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Google Could Face Heavy Antitrust Fines In the EU
SquarePixel writes "Europe's competition watchdog is considering formal proceedings against Google over antitrust complaints about the way it promotes its own services in search results, potentially exposing the company to a fine of 10 percent of its global turnover. Google is accused of using its search service to direct users to its own services and to reduce the visibility of competing websites and services. If the Commission found Google guilty of breaking E.U. competition rules, it could restrict Google's business activities in Europe and fine the company up to 10 percent of its annual global revenue (US$37.9 billion last year)."
... just saying.
I, for one, welcome our new European overlords if they actually prove effective at punishing Google for their transgressions and regulating them into compliance.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
Even if Google does what they suggest, Why is it illegal for a company to promote itself over others on the services it provides for free. If you don't like Google, don't use their services. It's not a requirement.
Google should hire a hitman and just kill Steve Jobs. He's outta control.
You're using Google services for the search. Maybe because you're interested in Google services. Maybe not. But expecting a company not to promote their own services is plain stupid.
This is another example of the European Over-Regulation that makes them the target of such derision around the world.
So the EU wants to fine Google for all of these supposedly malicious activities that happened completely outside of Europe and had not effect on Europe at all? Hrm.. if only this was the U.S. under a Republican President, then we could see about 500 posts on how the Imperialistic America is forcing its laws on people all over the world. However, since it's the EU then it's "consumer protection" to go after the Big Evil American company for it nefarious activities taking place in Burkina Faso and Papua New Guinea...
Bing does this as well, I do not think it is particularly fair to start fining people for doing something that has been going on and in the open since internet searches were first born.
Now if they wanted to created some regulations to protect internet searches to make them fair, well that would be a good start.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The article links to another article with a very different tone from July:
"Google and EU poised to settle antitrust investigation "
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/072412-google-and-eu-poised-to-261131.html
Which includes the line: "Schmidt's proposals addressed all of the concerns they had raised with Google, European officials told the Financial Times."
In my experience, the only people who complain to the EU are competitors trying to fiddle with Googles business model. I think people who sponsor that sort of activity should attract fines of their own.
I doubt very much though that the EU will/can do very much here.
One part of the problem is that people are trusting Google more than almost any other company. Google often exercises restrain and good will and of course for most services doesn't charge anything (because its users are not its customers actually), so people are extremely forgiving.
I'm not sure about what will grow out of Google. I wouldn't be surprised though if Google were the first iteration of a more or less lenient super-AI of the future. If any of you have read the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks: The first Minds probably looked very similar to Google. If *this* will be the ultimate outcome, I'd say fuck the EU and hail Google.
Reality isn't a novel though...
But to me, this is akin to a restaurant being threatened with fines for not directing some of the customers to its competitors.
The search engine industry should advertise like everyone else, or offer superior service.
Google could buy a very well armed and well trained East German team to level Brussels and kill any lingering thorns.
Where is the corprat EVIL? It would make fabulous headlines.
Maybe Google should have simply posted up their own services as an Advertisement item in search. Instant First rank, no problem -- they could even have the department "pay" the rest of Google to do it (although I'm pretty sure they would have to be careful with accounting rules, taxes, and so forth).
As this comes directly from Microsoft and a couple of paid minions of them its pretty lame. Its so obvious who is behind this. What Google should try to do is to get any remedies they have to do be written down as much of it is applicable to Microsofts own promoting of MS Office inside Windows and its Server products etc.
When you cant compete, litigate. If everybody laughs at you for the sheer audacity, get a couple of toady minions to do your dirty work.
HTTP/1.1 400
It would be nice for the EU to keep their own house clean, perhaps go after some domestic corruption. However, since US bashing is so popular, going after a US company always makes them look good to the proles at home.
Bread and circuses... persecute the foreigners is always a win no matter what the country. Plus, it gives the EU a right to exist and make some money.
This is getting old, the every couple days another story splashing the Evil Google name in the headlines with hardly any change from the previous round. There will be progress in the MS-EU-Google tussle over time but basically there's nothing to say until it's over and done with. And by then some of the wild accusations of exposure will magically have faded to something actually reasonable.
Google is more evil than Microsoft ever was.
...levy fines against global corporations in a different currency, then convert to assets which belong to the Treasury.
Google: butthurt. Seriously butthurt.
Federal Reserve: butthurt. Although they'll just handicap to their masters in Zurich for a bailout. Not so butthurt.
Eurozone: laughing all the way to the... bank. Seriously, they just made nearly 400 billion US (see fractional reserve banking) and the public purse doesn't get to see penny one of it.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
bunch of anti-capitalists in the EU. Google is under no obligation to anyone to show any search results other than the ones Google wants to show. You don't like how their search works? Go use Bing. Go use any of the many other search providers. Vote with your feet. Stop trying to be nanny to everyone and assume they aren't capable of finding what they want in more than one way.
The EU is a cunt. Everyone associated with the EU is a cunt. Don't be a cunt.
You can bet all of those complaints are from Microsoft's family of shill companies. They can't compete from a technology point of view so they complain to the EU about their incompetence. It's about time Google goes ballistic on Microsoft and exposes them for the dirt bag company they really are.
Read up on rules on monopolies. If you have a dominant position in one area and use that to gain an advantage in other areas, that's when you are in trouble. If no such rules were in place, the natural evolution would be that one company crushing all the others. Be thankful that that this is happening. It's good for you in the end.
Fully agree. However, when does one thing (search) become two things (search, maps), in which the one is used to abuse the other? Based on the suggestions here, the only thing that Google can do is provide an interface for customers to choose absolutely everything. However, where do you draw the line? What if I want my searching based on a specific algorithm - have google leveraged their ad presentation infrasstructure into the algorithm development business? What if I want them to use a different ad server? What if I want them to use a competitor's font - are the typesetters being disadvantaged here?
