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Senators Recommend FTC Perform Antitrust Investigation Of Google
SharkLaser writes "U.S. Senators have written to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission about their concerns over Google's Internet monopoly. Google executives did themselves no favors when the Senators looked at Google's business practices in September. When asked if Google has monopoly in online search, Google chairman Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying 'I would agree, Senator, that we are in that area.' Another worrying quote is from Marissa Meyer, Google's VP of location services, who said that it was 'only fair' that Google put its own sites on higher placements than competitors. The Senators are also warning that Google is only facing one real competitor (PDF), Microsoft's Bing. Almost all other metasearch engines use either Google or Bing technology to deliver search results, including DuckDuckGo which uses Bing. In Europe Google is currently under investigation of monopoly abuse and the EU has also delayed Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility."
is a monopoly on something that is free, against the law?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
is it a monopoly when why are the best because everyone else is just that bad.
Proof?
I wasn't aware that a monopoly could be considered against a company when users by and large prefer a service they offer over their competitors. I wonder what's going to happen with this one, am I going to be forced to use a different search provider? Fat chance.
I can't wait to find out what Bonch thinks about this - after carefully onsidering all the angles and the fine nuance of the situation, will he conclude that Google have got it right on this, or will he have his doubts?
Last time i checked i had the choice to goto bing.com OR google.com. Seems everyone i know also has that choice. I wonder if there's anyone who doesn't have that choice?
Really? I know Microsoft Bashing is a sport here on /. and all, but it just blows my mind that we let MS do as they will but Google needs to be checked out. Hm.
Google has like 64% (google market share), with competitors Bing and Yahoo (now powered by Bing), and some others.
Microsoft has a 91% market share ( windows market share) with competitors Linux (FOSS) and Mac OSX (only available on Apple hardware, Apple openly sues you for building hackintoshes).
And yet GOOGLE is the one who needs investigating? Really?
Oh wait, I forgot, Microsoft is all buddy-buddy with congressmen.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
So, the leeches of society, the unproductive yet powerful politicians seek to control and destroy those who are productive, who create something for the public. Where have I seen this before? Oh yes, Ayn Rand.
"Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."
Their search results get worse each year. Way too much spam, placeholder and link-farms are coming out in the top results unless you're looking for something specific in a limited field.
We had search engines before Google came along, we moved to Google because it was vastly superior to what we were using. Now that they're serving a lot of crud, we, the masses, will eventually move to an alternative when someone else moves into the field. Apple are ramping up a massive ad system, maybe they'll move into search?
Google have to move into new fields, as they are more than aware their search dominance is going to slip away.
This is yet again another example of how politicians do not "get" technology. They insist that the "internet" is a controllable resource only available to the US. Now if they want to argue Google makes it difficult to get into the Web Search market, that is a different story. Even then the fact that Bing and other search engines exist on the internet provides proof that they are not a monopoly, but a very effective competitor in the market.
How you can own a monopoly in an environment where switching to a competitor who offers a better product at zero cost is beyond me but evidently some people in Washington seem to think differently.
Odd that the issue is being raised (yet again) just as Google publicly comes out against SOPA and Protect-IP.
The threat comes from the same politicians who are clueless enough to think they can tinker with the Internet's infrastructure without harming it.
Illegal monopoly, my ass. Google has done nothing to protect its monopoly, certainly nothing like forcing pretty much every PC maker in the world to use Windows, giving the illusion of no choice in software, and attacking competitors with underhanded tactics to help them maintain a monopoly. Microsoft should have been tried, convicted, and broken up LONG ago but Microsoft became a friend of the government and thus got a pass.
Just because Google does things right,getting where they are thanks to hard work and brand recognition, and that no one else has been able to duplicate their success doesn't make them an *illegal* monopoly. (Remember kids, it's not illegal to simply be a monopoly -- you have to do underhanded garbage like Microsoft has done to be an *illegal* one.) It's just because Google doesn't want to bend over and play the government's games that they're now being wrongfully accused of being one.
What a nightmare we all live in. Sadly, things aren't going to change until our citizens converge on Washington, D.C. armed and demanding to take their government back from the greedy moneyloving fucks that are ruining things for everyone.
