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Group Calls For Google Antitrust Probe
CWmike writes "Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog called on the DOJ to launch a broad antitrust investigation into Google's search and advertising practices and consider a wide array of penalties, including possibly breaking the company up (PDF). The watchdog, along with a mobile entrepreneur and two lawyers representing Google rivals, called for an investigation focusing on a number of issues, including Google's marriage of search results to advertising and its book search service. '...We think all remedies should be on the table, including, we think, the possible breakup of the Internet giant,' said John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog. Adam Kovacevich, senior manager for global communications and public affairs at Google, discounted the criticisms, saying Consumer Watchdog has been 'relentlessly negative' about Google. The group recently questioned the reasons why Google stopped censoring search results in China, and criticized Google's privacy Dashboard as inadequate, Kovacevich said."
I hate those guys.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
that would be the most interesting part of this story.
While I think constant vigilance is needed with Google, this looks like nothing more than Microsoft once again using other groups to legitimize it's attacks on a competitor that has with consistent success kicked it in the ass at every turn.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Who would like to bet that this is backed heavily by Microsoft?
I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is behind this. Which would be a severe case of the pot calling the kettle black.
If anyone needs to be broken up, it's MS, for collusion between their application software (esp. MS Office) and their OS, and their browser, and now they're trying to take over search from Google with "Bing".
Strange how this group complains about Google, but completely ignores MS.
Breaking up companies always bugs me when the companies has grown primarily based on outright success. This sort of amounts to punishing Google for succeeding. And I have a lot of trouble understanding how there could be a substantial anti-trust issue. They aren't bundling goods in a bad way. The ads are clearly kept separate from searches in that advertisements don't alter Google rankings and you can tell at a glance if something is an advertisement or a search result. So there's no problem here. This is in contrast to some other search engines which specifically allowed companies to pay for higher ranking in search results. The authors of the complaint claim that Google has manipulated its search results to harm potential competitors. Frankly, that sounds more like sour grapes at not having done as well as Google.
If anyone needs to be broken up, it's MS, for collusion between their application software (esp. MS Office) and their OS, and their browser, and now they're trying to take over search from Google with "Bing".
Really? MS needs to be broken up for bundling software? What about Apple for only allowing their software to run on their hardware? Why do they get to stop psystar from selling their clones, but MS can't put their browser on their OS? Also, Office doesn't come bundled with the OS usually, except as a trial, so you're eventually have to choose to buy it (though obviously the trial version and ubiquity encourages that purchase).
I know market share plays a big role here (as in Apple doesn't have enough for it to matter) but they're way worse about their terms of use and forcing people to use their stuff than anyone else.
Wait, so because a software company makes stuff that works together they need to be broken up? That makes no sense at all.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
How about both? Steve and Bill do think alike after all.
There were talks that Microsoft needed to separate Windows from their main corporation too. It didn't even make much sense, but this one does.
Google is being anti-competitive. All the datamining and lose of privacy is done so that Google has always more and more data about you. Then they can use this data across all their services, from YouTube to Gmail to Book Search. They can promote their other products freely. Just like if you wanted to use Windows, you had to take IE too. If you use Google Search, you have to take all of their other services too.
The massive amount of datamining and gluing all the services together also makes sure no one is even able to compete with Google. There's anti-competitive laws against such.
When are the mobile carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and so forth are going to be held to these anti-trust laws? They have a majority share in markets, have limited competition, and we're paying high costs for things as simple as texting.
Google gives their stuff away for free and I can go anywhere else to search for what I need. People need to figure out their priorities.
So the first reaction is obvious: who's behind this? From the linked article:
Apparently, people who make a business out of gaming Google's algorithm. The very folks that muddy up searches with crap links to various questionable "offers", link farms, and johnny-come-lately web apps. And they're claiming Google has a bias in their search results? Do tell.
Granted - conspiracy theorists might find the possibility of other actors bing involved too hard to pass up. It does look intriguing. But I'm reminded of the whole Occam's Razor thing.
What? You have to use Youtube, Gmail and Wave when you use Google Search? That's actually what you're saying. Sopssa, you're an idiot.
Bullshit.
How is Google "anti-competitive"? And what is with all this whining about privacy?
If you don't want to use Google services, then don't. There's tons of alternatives.
Google Search -> Bing, Yahoo, etc.
YouTube -> dozens of different sites, or just don't use it.
Book Search -> your local library, Amazon.com, etc.
Gmail -> Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, your ISP-provided email, various non-free email services, etc.
Google Maps -> Mapquest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc.
Furthermore, exactly how much does it cost to use Google services anyway?
I calculate that, aside from Google AdWords (for a small business I have on the side), I have spent exactly $0.00 on Google Search, YouTube, Book Search, Gmail, Google Earth, Google Maps, and every other Google service. I'm not about to start complaining about them until I feel like I'm being coerced somehow into opening my wallet for them.
Separating Windows from other MS services made tons of sense, because Windows is a monopoly, and it's nearly impossible to buy a non-Apple desktop or laptop computer without it. There's nothing forcing you to use Google. In fact, it should be easier to type "bing.com" at your address bar instead of "google.com", since it has two fewer letters.
I want the judge to rule that the plaintiffs not be allowed to use any Google technology in building their case. Soon they'll find that between Yahoo and Bing they could find enough information to argue their way out of a paper bag.
Our political system has provided us with laws meant to limit the power of monopoly players in the interest of The People.
I realize there are many fans here of Google. And I agree that Google for the most part has been a good corporate citizen. But companies that become monopolies don't get special treatment just because they've been (mostly) good. And it's Google's monopoly power that will inevitably cause them to misbehave in the future.
Something should be done now to protect The People from even "good" companies like Google. The Common Good comes before any individual or corporation.
Sure, sounds great, so long as we get to retroactively break up microsoft while we're at it.
The article criticizing the dashboard has already been slashdotted but (oh irony) it was in my chrome cache.
The google dashboard is cleverly "buried" at google.com/dashboard
Navigating to it requires the user to select the "Settings => Google Account settings" dropdown at the top right of the page when you're logged in. Maybe I've been around computers for more than a few minutes and that gives me an advantage, but that felt like a pretty natural way to find this.
I agree that Google needs to take more steps to make user behavior anonymous, but at least they're honest about that and have a means for providing dashboard feedback.
And FWIW I don't see anything in the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement about giving users a way to control their data. Nor in the Yahoo Privacy Center.
Maybe it's just too hard to find.
Speaking of companies getting too big, what say a determination of "too big to fail" automatically gets it broken up? Too big to fail is not good for the economy, even if they got that way by being saints.
Anti-trust is about determining whether a company is limiting competition or using one monopoly market to leverage itself into another.
1. Google has a huge market share in search, but it's got plenty of competition, and there's nothing stopping customers from switching to that competition immediately: there's no switching cost at all.
2. Google might have a monopoly on advertising, but I don't think so. The latest numbers I can find are from Jan. '09, which put Adsense at 57%. It's probably larger than that now. Not likely to be labeled a monopoly, though.
Google has protected itself very well with the Data Liberation Project. That alone will probably scuttle any attempt to prove Google is limiting competition. There's no tying, either.
Put identity in the browser.
MS needs to be broken up for bundling software? What about Apple for only allowing their software to run on their hardware?
I'm getting tired of people constantly bringing up this argument. Listen carefully: MS is a monopoly. Apple isn't. It's nearly impossible to buy a PC or laptop without Windows; it's easy to avoid buying a Mac or any other Apple device or service or software. How many people do you know who own a Mac? I don't know a single one. How about a PC/laptop running Windows? Just about everyone I know has one.
The rules are different when you're a monopoly.
I know market share plays a big role here (as in Apple doesn't have enough for it to matter)
Aha, you're starting to get it.
but they're way worse about their terms of use and forcing people to use their stuff than anyone else.
And guess what? It doesn't matter! Precisely because Apple is not a monopoly, and has a ~5% market share (or whatever; I'd be surprised if it were that high to be honest). When you're a bit player, you don't get all the scrutiny of someone who utterly dominates a market (a.k.a. monopoly).
No one is "forced" to use Apple stuff. If you don't like Macs, get a PC (after all, if you want to run most commercial application software, it's almost unavoidable). If you don't like iPhones, get an Android phone, a Blackberry, a smartphone running WinMo, a Palm, etc. If you don't like iPods, get a Zune, an iriver, a Sansa, a Cowon, etc. Yes, Apple likes to tie things together, and coerce everyone into running iTunes. Don't like it? Don't buy an iPod, an iPhone, or a Mac.
If you search for a trailer of some movie or a game, what result comes as first? YouTube, complete with a thumbnail of the trailer to distinct from the other results.
Same for Book Search and other services.
But that's not even the point. The point is that because of the amount of datamining Google does, no one can even compete with them. Bing can't get enough long-tail keyword data so they can improve their service. No one else can either.
The outcome is that no other company can compete in Google's area. That's pure anti-competition. Technology changes and laws regarding it should too. Before Google no one could gain anti-competitive position by datamining just because there wasn't any technology to do so.
No, they need to be broken up because they're a predatory monopoly.
If they had a market share of 10% and locked in customers with secret file formats, tying products/services together, and the like, only extremists would be complaining about them (like all the anti-Apple people on here). But when your market share is 90-95%, it's nearly impossible for someone to avoid buying your products without basically being a digital caveman, so intervention is necessary to return the market to a healthy state.
"The private interests which use our companies as allies are annoyed with our incapability to subdue google, and therefore we are suing on behalf of them"
google was out of the traditional establishment and private interest parties. and on more than one occasion it pioneered the public awareness effort to thwart their plans to end that insolent freedoms on the internet. (the anti net neutrality bill proposal a few years back, warrantless private information request refusals, acta etc).
so basically, they werent able to subdue it. and now they are trying to do it through 'antitrust' bullshit. despite they have no complaints against at&t, comcast, microsoft, intel and so on.
considering how supreme court was staffed by private interest backed right wing judges by bush in his term, they may succeed.
or google may relocate to ireland or europe, totally fucking up everything for them.
Read radical news here
What's plenty of competition? Bing? Baidu in China? There's no other independent search engines, all the others are using either Google or Bing. If MS decided to end Bing, western users would have exactly one search engine - Google.
No one can also start competing with them. They just don't have the amount of data Google gets from leveraging all their services together and because of the monopoly they have in search. Even Bing has said they have problems with their engine because the amount of data (especially long-tail keywords) they get is so much less than Google.
What the hell are you talking about? The only thing you need to do search properly is spidering. No one is restricted from doing that by Google. As far as I can tell, Bing certainly does compete with Google in search. It's not Google's fault that no one trusts MS to provide unbiased results, especially after all the instances where searching for "linux" returned results like "how to migrate from Linux to Windows".
It's not that they can't, it's that Google is just better. There are a lot of search engines. If you use Bing, you can find a trailer just as effectively as you could with Google. They'll both link to Youtube because most other sites are fucking garbage and only Youtube does video properly. That's not Google's fault either.
Seems the way Apple has 'warmed up' to Google, I wont be surprised if Apple is behind this. They are capable of something like this, given their pathetic way of hyping up latest iphone or whatever.
Boy, some people never miss a chance.
Tinfoil hat time, folks: "It must be a conspiracy!"
The fact that Consumer Watchdog has been around as an independent, non-partisan, non-profit entity since 1985 means nothing, I guess. Not when there's a chance to vilify the latest boogie man, whoever it might be. It used to be Microsoft, currently it's Apple. In a few years maybe it will be Google.
You conspiracy-minded types need to get a grip. Not everything that happens in this world is due to shady forces working in secret. Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be.
This ain't rocket surgery.
