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."

Comments

Lawyers

[Vinegar Joe]

I hate those guys.

Re:Lawyers

[MrMista_B]

Until you need one.

Re:Lawyers

[AK Marc]

Rarely does one need a lawyer except for the actions of other lawyers.

Re:Lawyers

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Lawyers is a great profession, at least from a mathematical perspective. Lawyers are lawyers, but what people mostly forget is that just about all lawmakers are (or have been) lawyers (at least the democrats). Judges are also ex-lawyers. And since the government's been starting all this "too big to fail" bailouts there's a very surprising increase in the number of lawyer ceo's in wall street and the car (ex-)industry.

So the fun thing about lawyers is : the more lawyers you have, the more extra lawyers you need. It's like a runaway nuclear reaction. It's tha bomb man.

Of course this only remains interesting until you ask the question as to who pays for it all ...

Legitimate Scrutiny

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:Legitimate Scrutiny

[ScrewMaster]

HAH! It's funny that when Microsoft has a so called monopoly, it's the end of the world but when Google has a monopoly... it must be Microsoft.

Microsoft does have a monopoly, an illegal monopoly that was acquired via a number of seriously dirty moves, deliberately violating the law in order to remove consumer choice. Or do you believe that that our choosing to use Google's services more than any other company is a sign of inherent illegal monopolism? Well, if we do, that's not bad: it's because Google does a better job at delivering the services we want than anyone else.

Do you understand what the term monopoly means, and that having a monopoly in a particular area is not, in and of itself, against the law? It's the manner in which you achieve your monopoly status, and what you do with it once you have it that counts. I don't see Google suing competitors out of existence, although they've certainly snapped up a number of startups, generally for technologies that they need for their own products. Sure ... they're damn serious competition to anyone wanting to enter the search and online advertising business, but it's because millions upon millions of people have decided that Google does what they want. It's not because of backroom deals with hardware manufacturers to only ship Google's products. That's Microsoft's way.

Re:Legitimate Scrutiny

[Bigjeff5]

May be something, may be nothing - TradeComet's lawyer (one of the two lawyers in TFA) is from the same firm that does all of Microsoft's anti-trust work. It's tough to imagine such a firm would take on Google in an anti-trust case without at the very least getting Microsoft's blessing. It's not impossible though, MS may have nothing at all to do with it. It could all be coincidence.

Oh and TradeComet's anti-trust lawsuit was dismissed on a technicality - the judge ruled that the Adwords contract venue stipulation applied.

Also Google has a collections lawsuit pending with myTrigger.com (the other lawyer in TFA) for unpaid bills. That's funny, because this is all about sites being redirected away from legitimate business, but the only time one pays for Adwords is if someone clicked through.

Sounds like these guys are full of shit to me. There is a reason Google faces dozens of antitrust lawsuits every year, and there is a reason none of them go anywhere, even when there are high-powered law firms behind them. It's because they have no merit.

Re:Legitimate Scrutiny

[mjwx]

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.

I'm a bit of a fan of Google but I think this investigation should go ahead. I am confident that Google will not be found guilty, as you said this is not Microsoft, Google has a monopoly in search but unlike MS they don't use their dominant market position to crush competition or prevent new competitors from entering the market.

It's not just MS gunning for Google, Apple is doing it as well. Google represents the end of the Apple/MS business model if they are successful with Android and Chrome. Seeing as the EU hasn't even made a whimper about Google I doubt they have much to worry about.

Re:Legitimate Scrutiny

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Google has made several companies like Microsoft change from their evil ways.
Remember the time when Microsoft and other search engines used to include paid results in the search result without informing the user?
Remember the time when you had pay for POP3 and SMTP at Hotmail, Yahoo and other email providers?
Remember the time when your Sent mail folder was periodically emptied?
Remember the time when you had a limited size mailbox?
Remember the time you had to pay for high quality satellite imagery for personal on time use?

Google changed the game when it introduced several services for free and without the limitations that people took for granted.