AC for very obvious reasons.
the search 'engine' that ranks sites according to what internet explorer users click on OTHER search engine's search results - like google.
Read radical news here
Almost all consumers choose to use Google, instead of other search engines. Almost everybody has tried several other ways to search, but Google simply gives the best results the quickest, and consumers voluntarily choose to ignore the competition. What's the problem?
Oh well, I guess this gives the politicians something to do. Whatever keeps them busy, and doesn't harm the public too much is a good activity for politicians.
I don't understand why they keep investigating and investigating and just won't finally leave google alone. Are they a monopoly? obviously. Do they abuse their monopoly position? That stone's been turned over more times than the average river rock, and nothing's been found. Why don't they give it a rest already?
I can only assume at this point that the others that wish they were in google's position keep lobbying and prodding and whining for still another investigation, if nothing else than to be a thorn in google's side. Nothing's ever going to come of it, it's just a waste of my tax money.
Funny how companies like AT&T can get snowdrifts of consumer complaints, year after year before finally being investigated (once?) and being found abusive and broken up, and yet I don't hear any consumer complaints about Google, just a few bit companies occasionally crying in their beer, yet Google gets hit with inquiries nonstop like flies on honey. Somebody's got their priorities all mixed up. (or is taking payoffs repeatedly from all the wrong characters)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
the same whore who had railed against social benefits all her life, and then took healthcare and social security when she needed it in later years of her life.
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/
Read radical news here
While I agree Google does appear to be a monopoly on the outside, I don't think it's been abusing it's position and there is an alternative that people can use if they do not want to use Google. After all it's not like Google is saying that they own your computer and you're just leasing it from them.
Sadly the same cannot be said for the Cable provider. Cable Internet from one provider or my choice of Dial Up providers.
seriously, let's just cut to the chase here:
who's paying off which senators to do this?
congress doesn't do ANYTHING on principle any more & this doesn't make sense on principle anyway so obviously somebody (m$?) is greasing some palms to get this on the docket. debating it on the merits (or lack thereof) is completely irrelevant & a waste of time as we all know that isn't what drives the process.
sorry, but I'm in a particularly cynical mood today after reading Matt Tiabbi's latest article...
It's not illegal to be a monopoly. It's illegal to abuse that power. So, let's look at the main categories of anti-trust abuse that have been prosecuted in the past:
Limiting Supply - there's no way Google is doing that...
Predatory Pricing - They have always been free, as are the competitors. Then again, could that be classified as predatory I guess...
Price Discrimination - The same as above
Refusal to deal - Not that I've heard of...
Exclusive Dealing - Not that I've heard of either
Product Bundling - This is tricky. Sure, their products integrate. But then again you need to sign up for each one separately. There's no "Use search and automatically get this other product"...
So, either they will need to go out and tread new territory with little legal precedent to lead the way. Not saying it should or shouldn't be done, but just that it's a relatively new area.
Additionally, I really find the line who said that it was 'only fair' that Google put its own sites on higher placements than competitors odd. Let's show a few examples:
Free Email - GMail is #5 on the list for me. Yahoo, Mail.com, Hotmail and GMX.com are all above it...
ebooks - Google Books is #6 on the list. Ebooks.com, Amazon, Project Gutenberg, Barnes and Noble and Free-ebooks.net are all above it...
Online Calendar - Google Calendar is #3 on the list.
US News - Google News isn't even on the first page for me (not even in an ad)...
Shopping - Google Shopping is #2 behind Shopping.com
Now, searches for News, Gmail, Images, Videos, Maps and other product names return google first. But that sort-of makes sense, since those are the product names...
In fact, searching for Maps and Images on Bing returns Google for the first results! Is it an anti-trust violation to name your products intelligently???
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
They are just doing everything they can to beat up Google. To tie it and restrict it and (if all else fails) destroy it. Facts be damned.
Congress' brief relationship with silicon valley has long since ended, and they're doing everything their rusty old selves can manage in order to placate and "secure" America's "#1 Industry".
Any company that gets as big as Google should be investigated for being a monopoly, trust or anchor of a cartel. By "big" I mean both market share and sheer size in either revenue, profit, market cap or assets. Because when a corporation is that big, it probably is distorting the market substantially in those ways. All the other businesses, and of course the people, are paying taxes and expecting as citizens their government protect them from such abuses.