My foot it is.. Its their competition that is trying to stir stuff up.
Sure, it may be a valid concern, but when they hide behind fake 'watchdog' group names, you have to question the motivation.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Who was it that said, "You haven't really succeeded until the Department of Justice comes knocking on your door"? I seem to recall having read that back in the 90s, regarding Microsoft.
Anyway, congratulations Google. You've really made it now.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
DON'T USE GOOGLE!
Really. the solution is that simple. We don't need to (yet again) waste the courts time and our tax money for STUPID SHIT like this that boils down to 'they're big and that's scary'.
They don't have a monopoly on internet search or advertising. They have a monopoly on GOOD internet search and advertising. (and whos fault is that? oh wait. everyone. cuz we hated all the other companys useless search and flashy ad crap all over.)
There's plenty of competition. It just all sucks.
Why would you punish google for doing it right and NOT pissing off their customers? Duh? That's like... what we want! Good companys with a quality product that at least trys to do the right thing.
The only thing you need to do search properly is spidering.
That's not true. Why do you think Google does so much datamining? Why do you think they have a wide amount of data what people search for and how much? Why do you think they send a hidden javascript GET request in the background on what search result you click on?
Maybe in the 90's you could make a search engine with only by spidering, but that's completely different now.
The other point is that to improve a search engine you need to know a lot about what people search for and which result they click on (which most likely is a good result). Google's monopoly gets it massive amount more of this data than Bing, or any other starting search engine. This is also why they can offer better search results, and keep competition away.
Take your pick - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines
And take your bullshit somewhere else.
>>I'm getting tired of people constantly bringing up this argument. Listen carefully: MS is a monopoly. Apple isn't.
I am getting tired of people constantly bringing up this argument. Listen: Apple is anti-competitive, more than MS even with it's so called monopoly.
If you search for a trailer of some movie or a game, what result comes as first? YouTube, complete with a thumbnail of the trailer to distinct from the other results.
Gee whiz. It would hope if there was an actual competitor to Youtube. Bing always lists movies.yahoo.com first -- and who the fuck has heard of this site?
Same for Book Search and other services.
No, Amazon always comes first, along with other shopping sites.
But that's not even the point. The point is that because of the amount of datamining Google does, no one can even compete with them. Bing can't get enough long-tail keyword data so they can improve their service. No one else can either.
Yes it is. You tried listing anti-competitive behavior of Google and failed completely. Nice backpedaling.
It's actually funny, in that I concur Google is (mildly) anti-competitive. But at least pretend to know what you are talking about - at this point, I am hard pressed not to consider your posts as veiled trolling.
To an extant your right about MS. What should have been done is the company broken up into 3 to 4 different companies, all with access to the same source code and rights (at the point of breakup). That would have resulted in competition. Taking one product out would have resulted in a much smaller and far less useful form of competition. But the rest of your post is just plain silly. No one can currently compete with Google because they do a vastly better job overall than anyone else. They have yet to abuse their position as far as the government is concerned. And since nothing was effectively done to MS, I doubt any big changes will be made at Google over your whining.
Saying they have a monopoly over and over doesn't make it so.
Noted anonymous Intartubes nobody Rogerborg today called for the Department of National Federal Executive Bureaucracy to investigate the funding and steering of alleged "advocacy group" Consumer Watchdog for possible Unclean Hands manipulation by Microsoft, the Gnomes of Zurich, and/or the Saucer People.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Except of course you're ignoring the fact that a monopoly created on the basis of customer preference/superior service is not a violation of the Antitrust Laws. Maintaining their search monopoly by continually adding features and increasing the quality of their product, thus preventing competitors from gaining a large enough market share to compete effectively, simply isn't a violation of the Sherman or Clayton Acts.
And I don't see them using their monopoly unfairly to expand into other markets. They do link to their other services, but often the top hit for most of my searches is Wikipedia. The top hit is almost always the most relevant, or at the least, a highly relevant, source.
Why shouldn't they provide trailers on Youtube. It was the most popular provider of online video clips when it was purchased, and continues to be so today. Would you force them to link to another site, even where that site is inferior? Customers want links to Youtube. Also, they do provide links to other popular video sites, if there are relevant hits. Obviously, there will be more Youtube hits, on average, because of the site's popularity. I just don't see any attempt by Google to suppress their competitors.
Being big + better than your competitors =! Antitrust violation
http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
Both it and its predecessor link back to grassroots.com.
"At Grassroots Enterprise, we combine the best of cutting-edge Internet technology with high-impact communications to build movements that make an impact.
What does this mean, in plain English? In a nutshell, that means that we help clients:"
The question is who is the client????
How many people do you know who own a Mac? I don't know a single one.
Really? You don't know a single person who owns a Mac? Do you know any college students? Or people who do video editing? Or music editing? Or who are alive? Yes, of course a lot more people have PCs, but I find it very hard to believe that you don't know one person with a Mac.
And your argument can be turned right around on you. Ipods have huge market share. Steve Jobs claimed it at about about 75%, so is that a monopoly now? No, I can just buy a Zune. So why can't I just buy a Mac or linux computer instead of a Windows PC? Because people don't know the options are there? Or because when I walk into a store it's easier to find the Windows computers? Ipod displays are way bigger than those for any of the other music players you listed above, and it's way easier to find accessories for them, and you have to use it with Apple software (adding music to my android phone doesn't take any special software; just windows explorer). So if MS is a problem, why aren't Ipods? Where do we draw this line?
If MS decided to end Bing, western users would have exactly one search engine - Google.
First, as others have pointed out, bullshit
Second, you just showed there's at least a duopoly and not a monopoly with that quote.
The numbers, as they stand is Google at #1 (with 65.5%), Yahoo at #2 (with 16.8%), Bing at #3 (with 11.5%), Ask.com at #4 (with 3.7%) and AOL Search at #5 (2.5%). Google and Bing both saw increases in their market share (yes, somehow Google got bigger last month) while Yahoo and Ask.com lost some marketshare. AOL Search somehow still relevant in 2010, didn’t lose or gain marketshare. [1]
That quote is from last month. I hardly see 65% as some insurmountable number. All the search engines have the same data to work with. Google has website tools. Bing should have them, too.
Some countries (the U.S.) are hugely Google -- 85% -- but some countries barely know what it is. The number one search on Google last year in Korea was for Naver, a portal / search engine. The number two result was for Daum, another portal / search engine. People in that country only use Google to get to another search engine.
Google has such computing power that there are things that normal companies can't compete effectively in -- voice recognition seems to be one. Maybe you could get Google for having too much computing power and being "too good" because of it, but I doubt any court is going to say "Hey, this is hurting the consumer" and punish Google for it.
Google's big. It's powerful. I'm still much more afraid of Facebook. There's a monopoly that 's locking people into its platform..
Put identity in the browser.
I think you have it backwards. Major vendors like Dell sell computers without Windows on them (with Linux instead), and last time I checked if you build your own PC (something an Apple user could never dream of) nothing obligates you to put Windows on it. How about you show me a computer that Apple sells without their OS pre-installed? You can have a PC without Windows, but you can't have an Apple without Mac OS (at least installed somewhere).
Let's take your example, and search for a movie trailer. Avatar. Bing's first result is a fucking blog called avatar-trailer -- at Google's own Blogspot.com, followed by traileraddicts, youtube, youtube and Apple. Google's result's are Youtube first (with thumbnails), then three different services, image search thumbnails, then the fucking blog again, followed by the official site. The problem here isn't Google's data mining, but the fact that Bing's first hit just isn't what you're looking for. Bing is simply not very good. You can't blame Google for that.
Google search for term "search engine".... results are:
1. Dogpile.com ... ...
2. Bing
3. Altavista
4. Wikipedia article on search engines
5. Google custom search engine (not the main google site)
6. Ask.com
7. Yahoo.com
29. Google.com :)
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
That's not true. Why do you think Google does so much datamining? Why do you think they have a wide amount of data what people search for and how much? Why do you think they send a hidden javascript GET request in the background on what search result you click on?
It's called "advertising". They make all their money on it, and the more effective they can make it, the more profitable they are. They datamine because it makes their advertising (AdWords, etc.) more effective. It's a waste, for instance, if a Slashdotter gets shown an ad for feminine hygiene products, but if he's shown an ad for some obscure item he might be interested in, such as D&D paraphernalia or whatever, the likelihood of that resulting in a sale is comparatively very high. Google wants to find out what people are interested in, and show them ads for that stuff.
The other point is that to improve a search engine you need to know a lot about what people search for and which result they click on (which most likely is a good result).
I completely disagree. The only thing you need to know about in a search string is the string itself, and what compares with this. Google is still using the PageRank algorithm: pages with lots of links to them are more popular than pages with few links to them, and get ranked higher in search results. Your prior search history is irrelevant. What your prior search history IS relevant to, however, is the ads which you're shown. These are separate from the search results.
Besides, what exactly are you proposing? You seem to be complaining that Google is too big, and this means they get to mine more data. What's the alternative? Break up their search and advertising functions? How exactly do you expect a search engine to finance itself? The only other big search provider, Microsoft, does it by taking money from their monopoly in OSes.
Face it, a search engine is a free service that takes significant resources to provide, and makes zero money on its own. It has to be financed somehow. I suppose you could try a subscription-based search service, but with the history of for-pay services on the web, I expect that to go over like a lead balloon.
Google is ranking down competitors eh? Go ahead, google "search engine". Go ahead, I'll wait. What's the FIRST result? Bing.com. Case dismissed.
How is Windows a monopoly? I'm being serious, what constitutes a monopoly, what's the definition?
And who is "forced" to use Microsoft stuff? If you don't like Windows get Linux (it's free even), or Mac. How can you call Windows a monopoly when there are literally dozens of alternatives, many of them free?
No one is saying Google, the search engine part, cant take advertising from other companies. Just that the entities should be separated, not the same company.
Google is still using the PageRank algorithm, but it's far from the only thing they're using. It's just a one factor. Can you imagine how spammy the results would be if it all was based on spidering and links?
I wasn't also talking about your prior search history, but all of the data combined. You're right, it's separate from which ads you get based on your prior search history. But all of the data combined they can use it to have a much more relevant search results than their competitors or new search engines can, just because of the mere amount of data they get.
Your alternative is actually quite good. The search engine and advertising should be separated. There's no reason why Google couldn't finance them that way too, and then the user data and algorithms would be separate.
Really? You don't know a single person who owns a Mac? Do you know any college students? Or people who do video editing? Or music editing? Or who are alive? Yes, of course a lot more people have PCs, but I find it very hard to believe that you don't know one person with a Mac.
After I wrote that post, I realized that I do know (not very well) one person with a Mac, and she's college-aged. I don't know a lot of other college-aged people, or people who do music/video editing, so that might have a little to do with why I don't know a lot of Mac users.
So why can't I just buy a Mac or linux computer instead of a Windows PC?
Simple: because TurboTax and thousands of other commercial applications won't work on your Mac or Linux PC.
MP3s will play on ANY music player (except some older Sonys which not surprisingly bombed in the marketplace), so this isn't a very good comparison.
and you have to use it with Apple software
Actually, no, you don't. My wife has an iPod, and I sync it with Amarok on my Linux PC. There's many other Free programs which will do the same.
So if MS is a problem, why aren't Ipods? Where do we draw this line?
Two reasons:
1) There are plenty of viable alternatives to iPods, even if they aren't very popular. Zune, iriver, Cowon, etc. They all play MP3s, so if you rip CDs to MP3, or buy MP3s from Amazon.com or a similar music store, you can use them. You can't use them with the iTunes store, however, because of vendor lock-in, and also because those players don't support AAC to my knowledge, but that's easily avoided by using Amazon instead (as it's cheaper), or by buying CDs.
