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Google Accused of "Cooking" Search Results and Charging MSFT Too Much
A reader writes "Google is being scrutinized by the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee for supposedly 'cooking' their search results. In an independent study comparing search results for products, Google Shopping consistently ranked 3rd. Eric Scmidt denied these accusations at a Senate hearing Wednesday." On top of all that, Microsoft is alleging that Google overcharges them as much as fifty-fold for advertising prices as compared to other buyers.
Where the competition will do literally anything, including tipping the ears of politicians with insanely expensive lobbyist to run you through the mud.
All search algorithms are "Cooking" results. There is no God given search result set for any query. Microsoft is no saint when it comes to discriminatory pricing.
Senate should do something useful, such as looking into Troy Davis fiasco and the general and routine miscarriage of justice, and Microsoft should just keep their moth shut.
You know this certainly adds a new dimension to the phrase, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
The point is that when the USA is a continually devolving government that stands out by how often they trounce the rights and freedoms of the people they are corruptly guarding, well it certainly begs the question: when are they going to crumble from their own weight and stupidity?
Nobody shed a tear for the dinosaurs. Nobody will shed a tear for humanity.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Schmidt's answers may not have satisfied "some senators," but Schmidt ultimately made Lee sound like an uninformed jackass during the Google Shopping line of questioning. Google may indeed be engaged in anti-competitive practices, but this hearing (which I enjoyed this afternoon live the C-SPAN XM channel) seemed merely to provide a stage for political posturing. If the evidence presented in the hearing were really the worst that Google was up to, I would be convinced they weren't "being evil" after all.
I'd hate to say this, but company $A having an algorithm that might be tuned however they damn well please does not constitute cooking... unless, there is a master defined algorithm that every search provider must follow. Yes... I can see the goose-stepping algorithm enforcement brigades now.
Now, are we going to start with the "In Soviet America Jokes", or are we going to just define the algorithm Führer and get over with it?
It's good to see the Senate is doing something, though. I was beginning to worry that they weren't doing anything. It may not be worthwhile, but at least it's something.
I think there is clearly some truth to the anti-competitive behavior from Google here. I think it is clear that in many cases Google does favor its services over its competitors. This creates an unlevel playing field and definitely stifles innovation. However unlike the MS anti-competitive case, I think the line between being anti-competitive is blurry and in some instances it is very hard to pinpoint whether Google is purposely being anti-competitive or its one of the consequence of them changing their search algorithm all the time to combat SEOs. In the case of Yelp, I think it is very clear in my mind that they are leveraging their search engine monopoly to compete. The issue here is not whether the consumer has choice to switch to other service. The main issue here is that a company is leveraging its dominant position in one area (search) to leverage other areas (i.e. local commerce).
I don't know or care if these accusations about Google are true.
I think the more important question is why should the government care about how Google is running their search results. They are the dominant search engine, but there are other competitors in this space and other alternatives.
Yet another example of government pushing its nose into something it doesn't understand in the name of the public good.
Several reasons.
If it results in false advertising, there can be a false advertising claim under the Lanham Act by a competitor or the FTC. unlikely in this kind of case, but Google has been investigated in the past for making money off of that kind of thing, and the same agency is doing the investigation here.
In addition, there's antitrust law. Merely having other competitors in the space doesn't mean that a company isn't violating antitrust law. The concern of antitrust law is protecting against anticompetitive use of a firm's market power in a way which reduces competition--in simple terms, doing this takes away from the total benefit that society obtains from the marketplace, because it results in the firm with market power artificially raising prices, meaning that the company demands more and produces less while people pay more for products the company would have been willing to produce for less had it not manipulated the marketplace--effectively, people lose the benefit that reflects the difference between the old price and the new price, and fewer people buy because it costs more, and the company doesn't gain as much as the consumers lose. So it's generally a net loss when a firm abuses market power.
Antitrust law doesn't always protect against monopolies, because it doesn't prevent people from using economies of scale or integrating their supply chain. It does, however, sometimes result in regulation even in markets that are or seem to be oligopolies.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
`On top of all that, Microsoft is alleging that Google overcharges them as much as fifty-fold for advertising prices as compared to other buyers', samzenpus
.. That’s what it’s doing now”, Jack Evans - Microsoft link
Take notice of the exact phrasiology eminating out of RedMond.
Google “shouldn’t be permitted to pursue practices that restrict others from innovating and offering competitive alternatives
I thought Google was a business? Can't they charge what they want?
What goes around comes around. The Redmond bullies are getting sand kicked in their faces.
Oh come on. I remember Microsoft's Bing doing some toasting> of their own on Google/a.
He failed to explain why Google results always came 3rd on product comparisons though.
The entire interview can be watched here .
I'm sure that MS would provide a totally fair, unbiased, perfectly even playing field if Google were to advertise on Bing. But then..MS does need to make Bing profitable somehow..
Speak for yourself. I've never forgotten about the dinosaurs. I'm welling up right now in fact!
*sob*
Why is the being policed? Google doesn't have any requirement to be fair, do they? Who ever said the search results were unbiased? This just boggles my mind as to why this is even an issue - they are a private company. I think they should prioritize their links, it's in their best interest. I don't necessarily agree, but if you don't like it use a different search engine. No one's forcing you to use Google.
FTA:
If true, the Microsoft allegations could be used to help the FTC build a case showing that Google abused its power as the owner of the world’s most popular search engine, violating the Sherman Act and other antitrust laws, said Andre Barlow, an antitrust lawyer at Doyle, Barlow & Mazard PLLC in Washington.
So if you're the most popular at something, you are suddenly held to higher standards?
I'm kind of confused here. Google may be the most popular advertiser right now but they're not the only one and certainly not the only successful one. How do they violate antitrust laws for charging various people/companies different rates? Couldn't Microsoft just as easily advertise elsewhere if they didn't like the pricing scheme? Sure it might not be as effective, but I'm not sure I like the idea that being "the best" means you aren't allowed to charge what you want.
That's not to say I support it.
"Google is being scrutinized by the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee for supposedly "cooking" their search results"
.. Google wants to compete with "algorithms built on core innovation, and not on recycled search results from a competitor"' link
Are these accusations coming from the same source that scrapes Google search results and posts it as their own?
`Mr. Singhal posted a detailed post on Google's official blog describing how the company came to the conclusion that Bing was copying the Google search engine
link
link
...because it results in the firm with market power artificially raising prices, meaning that the company demands more and produces less while people pay more for products the company would have been willing to produce for less had it not manipulated the marketplace--effectively, people lose the benefit that reflects the difference between the old price and the new price, and fewer people buy because it costs more, and the company doesn't gain as much as the consumers lose
I can still see the possibility of antitrust violations here...but honestly it sounds more to me like jealousy on the part of these other companies. Feels like the Senate is just procrastinating on the bigger issues by having fun with Google.