There's plenty of research the FTC could do automatically on any company that gets that big without causing any costs beyond routine compliance processing all its competitors also do. They should, and any substantial evidence of something more serious should automatically trigger a fuller investigation. The government should not have people whose discretion protects favored corporations from these compulsory reviews, who are obviously going to be corrupted by companies too big to stop. They should not get too big to stop before the government starts stopping them.
FWIW every president should have an impeachment committee fired up and researching impeachable offenses starting the day they're elected. These various executives have far too much power to corrupt, delay and stop investigations that are the people's only defense from their crimes.
--
make install -not war
Odd that the issue is being raised (yet again) just as Google publicly comes out against SOPA and Protect-IP.
This was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this headline. There is no way I can see this being coincidence. Too well timed.
"is a monopoly on something that is free, against the law?"
It's free to you. It's not free to advertisers who are google's actual customers of its main business area.
Your eyes on google's search pages are the commodity being sold.
Look at broadcast TV in the decades before cable. It was free to the "users". It wasn't free to the actual customers, the advertisers. The user's (viewers) attention was what was being sold.
(This isn't saying google is doing anything wrong, or right for that matter. Just that your picture of it being a "free" service is wrong.)
If they really wanted to investigate monopoly abuse:
Look no further than Ebay / Paypal. That relationship is a rediculous example of monopoly abuse. Ebay cornered the market for online auctions and then forced paypal on to everyone.
Oh wait... we haven't heard this before. Where was the letter from senators complaining that Microsoft could do these same kind of things?
I haven't checked yet but does anyone know whether senators Kolb and Lee have received sizable bribes^Wcampaign contributions from Microsoft, their friends, lobbyists, or industry groups that have Microsoft as a major supporter? (I'm guessing that they have.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The Senators are also warning that Google is only facing one real competitor (PDF), Microsoft's Bing.
That's like saying the only competition Country Time Lemonade has is that kid selling lemonade on the street corner, which may or may not have come from a bottle of Country Time Lemonade to begin with.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
...this is being instigated by the same people behind ACTA/SOPA? The same people that have certain senators frothing at the mouth when it comes to Google?
Big Content strikes again. I wonder if it's going to take twenty years before the old fogies in charge finally retire and someone steps up to the plate and realizes that YES, search engines profit off of advertising while people look for other people's content and NO, that isn't unethical or illegal. Google Search is an indexing service with a lineage that traces back to the days of directories and web rings! It's a monopoly just as much as Facebook is in the social arena -- people use it because it works and works better than its competitors (oh Bing, you're serious, let me laugh even harder).
The senators have solved the Economy crisis.
Oh wait they havent? Then what the hell are these idiots doing working on ANYTHING ELSE but the economy?
The Senate and House of Represenatives are full of drooling morons.
They never learned how to buy governments. Technology means nothing, without active participation in good ol' corruption, you can't achieve much in most of the world, including the US.
There is NO NEED to report search results impartially.
Since all you need to stop using google is to go to a different search engine site, there is NO REASON to require this helping of any competitor.
You see if Google makes their system less useful by their pushing of their sites up the rankings, then people will leave.
The ONLY way you can make it "reasonable" to do as you require is if you require ANY search engine has to do this.
But I don't see this happening at all, do you?
Make their search worse than the others. That is the only way to fix it their monopoly problem. /facepalm
Shut up and punch yourself in the face. Seriously.
I can still get to bing.com, yahoo.com, altavista.com, lycos.com, and ask.com. Maybe its not that we are forced to use Google, but that Google has superior products so we choose to use those products.
End Transmission....
Make that 'Kohl' and not 'Kolb'. And, while I didn't see anything in the FEC listings about Kohl having received anything substantial from tech companies, Lee, on the other hand, seems to do nothing but collect money from PACs and corporations. (The only link I see between these two guys is the concrete industry which makes you wonder what sort of back scratching is going on here.) Both Microsoft and K&L Gates (Bill's daddy's law firm) were contributors. Hmm...