2) You don't need an MP3 player to participate and be productive in modern society. You can play music on your computer, on a stereo, etc. However, using a computer is almost a requirement these days: email, websites, e-commerce, filing your taxes electronically, accessing government information, etc. All office jobs require the use of a computer. MS is a problem because their software is virtually required for using a computer, since most commercial application software only runs on Windows. It was worse when IE was the standard browser and most websites only worked properly on it; it's gotten a lot better in the past 5+ years.
Don't make me bring up a car analogy...
http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
Don't trust anything they say.
You must be a noob to the internet. OpenOffice does the exact same thing (even saving in .doc if you want!) for $0 instead of Microsoft's Office's $ > 0
How about you show me a computer that Apple sells without their OS pre-installed? You can have a PC without Windows, but you can't have an Apple without Mac OS (at least installed somewhere).
Apple's allowed to do this. Remember, they're not a monopoly, the rules are different. They can be bastards as much as they want. There's no demonstrable reason you'd need to buy an Apple without MacOS anyway; any generic computer can do the same job. You don't need an Apple computer (sans MacOS) to use any specific hardware, access any specific website, etc. It might be nice hardware, but you can get nice hardware from lots of places.
Yes, it's possible to buy PCs "naked", and Dell will happily sell you a computer with Linux for more money than with Windows. But how many Linux laptops are available out there? Or bare laptops? Try going into BestBuy and buying one.
even if they are convicted, nothing will happen? Besides, if my Backflip is any indication, Google's so-called monopoly is not worth very much.
Microsoft was a monopoly because it was (in the early nineties) practically the only OS available. Everything else was a special-order job. You couldn't just go into a major store and get a Mac.
Being a monopoly is not inherently bad. Google's near-monopoly on searching is not bad. What is bad is when that market share gets abused to stifle competition. As a textbook example, consider the old phone system: small local carriers weren't allowed to hook their systems to the big carriers. Because they couldn't connect, they couldn't attract customers, no matter how innovative their system might be. This is a perfect case where a monopoly halts innovation.
Microsoft's Windows situation was similar. They bundled IE with Windows and made removal extremely difficult. They ensured that IE appeared to be a vital component of Windows, though it was shown repeatedly that there was no real dependency. No matter how innovative Netscape Navigator was, IE gained its market share simply by being the default.
The concern here is that Google's bundling of services might be affecting competition. For example, other advertising companies might be considered useless, since they can't approach the visibility of Google's services. Likewise, Google's constant promoting of its other services may be impacting the ability for other companies to gain a competitive foothold.
Personally, I don't see what Google does as anything close to the anticompetitive practices Microsoft followed. That's just my opinion, though, and more facts might come in later...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves)
Baidu (Chinese,Japanese)
Bing (formerly MSN Search and Live Search)
Cuil
Duck Duck Go
Google
Kosmix
Sogou (Chinese)
Yodao (Chinese)
Yahoo! Search
Yandex (Russian)
Yebol
Lets see the general English search engines from your list and exclude Yahoo because it will start using Bing search engine. Duck Duck Go "uses information from crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia)", so I don't think you can really count it as it doesn't search the other web. Kosmix also seems gather information only from Wikipedia, Flickr and the likes. So the list comes down to:
General
Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves)
Bing (formerly MSN Search and Live Search)
Cuil
Google
Yebol
Cuil and Yebol are having difficulties just for the same reason as Bing and who is actually using them? I was surprised Ask is still around. The fact is, if Bing quit, it would be 99% marketshare for Google.
I think they should be broken up by search terms. Let the "why am I itching" division take on the "lindsay lohan crotch shot" division. It's only fair.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
I just used their web based internal report search and had the string "Microsoft Antitrust" return nothing but their articles and reports on how Google is trying to dominate the printed word on the net. Here is the url it returned http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/search/?searchQuery=microsoft+antitrust&x=16&y=12 ......sounds fishy to me!
You seem a little confused. You as a user of google search youtube etc are NOT GOOGLE CUSTOMERS, you are googles product. Googles customers are people and companies that buy ad space and no their are not good alternatives to paying google for ad space as they pretty much own the majority of the market. Ask any business that needs to advertise on the web and I bet you can't find a single one that google charges $0.00 for.
I see the point you're making about needing a computer of some sort, and agree that most software only works on windows (which is why I personally use windows), but I don't agree that that leads to the necessity of breaking up Microsoft. If we declare Microsoft a monopoly and require it to split into different companies, I feel like it'll end up breaking on use lines. You can't really break windows into two companies effectively, because doing so would end up with a loss of function. I guess you could give two groups the same source code or something, but I think that would just end with confusion and issues when they either end up with the same product in the end or with two completely incompatible programs, which would just make people unhappy. So it seems like they would probably break the internet division, the office division, the OS division etc apart, which wouldn't really solve the problem, because programs would still only work with windows, office would still be office etc. The internet division would probably die and no one would attend the funeral. But windows would continue to dominate.
If you can suggest a good way to split the OS into multiple companies effectively, I'd be willing to listen, but I don't see it going over well.
And keep in mind that the "average consumer" doesn't really care that much, he/she just wants something that works. So if we do somehow split the OS without losing function but creating better competition they might be more confused, but will be happy. If we fail at that, they'll be confused and angry that we ruined something that (at least kind of) worked.
I'd also like to hear your car analogy. That sounds kind of snippy, but I mean it in all earnestness, I'm curious.
Restriction is not anticompetitive. If you don't like Apple's terms, you're free to use anything else, like Windows, Linux, BSD, etc. If you don't want Apple's hardware, but something else. If you don't want Google reading your emails, use Hotmail.
The problem with Microsoft is that the average consumer doesn't (or didn't, before the famous iMac ads) know anything else exists, and Microsoft used its market share and financial assets to keep it that way.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Look for a computer sold with Linux. Do the same experiment with OSX. Now do it with Windows. Compare the results.
If one of them so incredibly overwhelms the others that you cannot consider it to be a balanced competition, then you have a monopoly. Remember though that the issue isn't so much the monopoly as to what one does with it. It's absolutely legal to have a monopoly, but it is not legal to, like Microsoft did, use this monopoly to push other products that have nothing to do with the original monopoly.
When you want to buy another OS, and it's almost impossible. When 99.9% of all PCs sold come with MS Windows. When OEMs tell you flatly that you're going to pay for MS whether you actually get it or not, because the OEM is going to pay. When being an OEM that doesn't sell MS Windows automatically puts you in the "small fish" category that no one will ever hear of.
It's a recognized monoculture. How can you not believe it's a monopoly? In fact, it has been called that twice by the U.S. DoJ, and several times by the EU.
Further, what made MS an abusive monopoly was contracts with OEMs to sell exclusively MS. It was leveraging that monopoly to get the office suite market tied up. Then the browser market. Then the media player market. They even tried to take the console business.
Things seem better now that MS appears to have competitors in Google and Apple, and since MS has had the DoJ and the EU hold back the massive fist from it's customers that have battered person syndrome.
Windows 7 is a good product, though, and Office 2007 doesn't suck. I hear the X-Box 360 rocks, as well.
Put identity in the browser.
The difference being that Apple's doings are legal while Microsoft's were (are?) not. I don't like what Apple is doing at all and I discourage everyone I know to buy their products, but they can do whatever the hell they please because you have viable alternatives within reach.
Should sensible laws ever be passed that gave back users the control of the hardware they purchased, many more companies than just Apple would be at risk (Sony anyone?). That's also why it won't happen.
I agree. Google is anti-competitive just like Linux.
If I use Windows today. That impacts my ability to use something else tomorrow because I have to BUY EVERYTHING ELSE AGAIN.
The moment I buy one bit of Windows payware or a movie on iTunes, I immediately close my options for tomorrow.
Before I can dump that platform, I have to replace all of those 3rd party bits that won't work on any other platform.
I can trivially decide to use Bing (even as a diehard longtime Linux user) one minute and then casually switch back to Google the next.
THAT is the key difference between Google as a "monopoly" or Microsoft or Apple.
"leveraging" is a different issue. However, Apple seems much more likely to be guilt of this than Google.
Monopolies are about distorting the market and preventing users from fleeing to your competitor.
Where does that exist here really?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
bring it on I say, this "watchdog" is a bunch of lawyers, how about they put their time and money where their mouth is and take google to court, or are they too frightened?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
No "tin foil" is required.
When Microsoft was subjected to this, it was a cabal of disgruntled competitors and ex-partners that were pushing for it.
So the notion that Apple might be behind this is hardly paranoid.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Google uses many algorithms, pagerank is one but far from the only algorithm used in ranking the results. It does indeed take search histroy into account in the ordering of search results It is not essential to making a search engine, but it helps. Nevertheless it should not take very many searches before any search engine can start tailoring results, so google does not have much of an advantage here.
Unfortunately, anti-competitive isn't illegal unless it's associated with a monopoly, effective or actual.
Consumer Watchdog is just responding to all the massively negative press Google has bben getting lately. "Is Google the next Microsoft?" "Is Google evil?" "Is Google too big?" All the tech blogs have had articles like these in the last six months.
The members are just reading and accepting what they read. That's all.
Put identity in the browser.
And FWIW I don't see anything in the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement [microsoft.com] about giving users a way to control their data. Nor in the Yahoo Privacy Center [yahoo.com].
Hmmm, did you try searching with Google?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Microsoft has already been exposed using CWD in the past as part of their fake astroturfing attacks:
http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
I'm just saying, as with anything, always consider the source.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
so lets see here, nobody else is gathering this information? Have you ever even heard of cookies? do you even know what they are?
mediaplex, as a single company, could probably profile you down to your address, sexual preferences, religious preferences, and common websites in a matter of seconds.
I often find myself googling for a video clip or something similar and find myself quite frustrated when the links that show up on the main search page (not the video search) are not youtube as I often have less than stellar experiences with many other video sites.
I'm confused as to how you paid for adwords without opening your wallet.
Did they have your credit card info from an old gmail you sent someone?
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
While Google search is dominant, and perhaps arguably a monopoly, I agree that it has certainly not leveraged that market power in anti-competitive ways. However, just because they give you all these goodies for free doesn't mean you shouldn't be wary, because even free things distort the market in some way. Google's high quality and free services generally destroy the markets for those services, because few others can compete, as Google doesn't need the money and you do. IOW, Google can unintentionally squish something that might have been really cool, and that invisible loss may ultimately not be in the public good.
If somebody gave out free vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate ice cream, it may be impossible to start and sustain a for-profit ice cream business by selling other flavors. And then we'll only ever have three (free) flavors.
"Consumer Watchdog is just responsible for all the massively negative press Google has been getting lately. "Is Google the next Microsoft?" "Is Google evil?" "Is Google too big?" All the tech blogs have had articles like these in the last six months."
FTFY
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Thats not anti-competition, Thats failing to compete, and it's not Googles fault.
Anti-Competition is when one side makes deals with hardware vendors to prevent competitors products from being offered or penalizes consumers for choosing the competitors offerings.
Your description would penalize a winning team for defeating their opponent.
As Abraham Lincoln said: You cannot give strength to the weak, by weakening the strong.
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
First, let me get this out of the way: While Google has one of the lowest evilness per size ratio of all the big companies, they still are not exactly good as a monopoly. But that does not matter in what I want to say.
I'm saying, that it would be awesome to have 3 or 4 actually competing search engines and teams! It would also allow different people to take different directions. Thereby also freeing everyone of what he deems bad, and allowing more cool pet projects to grow big. For Google itself, it would allow it, to go into completely new territories. Because, if you created a big company, it gets split, and all four parts are doing greater than before, and still help each other out here and there, that’s still really great! :)
You can’t argue that that is bad for us.