What if we parametricize this - are they extending search into restaurant reviews - should Yelp sue? What about the whitepages - should phone information services sue? Etc, etc.
There's an insidious aspect in that because Google's product is free, every aspect of their operation can be seen as another 'free service' that is connected (illegally?) to their search operation. Is Maps another service or just another way of showing search results?
I could see a clean break with a service like Mail - that has little to do (from a user's standpoint) with their core search business, though on the biz side of course they're both part of the ad business. So if they're popping up GMail on top when you search for Hotmail (they don't, btw), that would be one thing. But simply presenting search results on a map, or showing a map of a locality that is searched for, calling that anti-trust is brainless.
Two other things: 1) Companies shouldn't have to guess what can be construed as anti-trust under very creative definitions, they should be given notice first. 2) There's a clear conflict of interest when the body that fines you gets to keep the loot.
"Hey, Google. (insert OP contents here)...unless a more...equitable...arrangement is agreed?"
Microsoft started donating hand-over-fist, This, combined with their philanthropy, largely dried up attacks by pontificating politicians around the world.
An outrageous statement? No, a prediction. Google will learn to play the game and start making many more political "donations".
And, to quasi-knowitalls, what part of prediction don't you guys understand?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Like removing the great Google Maps app for their own worthless version. If that is not anti-competitive then I don't know what it is. And please don't tell me that is because it's apple own device and they can do anything they want, because google services are on google servers and they should be able to do anything they want as well.
I am seeing a huge number of Youtube results at the beginning of responses when I have not made any search entry for video. I find it very doubtful these would show up if were a competing video service.
'Google Executive Face Rendition, Arraignment and Death by Court Ordered Execution following their criminal acts against humanity'.
Now that is a title I will stand and solute.
8D
But wouldn't that be the purpose from the inception for a search engine provider to market its own services in the first place? Correct me if I'm wrong, but self-promotion is HOW MONEY IS MADE. And unless a competitor is offering Google more money than it would make from its own services in order to slant search results, I see this as pretty much a non-issue, in the same sense that you don't see one car dealership recommending the services of a competing dealership. That's now how this shit works in the real world. If this somehow upsets a competitor, then the competitor should be building a better product if they hope to compete and come out on top. If EU is actually going to so fine Google for promoting its own services... that it provides... FOR FREE... then perhaps they should also start going after companies that design products on store shelves that are too eye catching or colorful, and specifically targeting those companies AND corporations that allow these colorful, fancy (and sometimes superior quality) products to be placed at eye level in the supermarket.
Isn't this kind of like asking the concierge for a dinner suggestion and being referred to a restaurant in the hotel rather than outside? ... I have a pretty good idea in advance what they are going to say.
If I ask someone who runs a landscaping company who I should get to mow my lawn
Ouch
They have complained about Google, shown that Google have 80%+ of the market and insisted they be investigated.
However, it's really, really, really hard to leverage a monopoly when the only power you have is being better than the competition.
You can be an illegal monopoly on 1% in theory. You need a hell of a lot of leverage (e.g. be government mandated), but no actual figure for how much of a market you need to be charged under abusive monopoly laws (though the EU has a guidline figure of 60%, this is explicitly stated as a guideline).
I have a feeling Google is not going to like the EU very much in a couple of weeks from now, as another study is poised to come out (I've seen the drafts and they are ugly - and correct).
Let them slowly slide back into the 1950's. They've decided that the remedy for socialism is Stalinism. Fine. Go do that.
from the 'we hear you have a lot of money department'--when apple is the company with the highest market cap on earth? Should be from the 'planning to fight the last war dept'...
They passed the law, if you do not like the laws there, don't do business there. This is a way to soak more money out of companies. They are looking for ways to fund the socialist failures. Something for the US to look forward to.
I've never seen Coke plug Pepsi on their cans either! It's their product! of course they're not going to plug their competition! They're not some universal utility thing that everyone has a right to. Their search engine and advertising are 100% owned and created by them so they can remove their competition from it all they want.
I'll be a bit extreme here, but I can't see the problem when a company promotes its services better than those of the competition. I would go to such an extent to say it's my obligation to promote my offerings better than others'. I see two was to deal with this: i). force each ad every search provider to not promote their own services at all, or ii). let all search providers promore their own services as they see fit. For me both would be acceptable, but doing these investigations over and over again is just a waste of time and resources, and our [EU] taxes.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
they should hire a small army of mercs to remove a few high profile political targets that are pushing this agenda and put an end to this nonsense by setting the proper example
You just said the other day (either under this or your regular roman_mir account) that it is not up to you to decide who lives or dies. Yet you just ordered the assassination of someone you disasgree with. Can't you just stay to one side of an issue? How do you plan to recruit more followers to your religion when you keep waffling on issues that you claim to be knowledgeable on?
Google is accused of using its search service to direct users to its own services and to reduce the visibility of competing websites and services.
So google is considered to be in the wrong because they don't promote their competition on their results. Tell me, do you typically see Burger King advertisements at McDonalds?
Seems mad. Google might want to advertise their services so they seek out the most successful on line advertiser which is hmmmm Google? So they place their adds with them self and charge the going rate for advertising your own products which is nothing; meanwhile the users are completely able to go use a different search because unlike the world of OS or proprietary office formats the users aren't locked in?
I don't get it unless members of the EU Commission all happen to be iPad users:-)
EU anticompetition laws are quite complex and powerful, and they work (as Microsoft about that), but I have little doubts that I can fully see Google's fault here. It's one thing to promote yourself ahead of your clients - it's not forbidden. There is one slippery slope though and it will be interesting to see result of this investigation, which I trust more than "IT analysists".
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!