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Can we perform an anti-trust investigation on Congress? :/ I trust Google more than our Congress.
Because companys keep complaining about Google.
This is a case of Yelp! and Nextag whining that they don't get as much business from googles links as they feel they should.
I have now removed Nextag and Yelp! from my devices.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I use Yahoo
I even use Bing
If Google was a monopoly, how would I be able to use those other search engines? I was never stopped from using them.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I can't believe all y'all're missing the point so spectacularly.
Yes, searching on Google is free. So what? Over-the-air TV is free. That doesn't mean a broadcaster can't have a monopoly.
Google's not a searching company any more than they're a Webmail company or a YouTube company or whatever.
They're an advertising company. Their customers are those who pay them to run ads, and the product they sell to their customers is the eyeballs of those who see the ads.
And they are very much a monopoly in that arena.
Sheesh. It's like everybody else who's posting on this thread needs to turn in their Geek cards. I thought y'all knew this already...?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
The original poster oversimplifies what was said at the actual Senate hearing. Fast forward to 1:21:50 here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/301681-1
Herbert Kohl: but you do recognize that... in the words that are used in antitrust kind of oversight... your market share constitutes monopoly...dominant - special power dominant for a monopoly firm. you - you recognize that you're in that area?
Eric Schmidt: um i would agree senator that we're in that area um again with apologies because i'm not a lawyer my understand of monopoly findings is that it's actually a judicial process so i'd have to let the judges and so forth actually do such a finding...
Can we perform an anti-trust investigation on Congress?
Yeah, if you can get anyone to stop laughing long enough to take you seriously...like you're going to find anything other than rampant greed and corruption? Palm grease at that level gets delivered in 55-gallon drums, not little squirt tubes.
Hell, the criminal records of those in Congress should be enough to paint a rather ugly picture. Ironic how most companies won't hire a criminal to be CEO, but we sure as hell don't mind them running our country and making our laws.
Is monopoly on web browser usage in the 1990s with a free product (Internet Explorer) against the law?
The MS trial was a debacle, and the terms have expired. The EU and DOJ decrees basically solved nothing, as the upcoming mass of Windows 8 tablets will show. Kotar-Kelly was a soft hand, and Thomas Penfield was confused at best.
The DOJ has been all over the AT&T / T-mo deal. Nothing about MS.
The US government is beside itself doling out the most absurd patents imaginable to the likes of MS and Apple, while hounding google at every opportunity.
Clearly Google is a neophyte at bribery / lobbying.
Almost all consumers choose to use Microsoft, instead of other operating systems. Almost everybody has tried several other ways to abstract away underlying hardware, but Windows simply gives the best results the quickest, and consumers voluntarily choose to ignore the competition. What's the problem?
Are you saying that Google is free? I can place ads all I want and Google won't charge me?
The only thing that I would call anti-competitive behavior is the requirement of a Google account in order to use the android market.
Most third-party android markets use the original google market to install software, so that limits that avenue as well. (I don't really
want my cell phone to tied to my Gmail account/etc because that enables my location data to be tied to my google account...
And since google uses push updates and push install, this means that a google employee could very easily remotely install software
on my cell phone knowing only my name...)
The big antitrust issue is Google's preference for its own services in search results. Search for "new movies" with Google. Everything on the screen is a Google ad or service. No organic search results appear above the fold. The same thing happens for "DVD player", where everything is either an ad or Google Shopping.
As Senators Kohl and Lee write: "Rather than act as an honest broker of unbiased search results, Google's search results appear to favor the company's own web products and services. Given Google's dominant share in Internet search, any such bias or preferencing would raise serious questions as to whether Google is seeking to leverage its search dominance in adjacent markets, in a manner potentially contrary to antitrust law." Exactly.
US antitrust law comes from an era when railroads dominated the economy. Railroads could use their routes and shipping rates to extend their influence into real estate (especially in the western US, where the railroads came before the population) and manufacturing (by favoring affiliated manufacturers in shipping rates). Google now has something of a comparable position on the Internet.