Some Companies even see it as a successful business model, to never have too big units. Because mindless groupthink always is bad for everyone. (Look at our media culture and its cattle people, if you are unsure.) Even the leader.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
so it's google's fault that its competitors are either incompetent or irrelevant? did google cause this in any way other than being, oh i don't know..., good?
So a monopoly is whatever the market leader is, having market share somewhere between 0 and 100%? The issue is very much whether they are a monopoly or not, as the monopoly has the restrictions.
I was asking for the definition, as by my standard Windows is not and has never been the only operating system available, and Microsoft doesn't have a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy it (that I know of). So far, the definition seems to be "if it feels like it"
Search for "avatar trailer".
First result: official Avatar site
Second result: Apple's page with the trailer
Third result: avatar-trailer.blogspot.com
Fourth result: YouTube, with the thumbnail.
"kick-ass trailer"
Apple is first; youtube is fifth, with no thumbnail
"date night trailer"
Youtube is first here.
"Train your dragon trailer"
YouTube is second, after the official site.
Except in the early days they did force retailers to pay a 'microsoft tax' on ANY computer sold. It didn't matter if it had windows on it or not. If your paying for a Windows license on a computer then paying for w/e other OS your putting on it; it makes much more sense to just put windows on it. That is anti-competitive behavior.
And historically, before Apple managed to pull out of its pre-y2k death spiral, Microsoft had even more of a monopoly on these systems. Apple's success has been incredible thanks to the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and now iPad. If I had to pick one, I'd say the iPod was what did it. Everything since the iPod has followed more easily because Apple is fashionable now. Unlike Microsoft, none of those directly utilized their position with the iPod to gain advantage in the other spaces. The experience selling iPods just gave them the revenue, stability, and perspective needed to produce their next big hits more reliably -- the iPhone and iPad.
See my first paragraph for "what make it a monopoly" and my third paragraph for "what makes it an abusive monopoly."
Put identity in the browser.
That's fastest ever. I don't think Google is really a monopoly though, plenty of other search engines, bling/yahoo, just because 90% of choose to click Google, doesn't make them a monopoly. Likewise there are plenty of ad market place companies on the web, though I don't think there's any as good a adsense/words right now.
Sopssa, you're an idiot.
I suspect that he's actually the single longest-running and most successful troll in the history of Slashdot, by far. I just can't explain being contradictive to Slashdot groupthink on every single point otherwise.
I've deleted my google buzz account like 15 times now and I still have followers. How is that possible?
Yes, google fan boi'z, I went and did all the steps it took to delete it. It's still there. When I click on people's profiles, they still list me as being followed.
Google fan boi'z apologies and excuses in 5...4....3.....2.....1....
There is a difference. Apple installs THEIR software on THEIR hardware. MS, on the other hand, uses it's monopoly to COERCE hardware manufacturers to install Windows and nothing but.
Examples are forcing BEOS into bankruptcy, or when they required that comp. manufacturers pay MS per computer, regardless of OS installed. Another mean trend was stealing business from every more or less successful software companies: Lotus, Borland, World Perfect, Netscape -- not sure what the exact mechanisms were used, but having a monopoly was definitely a part of it.
That's what's called anti-competitive practices that hurt free market and consumers, and that is why we have laws against that in US. But installing your software on your hardware? Make an alarm clock, program it any way you please and sell. Nobody cares.
I call on the DOJ to launch an investigation into the anti-trust practices of Microsoft Consumer Watchdog.
Yahoo and Microsoft bundle search with advertising.
Yahoo and Microsoft censor search results in China.
Yahoo and Microsoft have handed over your private search data to the government.
Microsoft just got a new patent to sell you private data to the highest bidder.
Microsoft has a history of anti-competitive behavior, and a paper trail of internal documents showing that is their company strategy.
Google meanwhile keeps opening up software and standards, allowing their rivals to use them. For instance, people have cited their data center efficiency as a competetive advantage. So Google offered up their power supply plans to the world for free, hoping to reduce energy usage.
Google has 67% market share. Microsoft is making massive strides there by taking over Yahoo's search. Microsoft also uses their OS and browser to push their search engine.
Which company needs to be looked at for anti-competitive practices here?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Falicious analogy about Microsoft. IE is their product on their OS. They also do not tell people to use only IE. And how is MSFT a monopoly? If MSFT is considered a monopoly, then what do we consider Apple, Google, IBM, Adobe, et al in their respective fields?And Hitler and Mousollini were saints and Churchill the devil
You know as soon as you see a group, then you read into it a bit more and you find out that a lot of the group is composed of competitors. so then it goes from being a group with a legitimate complaint to a group of cry babies who can't compete and are trying to get the government to help them because they are weak.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
Actually Google shows the top couple of results from all of the video hosts they index. The only reason they're often from Youtube is... surprise!... because Youtube is thousands of times more popular than any other video host.
But then wee need to look at Apple with their practices. What can you install on Macs? In my experience, almost nothing. Same thing with Linux distros. Know why Windows stays at the top, regarless of their bloat and other issues? ANYTHING can be installed to run on it with (usually) minimal issues. And Apple or Linux?????? If I were DOJ, I would look at both Apple and Google. What a way to make money. Take free code and use it to make a fortune.What a business model.Oh but MSFT which does write the bulk of their own code is the evil one, Sorry, forgot I'm on /.
But that's not even the point. The point is that because of the amount of datamining Google does, no one can even compete with them. Bing can't get enough long-tail keyword data so they can improve their service. No one else can either.
So? They're big because people use them and people use them because they're big, it's not google being anti-competitive, they aren't engaging in anti-competitive behaviour, it's that the consumers are choosing google.
Speaking of astroturf, who wants to bet the CW part of CWmike stands for Consumer Watchdog?
Microsoft's Windows situation was similar. They bundled IE with Windows and made removal extremely difficult. They ensured that IE appeared to be a vital component of Windows, though it was shown repeatedly that there was no real dependency. No matter how innovative Netscape Navigator was, IE gained its market share simply by being the default.
Right, bundling and promoting microsoft software, on microsoft software, that's pretty bad.
The concern here is that Google's bundling of services might be affecting competition. For example, other advertising companies might be considered useless, since they can't approach the visibility of Google's services. Likewise, Google's constant promoting of its other services may be impacting the ability for other companies to gain a competitive foothold.
So google doesn't pretty much the same thing. Only instead of software, it's services. None the less, an abuse of their monopoly right?
Personally, I don't see what Google does as anything close to the anticompetitive practices Microsoft followed. That's just my opinion, though, and more facts might come in later...
Now hold on... I'm not sure I understand? What you're saying is, bundling software is abuse of a monopoly position, but bundling services is not?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
No soup for you! Come back one year! Next!
-AC
And what is your point here?
That Google is the most widely used because it's just better than the rest for results? That's a damn good reason to stop them. We should be taking Google offline right now!!!! I'm sure no one will mind using switching to Bing, their results are ALMOST decent. Better yet, we can use one of the no-name search engines.
Also, why would Bing quit? When does Microsoft quit? How was that in any way relevant?
Your logic is astounding. I'm also fairly sure your list of search engines is nowhere near complete.
(I'm hoping you are just a troll, but in case you are not, please don't ever breed)
You know what? Screw this. I was defending MS and Apple in other posts, but let's actually compare:
Google bought ON2. Why? Apparently so that it can release VP8 as open source for everyone to use so that the <video> debate can be done and we can move on.
Apple? Supposedly, they're going to buy ARM. Why? So they can shut down all the competing ARM devices.
I'm through being reasonable. Google's big, but it definitely doesn't suck.
Put identity in the browser.
No, I don't hate lawyers.
I hate vultures disguised as lawyers.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
We revisit Microsoft's Monopoly, and while we're at it take a good hard look at Apple. Granted, Google is becoming a force in the market, but so far as I can tell, not yet for evil. Let's go after the bad guys first.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
What are you, another MS shill or just living in a cave?
The MS monopoly is not just Microsoft advertising Microsoft products in other Microsoft products. It's more like "embrace, extend and extinguish".
When Microsoft bundles something, especially if that something is related to a standard, they bundle their own "special" version, which is just incompatible enough. Then the proper standard fails because a large percentage of the users use that "special, not quite standard" version of the protocol/software/whatever.
10 Years after the first browser war, we're still stuck with some "IE6 only" web sites, got it?
GPG 0x1B479C78
Interesting this comes out the day after Google announces it is keeping statistics about how much governments are asking them for information on their citizens.
The questioned the reasons why Google stopped censoring search results in China? That means they're either a) the Chinese leadership (in which case they are douchebags), or b) in favor of government censorship (in which case they are douchebags).
I can't think of any circumstances which lead to them not being douchebags. Even if Google was making baby-killing machines in their corporate campus, these Consumer Watchdog guys would still be jerks for questioning the decision to stop censoring search results in China.
If we declare Microsoft a monopoly and require it to split into different companies, I feel like it'll end up breaking on use lines.
It was already declared a monopoly in the 90s, and it came close to being broken up until Bush took over and told his DOJ to drop the whole matter.
But yes, the idea was, even back then, to split it up into an OS company and an applications company (of course, this I believe was before Xbox etc.).
So it seems like they would probably break the internet division, the office division, the OS division etc apart, which wouldn't really solve the problem, because programs would still only work with windows, office would still be office etc. The internet division would probably die and no one would attend the funeral. But windows would continue to dominate.
Not necessarily. Without being tied to the OS, there's no reason the apps company wouldn't start targeting other platforms (i.e. Mac and Linux). It's impossible to say for sure, but if the Windows OS went down in marketshare, and Mac & Linux went up, an apps company not under the command of Gates or Balmer might very well decide to make its apps more cross-platform, and have versions for other platforms. It's all a bit of chicken-and-egg situation, but since everyone (esp. corporate customers) wants Windows just so they can run Office/Outlook and maybe Sharepoint, divorcing Windows and those apps could have the effect of large customers (e.g. corporations with tens of thousands of desktop systems running Office/Outlook) demanding Linux versions of these apps so they don't have to pay for Windows licensing costs and administration headaches.
If you can suggest a good way to split the OS into multiple companies effectively, I'd be willing to listen, but I don't see it going over well.
I don't see why you'd want to do such a thing. It just needs to be split off and made separate from the other cash-cow apps (Office/Outlook/Exchange). It can keep IE though.
And keep in mind that the "average consumer" doesn't really care that much, he/she just wants something that works.
A lot of "average consumers" don't even have MS Office or Outlook, as they cost quite a bit. But all the corporate customers certainly do use these things. The home users who don't even have Office won't even notice the difference.
I'd also like to hear your car analogy. That sounds kind of snippy, but I mean it in all earnestness, I'm curious.
It was really a bit of a joke, since people are always using car analogies here. But here goes...
Imagine there were a bunch of car companies, but one of them had 95% of the market, another had 3%, and all the rest combined had the other 2% (and they were all clones of each other, sharing the same design plans). The company with 3%, let's call them Fruitmobiles, had really stylish cars, the companies with 2% had cars that tinkerers and mechanics liked to drive, let's call them Birdmobiles, and the big company with 95% had bland, boring cars that tended to stall now and then, requiring a restart. We'll call that company MSC (this company was never very original or creative with its names either). Anyway, the most annoying thing about the entire auto market is that none of these different brands of cars will drive on the same roads. Somehow, MSC by virtue of having been around for a long time, managed to convince the roadbuilders to make roads that only MSC cars would operate on most of the time. Roads that all cars worked on are very rare. Because of this, almost everyone was required to buy an MSC car if they wanted to get to work, school, the mall, or just about anywhere else. A few people managed to get by with their Fruit and Bird mobiles, but had to sacrifice the ability to go many places because of this.