The only thing I do not like is the huge collection of web user behaviour that Google collects without consent or knowledge of users on its own site and other sites.

Re:Legitimate Scrutiny

[e70838]

I think he does.
Google is a white knight and that is what irritates so many people (apple, ...). Google is not perfect, it has made a big mistake with buzz. Google has an ideological model that is very different from Microsoft.
For the moment, Google is very powerful and imagining this power in the hand of a company similar to Microsoft is very frightening.
Certainly, things will change (this is an old chinese proverb). Perhaps this will be because of lawyers.
Perhaps this will be for evil and we will regret to have given so much power to Google.
AFAIK, nobody can predict the future.
For the moment, Google succeed in improving progress rate of our society and this is very different from Microsoft that has hinder computer science progress during so many years.
I think we should be very grateful to Google and we must be very vigilant on every activities of Google. The cited scrutinity is legitimate and mandatory. It shall just be made in a fair spirit.

Re:Legitimate Scrutiny

[erroneus]

You know, with all of that said, at the end of the day, Google is an advertising company. They collect information to share with people seeking to market things to people. I find the majority of advertising and marketing to be at the very least annoying and frequently even dangerous in many ways. I am not saying Google is "evil." I am saying that they are an advertiser first and foremost. I don't hate google, but I always maintain an ounce of skepticism. I will probably never run a Google Linux distro. I may run an android based phone but only after it has been completely reviewed for information collection/transmission and cleared of such nonsense. People say "know your enemy." I also say *know your friends" as well. I favor Google to serve up useful search information. But I am also careful not to use any Google services that might compromise my data any more than I need to.

Re:who is paying Kovacevich

[seeker_1us]

From the summary

Adam Kovacevich, senior manager for global communications and public affairs at Google,

So Google pays Kovacevich.

Breaking up companies

[JoshuaZ]

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.

Re:Breaking up companies

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Breaking up companies always bugs me when the companies has grown primarily based on outright success.

How about a company that used its monopoly in a market to lock out and hurt competitors?

That is the big difference between Microsoft, Apple and Google. MS was convicted of monopoly abuse, the others have not.

Re:Breaking up companies

[Bigjeff5]

Anti-trust is not about bundling goods, it's about restricting access to a limited resource. For example, the Microsoft case - they were not hit with an anti-trust suit because they held 95% of the computer market, they were hit with the anti-trust lawsuit because they were using their 95% share of the computer market to force alternative web browsers out of the browser market. 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.

I simply cannot see how the same thing is true with Google - the only key resources regarding internet search that Google has access to are their database and mechanism for crawling web pages, and their search algorithm. Anybody can crawl web pages, I could do it right now if I wanted to, Google is in no way restricting that, and the key elements of Google's search algorithm are well known.

There is absolutely nothing stopping anybody from creating an alternative to Google using the exact same resources that Google uses, and in fact there are several. However, if your service is not better, don't expect anybody to use it. Breaking the company up won't help anything. You'll just have four Googles dominating the market instead of just one.

If they are trying to say that Google's search results are the limited resource, they are full of shit. Google is selling ad space on their web pages, which all web sites have been doing since the beginning of time. If that is their beef, they need to be looking at Google compared to the entire fucking internet when making their claims, because that is the internet ad market Google is competing with. They are also not forcing anybody to do anybody, they aren't doing anything unfair at all. They are just "winning". Unfortunately, to some losers "winning" is unfair.

Re:Breaking up companies

[webdog314]

How would you even break a company like Google up? I mean, it's success is at least partially due to the fact that it's one giant cloud. Separating different parts of Google (gmail, wave, etc) would still require that they all use that same cloud, wouldn't it?

Re:Breaking up companies

[tsm_sf]

[...]does not mean others are not anti-comparative, and by others, I mean Apple.

vis a vis oranges, I'm guessing?

