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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."
Um .. it's a free service - if you don't like it use something else!
Once again Microsoft chooses to litigate instead of innovate. I guess Bing didn't crush Google quite as firmly as Microsoft hoped so they had to find proxies to launch baseless legal attacks until they think of something else. The technology landscape would be vastly improved if Microsoft would just dissolve and go away.
Try finding three major tech companies that aren't linked with Microsoft in some way.
And when the link is "the lawyers hired by TradeComet include some of the same lawyers Microsoft hired to do similar work in the past" and you're getting pretty close to playing "six degrees of Kevin Bacon".
If there's a smoking gun somewhere, this ain't it. If this is the best Google's general counsel can do, maybe there isn't a smoking gun anywhere.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I think you are ignoring the fact that Microsoft is actually flamingly guilty of such antitrust. What you are saying is equivalent to saying that if someone accuses a person of rape, who actually in fact commited said rape, then it is a case of "fair is fair" if the rapist then accuses you of raping them.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, Google are getting dangerously big and all-encompassing at a level which can and will affect us all personally. They deserve a little scrutiny even if they're totally innocent, if only to keep them on the straight and narrow.
These aren't comparable, in this case Microsoft is backing lawsuits with their own resources, your linked blog post is about their comment on the matter since they now had experience in the the browser market. Google didn't bring fourth any of the antitrust lawsuits or back them up of support them with their resources. And quoted from the blog "Google's perspective will be useful as the European Commission evaluates remedies to improve the user experience" meaning they will give their comment to the EC in an already in progress discussion on the Internet Explorer browser and it's integration in Windows.
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
Okay true. But in this case, what is being claimed is simply not likely to be true. While I trust google about as far as I can throw it (let it be known and repeated that I distrust ALL marketing/advertising companies) the claims against it are inconsistent with even the most casual observations.
The antitrust claims against Microsoft, on the other hand, were quite valid. And, as it turns out, the remedies against Microsoft were clearly not enough as they haven't yet changed their ways fully. (For example, OEM version of Microsoft Office is mysteriously cheaper when purchased through Dell than when purchased through other sources... perhaps this is "Dell's doing" but then again, to what advantage is it to offer MS Office at a perceived discount? Certainly not the user who doesn't get MS Office and still has to pay a partial price for it as that portion of the cost is rolled into the price of the computer.) And I am sure there are lots more examples of the games they play, but it's close to my bed time and the mind is shutting down.
I'm neither a Google fan nor one of Microsoft. But as someone from the outside, objectively I can't see where the case has merit and it just smells like more of Microsoft's dirty play. After all, this is not the first time we have heard of Microsoft's agenda being pushed by its partners and affiliates.
[citation needed]
Too often this means [google search needed] *cough*
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Wow, you really need to go to school or at least read up on the subject. Government antitrust laws are the only reason why we have any free market left. Adam Smith himself was very clear that antitrust regulation was necessary for a free market to exist. In a free market without such regulation you ultimately end up with a single source monopoly over absolutely every item you can buy or sell. It takes a while, but it does eventually happen as it's not in any suppliers interest to have to compete with anybody else. It's usually more profitable to sell out for a hefty fee and a percentage than to see the profits going down the drain as buyers get to haggle.
The problem is that makes no sense. Pre-digital laws when applied in the digital world make no fucking sense and to apply them is stupidity.
Monopolies are bad in the physical world because they take limited resources and monopolize them. There are only so many oil wells in the world, there are only so much (clean) water in the world, etc. when a single company takes control of them they can charge through the roof and make everyone else pay. But this isn't like that.
Barring government intervention in the form of software patents, there are no limited resources when it comes to ads on the web, and barring lock-in with physical things or a -huge- company taking all available IP addresses/bandwidth or something, a monopoly can't exist that harms consumers.
The idea that any company can monopolize infinite resources is laughable. Don't like Google? Use one of their thousands of competitors. Don't like DoubleClick, advertise elsewhere.
The internet allows for unlimited resources, you can't monopolize infinity. Just because the law says something doesn't mean its right, correct and not fucking stupid.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
That is stupid. Antitrust is not about your competitors complaining about you. Antitrust is when you are so economically powerful that you can destroy the free market and create a situation in which you economically destroy anybody who competes with you.