But on one discussion forum, a bunch of people, instead of complaining about how they didn't have the freedom of driving any car they wanted (including one of the increasingly-rare Sparcmobiles, or a self-buil
Apple? Supposedly, they're going to buy ARM. Why? So they can shut down all the competing ARM devices.
Is that even possible? I know ARM licensed out tech to a whole bunch of outfits, ST, TI, Atmel, etc, etc. I don't know if those were one-time deals, or if they have to renew annually, or whatnot. Either way, I'm sure whatever was signed should still hold for a while, even if ARM was bought out. Doesn't seem feasible, not to mention 99.9999% of ARMs aren't in apple products; They're in toasters, coffee machines, microwaves, gameboys and 1000 different cellphones, etc, etc.
also, fuck apple.
Sent from my PDP-11
Uhhh...dude? You DO know that there are other search engines and video sites, right? And I would say some of them are BETTER than Google! When was the last time you tried Yahoo Search? Yeah I know they have allied with Bing for the results, but frankly their UI kicks Bing's ass and IMHO Google's too. Next time try a search on Yahoo and use the "more" tab (it is that little blue button below the search box) and see how handy that little sucker is. Once you use the more tab a few times you will not want to go back.
So while I agree that the amount of data mining going on at Google is a little scary, it isn't like we don't have plenty of alternatives. There are plenty of video sites, free email sites, the only one I can't think of an alternative on is the book deal. But if you don't like Google just don't use them! I haven't used Google as anything but a spam dump for a couple of years and I couldn't be happier.
And finally about Bing and their "long tail" horseshit? That is just what it is...pure horseshit. I spend my days repairing and selling PCs, and you know what site the VAST majority of them is set to as a home page? By a good 99 to 1? Give ya a hint, it AIN'T Google, it is this. We geeks may think it is cluttered, but average folks just eat that shit up. They check the weather, read the headlines, check their mail, and then search, all from that page. The average folks really have a shitfit if you don't set their browser to that if you switch them off IE. To them it is what the morning paper was for the older generations. So I would have to say Bing is full of shit, because if they can't get their shit together with all the searches coming from the Yahoo home page then they are doing it wrong.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Granted - conspiracy theorists might find the possibility of other actors bing involved too hard to pass up. It does look intriguing. But I'm reminded of the whole Occam's Razor thing.
Freudian slip?
A Microsoft Shill called on the DOJ to launch a broad antitrust investigation into Google's search and advertising practices...
There fixed it.
Let's look at Google vs. Microsoft
Microsoft became a monopoly through illegal means, and then used their monopoly to do illegal things. They also do everything they can to maintain their monopoly, and they don't do it through technological superiority, but through contracts with hardware manufacturers, lawsuits, and proprietary technology. Although it's easy to say "You can choose not to use Windows", realistically many people don't have much choice. You can choose not to use Windows, much in the same way that you can also "choose" not to have a phone, or to breath.
Now let's look at Google. Their technology is mostly open, they haven't made shady deals or abused their supposed monopoly yet. There is also very little lock-in, in fact, they have gone out of their way to avoid it. Take GMail for example. They don't force you to use it, and there are a number of equally decent webmail providers. You don't face compatibility issues often with webmail. If you are using GMail and you want out, it's easy enough to download all the data via IMAP and upload it elsewhere. Likewise, you can access their mail with any modern web browser on any operating system, or with your choice of clients.
Their chat system is more of the same. You can use any client you want, on any OS. They support a web client, and a Windows client, but they have gone out of their way to use standards-based approaches and support access to their services in all manner of ways. If you don't want to use their server, you can easily switch to another system based on XMPP, or install your own server.
If you want online spreadsheets, you can use Google Docs, but you can also use EditGrid or another service. Google also lets you download all your docs in normal formats at any time.
Let's move onto PicasaWeb. You can easily download the original photos any time you want and migrate away from their service.
Search is where their biggest monopoly is, but that's because their search has had the best results and speed (because it's based on superior technology). There is Yahoo Search and (ugh) Bing, as well as other solutions that you are free to use. You can use Google search today, and something else tomorrow.
In short, they don't really have a monopoly in the normal sense, and to whatever extent they do have one, they haven't abused it or tried to lock people into it. Instead, they have confidence that they can keep customers by consistently providing better service. If Microsoft acted this way, nobody would be complaining about them.
-- proxy known for it's ties, dealings or advocacy for Microsoft or things that only Microsoft would be interested in -- wants anti-trust probe of Google.
Color me surprised.
In other words companies like apple...
I think you must be a bit retarded. I can't uninstall IE from my machine. That is using your power to try and lock me into your software.
I can easily uninstall all my google software and I can add all their domains to my hosts file to point to127.0.0.1 and the internet will still work just fine.
Google also provides a web site to help mmigrate data to and from their sites. Virtually no one else is as helpful at letting you leave and that is why people don't leave Google.
Microsoft is just upset that the act of making bing the default search engine in the most used browser and making it harder to add google wasn't enough to deter people. Since their abuse of power did not work they're going to cry like a little baby.
Consider for a second that "google" has become a verb, meaning 'to search online'. Then tell me that Google hasn't incredibly overwhelmed the competition so much that it cannot be considered balanced competition. By your very definition, Google is a monopoly, and should be broken up. Granted, I would say that Google is not a monopoly simply because it is the leader, but rather because it uses it enormous cash reserves and image to enter new markets, overtake them, and move on to new markets, in a cycle.
Also, I can easily build a computer, and install Linux on it. Apple conducts anti-competitive practices, and should be slapped for it.
As for examples of where to buy computers with Linux and OSX on them...Well, here goes:
Dell has Ubuntu here
Best Buy sells Apple computers(both in-store and online)
And of course, the Apple Store
Granted, it's only a few, but these are pretty much the main places most people buy computers. Perhaps the reason that Windows is everywhere is because...people prefer it.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
IOW, Google can unintentionally squish something that might have been really cool, and that invisible loss may ultimately not be in the public good.
I don't think there is anything unintentional that occurs when Google squishes a rival product or service. Google knows exactly what will happen when it enters a market that previously existed on a for-profit system and offers services and goodies for free that automatically work with its other services and goodies.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
anyone to propose a solution that does not involve splitting Google or limiting their market share. Google have a history of penalising people based on their suspicions alone by denying service. Given their dominant position this is not acceptable and I challenge anyone to see otherwise. If Google were split into 20 separate companies all competing then this behaviour would have only limited effect and could be tolerated. Would you please consider how you would feel if Google decided on their whim that you should be banned from access to their services. Would you still be a Google fan if it was a friend or family member? Would you be scared by Google growing further? Google are just too big.
My first results, at the top of the page are usually apple for trailers. A bit further down you get video links which, yes, are often youtube but they can be any video site. The reason they're usually youtube is because most people use that but they're not forced to.
The only exception are people who make gaming videos like speed runs. Vimeo is more snobby about what they host so they won't (or wouldn't in the past) host speed runs and a lot of other content deemed uncreative so people are "forced" to put it on the other video site they know of and that is youtube. That sure as hell isn't google's doing. Youtube is just friendlier so people often go there instead and as a result the video links are often youtube but I've had others.
All of Google's data mining tactics intheir searches are tactics learned from previous search engine who still do the same and all new search engines do it too. Google just happens to have better algorithms and different ways of deciding what comes first.
There is nothing wrong with that. If you said all search engines had to use the same exact code there would be even less reason to switch. Plus if you don't like google's ways you are not tied to them. You can use any other search engine and block google in you host file if you want to be extreme about it. People don't switch because google does it better but that just means the competition have to work harder.
When a company engages in practices like this:
from
Comes vs Microsoft exhibit PX3096
and this:
Comes vs Microsoft exhibit PX9685
Microsoft KNOWS they can't win on price or performance, so.. they bribe instead. They also know they can never be perceived to lose (e.g. London Stock Exchange case) because once the customers see what's going on and start to leave, they'll never come back.
You hate politicians then ?
They should really pass a law to round the lot up and ship them to a small pacific island with lotsa guns and a film crew.
Have to nitpick just a little. Yes, Windows was big, but back when Windows was just a shell, you could buy multiple brands of DOS as well as other GUIs easily. The retail stores looked a lot differently back then. So much of my software was purchased in square cardboard paper envelopes on little hangers, like for greeting cards. A far cry from the long row of glossy Windows boxes today. :D After Windows 95, you could also choose OS/2, and later, BeOS. I was fortunate to also have access to Amiga still.
Also, Apple long had problems in retail space. Apple never could figure out how to sell premium hardware systems next to lower priced IBM compatibles. Apple routinely pulled out of Sears for instance. Apple also dropped out on other retailers such as Computer City in favor of partnerships with Circuit City and CompUSA which ultimately didn't work either. So, Microsoft's monopoly power actually wasn't a reason that consumers had a hard time finding Macs in stores.
Microsoft's monopoly power came mostly from Microsoft's treatment of OEMs who attempted to offer computers preloaded with other operating systems and office suites. I think most people were unaware of the code that Microsoft had in Windows which caused the software to cough up an error if it detected anything other than MS-DOS. But Microsoft did heavily market the idea that one needed MS-DOS in order to run MS-Windows, although that wasn't true. One of my old colleagues, a marketing professor, was adamant that Microsoft's monopoly was not in the operating system, but MS Office. A lot of us Ami Pro and Word Perfect lovers agreed. In retrospect, I'm not sure I was justified in those feelings. I found a way to continue using WP professionally all the way up through 1999.
Looking back, I think the IE vs Netscape thing was mostly Netscape's fault. They made a calculated business decision which backfired and left an opportunity for Microsoft to create IE. I never bought the idea that consumers wouldn't download alternative software just because Windows provided that functionality out of the box. Otherwise, software like WinZip and ACDSee would not have continued to thrive, no?
Being a monopoly is not inherently bad. Google's near-monopoly on searching is not bad. What is bad is when that market share gets abused to stifle competition.
How is Google not using their "monopoly" on searching to for example take the market (i.e. advertising dollars) away from say MapQuest by integrating Google Maps into their search results? Here is a quote from the linked document:
"Other companies find it difficult, if not impossible, to compete with Google in offering the products Google provides for "free" with the subsidies generated from its monopolistic search revenues."
The question really is does Google have an actual monopoly in search, the way MS had in OS market. I for one don't think so, but if they did, then those guys might have a point.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
What? You're talking BS!
Not that I use Bing, but I just went there after reading your post and searched for "linux" and the first result was www.linux.org
There's nothing wrong with SkyNe...Google.
The bundling was illegal because they were using their position in the computer market to keep OEMs from bundling third party browsers with the Windows computers they sold.
You forgot to mention the death blow that MS gave to BeOS by promising to double
the license fees to any OEM whose boot loader booted up anything not blessed by Bill Gates.
It was a fact that happened the same time the Netscape vs. Microsoft browser war started and didn't got the attention it deserved.
Nope, you've also got it wrong.
Apple have a right to bundle their OS with their hardware: BOTH are manufactured by Apple.
Other PC manufacturers TIE their hardware to Microsoft's OS, which is THIRD PARTY software. This is anti-competitive and ILLEGAL.
Is that clearer now?
And they call themselves "Consumer Watchdog". Might as well have called themselves "We are the good guys. No, really!"
