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Google Says Microsoft Is Driving Antitrust Review
GovTechGuy writes "On Friday we discussed news that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott opened a probe into whether Google ranks its search listings with an eye toward nicking the competition. Google suggested the concerns have a major sponsor: Microsoft. In question is whether the world's biggest search engine could be unfairly disadvantaging some companies by giving them a low ranking in free search listings and in paid ads that appear at the top of the page. That could make it tough for users to find those sites and might violate antitrust laws. Abbott's office asked for information about three companies who have publicly complained about Google, according to blog post by Don Harrison, the company's deputy general counsel. Harrison linked each of the companies to Microsoft."
But Google's search algorithm is published -- there's even a helpful book about it, Amy Langville's "PageRank and beyond" which demonstrates that it's no more complicated than the linear algebra you learned in your sophomore year of engineering school.
* Foundem -- the British price comparison site that is backed by ICOMP, an organization funded largely by Microsoft. They claim that Google’s algorithms demote their site because they are a direct competitor to our search engine. The reality is that we don’t discriminate against competitors. Indeed, companies like Amazon, Shopping.com and Expedia typically rank very high in our results because of the quality of the service they offer users. Various experts have taken a closer look at the quality of Foundem’s website, and New York Law School professor James Grimmelmann concluded, “I want Google to be able to rank them poorly.”
* SourceTool/TradeComet - SourceTool is a website run by parent company TradeComet, whose private antitrust lawsuit against Google was dismissed by a federal judge earlier this year. The media have noted that TradeComet is represented by longtime Microsoft antitrust attorneys, and independent search experts have called SourceTool a “click arbitrage” site with little original content.
* myTriggers - Another site represented by Microsoft’s antitrust attorneys, myTriggers alleges that they suffered a drop in traffic because Google reduced their ad quality ratings. But recent filings have revealed that the company’s own servers overheated, explaining their reduced traffic.
[citation needed]
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html etc
This is a non-issue. People use google.com's website of their own volition. The search results come from Google's database, there is no hindering of businesses or anti-trust issue here at all since all of the information gleaned on the internet is already present. Google merely presents it how they deem necessary to match the search keywords.
TL;DR: Fuck off.
user@host$ diff
Can someone please explain this to me? What company or website am I searching for on google.com where searching for them does not bring up their website?
When you search for "Macaroni" what macaroni making company's website is ranked first among the many returned? If Google has overwhelming influence on the search market and they change their rankings so that it is a macaroni making company not owned by a company they compete with in another market, then that's against the law. It seems unlikely that is the case in any market, but hopefully the courts will determine the truth of the matter.
The basic idea behind PageRank may be published, but there is a lot more to do with it, such as all the logic for detecting link farms and other forms of intentional manipulation, which Google does not make public.
There is also a ton of logic behind trying to determine in a page what is "important," and that comes down to parsing html and making inferences as to what is the "main part", what is a heading, and so on. And then there is logic for determining what is duplicate content....again a very complex problem. The list goes on. If you think this is simple or straightforward, I'd say you are highly mistaken.
Got a citation for that? Everything I see says otherwise, for instance this.
I'm not arguing in favor of this investigation and don't believe the allegations, but you're wrong about the monopoly thing. A monopoly doesn't have to be complete, nor does there have to be a lock-in in order to fall afoul of anti-trust law. Standard Oil was not the only oil company, and had minor players. People were always free to buy from them. Windows was not the only operating system, you could always use Linux or buy a Mac.
Standard Oil used its dominant position to stifle its competition. Microsoft used its dominant market share in Windows to snuff out Netscape. I don't think anyone can doubt that Google could decimate a web-based business by demoting them in search rankings.
sure do. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100904101642564
note that it shows a: the antitrust links and b: why anyone can make a google search engine by their own choice
Really, why should google ever publish the "how we do our job"? that's not their job, and it's not microsoft, and it's not anyone's.
> Windows was not the only operating system, you could always use Linux or buy a Mac.
Yes. You could always use Linux or buy a Mac and end up living like the Amish.
THAT was rather the point of Microsoft being a monopoly. I am sure you have grossly misrepresented the Standard Oil situation as well.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Dave Heiner, Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. You're looking for Paragraph 6 if the whole thing is TL;DR. Completely admits they've been behind some of these hijinks at the DOJ and the European Commission, and so on.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Nope, they could for instance be in trouble for buying Double click, that was definitely a violation of antitrust law which the DoJ should never have allowed in the first place. Also if it turns out that there really is special priority given to their apps, that would also be a violation of Sherman. Not to mention that for the longest time there was some degree of ambiguity between when their apps were popping up alongside search results as a recommendation from Google rather than from their algorithm.
The problem is, with virtual things there is no monopoly when there is no lock-in look at Standard Oil, they could nearly monopolize the oil industry because there aren't an infinite number of oil wells. On the other hand whats the overhead for opening up a competitor to Google Ads/Double Click, its effectively zero. A monopoly is bad because it monopolizes a limited resource, with an internet company there is no scarcity! Barring government intervention in the form of software patents, there is no barrier to me starting up my own internet ad company.
Pre-digital laws make no sense when transitioning to digital. Monopolies are bad because they monopolize a limited resource, since there are really no* limited resources on the internet, it makes no sense to punish a company for being a non-existent monopoly which can't exist because there are no limited resources to monopolize.
*With the exception of things like IP addresses, bandwidth, etc which will all grow as the internet grows, but in essence the point still stands unless the reason Google is being sued is because of using up too many addresses.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Well, if the infinitely wise AC can't come up with anything to rebut it beyond "da mods are dumb," it must be pretty good.
Instead of sitting around calling everyone dumb, perhaps you could share some of that pent up know-it-all with us. It's fine that you feel GP's explanation is simplistic. However, you seem to be unable (unwilling?) to offer a more complete or alternative viewpoint or explain why you think GP's explanation is too simplistic.
Generally to be useful on /. you need to do more than just bitch about moderation and be insulting. Neither are great for conversation.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100904101642564
Or did they break the story?
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Sorry man but you can't have it both ways.
Nice straw man you have there - he burns really well!
You can't say "It would be ok for Google to become a monopoly and throw their weight around as such, but not for MS."
Nobody is saying that - and as you so beautifully point out, Google isn't a monopoly. So trying to compare them to Microsoft is disingenuous at best.
Nice try though.
Standard Oil was a monopoly because it was not better than its competition but rather relied on the government to fuel its practices
Petroleum derivatives had a well-earned reputation for being both unpredictable and lethal.
Rockefeller delivered a retail product based on standard formulations and sold in honest weights and measures. "Standard Oil" was trusted.
"Standard Oil" was cheap.
The kerosene that cost 58 cents in 1865 cost 26 cents in 1870. Standard Oil
None too surprisingly, perhaps, the Standard's customers tended to remain loyal to the Standard's operating companies after the break-up. They pospered as would Rockefeller himself.
There would be opportunities for others, but only for the big boys, vertically integrated like the Standard itself.
Yet, claiming that Android is by far the most open Smartphone OS is just plain false. Ever heard of:
OpenMoko
Maemo
MeeGo
- all of which allow anyone to write apps in any language available, because unlike Android they are mostly using linux' own standard interfaces. In some cases "porting" would simply mean recompiling or even just copying the app over, whereas under Android you'd most certainly have to rewrite it from scratch to conform with Android's requirements and still need to worry about compatibility issues between Android versions. This makes all three of them in effect far more open than Android OS.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.