Duh. What are web search results if not pure opinion? "Here are a million websites, give me the ones you think are most relevant to query X". If Google programs its search engine to return website A before website B, that's totally their right. If you don't like it, use Bing -- it's not like Google is a monopoly, especially in the states. The same applies to the advertising complaint: if you don't like that Google hates your guts, buy your advertising from somebody else since you aren't exactly short on choices -- I hear Yahoo! might have special prices just for you.
Search is completely impossible to not have a bias. If it did so, it wouldn't be a search, it'd be a table of contents and also completely useless as a search. If they rank their own shit higher, well, that's their choice.
When you search for a microsoft KB article on bing, do you complain that it showed up ahead of other relevant results? no.
This isn't antitrust. If you are using Google's services, then you have a choice immediately and obviously accessible; direct your browser to a different website. The Microsoft antitrust suits were more about them bundling IE with their OS, which forces the user to use it, even if it's only to download another browser. This activity, combined with the fact that it was incredibly difficult (some would say impossible) to purchase a PC at the time without a Windows(tm) license attached to it meant that they were leveraging their OS dominance to push their other software, which is how they got in trouble. If Google wants to link to Google services at the top of their search results, so be it. If Google wants to charge Microsoft one hundred million dollars for a single-line advertisement... hell, if Google wants to tell MSFT to go fly a kite, then so be it.
Last I checked, businesses were still able to define their own prices (in most cases), and to sell (or not sell) their products and services to whomever they want to.
Why should Google let MSFT advertise in the first place? This would be akin to a television station selling advertising space to a different television station.
Microsoft got slapped on the wrist for being a bully, and is now trying to be a tattletale and get the other kids in trouble.
--
"Sit them in the corner, mommy, they won't let me break their toys!"
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Cause Microsoft is one of the biggest funders on Capitol Hill !!!
..
"Microsoft's chief Washington lobbyist has been convening regular meetings attended by the company's outside consultants that have become known by some beltway insiders as "screw Google" meetings
Microsoft is trying to harm Google in the regulatory, legal, and litigation arenas because they're having problems with Google in the competitive marketplace." link
If there are alleged violations of the law, then it should be investigated by the appropriate enforcement agency. That is never the US Senate. The members of Congressional committees are neither qualified nor competent to perform investigations. Congressional hearings almost invariably interfere with proper investigation and enforcement. I am convinced that that is intentional.
Friendly reminder:
Google's services aren't free. Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, all the other "services" you're referring to aren't their services. Google sells advertising.
It's about time someone charged Microsoft for all the wasted time fixing websites for Internet Explorer!
You are confusing their product with their customers. You, who use their free services, are not Google's customer. You are their product. They use their free search engine and other services to entice you into viewing pages. Otherwise, they could care less about you. Their customers are the ones who buy ad space on those pages that you view. Check out their prices; they are far from free.
They collect information about you (the product) and your actual or inferred buying habits to attempt to make their ad placements more relevant, so they can charge their customers even higher prices for them.
Well, for one thing, Google violated Clayton when it bought out it's next closest rival in its advertising business. And the competition was severely hurt as a result. I'm a bit shocked that nobody had the wherewithal to do something about it at the time.
It's about time someone charged Microsoft for all the wasted time and resources spent fixing websites for Internet Explorer!
You do realize that you often times see advertisements for cable on satellite and advertisements for satellite on cable. Not to mention advertisements for shows on a different channel.
The reason why they should be forced to sell the ads at a fair rate is because advertising is heavily dependent upon audience, if you control 60% of the advertising space, then you have a significant advantage over the competition as you can place ads in places where others can't place them, and you have a much bigger pool of places to put ads where they're more likely to be seen by somebody interested in the service.
If the allegations prove to be true, this would pretty much necessitate Google be broken up or in some way be required to reduce it's influence on the market. Considering that Google still gets nearly all of its revenue from the ad business, I think it's something they should be very worried about.
I don't see Bing advertising Google nor Microsoft advertising Linux. It took many, many years and literally millions of dollars in fines for them to simply remove Windows Media Center from EU versions of Windows.
I think Google has explained before how part of their algorithm works - if the site is faster, it's higher ranked. Since Google -> Google crawling is probably in the sub 10ms delay range, it will be higher ranked.
Google does not have a monopoly, get over it already.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Depends what they're planning to do. Congressional hearings are precisely the ones you want if the most likely fix involves changes to the laws. You can't really do that with the courts or regulatory agencies. And it may turn out that Google's behavior is technically legal, but nonetheless unacceptable.
Or at least you're not supposed to be able to, but SCOTUS tends to forget that it's supposed to declare things as constitutional or not, and in some cases weigh in on the interpretation of the law.
Nobody shed a tear for the dinosaurs. Nobody will shed a tear for USA.
FTFY and I don't agree, theres too many people that profi^h^h^h^supports your own weight and stupidity and nobody (excluding desk communist that think China is actually communism) would like to see China taking your spot.
The "crumble" is certainly a thing that you can't blame on anyone else but you, and a thing that can only be fixed by You. I know textbooks conditioned you all to thing that USA == the whole world, but lets get serious, you economy flops would piss in the face of a lot of people but the world as a whole will keep going on. I don't really think the next economic meltdown will cause the extinction of the human race (© 2001 Discovery Networks ), or am I missing something?
Fortunately, the US is not the guardian of humanity.
Of course, given their nuclear arsenal, aliens arriving at Earth would assume they are in charge of wiping out humanity...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Apparently you missed this. The FTC approved it, so you can stop trolling.
Exactly and IF it turns out to be true I really don't see the difference between this and the moves that got MSFT busted in the 90s. in both cases you have dominance in one arena (desktops and search respectively) being used to power their way into another market (browsers and shopping) which I believe would be a big no no under antitrust.
I have been wondering though about how google shopping does seem to always be towards the top and it smells funny to me. I mean be honest folks, how many of you have EVER bought anything from Google shopping? How many of you use Google shopping as your "go to" place for web shopping? I know for me its Amazon, Newegg and Tigerdirect, and if I just want price comparisons i use pricegrabber. i don't think I've ever used Yahoo or Google shopping for anything.