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
you also miss the massive point of MS's whole anti trust trial - they were bullying vendors into only supplying MS products. show me a case of google doing the same and THEN we'll talk.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Sopssa, you're making a lot of sense. It's interesting that you're modded down as troll while the parent gets a 5, informative. It looks like criticizing the Google is not done of slashdot. That's kinda scary as the Google handles 85% of the world's search queries, effectively controlling what we know and what we consider to be the truth.
Google is still using the PageRank algorithm: pages with lots of links to them are more popular than pages with few links to them, and get ranked higher in search results. Your prior search history is irrelevant.
You're talking out of your ass. The Google itself has admitted that they use personal data while ranking the results.
You know as soon as you see a group, then you read into it a bit more and you find out that a lot of the group is composed of competitors. so then it goes from being a group with a legitimate complaint to a group of cry babies who can't compete and are trying to get the government to help them because they are weak.
Isn't that exactly what Opera does? This whole thing is exactly what the EC has been doing with Microsoft for over a decade. I just love the way the hypocrites and Microsoft haters are coming out of their holes and crying.
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
Your iTunes example is a little skewed - while you need to use quicktime to watch a DRM iTunes movie, you can do so on either Windows or Mac OS X (although being tied to Quicktime is accurate). When the DRM is gone from the movies (which I have no doubt they are working on), this last blot will be gone - but the movie studios are clearly not as ready to make that sort of deal as their music-peddling counterparts. When that is the case, there will no longer be any lock to the store via your purchases. Where I would have had an issue is if, despite the removal of DRM on the music, you were still stuck using iTunes, which fortunately is not the case.
I don't think that Google, MS or Apple are an abusive monopoly any longer - the biggest offences of MS are now in the past - preventing OEMs from bundling alternative OSes by threatening to increase the cost of windows licences, and the whole IE mess, which is largely over now, among other things but nowhere near as bad as they were.
thanks, i'll be here all week.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
"embrace, extend and extinguish"
Have you noticed what the Google is doing with the Android platform? Java, Linux, libc, for God's sake, they're all variants incompatible with the real thing! The Google is killing Linux on mobile phones and will be killing Linux on TVs and lots of other embedded devices. They don't care. Why should they? They are the Google.
these idiots would only have a point in the event google is bullying ISP's into only letting you search via google. this is what MS did with windows. until then, they are just puppets with MS's fist up their arses.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Apple only licensing OS X to run on its own hardware is not a monopoly condition - they are doing the opposite of a monopoly in fact, by limiting the exposure of OS X. It's not anticompetitive to sell your software *only* for your own hardware - many companies do it.
The fact they they *aren't* the major player has everything to do with how they are able to act. If the only type of computer you could buy was an Apple computer, and then Psystar came along with a generic PC that could also run OS X and Apple stopped them as they did then *that* would be an antitrust violation. As it is, there is nothing at all stopping you from using different PCs and different operating systems, so the fact that Apple's OS is limited (legally but not technically) from anything but Apple hardware is annoying but not illegal.
I also doubt that either Apple or MS is behind this move against Google, even with MS's attempts with Bing. Apple is not interested in search or becoming Google-like (despite some analyst saying that Apple "has a 70% chance" of "buying a search engine" - I just don;t buy it), and MS is already doing remarkably well against Google without the need for legal action.
Sopssa, it looks like there are a number of Google employees on slashdot who have an unlimited number of mod points. They will do everything in their power to keep you underground. It's amazing what 176.21B USD can buy.
Jeeze Louie! You can't satisfy anyone anymore. Filter search results and people complain you're cooperating with oppressive governments, then unblock them and someone still finds a reason to complain.
Highly likely, but trolls should be much harder to refute.
I have been using Google since the days they were still deja.com and were doing stuff like a shopping wizard which kicked butt against anything else out there.
Whenever I need some information about stuff, the first place I look is Google.
The results I have found from Google are better than anything out there by far for many reasons:
1)fastest response time,
2)relevance
3)redundant web sites having identical information and mentioning it as so
4)the ending result pages presented did not necessarily match all the keywords requested, but I always appreciated the content presented anyways and with time and patience I have found many perls of wisdom hidden on page 10+ when most people would abandon the quest probably after page 3.
5)Perhaps Google does place the paid-to-Google-ad-pages higher in terms of relevance on the Google results pages, but the fact remains non-paid result web pages are still presented in the Google results pages. I have a few questions to ask the so-called "WATCHDOG ADVOCACY GROUPS":
Do you buy your car at the first dealer you shop at?
Do you buy your food at only one grocery store?
Do you only look at the links on just the first page of Google results?
If the answer to this is yes, you guys are morons and shouldn't be representing anyone.
Microsoft's pre-html MSDN search engine was actually quite refined 18 years ago with their ability to use the keyword "near" and defining it with a distance of number of words between the keywords. When they made the switch to html however, MSDN search engine lost their mojo. The results returned were less relevant and the response time was atrocious considering the msdn data was on a local disk and had access to the net apart from that. GOOGLE saw the opportunity and grabbed it...end of story.
With respect to censorship, the Google team are doing a wonderful job. They do their best all things considered.
If I don't like the filtered results from Google China, no problem...I go to Google Canada or Google U.S.A.
When there is a wall, there is always a way around it. That's a Chinese proverb by the way.
With respect to PRIVACY and logging of keywords or other stuff, WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!!!
THAT'S WHAT SOFTWARE DOES! It's a learning process to make the entire search engine process better.
Google can't make it better if it doesn't accumulate statistics.
I can see privacy advocates bringing it up as a concern, but I'm on Google's side with respect to this.
GOOGLE doesn't give personal emails to the highest bidder.
GOOGLE doesn't give personal keywords to the highest bidder either.
With respect to security breaches within Google, I'm sure they are doing their best.
Every company has issues with this so the PRIVACY ADVOCATES can go jump in a lake now.
Google have been constantly doing their best. I suspect the advocacy groups are in bed with other search engine competitors because my bullshit indicator is BLINKING VERY BRIGHT RED at the moment.
I's a monopoly when you have no choice. Try to buy a non-Apple computer without windows.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
Uh.. If the penetration of iPods is 75%, it meets at least some of the qualifications of a monopoly, or at least it did until iTMS went DRM-free.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Why do you think Google does so much datamining?
You can datamine too. All you need is a good book on datamining and data.
Google didn't get their data for free, so why should they give it away for free?
Google Search -> Bing, Yahoo, etc.
YouTube -> dozens of different sites, or just don't use it.
Book Search -> your local library, Amazon.com, etc.
Gmail -> Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, your ISP-provided email, various non-free email services, etc.
Google Maps -> Mapquest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc.
It's funny how you always go "etc.", as if to imply that there's many other choices when in fact there seem to be few others (at least viable ones) beyond what you already named.
Google Search: Yes, Bing and Yahoo exist. Others, for the most part, don't, at least if you actually want to find things in practice.
Youtube: the only viable competitor is Vimeo. I'm gonna ignore your "just don't use it" suggestion, since I can't believe you could've been stupid enough to really mean that.
Book Search: amazon lets you search for books, but as far as I'm aware, you cannot search in books the way you can on Google (but correct me if I'm wrong). The same goes for my local library. Apples and oranges.
GMail: Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, true. ISP-provided mail? That doesn't work for a multitude of reasons (in my particular case, these include a) being tied to an email address residing with this ISP and which will change when I move to a different one, hardly any storage space, and no webmail). Again, apples and oranges.
Google Maps: Bing Maps and Yahoo Maps, yes. Mapquest? Dude, 1997 called, they want their web design back.
OK, so you might say that there's still a couple of viable competitors at least, right? True, but you'll note that in all cases, they're either Yahoo or Microsoft. Some choice! And of course, you neglected to mention a number of Google products that simply don't have any viable competitors.
Does all this mean anything - in particular, does it mean Google should be split up? Far from it. But the claim that "there's tons of alternatives" is naive in the extreme, and that's a fact.
I do not have problem Apple bundling their OS with their hardware. I have problem with Apple preventing others from doing whatever they want with their _own_ hardware they have _purchased_ from Apple. There is a big difference, and I wonder how you fail to notice it.
Imagine that! Google is putting advertising in my search page! The temerity of those guys!
Why was this not tagged under "humor"?
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Wait, did anyone here not get that google stopped assissting in the oppression of China by censoring their searches so that they (google) could divert your attention from their being hacked by the Chinese - but still run away with their tail tucked between their legs?
Certain "services" google provides would be better off dismantled than dispersed. For those that would miss things like having a listing of your harddrives content in "the cloud" , or strangers taking high res photos of your property I'm sure you can find some deranged tlc on craigslist
I'm sure you already know this, but for the record, they were sued for making third-party browsers perform poorly on Windows. They changed the API used by Netscape without telling Netscape what they were doing. I'm pretty sure Netscape wasn't the only victim.
Unless MS can get over its paranoia about customers leaving them for open, interoperable systems, they should be broken up. They should have been split into OS, Office, Internet and application server companies. Hopefully, this administration will see the need to do so.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
This "Consumer Group" was exposed long ago.
This is not Consumers Union we are talking about. It is some obscure group and a couple of lawyers for Google's enemies, all of which are bitching about Google because Google happens to be big. And we all know big is bad, right? ;-) I guess they thought Microsoft (though worthy) was just to terrible to attack, and Google are such nice guys.
I know the technical news media needs something to keep our eyes glued on them, but can't they find something more useful to report than Garage-Based Advocacy, LLC vs. Google?
The difference between Microsoft bundling software and Apple doing it is the fact that Microsoft has a monopoly position for OS distribution.
If Microsoft had viable competitors in the OS space, this wouldn't be relevant.
This has been court decided over and over again, so argue it with them, not me. Microsoft shouldn't be using one monopoly to prop up another part of their business.
Apple on the other hand has no such monopoly, with such a low percentage of PC sales and constantly suing people who make clones. If they ever did, they'd be in the same position and should act accordingly.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It has happened before, It will happen again.
That people paid by Microsoft have turned out to be 90% of groups like this.
It just a bunch of cry babies. Google does what we want and in ways that don't hurt others, unless your driven to take over the world.
"What are we going to do today Pinky".
"The outcome is that no other company can compete in Google's area."
Horse shit. Or, Bing. The two terms amount to the same thing. There are more than a dozen search engines available on the web, and I haven't seen any of them go bankrupt. They must be competing, even if only in niches. Go back to school, and learn what a fucking MONOPOLY really is. The only MONOPOLY that I've seen in the computing industry in the last couple of decades, was Microsoft.
Now - IF you want to question the business practices that are used by Google - you might have some legitimate complaints. They do some things that I don't approve of. But, everything that Google does is pretty much done redundantly throughout the industry. You think that Bing and Yahoo and all the smaller search providers aren't datamining? Phhht. You're not that naive. You can NOT be that naive.
The fact is, Google has the best product on the market when it comes to search, unless you fit into one or more niches that is better served by one of the little guys.
Oh - Bing? That is one sack of smelly shit. Typical Microsoft offering, I would say.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Very good point. When I want to see a video, the first place I go is youtube. I mean, I often times don't even Google - I just go to Youtube, and do a search in Youtube's own search bar. There's not much point in googling around, and getting hits on Gaytube, Ponytube, HotrodTube, Mommytube, even if all of them actually HAD what I was looking for. I KNOW that someone has posted to Youtube!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Yeah - I didn't think of that, but you're right. More people use Yahoo than anything else, period. I see that among people whose machines I work on. Somebody mod the hairy dude up!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Really? MS needs to be broken up for bundling software? What about Apple for only allowing their software to run on their hardware?
So what? Buy a Dell. Buy from HP. Buy from Sony. Buy from any other OEM you want. They all sell complete computer systems in competition with Apple. If you don't like what Apple does, you have option.