Re:Breaking up companies

[hedwards]

Sigh, it's not anti-capitalist to insist upon having unmanageably sized corporations broken up. Especially when said corporations grow huge based upon buying out the nearest competitor to create a monopoly position. Just because large corporations don't like it doesn't mean that it's anti-capitalist. Capitalism requires eternal vigilance in order to ensure that one source doesn't become the only source of every product or service.

Had the DoJ been doing its job in the first place a number of those deals would never have taken place. In fact, I doubt that MS would've been brought into court at all had the clowns running the DoJ during the early portion of this century been in charge.

Re:Breaking up companies

[Moridin42]

Actually, it couldn't be less predatory. I know those search engines from Before Google sucked. But you know what they charged you? The same as Google.

Re:Breaking up companies

[malchus842]

There is NOTHING unmanageable about Google. Their management and board are doing just fine, thanks. Breaking up a company for being successful is INSANE. The entire claims appear to be predicated on a wrong understanding of what the law says. Being a monopoly is not, in and of itself illegal. Anti-competitive practices ARE illegal. Google is not, from what I can see, doing anything other than being very good at what they do.

Barriers to entry are limited to having servers and a search algorithm. I can have a web-crawer running tomorrow and a search engine in short order. If I do bette than Google, people will come to me. If I don't, I don't get to whine to the government because I am not competent enough to do a better job!

Re:Breaking up companies

[Daengbo]

Unless others were giving the products away before Google entered the market. I can't think of a Google product that didn't have a free competitor prior.

Re:Breaking up companies

[catmistake]

which all web sites have been doing since the beginning of time.

Modern cosmology now suggests that the Planck epoch may have inaugurated a period of unification, and that symmetry breaking then quickly led to the era of cosmic inflation, during which the universe greatly expanded in scale over a very short period of time, violently fueled by the pressure from the Big Bang itself, and tremendous amounts of web-generated ad revenue.

Re:Breaking up companies

[Entiex]

Wrong. It is anti-capitalist to break up any company. For any company, there is an optimal size based on what type of market they are in. There are a number of markets where this optimal size happens to be the entire market or more. This is a natural monopoly and is OK. "Buying out the nearest competitor," if done with a plan to then use the resulting monopoly position to raise prices, is an excellent way to go broke.

Raising prices, or in general being economically inefficient, attracts competition into your market. Buying out competitors with the intention to later raise prices just wastes the money you spent on that competitor. Buying out competitors in order to make your company a stronger competitor (AKA what Google does) is completely fine. A natural monopoly is fine simply because they reach and keep their position by being a better competitor, which is good for end consumers.

Having one source being the source of every produce or service is not necessarily bad, it is only "bad" if, through some magical means, they manage to use this position to induce economic inefficiency for personal benefit.

Re:Apple behind this?

[thepike]

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.

And the Mobile Carriers?

[ExploHD]

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.

Re:And the Mobile Carriers?

[Sepodati]

AT&T has the highest market share at 28% according to a presentation I saw the other day. Where is the majority share you're talking about and who has it? Limited competition? There are several national carriers you can turn to as well as smaller rural services, depending on where you live. Or pay-as-you-go. Where's the limited competition?

Maybe you could prove collusion amongst the carriers to fix text message prices... Good luck with that.

John

Re:And the Mobile Carriers?

[ExploHD]

According to a recent study, the top four (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile) control 80%. They have limited competition by buying all the little carriers up. $200 termination fees per two year line doesn't really give anyone a chance to move and explore the competition.

Re:And the Mobile Carriers?

[FlyingBishop]

On the subject of text messaging, it's obvious to anyone with a brain that there's been collusion.

If they were trying to optimize their networks and provide better service, the base plan would be for text and voice minutes would cost extra.

Re:Pot Kettle Black?

[Lehk228]

it's not fair to bet when the answer is known to be YES

The Business of Google

[_Sprocket_]

So the first reaction is obvious: who's behind this? From the linked article:

Consumer Watchdog sent a letter to the DOJ Wednesday asking that the agency investigate Google for antitrust violations. "For most Americans -- indeed, for most people in the world -- Google is the gateway to the Internet," the letter said. "How it tweaks its proprietary search algorithms can ensure a business' success or doom it to failure."