So unless there is a shitload of noobs somewhere shopping like mad with Google shopping it just smells "off" to me, but that's why there is an investigation, to see if it is off or not. But I have plenty of customers that do online shopping as well and frankly I can't recall a single one saying "Oh I got this from Google shopping" or Yahoo shopping either. Everyone just uses Amazon.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Google is a company. A company in a position to to control massive amounts of information. No one is denying these things. However, has EVERYBODY who uses the Internet forgot the phrase, "buyer beware"? What Google provides is not IN STONE, the end all be all for whatever you're looking for! It's one if they're doing anti-competitive behavior w/ regard to who they're doing money to money business with in their searches, but it's something else to claim because of their position, they must be doing something shady. It's the phreaking INTERNET people! BUYER BEWARE!!!
If MSFT wants to advertise whatever on the net, go use that stupid Bing (or bong or whatever the hell it was). If MSFT was any good, they wouldn't need to buy anything from Google. As for charging... MSFT has overcharged people billions for years for the same product over and over and over. At least Google offers value for money. Everything MSFT peddles is crap!
'well it certainly begs the question:'
No, it doesn't.
You do realize that you often times see advertisements for cable on satellite and advertisements for satellite on cable. Not to mention advertisements for shows on a different channel.
The reason why they should be forced to sell the ads at a fair rate is because advertising is heavily dependent upon audience, if you control 60% of the advertising space, then you have a significant advantage over the competition as you can place ads in places where others can't place them, and you have a much bigger pool of places to put ads where they're more likely to be seen by somebody interested in the service.
If the allegations prove to be true, this would pretty much necessitate Google be broken up or in some way be required to reduce it's influence on the market. Considering that Google still gets nearly all of its revenue from the ad business, I think it's something they should be very worried about.
Advertising is sold by the network, not by the telecom provider. Comcast has absolutely no control over what ads a given station can display, so they have absolutely no way of filtering out ads for satellite services. You see ads for shows on other channels (rarely, but they do appear), yes, but do you ever see ads for the news broadcast on other channels? Primetime shows are very different from one another, and generally people are going to watch what people are going to watch. If ABC refuses to display ads for 30 Rock, all they're doing is missing out on delicious revenue when the alternative is pretty much displaying redundant ads for a show everybody already knows about... but ABC is being forced by no one to display ads for anybody in particular. They can turn away whatever advertisers they want for whatever reason.
If you control 60% of the advertising space, then you should be able to charge a premium to your direct competition (and anybody else for that matter). Microsoft is directly in competition with Google in almost every way, and Google should not be forced to be "fair". If Microsoft really wants to advertise on Google that bad, then they had better be ready to pony up and make it worth Google's handful of lost customers.
Not all dinosaurs became extinct , some adapted . The Ostrich , for example.
So, it's possible we don't become extinct , but simply adapt.
Slipping shoelaces ?
Oh, just shut the fuck up.
If you run for Senate, I will vote for you. (He's right, but you'd be funnier in the Congressional Record.)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
You do realize that you often times see advertisements for cable on satellite and advertisements for satellite on cable. Not to mention advertisements for shows on a different channel.
And if you type "windows phone" or "operating system" or the like into Google web search then you get ads for Microsoft. So it's clear that they're not charging so much that they're preventing the competition from buying advertising.
Ad space is a finite commodity. Google is allowed to bid on it as much as anyone else. If they want the same keywords as Microsoft, Microsoft will have to outbid them. There is no functional difference between that and what Google is accused of doing, assuming that is not the exact cause of what Microsoft is complaining about.
The FTC is investigating. The Senate is window-dressing.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I watched the whole committee session. Schmidt did reasonably well. Susan Creighton, a lawyer from Wilson Sonsini speaking for Google, not so much.
The chart showing Google Shopping almost always in the #3 position in organic results was interesting, and weird. I look forward to seeing more details on that in the SEO blogs.
Schmidt had a painful time replying to questions about Google's active encouragement of offshore pharmacy ads. He refused to say much. Part of the plea deal is that Google can't deny in public statements what they admitted in writing in their plea bargain. (If they do, the plea bargain is off and DOJ takes them to court on criminal charges.) So Schmidt can't claim Google did nothing wrong. He could have been more apologetic, though.
Susan Creighton had a rough time. Google pays Apple $100 million a year or so to be the default search engine on the iPhone. She was asked about that, and tried hard to evade answering the question, which was put to her several times before a grudging admission that Google paid Apple for that. That's a real antitrust issue - buying your way into a new market when you're #1 in a related market doesn't go over well.
'Entice' might be a bit pejorative, but as you describe it, what possible law could Google have run afoul of? Even MS whining about being overcharged means SFA in this framework; the customer value is purely subjective. Kleenex, for example, should expect a different 'eyeball' rate than an obscure Scotch.
If MS get charged lots for queries like 'what is the shittiest OS', they might have a case. If they get charged a lot for eyeballs on 'viable mobile OS', well they are the obscure Scotch.
You are not the customer, you are the product.
You do realize that the majority of the time the satellite ads you see are injected at the network level, not at the cableco's local level. And cable ads are injected at the local affiliate level and not at the satellite co level. Right?
Depends what they're planning to do. Congressional hearings are precisely the ones you want if the most likely fix involves changes to the laws. You can't really do that with the courts or regulatory agencies. And it may turn out that Google's behavior is technically legal, but nonetheless unacceptable.
Or at least you're not supposed to be able to, but SCOTUS tends to forget that it's supposed to declare things as constitutional or not, and in some cases weigh in on the interpretation of the law.
Not necessarily true for antitrust. Antitrust law is almost entirely judge-made law, by design; Congress wanted it that way because it figured any attempt to legislate it would be bad--too hard to write the law to correctly apply antitrust theory to all cases, and each case would be different. So they just wrote a law prohibiting "restraint of trade," and theoretically every contract is in restraint of trade, but the DOJ and other agencies can only use it to go after people who engage in behavior which should be regulated under antitrust theory. Now it's possible Google or MSFT is lobbying for this to get a new statute written since their lobbying powers are MUCH greater than their influence over the courts, but this would be a *really* thin pretext for that sort of thing.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Are you familiar with the antitrust laws in this country? The laws don't include any details. This is pretty much the entirety of the statute prohibiting monopolies:
"Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony [and listing penalties]" (Sherman Act Section 2)
In other words, 'monopolies bad, you federal courts sort out what that means' -- and that's the way it has been ever since. There is a whole body of cases interpreting what that means. Congress has had nothing to do with it for something like a hundred years, through cases far more serious than whatever Google is accused of. What makes you think Congress is going to do anything different in this case, other than possibly the result of being induced by Microsoft campaign contributions?