'What goes around comes around.' reveals a mindset in which antitrust is all part of the normal give-and-take of companies competing against each other. It isn't. Somebody has to engage in a specific set of behaviors deemed anticompetitive for it to be considered an antitrust problem. It's a market distortion, and companies accused of it aren't playing by rules in which capitalism can function properly.
It's possible this accusation against Google is true. But I suspect it's just smoke. If it is true, I will consider Google to have done something truly evil and deserving of this investigation. And it will not be a case of 'what goes around comes around'. It will be a case of a company doing something wrong that should be punished severely.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Nobody can dictate to you what the output should be when someone connects a browser to your server (or cloud) to retrieve a form, types something into a field and hits submit.
End of story.
The DeclaratioN of Independence was of marginal importance? Jefferson's influence on post-American revolutions was of marginal importance? His belief in inalienable rights, the cornerstone concept of the founding of this nation, was of marginal importance?
Linux was influenced by Minix and Unix, so by your reasoning is only marginally important. You are the reason why homeschooling is a bad idea.
The following two aspects of Bing are superior:
Its ability to find porn in the video search is better than Google.
The way the roads are drawn on maps are a bit easier to read than Google (but Yahoo is better still).
Honorable mention: the new version of Google Images brings it almost down to Bing's level.
Does anyone else use use Google to search for something thats on a MS website? I mean, their search on their own site is so horrible in finding what I'm looking for that I use google. I can't be the only person that does this.
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Microsoft is not a person.
What they are though, is an organisation that has repeatedly attacked competitors via proxy - Sco, attempting to sell Linux-relevant patents to trolls, stacking ISO to block ODF, etc, etc.
This effort though, seems too minor and too transparently fallacious to be a direct attack on Google. It's more likley they are furthering another agenda - perhaps establishing precedednt for their own actions.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Search 'search engines' on Bing. Google doesn't even make the first page. Although it's picture is used to define what a search engine is. lol Yeah that's an unbiased search. Search the same on Google and Bing is listed second.
Even more obvious is the fact that Google doesn't have a monopoly on search engines. Obviously, Microsoft has a search engine of their own, which they have invested a lot of money into. Don't like Google, for any reason? Just use another engine: http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/ There is little reason for you to believe that list is truly "comprehensive", either. What does China have? Badu? It's not on that list. Seems ALL those search engines are English language, North American engines, so if you are fluent in some other language, you probably have even MORE choices. The fact that Google is the best for MY needs shouldn't influence people who dislike or distrust Google. They are NOT the only game in town. For Google to violate anti-trust and/or anti-monopoly laws, I believe that it must be established that they ARE a monopoly. I just can't see that. Of course, we are all aware that trials and judges can be bought, I think. Witness all the patent trolls, as well as actions brought by RIAA, MPAA, and others.
"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
It is true that Google downranks or delists pages that they deem to be "spammers".
These spammer / SEO folks would very much like Google to be forced to not filter their sites out of search results or be allowed to adjust their algorithms to downrank them.
It would hurt Google and google users if Google were not allowed to do this.
It would also ultimately hurt all search engines, except ones that are protected by being the default.
As there would no longer be a reason to prefer Google or any other search engine (they would always be full of spam, and typing any 'search' would just get a bunch of keyword spammers and SEO pages on the 1st 10 pages of search results.)
The reason that all monopolies outside of niche markets are government creations is that monopolies are usually illegal without government permission. This is because monopolies were shown over the course of centuries to be an economic evil. They are allowed to exist only when they appear to create significantly more economic efficiency than breaking up the monopoly would. And even then, the monopoly is kept under strict control and monitoring.
In other words, you're seeing few non-government-allowed monopolies because the government stamps out monopolies it doesn't explicitly allow for the purposes of societal good (electric monopolies, for instance). Unregulated markets tend to create monopolies unless government intervention stops it from happening.
You've put the cart before the horse, and then argued that carts don't actually NEED horses because the yoke and traces in the front are empty and the horse is in back.
....of dealing in the dark arts (i.e the hidden hand behind a case like this). I guess Google are too big to be that scared.