Assume the following premise: if I, Senator (fill in the blank) come from a state where M$ has a large presence and/or I receive a large PAC or other donation traceable to M$ or M$ dominated interests, I will of course want to investigate all of the other nasty players in the software industry who are of course trying to become (presumably) evil monopolies. If I, Senator (fill in the blank) come from California, etc. where Google, et. al is strong and Apple is strong, I of course will want to investigate all of the other nasty players ________ who aren't buying my influence..... (?)
Now does anyone wonder why a Senator from Utah is so up in arms that he wants unpaid unelected bureaucrats to get nasty with Google, et. al?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I honestly don't understand what the FTC intends to accomplish by investigating Google for antitrust. As many have already stated, they provide free services, and no one is forced to utilize Google's engine rather than Bing or Yahoo or Altavista or Yandex or Rambler or Lycos or any other of the myriad of engines available. Same goes for email; there are hundreds of free email providers.
What would be productive, is an investigation into tax code, to prevent the larger players such as Google from dodging taxes by sending the vast majority of their profits to overseas bank accounts.
The U.S. Congress is doing everything it can -- even to the point of throwing people in jail and breaking the Internet - to prop up the monopolies it grants for copyrights, patents and trademarks. It does not investigate the increasingly prevalent practices of monopoly-by-litigation used to eliminate competing products and bankrupt competitors . Yet it investigates Google for providing free stuff?
Google really needs to beef up its lobbying presence in Washington and start contributing $50K+ a year to Congresscritters like big media does. It's a lot cheaper than suffering fines and investigations.
https://blekko.com/ is an example of a competitor which has its own index.
My screen lacks a "fold".
They got sued for this once before this isnt the first time they have abused the customers trust. Paid listing were placed on top of all the results with no warning that they were paid results thats why the paid ads are in colored blocks marked paid ads. I am sure we can say that Google has gone evil because they are doing the same things that got them into trouble in the first place. Their only true claim to fame was graphic free search results.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Tried both searches with Google and "one real competitor, Microsoft's Bing", didn't see much difference in results.
In fact, the main difference is the order of results and that Bing's search for "new movies" gives 3 links to blockbuster on the first page - with 2 of them in ad blocks on top and bottom, and quarter of the page is movies.com repeated twice as first result, while Google's search at least gives you rottentomatoes and imdb links as a breather in "buy new movies" entries prevalent in both searches.
And the main difference for "DVD player" was first link to bestbuy on google.
In the end, the only point you made is "We're fucked either way".
PS: Also, what "organic results" did you expect to see for those queries? I kinda expect that for this kind of queries any modern search engine will quietly assume "I want to buy ..." prefix. Try "dvd player internals" for better example and see how only organic results are in google's case, while Yahoo and Bing still just want to sell you internal DVD player.
The employers of these career criminal politicians should demand an investigation into the monopoly of corruption.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Investigate Google. Who is a major provider of internet search/advertising but has never been convicted of abusive monopoly practices of trying to diversify into other areas. Then limit them so that a convicted abusive monopoly (MS) can gain market share into search or other areas. "Look over there!!! It is more important!!!" "Don't watch what I (MS) am currently doing. It is unimportant." Simple misdirection while causing your competition great grief.
Senator: “Do recognize that in the words that are used in antitrust kind of oversight, your market share constitutes monopoly, dominant — special power, dominant firm, monopoly firm. Do you recognize you’re — you’re in that area?”
Schmidt: “I would agree, Senator, that we’re in that area" link
Microsoft is one of Mike Lee's top donors.
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00031696&type=I
I don't RTFA ...So, are these Senators the same traitorous bastards who are behind SOPA?
Just wondering.
Here's an informed opinion on the subject.
Google recently added a feature so that if you add + to your search terms you'll be taken directly to the + page of first hit or something like that. You could argue that they're using their dominant search market position to conquer social networking market.
IMO the real monopoly class violation Microsoft was guilty of was having API calls that only they knew the depth of & use of.
their in house software (Office) could do things with better integration under Windows that competitors could not because the available API spec was flawed and incomplete.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
How can Google be a monopoly?
monopoly: [muh-nop-uh-lee] Show IPA
noun, plural -lies.
1.
exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. Compare duopoly, oligopoly.
2.
an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.
No one forces a person to use Google services. In fact, the Google Ad words is a right-aligned service with customers. Can someone list the unfair practices?