Group had monopoly on popular music and controlled the musical preferences of millions of people alleged George Michaels - The Stones cooked their musical influences and gave preference to R&B whined Rick Astley and Wham. Today the Senate interviewed Keith Richards who failed to explain why drum machines didn't feature more prominently in his music. Expect new laws to be passed to protect [insert music production company name here] from unfair market monopolies by popular musicians. (don't worry about the deficit morons, watch more television, get fat, drink more beer - this is your wage earner's tax dollars at work)
Next week the Senate will be investigating Chinese claims that NASA controlled the space race, and unfairly denied Chinese companies manufacturing contracts for the Space Shuttle.
P.S. There's a lot of jobs currently available for market researchers needed to interview people about their views about how Google is evil...
But doesn't it stand to reason that a search engine would have its OWN results towards the top anyways? I think it also stands to reason that they WOULD charge a direct competitor more in the first place. I also find it a bit ironic that Microsoft would complain about price gouging when they have been known to charge upwards of $150 for an operating system.
Here's antitrust law in a nutshell..
Charging more than the competitiors? Must have a monopoly.
Charging less than the competitors? Must be unfairly undercutting them.
Charging the same as your competitors? Must be part of a cartel.
It's written very vaguely so whoever is successful yet unpopular can be prosecuted
I thought it was "The number one search term on Microsoft Bing is 'Google'", and "The number one search on Google is 'How to remove Bing Toolbar'".
I don't know or care if these accusations about Microsoft are true. I think the more important question is why should the government care about how Microsoft is running their operating system or web browser. They are the dominant operating system and web browser, but there are other competitors in this space and other alternatives. Yet another example of government pushing its nose into something it doesn't understand in the name of the public good.
Are you for some reason under the impression that saying something over and over again without any reasoning behind it will somehow make it true? The Big Lie only works when no one is around to correct you.
Let's try another business where the customers do not pay for the product: The public library. Naturally, if a library has more patrons, it can use that fact to better solicit for donations and grants, which is how it gets "paid" for providing its service. Do you then say that the reader of a library book is the product? No, because that's ridiculous. The reader is the patron/customer. Then there is a separate transaction between the library and the donors in which having a greater readership is advantageous -- but that does not make the provision of books to the public, or the provision of web search, any less of a service.
Maybe Google is recovering all of the money lost due to crashes, corrupted files, and all the other nonsense we had to put up with because you paid hardware manufacturers not to put anythig else on their computers.
Every time I click and Vista doesn't do anything, I use google to find something entertaining to watch until Vista responds. Using FireFox. With NoScript.
I wish they would give it to me, but as long as they are taking it from you when my government couldn't, I'm perfectly fine with that. I use you cos I have to, not cos I want to, and that hurts every day. Spread your cheeks and see how it feels.
Well, MS has to pay somehow for scraping Google for Bing results.
Wow, the ostrich is actually a pretty good example. What other animal buries their head as deep in the sand during trouble than we do?
Actually, the ostrich does not bury it's head in the sand during times of trouble.
When threatened, Ostriches run away, but they can cause serious injury and death with kicks from their powerful legs. Their legs can only kick forward. Contrary to popular belief, Ostriches do not bury their heads in sand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich
Google was accused of cheating a client today.
Those bastards!
The client in question was none other than Microsoft.
Those magnificent bastards!
It does. The accepted meaning of the phrase had changed in common usage, and this new meaning is not in any way inconsistent or erroneous. If anything, it is more literal and less an of an idiom, as a given line of reasoning indeed requires a certain question to be asked at some point. Take into account that the original meaning came from Latin, and was a very bad translation to begin with.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Maybe it comes high in the results because it's actually what people want to search for. Come on, we all know how these search engines work, and the proposition that they have hard-coded "if Google, bump up to 3" in their algorithm's logic is just laughable. Nobody is suggesting Google is colluding with Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia "mysteriously" shows up high in the search results all the time. This is ridiculous.
This is a political farce. The majority of people choose Google over Bing and Coke over Pepsi, there are plenty of alternatives.
But...but...Raptor Jesus went extinct for your sins!
"We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be." - Joss Whedon via Angel
This most be one of the worst stories I have seen, and it is only fitting that it comes now that the founder has left.
Those sentences don't even make any sense in the sequence they are given. The links are pointless. And the name is Schmidt, for Pete's sake.
Are you for some reason under the impression that saying something over and over again without any reasoning behind it will somehow make it true? The Big Lie only works when no one is around to correct you.
Let's try another business where the customers do not pay for the product: The public library. [...]
The public library is paid for by taxes and is a perfect example of a service which works best in that way. There is no "customer" there is just a citizen who has the right to read because the public have decided to pay for and create this service. Analysing this in terms of a business just doesn't work and will lead to inverted goals which will be completely wrong.
What's wrong with the claim that "you" are Google's product is that actually it's your attention which is Google's product. Google maintains a model where it provides the lead to you but the advertiser pays for your clicks. Contrast this with Facebook which gives pretty much full access to your profile to developers. Google's current business model pressures them to be a much less evil company because a) you are able to terminate your relationship with them and start using other services (Facebook can still sell your data even if you aren't using it) and b) they have to keep you interested in and not ignoring their advertising because otherwise they don't get their revenue.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
When would be about the right time to do an AT&T on Google and split is up into baby google's?
1 year, 5 year, 10 years, never?
The difference is that Microsoft's monopoly its self was illegally acquired (this is an appeals verified judgement of a US court; not just my speculation). Microsoft didn't just use their desktop monopoly illegally, their entire main business is illegally acquired. There's a whole bunch of "hang em high" people who run around wondering why we should punish microsoft. A bit like arguing Al Capone should have been let off because he was rich.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
So you mean google does care about me?
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
And for many people, even if they wanted to get to a different mapping service or place ratings service (see Yelp) they would have to find it through Google search. Or are you going to argue that Google is not dominant in Internet Search, and capable of using that dominance to push their products? Yes, there are clear similarities in the cases.
So you would be okay with Microsoft preventing other vendors from being able to run software on Windows that competes with other software that Microsoft makes? Although the bundling of IE was an important part of the case against Microsoft, the core allegations were that Microsoft inappropriately used their ability to control Windows APIs to generate artificial advantage for their other software by using undocumented APIs. That is the reason the initial ruling required the company to be broken up. IE bundling was just the foot-in-the-door the Justice department used to get the case into court.
Am I misunderstanding something, but if it is their product, can't they put whatever results they want in it?