Now suppose, however, you're CEO of HP. In buying components for the vast majority of those systems you're planning to sell, what choice do you have other than licensing Windows from MS, that won't get you replaced within the week? The answer is none. So what choice do you have about all the other crap MS bundles with it? Can you buy a cheaper version of Windows where you don't have to pay for the development of the included IE?
Lack of viable choices is a huge amount of power over customers. Using that power to gain in other markets breaks capitalism and we no longer get the best product winning. That's what MS does that is illegal and that hurts progress. Apple just competes in ways you don't like. So does every other company. Luckily, because they don't have power over you, you can just buy from a competitor that you like better.
I know market share plays a big role here (as in Apple doesn't have enough for it to matter) but they're way worse about their terms of use and forcing people to use their stuff than anyone else.
You can't buy competing products to everything Apple makes? Seriously, as CEO if you buy HP laptops for your company instead of Apple laptops you have no chance of competing and you're going to get canned? What is locking you into Apple products so strongly that none of their competitors are a viable option?
I'm sure lots of countries will accept with gusto Google relocation from the US to their own and guarantee that Google competitors and fleas could not use their laws the way this so-called "Consumer Watchdog" is doing with USAmerican laws.
--
El Guerrero del Interfaz
Context matters. The GP pointed out the monopoly status of Microsoft at the time and that customers weren't given choices.
Google promotes its own sites but if you search for Flickr (a direct competitor to Picasa), you'll find them no problem. In fact, many times I search for something, Flickr results come way before Picasa results do. They're certainly not abusing their monopoly here.
Okay now lets build a PC a few years ago. You're a major computer reseller and you have OEM contracts from Microsoft. You want to install Firefox and Thunderbird on the desktop for your users because they're more secure or have better functionality at the time. You can't. Microsoft won't let you. Period.
Neat difference huh? Google doesn't stop you from doing anything, nor does it encourage you not to use competitors' software. Microsoft did. Google also doesn't have any court orders against it to date calling it a monopoly, Microsoft does.
Try replying to the WHOLE point that was made next time. Context matters.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I am getting tired of people constantly bringing up this argument. Listen: Apple is anti-competitive, more than MS even with it's so called monopoly.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriously, you need a trust for anti-trust to apply. Sure you can have a trust of one company, but only if they have enough control of the market. The phrase you should be using is "not doing what I want". As in " Apple is not doing what I want, more than MS even with it's so called monopoly.
What services do you believe Google has that its competitors don't have that would prevent them from competing?
With the exception of its book search service (which nobody else seems to have ramped up to that scale yet), there's nothing stopping you or I from trying to be the next Google in search or advertising or anything else.
Google has even made their competitors' jobs easier by documenting their sitemap format and not patent encumbering it, so anyone like Bing can use it to rapidly index areas of a website intelligently.
Google isn't to my knowledge being remotely anti-competitive. If anything they're helping their competition.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Difference being its not illegal to be anti-competitive unless you have a monopoly. Being anti-competitive as a small fry is just typically stupid for your business model.
If Apple wants to be stupid (as many have claimed with its prior issues like no-mac-clones), then so be it. You really don't have to use their products. I certainly don't.
However, almost everyone has to interact with Windows in one way or another these days. Annoying, but true.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Restriction is part of the fucking definition of anti-competitive! To be anti-competitive, YOU MUST RESTRICT SOMETHING.
Apple is the one of the biggest proponents of restricting what one does with devices purchased from them! They have their reasons for it, and I disagree, but I can respect their right to make that decision. But to say that those restrictions don't harm competition with them? It's a fucking preposterous statement, and you're a fucking tool for failing to grasp that. You don't need to respond, I won't fucking care what you say in response, as I make it a general rule to not listen to tools, much less the entire fucking shed.
My iTunes example is not skewed at all.
This is about devices. If I want to play back my movies on anything else, I have to BUY ANOTHER APPLE device to do it.
I can't take my movies with me.
I can't run the OS of my choice.
The iTunes application is just another example of this vendorlock nonsense. I should be able to play my movie in any player I want and on any device I want.
I can choose between 20 vendors for my DVD player or BluRay player.
I get to pick from ONE AND ONLY ONE brand of player for Apple encrypted content.
When the DRM is gone from the movies, then there will be the Books and Audio-Books to consider.
Steve is not your friend. He isn't looking out for your interests. He isn't some nice-guy-hippie. He's a businessman. Steve is out to line Steve's pockets today and tomorrow. He would grind you into green crackers if it made good business sense.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
There were talks that Microsoft needed to separate Windows from their main corporation too. It didn't even make much sense, but this one does.
What colour is the sky in your world? Jesus, you need to pull your head out of Monkeyboy's ass, because you're being starved of oxygen.. you sound like monkeyboy when he started moaning that something with a *high* marginal cost should be free, and we should all be paying for stuff with a *zero* marginal cost - it's just batshit fucking insane.
The talk of breaking up MS made *TOTAL* sense - they have a monopoly in desktop OS, which the applications developers were abusing in order to make their own application run better than those of their competitors. Breaking up the company, to force a separation between these two entities is a logical solution to this abuse of monopoly.
Google has *NO* monopoly in search or advertising, and anyone who wants to do "data mining" is free to do so. To try to claim that breaking up Google makes sense and that breaking up MS doesn't is either a fucking retard or a corporate shill.
Actually. Quite a bit can be installed on Linux and Macs.
Sure there aren't "particular" bits of payware. However, that's not the same thing as not being able to get stuff done.
H*ll, there's even some free software that gets installed on Windows to help spackle it's holes. Even Windows benefits from stuff that is build on/for other platforms.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I think you responded to the wrong post. I wasn't accusing Google of anything.
Put identity in the browser.
Right, I made all those points, and I agree. I should be able to play my movie in any player I own.
You can choose many vendors for your DVD or BluRay but you are facing the same lock in - both of those formats feature the same sort of lock as iTunes content, there are just more players available. There's no legal way in the US to play DVDs on Linux, or BluRay. The number of choices you have for playback may be wider, but they are still just as locked from full consumer choice.
Both that, and the iTunes movie DRM is wrong, and should be removed.
They took the DRM off the music, as they stated from the start they wanted (they didn't want it on there in the first place), so music from the store is now platform independent, and device independent (although encoded in AAC, but that is an open format that Apple doesn't control, patented but capable of being implemented by anyone who wants to make a player).
As content vendors Apple are limited by what the content owners will allow - they can't sell DRM-free movies because they would lose the right to sell them, just as they would have initially with the music.
Books and Audio-books would be next. Of course Steve is in it to line his pockets, and Apple is in business to make money. I would be concerned if they weren't worried about that. It makes sense to build products that people want though, and DRM-free music was one of those things that people wanted.
As it stands now, you are limited to Windows or Mac OS on the desktop and iPod/iPhone/iPad in the mobile space for movies. With the DRM gone though, they will just be plain H.264 videos.
I'm not trying to apologise for a company out to make a profit, but in the end they will do what gives them the best profit - lack of DRM is a large part of that. Convincing the content owners of that, however, is a tougher job.
So tell me, what division of Microsoft do you work for? Or do you just own a lot of Microsoft stock?
How is Google being anticompetetive? How are they even a monopoly? And why am I biting your troll?
Free Martian Whores!
It's a waste, for instance, if a Slashdotter gets shown an ad for feminine hygiene products
Are you saying that snowgirl and girlintraining (and the other six women here) are dirty? Dude, you know what they say about a woman scorned...
Free Martian Whores!
If somebody gave out free vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate ice cream, it may be impossible to start and sustain a for-profit ice cream business by selling other flavors.
So why hasn't FOSS killed proprietary software?
Free Martian Whores!
Apart from a few promos, I haven't seen any music being restricted to playing only on the iPod. Likewise, they aren't bullying stores into selling the iPod exclusively. If you develop for both the iPhone and Android, you generally don't run the risk of losing Apple's blessing. Installing iTunes does not remove Zune software.
Apple may have a monopoly in music players, but they aren't abusing their market share. They're only abusing their users, and that's just fine.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
This was at least a year ago. They've changed it since then. Go look at some old Slashdot articles.
The problem with Microsoft is that the average consumer doesn't (or didn't, before the famous iMac ads) know anything else exists, and Microsoft used its market share and financial assets to keep it that way.
The problem with Microsoft had nothing to do with how many people preferred their OS. There are a plethora of reasons Microsoft is top dog, and all of them are legitimate.
The problem with Microsoft was that they were illegally using their market dominance to force OEMs to refrain from loading competing products - namely Netscape - on the systems they sell. They were artificially restricting a scarce resource - OEM bundles.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with anybody having 99% of any market. If they provide the best service at the best price, and nobody is able to do it better, why would you want that to change? What is wrong, and illegal, is abusing that position to force competitors out of the market who would otherwise succeed. That is exactly what was going on during the browser wars, and that's why MS got their ass handed to them in court. In the US they simply had to stop their abusive tactics and pay massive fines, the EU was much harsher and eventually took away MS's right to bundle browsers with their OS.
Google isn't doing anything close to this, and that is why the dozens of anti-trust lawsuits brought against them are tossed out without much effort on Google's part. They have become the benevolent dictator of search engines, and that is good for us. If they ever turn malevolent, we have the means to destroy them.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Apple? Supposedly, they're going to buy ARM. Why? So they can shut down all the competing ARM devices.
Might want to triple-bold that "Supposedly" you have there. There is no evidence that Apple would try something as stupid as buying ARM and then refusing to sell to every other mobile device.
Not that Apple doesn't do things we don't like, but the idea that they would try to close down all competing devices by buying the chipmaker is frankly idiotic.
Back in the days of "multiple brands of DOS", Microsoft didn't hold a monopoly. While they built up their market share, they didn't pressure the retailers that much, and their competitors felt very little aggression. It was really only the OEMs that they harassed.
The turning point in the user market came with the popularity of the web. Microsoft again found themselves without any entry into a booming market. Previously, they'd taken skeleton systems and added innovative features, legitimately creating useful platforms (MS-DOS, several flavors of BASIC, etc). This time, though, they created a product with the singular goal of becoming the only platform.
IE started with only basic features already offered by the myriad other browsers. Its innovation only came in response to other browsers, and none of the additional features were actually useful enough to make people choose IE over anything else. Microsoft turned to a tactic they've continued to exploit to this day: bundling.
Bundling does reduce switching. but it's important to pay attention to when the bundling occurs. The first thing most users do (in my experience) when they get a new computer is start downloading all their well-known programs. Personally, I (on Windows) head straight for Chrome, Pidgin, and Tweak UI. WinZip and ACDSee fall into this category now. They have a stable base of loyal fans.
Back during the first browser war, Netscape and IE were both competing for new users. When users were looking for a browser, it was because they were just starting out on the Web. Having no knowledge of what else there was, they stuck with what they had. Is it any wonder that IE's market share only really rose dramatically after IE4 was released, when they began bundling it with Windows 98? I don't think the "channels" feature was that impressive. Previous versions were bundled with service releases, which wouldn't have as much of an effect on new PC buyers.
Now that the market for new users has cooled somewhat, the competition is back to focusing on functionality. Bundling will not likely work again so successfully.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The concern here is that Google's bundling of services might be affecting competition. For example, other advertising companies might be considered useless, since they can't approach the visibility of Google's services. Likewise, Google's constant promoting of its other services may be impacting the ability for other companies to gain a competitive foothold.
You're conflating "bundling of applications" with "popular website linking to other websites". This is a HUGE stretch.
The quote is basically saying "people like Google Search, and Google Search links to Google Maps! Therefore no one will ever use a different Map website!"
