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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."
8==C=O=C=K==S=L=A=P==D
8==A=N=D=R=O=I=D ~-_
I hate those guys.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
"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
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.
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.
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????
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.
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.
http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
Don't trust anything they say.
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.
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!
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....
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.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
Speaking of astroturf, who wants to bet the CW part of CWmike stands for Consumer Watchdog?
No soup for you! Come back one year! Next!
-AC
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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.
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
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?
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".
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
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.
> 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.