The Microsoft antitrust suits were more about them bundling IE with their OS
Please, before repeating Microsoft's lies for them again, get the facts.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
I always center click MS adv. when I see them. I like to send MS money to the Pages I visit. Maybe like me a lot of people is doing the same thing.
I don't really think the next economic meltdown will cause the extinction of the human race (© 2001 Discovery Networks ), or am I missing something?
No , its just wishful thinking that it will lead to the extinction of Fatus Amercanus Nausiosum
Pffft. The bones of Raptor Jesus were placed by God to test our faith!
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Close. If you're charging more than your competitors for equivalent products then the free market dictates that no one will buy your products. Therefore, if people are buying them in large numbers, then this implies that there is some distortion in the market, which may be you abusing your market influence.
If you're charging so much less than your competitors that you are making a loss on each sale, then this means that you are subsidising your product from somewhere. If it is from some initial funding to gain a foothold in the market, then this is probably fine. If it's from sales of another product, then it may not be. If it's for the purpose of driving your competitors out of business, at which point you'll be able to raise prices, then it definitely isn't.
If you're charging the same as your competitors and you have large profit margins then, in an open market, one of your competitors would lower their price slightly and steal all of your business. You'd then repeat this a few times until you reached an equilibrium point where none of you were willing to cut anything further from your profit margins. If this isn't happening, then it is probably due to some agreement between the major players to keep the prices high, so that they each get a smaller market share than they would if they lowered the prices, but higher margins to make up for it. If so, then this is illegal.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Entice is not pejorative.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
It does. The accepted meaning of the phrase had changed in common usage, and this new meaning is not in any way inconsistent or erroneous. If anything, it is more literal and less an of an idiom, as a given line of reasoning indeed requires a certain question to be asked at some point. Take into account that the original meaning came from Latin, and was a very bad translation to begin with.
http://begthequestion.info/
"To beg the question does not mean "to raise the question." (e.g. "It begs the question, why is he so dumb?") This is a common error of usage made by those who mistake the word "question" in the phrase to refer to a literal question. Sadly, the error has grown more and more common with time, such that even journalists, advertisers, and major mass media entities have fallen prey to "BTQ Abuse."
While descriptivists and other such laissez-faire linguists are content to allow the misconception to fall into the vernacular, it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between the traditional usage and the erroneous "modern" usage. This is why we fight."
As has been said before, there are many ways to say "this is a question which needs to be asked". It is not necessary to take a definition of a logical fallacy and repurpose it so that its original useage is diluted.
I not surprised to see this on other sites, but on slashdot, where many people are coders who live by the knowledge of precise definition of terms, I am.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Relax, he was talking about Republican presidential candidates when confronted with Science (Perry, Bachmann) or Economics (Paul).
Who gets to decide if it's equivalent?
Why shouldn every product have to make it's own profit. I see printers at the store that cost less than their replacement cartridges. A new razor costs less than the replacement blades it contains. I still have a choice to buy or not.
You just said a few sentences before that a competitor can't lower prices to steal your business make up your mind. You also make the assumption that everyone is equally good at doing anything.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
And since in the USA antitrust is ONLY about ABUSE of a monopoly, not the existence of one, this too doesn't apply to the idea "you're held to higher standards". I.e. someone cannot abuse a monopoly they don't have.
Aside from the whole part about needing evidence of actual criminal intent, yeah.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Antitrust laws should not exist, but that's a larger discussion of why government shouldn't be allowed in business and money in the first place.
If a company has enough scale to undercut its competition, the government is then protecting the competition, it's not protecting the consumer with anti-trust laws, because the government then protects consumers from lower prices.
Government wants to protect business based on its relationship with a given business, but consumers would be better served by economies of scale if those economies produce lower prices.
IF a company does NOT provide low enough prices that there is no way to make money by producing a similar/same product and sell it cheaper or make it better quality, then there will be a competitor in that space.
Anti-trust laws are about protecting businesses, but not about protecting consumers. Consumers are better served with lower prices, not with large number of so called 'competitors', each of which provides the same freaking price/quality ratio.
You can't handle the truth.
Who gets to decide if it's equivalent?
The courts. That's what they're for.
Why shouldn every product have to make it's own profit. I see printers at the store that cost less than their replacement cartridges. A new razor costs less than the replacement blades it contains. I still have a choice to buy or not.
But these are within the same market, they are not cross-subsidies. You don't see Gilette giving away cheap printers. This is disallowed for a simple reason. If you permit it, then you eventually end up with only one company making everything. When the company wants to enter a new market, it takes money from its profitable divisions (where it's already gained a monopoly) and uses this to flood the new market with products until its competitors go bust. It can then raise the prices and increase its overall profit, making it possible to push into another new market, and so on.
These laws exist because companies did behave like this before they were enacted.
You just said a few sentences before that a competitor can't lower prices to steal your business make up your mind. You also make the assumption that everyone is equally good at doing anything.
No, I said that you can't lower your prices below your cost of production to drive your competitors out of business. This is called dumping, and it is illegal for a very good reason. If you permit it, then the company in a given market with the largest amount of capital will sell their products at below cost until all of the competitors have gone bankrupt, then hike up the prices.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And, since the development of IE was purchased out of the sale price of Windows OS, this is illegal bundling or subsidy.
Windows was also put on the burner for OEM contracts that forbid the sale of Non-Windows OSs or not bundling an OS at all. Which is also not what Google is doing.
Why is it so important that you neglect these huge differences?
All you need to do to stop using Google is change the preferences of the search panel in the top right corner of your browser (and since Bing is default on IE with search built in, you actually have to choose Google deliberately).
Lastly, since there's no monopoly power to exercise, the abuse of monopoly power is impossible to exercise. After all, the only barrier to entry is how much it costs for the servers and bandwidth. And if you're going to complain about that, you'll have to complain about Microsoft, Intel, GM, Walmart, ...
Why is it so important to ignore these huge differences?
I used to hate Microsoft but I have to admit that maps.bing.com are better than maps.google.com.
Otherwise, they could care less about you.
- so you are saying they care about me? If they could care less, so that means they care quite a good amount right now? That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
You can't handle the truth.
Why refer to microsoft as MSFT? Do you think it sounds smart? If you're going to play ticker symbols, why don't you use GOOG too?
Because you're a wanker, that's why.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If you pay any attention at all the numbers are stark:
70% of desktop searches
95% of mobile searches
75% of ALL online advertising REVENUE
The list goes on and by definition of a monopoly is having a large enough market share and being able to increase the costs of your competitors to do business. Bing lost $2 billion last year. The actual companies in the questions (Nextag and Yelp) have both claimed significant increase in costs of doing business since Google entered their markets (Google Products and Google Places respectively).