You're seriously trying to compare that to Microsoft building in a "free" (with purchase of OS you have no choice but to buy) browser, chat, media player, and every other service into their operating system monopoly?
And, by definition, you are a waste of resources and should be torn in half. And fed to the dogs.
Even if Google has a monopoly in some market, they are doing nothing illegal by merely existing. Since you can't grasp this point, you really are too deficient to bother with.
The GP is not interested in facts or reason. He just wants to spew his hatred for whatever it is he hates at the moment.
And, by definition, you are a waste of resources and should be torn in half. And fed to the dogs.
Even if Google has a monopoly in some market, they are doing nothing illegal by merely existing. Since you can't grasp this point, you really are too deficient to bother with.
And yet you found time to bother with me. How nice.
I was going to go through and explain every bit of my post so possibly you could understand what I was saying. However, a brief look at your previous posts shows that you are merely a bitter troll who has an axe to grind and has nothing to offer the conversation.
There, I fed you, troll. Can the grownups talk now?
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
Is it any wonder that IE's market share only really rose dramatically after IE4 was released [wikipedia.org], when they began bundling it with Windows 98? I don't think the "channels" feature was that impressive.
It certainly helped for the reasons you gave. IE4 came out in Sept '97, and Netscape Communicator came out in June '97. Netscape was well established. As I remember, Netscape 4 wasn't as good as IE4, although previous versions of IE were pretty lackluster. IE4 had an edge for two reasons: bundling and better performance. Of course, Netscape would allege that IE's better performance was due to the bundling in the first place. IE was basically preloaded into memory upon boot.
I didn't like the Channels feature either. I didn't think the marketing value of having real estate on a desktop in the form of an icon was well-proven enough to merit companies like Disney paying to become a channel click. That entire Active Desktop thing always annoyed me.
Because FOSS in general hasn't been as good or better an alternative. Note that "better" involves more than just technical aspects, and includes marketing and support. Geeks don't need those things, but normal people do.
But let's take a closer look. Remember Solaris and HP-UX and Irix? Much of commercial Unix has been replaced by Linux and other free alternatives, and it's hard to imagine anybody going into the server OS market now, when even Microsoft feels the heat. How about web browsers? It's a significant piece of software, and really ought to cost money, but between Mozilla and KHTML/WebKit, the ability to make money from a browser is greatly diminished. Would you invest in a startup that wants to write a new browser?
Now, note that I don't know if this is all going to be a net gain or loss for society. I'm just saying that even freebies may have invisible costs.
That's quite insightful. When the anti-trust laws were framed, companies weren't too big to fail. However, they were too big to benefit the economy and would have become too big to fail. The foresight was vague and sketchy but the hindsight is obvious. The remedy is to break companies which snag the economy and avert a single point of failure.
Furthermore, case law has established the influence of network effects in markets of buyers and sellers. Any party with 71-75% of supply will be involved in the majority of small transactions and can unduly influence the market. Any cartel can reach that threshold quicker.
Market share, per US Law.
Contrary to what some people would have you to believe (and contrary to the "mono" in the word itself), you do not need a 100% market share to be a "monopoly". The Law recognizes the idea of "close enough", so a company with a 95% marketshare, or less, can still be considered a "monopoly". IANAL, so I don't know the strict legal definition, if there even is one. I suspect it's dealt with on a case-by-case basis, where basically antitrust law is invoked if a company has an overwhelming marketshare and is accused of abusing this power under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. If a company has an overwhelming marketshare, but no one's complaining about their practices and bringing up anti-trust cases, then no one bothers to decide whether they constitute a "monopoly" or not, because it never goes to Court.
For instance, Intel has had to deal with anti-trust issues a lot, even though they're nowhere near the "monopoly" status of Microsoft, and AMD CPUs are basically drop-in replacements for Intel ones (yes, you need a new motherboard because of the socket difference, but all the software and other peripherals work the same. You can probably even reuse your memory.). Plus, there's lots of vendors of non-Intel-architecture CPUs, though obviously you won't be able to run Windows XP/7 on them.
It doesn't matter if they're being anti-competitive. They don't have anything close to being a monopoly, so they're free to do that. It's only when you get close to having a monopoly that your competitors can take you to Court over anti-trust issues, according to US Law.
There's no requirement on www.google.com to log in. The page is the same for everyone. How would they use personal data to rank results if they don't know who you are?
Even if they went off IP address, that can change at any time (most ISPs use DHCP to assign addresses dynamically, and you can frequently get a new one just by restarting your router), plus you share that IP with everyone in your household, so Google doesn't know if it's you or your spouse doing the search.
Yes, that sounds like a completely unfounded rumor with no basis in reality. ARM CPUs are used in all kinds of devices, not just smartphones, and that IP is probably worth quite a bit more than Apple is worth. If they have the money, I suppose they could buy out ARM and then try to only allow ARMs to be sold to non-competitors, but this still sounds pretty ridiculous.
Did you not see the words "aside from"?
How about web browsers? It's a significant piece of software, and really ought to cost money, but between Mozilla and KHTML/WebKit, the ability to make money from a browser is greatly diminished. Would you invest in a startup that wants to write a new browser?
I don't see Opera whining about all the free browsers.
If you want to try to make a living selling something when the competition is all free, then you have to do something different and special, or find something else to do for a living. Opera specializes in low resource usage, which is good for mobile devices. Mozilla isn't really usable on a smartphone.
Putting people out of business with free stuff is a good thing, in economic theory. It provides products and services to everyone for no cost, meaning those former customers now have more money to spend on doing other things, and it also means people who couldn't afford these products can now use them since they're free, and be more productive than before. Additionally, the people put out of business can now find something else to do, meaning they're more productive since they're not wasting their time competing with the thing that is now free. Overall, it expands the economy when valuable things are made available for free. People who don't understand this are the ones who think economics are a zero-sum game, which they are not.
If you need a cash cow (e.g. vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice creams) to sustain your business and sell other flavors, you're running your business wrong. That sounds like MS's business model: make tons of money on a couple of cash cows and then constantly lose money on everything else. Any decent economist or businessperson will tell you that's a stupid way to run a business. If your other flavors aren't profitable by themselves, then you shouldn't be selling them. If they're not profitable enough, then you need to try another approach: make even more flavors, including unique flavors that no competitors make. Or, make really high-quality varieties and charge extra for them, catering to a high-end market. Or make ice creams with rice milk instead of cow's milk, to cater to the vegetarians/vegans and lactose-intolerant crowds.
If smaller ice cream makers weren't pushed out of the regular flavors by free/cheap vanilla and chocolate, then we wouldn't have all the specialty flavors, high end ice creams (like ones without high-fructose corn syrup), and ice creams made with rice milk, almond milk, soy milk, etc. on the market, and we'd have too many versions of vanilla and chocolate.
It's funny how you always go "etc.", as if to imply that there's many other choices when in fact there seem to be few others (at least viable ones) beyond what you already named.
There usually are other choices, they're just much smaller, such as excite.com (does anyone still use that?).
Google Search: Yes, Bing and Yahoo exist. Others, for the most part, don't, at least if you actually want to find things in practice.
Again, excite is still there. It's not Google's fault if they aren't very good.
Youtube: the only viable competitor is Vimeo. I'm gonna ignore your "just don't use it" suggestion, since I can't believe you could've been stupid enough to really mean that.
How is Youtube vital to your life? It's a free service where you can post videos, and others can watch them. If you want to watch free videos, and you don't like Youtube, then tough: you're not entitled to free stuff. If you want to post videos for others to watch for free, and you don't like Youtube, then you're free to set up your own website and post your videos there. Of course, you'll have to pay the hosting and bandwidth bills yourself. Again, you're not entitled to get stuff for free, and there's nothing locking you into Youtube for posting videos. Creating your own website to show your own videos is trivially easy to do these days.
Book Search: amazon lets you search for books, but as far as I'm aware, you cannot search in books the way you can on Google (but correct me if I'm wrong). The same goes for my local library. Apples and oranges.
This falls under the same category as before. If you don't like Google, you can go to the library and do it manually, or you can pay someone else to do it for you. You're not entitled to free stuff.
GMail: Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, true. ISP-provided mail? That doesn't work for a multitude of reasons (in my particular case, these include a) being tied to an email address residing with this ISP and which will change when I move to a different one, hardly any storage space, and no webmail). Again, apples and oranges.
Wrong. Lots of ISPs and other email providers have webmail interfaces. There's actually several Free webmail packages out there, as well as commercial ones. They're not as good as Gmail (IMO), but that's not Google's fault that they suck. My website on fatcow.com lets me set up email accounts, and has a web interface (though I use POP instead so I can manage them through Gmail).
Don't like that your ISP email address is tied to your ISP, or that it has no storage space and they're too stupid/lazy to set up webmail? Tough. You should have chosen a better ISP. No competition among ISPs in your area? Again, not Google's fault, that's your own fault for being a bad citizen and not electing a government that regulates utility monopolies better (or starting a revolution and replacing the government by force; every country has the government its citizens deserve, after all).
Google Maps: Bing Maps and Yahoo Maps, yes. Mapquest? Dude, 1997 called, they want their web design back.
It's not Google's fault that Mapquest sucks. They've had since 1997 to improve their web design.
Basically, this all seems to be a bunch of complaining along the lines of: "We like all the free services that Google provides, but we don't like or don't trust Google itself (insert privacy complaints here), so we think something should be done so that we can similar-quality stuff from multiple different companies instead of just Google, and it should all be free too."
If you don't like someone's free stuff (that has strings attached), then don't use it. It's that simple. It's not like you're being forced to use Google Search or else you can't eat or get a job (going to monster.com doesn't require using Google). Complaining that no one else has made similar-quality free stuff is just ridiculous and childish.
Next thing you know, all the Slashtards are going to be complaining that Linux is putting companies like SCO out of business because Linux is so much better than OpenServer and UnixWare and is free, and somehow this is Linux's fault.
My iTunes example is not skewed at all.
This is about devices. If I want to play back my movies on anything else, I have to BUY ANOTHER APPLE device to do it.
The iTunes application is just another example of this vendorlock nonsense. I should be able to play my movie in any player I want and on any device I want.
I can choose between 20 vendors for my DVD player or BluRay player.
It was your own dumb choice to buy movies from Apple that got you into this situation. If you had bought your movies on DVD or Blu-Ray, you wouldn't have had this problem. Those alternative were available to you, and you chose to go with the vendor-locked solution instead, because you wanted the convenience of buying online and not waiting for a physical disc to be shipped to you. Convenience comes at a cost.
Are you one of those people who buys a house right next to an airport, and then complains about all the jet noise?
They use cookies to track individuals and their search history. If, on the same machine, you use any other Google service that requires authentication, then that cookie is easily linked to your personal data. Really, if there is something that you don't want Google to know, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it...
Indeed ... new Slashcode strikes again.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
> I don't see them using their monopoly unfairly to expand into other markets.
That's because it all happens on the back-end.
Messages identified by GoogleMail as spam can be used to eliminate poor results in GoogleSearch. Spidering from GoogleSearch can be used to rate the probability of spam in GoogleMail. GoogleNews ensures that topical trends don't get blocked as GoogleSearch denial of service attacks. Resumes sent via GoogleMail to third parties are sent to Google's Human Resources. Authentication to GoogleMail provides authentication to other services - and in some cases without privacy safeguards or reasonable opt-out. That's bundling services.
So, there's a large flow of data which is cross-subsidizing services.
Just because it isn't apparent doesn't mean it isn't happening. The result is that none of the services compete solely on technical merit. For example, it isn't a case of spidering the web with equal vigour to make a search engine of equal quality. It also relies on the number and caliber of email users. That's a monopoly using its resources to expand into other markets.