...

Google has manipulated search and advertisement placement results to shut out potential competitors who counted on Google results to drive traffic to their sites, said Joseph Bial, a lawyer at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft who represents myTriggers.com and TradeComet.com. Both companies have filed antitrust lawsuits against Google alleging that the search giant shut out their attempts to advertise on Google.com.

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.

Re:The Business of Google

[blackraven14250]

Occam's razor doesn't mean that the simplest solution is always the correct one. It only means it's more likely. It also doesn't take into account market factors and all the complexities of corporate war.

Re:The Business of Google

[blackraven14250]

If someone has a very strong motive to do something, it makes an exception to occam's razor much more likely.

Seriously. Look at some facts. This company is linked to known astroturfers.

Re:Apple behind this?

[MrHanky]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[Grishnakh]

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.

Ok, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

sounds great!

[bugi]

Sure, sounds great, so long as we get to retroactively break up microsoft while we're at it.

Re:sounds great!

[celle]

and apple, let's not forget to breakup apple just for kicks. Ah forget apple, break up steve jobs just for kicks.

Criticizing the dashboard

[sandyjensen]

The article criticizing the dashboard has already been slashdotted but (oh irony) it was in my chrome cache.

The group also said that the Dashboard, though useful, is not easy to find.

“If they want people to use this, why isn’t there a direct link from the home page?” asked Simpson. “In other contexts Google likes to say competition is one click away. They’ve buried the Dashboard. The extra password verification is a good security measure, but why can’t you get there with one click from a Dashboard link on the home page?”

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.

too big to fail

[bugi]

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.

Re:too big to fail

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all blatant bullshit.

Switching from Gmail is free and easy. It does not cost "a ton," you are just making shit up. You can use IMAP to copy the messages over to your new account.
http://www.dataliberation.org/google/gmail

Switching from Docs is free and easy. You just select all your docs and download them in one big zip file, then move them wherever the hell you want.
http://www.dataliberation.org/google/google-docs

Re:Apple behind this?

[Daengbo]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[Grishnakh]

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".

"Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog"

[nurb432]

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.

Re:The Peoples' Interest Should Come First

[Dog-Cow]

I agree. To that end, you should be killed now.

Re:Apple behind this?

[E IS mC(Square)]

>>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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[jasonwc]

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

The real story behind consumer watchdog

[voss]

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????

Re:Apple behind this?

[MrHanky]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[Grishnakh]

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.

Consumer Watchdog is a Microsoft lackey.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/

Don't trust anything they say.

Re:Apple behind this?

[Sarten-X]

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...

Re:Apple behind this?

[sopssa]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[jedidiah]

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?

But they are just soooo good.....

[TiggertheMad]

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?

Consumer Watchdog is just another Microsoft shill

[merc]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[GlassHeart]

I'm not about to start complaining about them until I feel like I'm being coerced somehow into opening my wallet for them.

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[Hylandr]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[shutdown -p 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.

Re:Lawyers and whiny babies

[TheRecklessWanderer]

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.

Re:Apple behind this?

[i_ate_god]

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?

Re:Apple behind this?

[Daengbo]

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.

I hate vultures.

[Taco Cowboy]

No, I don't hate lawyers.

I hate vultures disguised as lawyers.

Re:I hate vultures.

[ultranova]

I hate vultures disguised as lawyers.

Vultures perform the useful and valuable task of removing carrion that would otherwise rot, smell, and spread diseases. Lawyers, on the other hand, are more like parasitic worms that live in your gut, rob your food, and cause dysentry to propagate through shit they caused to happen. Comparing lawyers to vultures is a vile insult towards the honest and hard-working carrion-eaters.

Why?

[lennier1]

There's nothing wrong with SkyNe...Google.