On the board with Apple, Apple releases iOS a year later Google releases Android? YouTube was huge, Google created Google Videos and failed. Google purchased YouTube. More recently, Google offered $8 billion for Groupon and was refused (why I have no idea). Google creates its own version and purchased Zagat, some airline price comparison and others. This is repeated over and over again in Google's history. Nextag has been around long before Google Shopping. Google partnered with Nextag, then offered to buy them but was refused. Google created Google shopping and all shopping results put Google in the top 3 far too often when Nextag has huge variance in its results ranking. In online advertising the practices are even more aggressive with Google purchasing analytics tools, admob, and tons of other small advertisers.
Now none of this means anything as of yet as it is just an inquiry, but the definitions and evidence are not really in favor of Google, even if Google is 100% above board. Anti-trust is not about good intentions, it is about competition. Further complicating matters in my opinion is the fact that we are talking about a nascent technology really and the ever-changing internet. What has to be determined is if Google truly has a dominance that cannot be broken because of that dominance. And that is going to be a very long discovery to include all of what Google (DNS, Analytics, advertising, etc) does and the advantages it has to drive traffic to Google. This is so much more difficult than the case against Microsoft as it is much less defined and choice is by-and-large easy for technical users, but that was the case with Microsoft as well. The question is not whether or not folks on slashdot have choice, it is whether the other 97% of the population does. Firefox search is Google, so is Safari, so is Chrome, so are all of the mobile phones except the Windows phone and some smasung phones. So yeah, the population can type in yahoo or bing, but why would they ever do so? An interesting and complex inquiry for sure, but we instead have yahoos like the Senator from NY kissing ass and begging for Google Broadband in the Hudson Valley instead of asking questions. Reprehensible. Half the panel was wiping their mouth after speaking about Google and the other half wanted to wring their neck. So I have no idea how an unbiased and valid result is going to occur. But the process will be interesting.
Bullshit. Accepted by whom? Fuckwads like you, or intelligent, educated folks?
On top of all that, Microsoft is alleging that Google overcharges them as much as fifty-fold for advertising prices as compared to other buyers.
That's fine. I allege that Microsoft is overcharging me as much as fifty-fold for a Windows license as compared to OEMs. A class action suit against Microsoft by all non-corporate windows users ought to be worth approximately sixty bajillion dollars.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Google services lands top simply because they *knows* the Google algo, and can SEO thier
pages to rank high in results.
That's an *unfair* advantage, which the n00bs asking the questions missed completly.
Google should charge MS $15 for each click that directs to an MS site. And give that money back to HTC as compensation...
If you control 60% of the advertising space, then you should be able to charge a premium to your direct competition (and anybody else for that matter). Microsoft is directly in competition with Google in almost every way, and Google should not be forced to be "fair". If Microsoft really wants to advertise on Google that bad, then they had better be ready to pony up and make it worth Google's handful of lost customers.
The IE problem was a matter of leveraging a monopoly. IE played on both the Operating System and Web Browser markets, and had a monopoly on operating systems. The issue with bundling IE with Windows was that it unfairly leveraged the OS monopoly to boost its presence in the Web Browser market.
What's happening with google is that they arguably have a monopoly on both the Online Advertising and Web Search markets. Microsoft needs to advertise Bing in order to successfully challenge google on Web Search, but google is using its Online Advertising monopoly to prevent that -- which, to me, sounds like leveraging a monopoly (though this time around the leveraging is defensive, with Google trying to keep its search monopoly, rather than Microsoft's offensive leveraging aimed at conquering a position in the browser market)
but could they take out Chuck Norris?
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
FWIW, ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand. They do build nests in depressions they dig in the ground (using their head), and do spend time like any other bird does, shifting their eggs around many times a day (again with their head), which gives an observer the impression that they have their head in the sand.
How this came to be associated with being frightened I haven't a clue. Try to sneak up on a parent ostrich and scare them while they're tending their nest. I can guarantee you they won't keep their head down. (and considering their land top speed of 60mph, you better be within a few feet of your dirt bike or you're going to get a boot to the head)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Comcast has absolutely no control over what ads a given station can display...
Although I don't have comcast, I have noticed a lot of what I consider to be commercial overlaying on my sat provider's channels. For example, a commercial for product X airs, and then a tiny snippet of the tail end of a commercial for product Y immediately follows, after which the 'real' program resumes. I expect someone along the line is hijacking the commercial slot for product Y and running their own commercial for product X, with the resultant slight timing discrepancy. It's really annoying, as if commercials weren't annoying enough in the first place.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
It is assumed and unproven; suggested yet still not proven. The question was when, therefore the question posed was asserting proof without proof. I love you hair-splitters. I really do.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Reminds me of when Microsoft used to make computer manufacturers a "deal that they cannot say no to" when bundling Microsoft Windows with consumer PCs, ultimately lockin down them to one vendor and restricting innovation and offering competitive alternatives.
GeoKone.NET
For the most part, the arguments against are idiotic, and pure FUD. Here is a great counter-argument, and also some good comments.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110921/14190816043/how-quickly-we-forget-googles-competitors-falsely-claim-google-dominates-because-it-was-first.shtml
Yep, and lemmings don't run off cliffs. Frogs don't sit passively in pots of slowly heating water. Yet these remain useful metaphors.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Business as usual at Google.
The Microsoft antitrust suits were more about them bundling IE with their OS
Please, before repeating Microsoft's lies for them again, get the facts.
Plus the 1994 consent decree should be considered as well. Microsoft didn't establish their monopoly through consumer choice.
"This isn't antitrust. If you are using Google's services, then you have a choice immediately and obviously accessible; direct your browser to a different website."
This isn't about you, me or other users. We are not Google's customers (as lots of others have pointed out). Our attention is their product, and their customers are companies which wish to sell to Google's users.
We, the users, can indeed switch to use other products, although leaving Google Mail is likely to be painful, but their customers may not be able to switch this easily. If Google holds a massively dominant role in internet search (and surely nobody disputes that they do), then companies which wish to sell their products may have little choice but to use Google's advertisement mechanisms.
I have no idea whether Google has actually breached any anti-trust regulations, but they may well fit the profile of a monopoly.
The only problem with the "judgement" you site is this: If you believe in a free market then its completely full of shit and here is why: If I have a product and I say 'If you buy from me you can't have a kitten" and reserve the right to check your house for kittehs? that is COMPLETELY WITHIN MY RIGHTS and you have NO right to tell me what I can and can't sell my product for. you have the right to accept, or to refuse, that's it.
