?

      But oh yes, MS is evil because it actually asked you money of its products, and most people hate to pay for software. Google just asks everybody's data thereby it's OK, it can do whatever it likes and crush competition even worse than MS ever did - also controlling contents - what people see, then do and think - not what technology people use - but you "don't get it".

      And, sorry, behind most open source products countering the "MS" monopoly, there's no Google. Google supporters are pure hypocrites.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I am sure the fact that the sea is blue is uncompetitive too

    I am not sure who could possibly be confused by the Google presentation.

    I am sure however that the only people to be harmed would be the businesses themselves if there is any outcome other than no-change.

    Perhaps if google was nationalised and was no longer advert funded all the results would be perfection... (joke to be clear...)

  6. Khaptain Silver badge

    What will any of this change ?

    Will it change our browsing habits?

    Will companies stop paying for Google services ?

    Or will it be BAU for everyone concerned ?

    This all sounds like high profile media/political splurging but what will it ultimately change...

  7. JaitcH
    WTF?

    I don't trust Google or even use their Search these days ...

    but Google achieved it's position by simply doing things better, by being more innovative.

    Let Yelp and the other has beens improve - many have switched to DuckDuckGo and Ixquick because of Google's subservience to Hollywood.

    Bing is a pathetic knock-off of Google and it plays with certain search terms and lies in your face.

    Look what a force for good Android has been - keeping Apple more honest - making work for hundreds of thousands writing Apps and even promoting them, too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I don't trust Google or even use their Search these days ...

      >Google achieved it's position by simply doing things better, by being more innovative.

      No-one's contesting that. The case is whether Google is promoting its own services or not. Google has told that their search algorithm secret sauce is not biased and they can't promote or demote anything.

      >Bing [...] plays with certain search terms and lies in your face.

      What? Please give examples.

      I think Google search "lies in your face" by first stating that the search for 'The Register' produced 643 million results, but when I select the last result page 7 (100 links per page) there's only "about 411 results". WTF?

      1. tom dial Silver badge

        Re: I don't trust Google or even use their Search these days ...

        I found a similar result until I selected the option to stop discarding duplicates. The initial count seems to contain a lot of duplicates, as does Bing, although its number is about 85% lower.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I don't trust Google or even use their Search these days ...

      "but Google achieved it's position by simply doing things better, by being more innovative."

      That can be said of most monopolies - including the MS one :-P -, very few achieve it using mafia killers and street gangs against competitors, or just selling vastly overpriced average products but using very good PR to make them "status symbol" goods.

      But what is funny, is that for antitrust laws it doesn't matter how did you achieved that position (it could be still the matter of other laws, it it was achieve through illegal means). It's how you use that position that matters.

      If you actively use that position to destroy any kind of competition, it's not legal.

      The example is MS was fined for simply giving its browser away for free preinstalled in the OS. It didn't in any way blocked the installation of other browser, or their workings. But of course most people would have simply used the already installed browser, giving MS a huge competitive advantage.

      Or how it limited interoperability keeping hidden implementation details of its protocols and document formats - that, partially, was also being forced to disclose intellectual property - but when you become so big and dominant, you may be forced to disclose them as well.

      It didn't count how MS reached its dominant position - it was how it used it.

  8. tom dial Silver badge

    Google, as well as Bing, Yahoo, and others must return links for those who pay them for advertising exposure as a matter of contract. By assumption, they all choose to return additional links found by their webcrawlers (or someone else's) to induce people to use their service to display the ads and links they have contracted for.

    Why is it reasonable require Google, Bing, or Yahoo to return even one link for which someone has not paid a fee?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      All fee paid responses?

      If you get no responses from a search other than those for which a sponsor has paid Google then google ceases to be a search engine and becomes just a marketplace. In that event unless you are shopping why would you use Google at all? Amazon is good enough.and no more evil.

      1. tom dial Silver badge

        Re: All fee paid responses?

        "If you get no responses from a search other than those for which a sponsor has paid ..." the search engine is worth roughly the same as Foundem. That is why Google and other general purpose search engines return links for which nobody has paid them do, in fact, return a great many such links. Those unpaid links attract users who can be shown the ads and other paid links.

        The question was not whether it was in Google's interest to return links to sites that had not paid for that, but why they would reasonably be required to do so - what legal theory would support such a requirement.

        The question of why to use Google rather than Amazon to shop for something is, in fact, a vexing one for Google. I rarely do so, having found Amazon or eBay to be generally much more efficient for the purpose. That attitude, if it becomes widespread, eventually will degrade the price that Google, other search engines, and possibly Facebook, can command from vendors for the ads they sell.

        1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

          Re: All fee paid responses?

          > The question was not whether it was in Google's interest to return links to sites that had not paid for that, but why they would reasonably be required to do so - what legal theory would support such a requirement.

          How about, they claim to be a general purpose search engine ?

          They claim to show you "results from the internet" relevant to what you searched for - therefore they have entered a contract to do that. If they were to only show sponsored links then that would be fine - provided they didn't claim to be showing you "results from the internet" and instead were clear that they only showed paid results.

          I don't have too much trouble with them showing sponsored results - that is how they may their money after all. But they need to do it honestly so people can see what it "from the internet" and what is "paid to be there" - and so make their own mind up which links to use.

          IMO they used to do this, but these days their page redesigns appear to be ever so slowly making it less clear.

          1. tom dial Silver badge

            Re: All fee paid responses?

            The question, to which I have not yet seen an answer, concerned the basis for any assertion that they are REQUIRED to return results for which they have not been paid. They surely can do that if they wish, and they do so, arguably as enticement to people to use them. But we may choose, and often do, to do things for various reasons that we are not required to do. And so, perhaps, may Google.

            The theory that they have entered into a contract to return general search results of some quality is, I think, incorrect. A contract generally requires a mutual agreement and a consideration, often expressed in terms of money. For search engine operation there is neither. The contract argument seems more nearly correct for other services, such as gmail, where a user's acceptance of the Terms of Service signals a mutual agreement even though there is no explicit consideration.

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