If MSFT wanted to say "if you buy my product you can't have a discount and sell other companies products too?" that is COMPLETELY FINE and it is only activist judging to say otherwise. The free market says that as long as I don't ask for something that is illegal, such as to have your wife as a prostitute then I can set ANY conditions that I want, you are free to accept or refuse. that is one of the most basic core tenets of a free market.
What MSFT SHOULD have gotten busted for, and frankly what Intel should have gotten busted for as well, is the "It isn't done until lotus won't run" kind of bullshit, because that is rigging, pure and simple, and that is fraud. Both Intel rigging their compiler and MSFT rigging their OS should have been treated no differently than if Shell rigged their gas so if you bought from anyone other than Chevy you fouled your engine. Its using dirty tricks, plain and simple. same as Intel should have gotten busted for bribing the OEMs but NOT for setting terms in their sales that hurt AMD. if Intel wanted to say that PCs with Intel chips can only be blue? you are free to tell them no deal and walk away, that's it. when they start cutting checks under the table to OEMs is where they should have gotten busted.
You can believe what you want, but having the state set what terms you are allowed to offer with your product sets a BAD precedent in my book. What if some government bunch decides that contracts should be based on how "green" you are? Or whether you support unions? The free market comes down the the buyer and seller negotiating a price, at its core that is all capitalism is. if you subvert that badness happens. look at all the government meddling we've had in the housing markets, or bailing out wall Street for bad decisions.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Antitrust laws should not exist, but that's a larger discussion of why government shouldn't be allowed in business and money in the first place.
If a company has enough scale to undercut its competition, the government is then protecting the competition, it's not protecting the consumer with anti-trust laws, because the government then protects consumers from lower prices.
This case calls bullshit on your statements. Consumers didn't benefit from the death of personal computing choices. Price an IBM PC (or clone) against a consumer friendly system in the '80s (Commodore, Atari, Coleco, etc.); you see a sharp decrease in affordable computers by 1994. How did Microsoft's monopoly benefit consumers? Look at the viable operating system technology back then; OS/2 and Amiga were clearly better than Windows. Windows today still hasn't met all of the vapor promised with "Cairo". How has that benefited consumers?
> On top of all that, Microsoft is alleging that Google overcharges them as much as fifty-fold for advertising prices as compared to other buyers.
Or, explain to me again, how this whole 'taxing the rich'-thing is SUPPOSED to work?
Did you even read the post you're replying to?
which is totally what she said
So you would be okay with Microsoft preventing other vendors from being able to run software on Windows that competes with other software that Microsoft makes?
yes
In fact, I'd welcome it, all the more reason for people to go to an alternative os.
You, who use their free services, are not Google's customer. You are their product.
Yes, and similar logic goes for cable TV, newspapers, etc. That's a valid (and amusing!) way to look at it. But while it's cute, I think it misses some important things.
First of all, advertisement-based companies are acting as middlemen between companies with products and potential customers. When you think of them as middlemen it changes the perspective slightly. Example: let's say company X is a middleman for auto parts. They buy them from various suppliers, and sell them to various auto shops. Who are their customers? What is their product? You ~could~ say that the auto shops are their "product" that they "sell" to their "real customers-the suppliers". That's cute. But it's simpler to say that they have two sets of clients: they have the suppliers, who they give money to in exchange for parts. They have the shops, who they give parts to in exchange for money.
Similarly, I think it's more correct to say that Google has two sets of customers that they are trying to keep happy: they have end-users, who they give products for in exchange for their attention; and they have companies, who they give advertising opportunities to, in exchange for money.
The reason it's more useful to think this way is because this is how Google, internally, probably thinks about it. They view the end-users as customers who are using their products, whose needs have to be met. On the other hand they have another set of customers who want to maximize advertising, and they have to meet their needs also. This is pretty normal for a middle-man: you have to keep both sides of the equation 'happy' and balance them in such a way that you're get a useful cut of the action.
When viewed this way, what Google is doing (offering 'free' services supported by ads) is neither nefarious nor particularly unique.
That doesn't call BS to my statement AT ALL. Did I put a TIME LINE on my statement?
Did I say: at the very moment that one company gets an economy of scale, and if that company increases prices, right there, right then you will have an immediate market response?
First of all in this case it would be very subjective to say what the appropriate price for a piece of software is, it's a new type of software for personal use - an OS, Apple computer, MS, Amiga, Atari, Spectrum, etc., all sorts of computer systems came out and provided all sorts of choices. The market takes a little time to sort things out.
Secondly: MS (and other companies) enjoy government protection that comes from government protecting copyright and patents, and I believe that when government creates a monster by its own methods, then it's not a fair assessment of the market, to say that it is free, and it is failing, because it is prevented from existence by government regulations in the first place.
However in case of MS - yes, they were destroying competition. So what? Competition appeared anyway in form of Free Software movement.
Now the real problem is further government destruction of market by patent and copyright laws, which may help large companies, like MS, to destroy Free Software competitors.
So no, I am talking about a holistic approach - you have to get rid of government regulations that stifle competition and that's the only thing that creates monopolies.
Any time government sees a monopoly forming, it should really ask ITSELF - what are we doing here that is helping this monopoly to destroy the market? Let's get rid of THAT.
Because there is nothing like government force to create and help a monopoly. But when there are economies of scale, their competitors are NOT automatically what the market wants or needs. They want to get a piece of pie, and they are definitely ready to go to the government to help them subdue the larger player, but it's all to the detriment of the consumer.
You can't handle the truth.
Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.
I'm guessing this study is roughly as independent as the DPRK is democratic.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
I want a fair market. Because free markets are just a myth.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
All these replies to my comment that refer to begging the question are trolls.
From a previous response I made:
It is suggested the USA is on a collision course with destruction. No evidence was provided. None offered either because I feel as though there is enough available. However the assertion itself begs the question, but I'm asserting that it's allowed to.
Not happy with all the hairsplitting going on here. Stop it.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The extra charges are for copying Google's search results directly in Bing..
Which group do you fall into, AC? Gonna guess the first but I could be begging the question.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Because some services to some customer are free does not mean that all services are free.
Just because a companies provides ten services for free and only charges for one which is to business customers doesn't mean they can't be found in violation of anti-trust legislation over the service they charge for.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
... or were they there to test our resolve?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Rethinking email
Only if you can prove that Google was holding a gun to your head when you chose Google over Bing or some other search engine.
Wikipedia lists over 300 Internet search engines users can choose from, and most are free for the using. Many use DuckDuckGo, for example, because it doesn't track users activities. Google doesn't have monopoly on the Internet search engine, and in a supposedly free market it is entitled to charge what ever the market will accept for the use of its paid services. There is amply evidence to support the contention that Microsoft used Google search results behind its Bing search display, after doing its own ranking and organizing of the Google results. Maybe that is what Microsoft is complaining about? That they cant exploit Google against itself like they are exploiting Linux but suing vendors who use Linux under the unproven pretext that Linux contains Microsoft IP? IF Linux does contain Microsoft IP then Microsoft has to explain how Linux can be so secure and stable and Windows so insecure and unstable, of both are using the same IP.
Contrast Microsoft's claims against Google with the PC OEM desktop, which is a hegemony, a monopoly, totally controlled by Microsoft and its ad rebate dollars. Perhaps that Congressional committee investigating Google will ask the Microsoft witnesses to explain their pricing structure to the PC OEMs if one of the OEM strays off of the Microsoft plantation and begins offering other operating systems preinstalled on their desktops. Looking at the current PC OEM desktops one could conclude from their behavior, and that of Microsoft, that the PC OEMs are wholly owned subsidiaries of Microsoft.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
i dont understand the accusation... im sorry, i feel so ignorant right now. can someone please explain to me what they mean by google product search consistently placing 3rd? what are they searching for? with what search engine (google or google shopping) ? how can i attempt to replicate whatever they are testing?
We, the users, can indeed switch to use other products, although leaving Google Mail is likely to be painful, but their customers may not be able to switch this easily. If Google holds a massively dominant role in internet search (and surely nobody disputes that they do), then companies which wish to sell their products may have little choice but to use Google's advertisement mechanisms.
Do you know how to tell that the advertisers aren't being harmed? It's because they aren't the ones doing the complaining. It's Microsoft, Microsoft-funded proxies and a bunch of SEO spam companies doing the complaining, because Google is offering a better product than they are. You don't see Ford Motor Company going to Congress about it because they know perfectly well both that they have a thousand different ways to reach their customers and that Google is charging entirely reasonable prices -- just compare the cost of advertising with Google and with a print newspaper or radio or television and tell me which is more expensive.
Anyone else think that someone in the MS chain of command passed the idea up that Bing's failure wasn't their fault but was because Google was "cooking" the odds? It takes one guy desperate not to lose his job making the right/wrong comment in the right/wrong ear and we are back to playing the blame game.
Replying to undo incorrect moderation. Screw you, new mod system! I used to have to click "OK" to confirm, and I liked it that way. It wasn't broken, why'd they break it?
This isn't antitrust. If you are using Google's services, then you have a choice immediately and obviously accessible; direct your browser to a different website.
We are not Google's customers (as lots of others have pointed out). Our attention is their product, and their customers are companies which wish to sell to Google's users.
I never said we were Google's "customers"... I stated that people use their products. In order to be clear, the products I was referring to were their services, such as search engine, office document suite, maps/navigation, operating systems, etc.
The issue at stake here is that a senator has proclaimed that Google is cooking their search results and Microsoft has cried foul over pricing, so now Google is getting in trouble for making good products. A similar complaint might be Jimmy Dean crying about Eggo not allowing them to put coupons in their waffle boxes.
As for the senator's complaints, if you watch the video of the interrogation^W interview, Schmidt repeated several times that showing Google coming up third in every result meant nothing, because they were "comparing apples to oranges" - comparing Google's search algorithm to other companies' price comparison engines.
Microsoft is not the only one affected by the advertising price increases, and the other companies who have sued have been quietly ushered out of the courtroom and told to quit whining. I see nothing improper about raising the price of a product, especially one which has pricing based on bidding on keywords. Microsoft is upset that the prices have gone up, but the increase is a result of natural market forces.
In short, this whole thing is a "media scandal" designed to capture everyone's attention and make Google out to be the bad guy for managing to make a profit with services rendered to consumers for free. I guess making a better product and selling it at a lower price than the competition is illegal, now.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
What's happening with google is that they arguably have a monopoly on both the Online Advertising and Web Search markets.
No, they don't. If you have facts to back this statement up, then present them. Otherwise, I think we can safely discount this statement as fallacious.
Microsoft needs to advertise Bing in order to successfully challenge google on Web Search, but google is using its Online Advertising monopoly to prevent that -- which, to me, sounds like leveraging a monopoly (though this time around the leveraging is defensive, with Google trying to keep its search monopoly, rather than Microsoft's offensive leveraging aimed at conquering a position in the browser market)
Microsoft is Bing and other products. They have radio, TV, and print ads all over the place... and they have ads on Google, despite this supposed price hike. Google's ad system charges advertisers based on a bidding system, where advertisers spend more money for keywords that are requested more often. The price increase is a natural result of this "auctioning".
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
It's not really hijacking. Cable networks designate certain ad slots to sell to the providers. They typically end up being used for local advertising, but sometimes are used for On Demand or general ads for the cable company itself. Basically, the network sends out a signal that's encoded into the stream that triggers all the local cable systems to inject their own programming. Any given ad is supposed to be an exact length, but given the shoddy work of many small-time local commercial producers (especially those hired by Comcast Spotlight, etc) sometimes they just can't handle it, so they have to make it slightly shorter than the designated length. Sometimes, too, there may be an issue with the signal sync that causes a little glitch. The networks sell these slots to national advertisers at a steep discount (or sometimes for those who make big buys these slots might even be free) and run national ads that will end up being displayed to providers and markets that didn't buy that slot or aren't equipped for that kind of functionality.
I don't know how local a satellite provider can get with their ads, but they have the same opportunity to buy those same slots and could perhaps run national ads in them if they wanted.
Microsoft didn't use patent and copyright laws to abuse it's monopoly position in the 80s and 90s; it used market position to eliminate choice from consumers. This is clearly stated in the court documents. To say that competition exists in the form of the Free Software movement is pure folly. Look at the current PC market share. Microsoft still holds a monopoly position, that provides it with an applications barrier to entry. You would think that a free operating system of comparable or better quality would wipe out any non-free competition, but Linux has failed to gain a foothold in the consumer PC space. Big companies have and still do support Linux, so it's not a little guy against the big guy fight.
Smart phones and tablets might be showing a crack in Microsoft's armor, but it would be hard to argue that they would be running non-Microsoft operating systems without government antitrust action. Without government antitrust action against IBM, Microsoft would never have been born (along with the IBM PC (at least as an open platform)).