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Congressman Warns FTC: Leave Google Alone
concealment writes with this selection from Ars Technica: "A Democratic congressman who played a leading role in the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this year has taken up a new cause: shielding Google from antitrust scrutiny. In a strongly worded letter to Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz, Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) praised Google's contribution to the nation's economy. He warned Leibowitz that if the FTC does choose to initiate an antitrust case against Google, Congress might react by curtailing its regulatory authority."
How fucking dare anyone make fun of Google after all shes been trough thru. All you people care about readers and making money out of her. She's a human!
My Good Friend Jared,
It would be a shame if your constituents found out about all this hentai porn you've downloaded from the Internet.
Perhaps you should send my friends at the FTC a letter explaining how their current views of Google are untenable.
*Strokes white cat*
Dearest Regards,
Dr. Larry Page
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
You do not want to anger the Google... Poking it with a stick will cause bad things to happen.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And now it's going to get hammered.
The FTC will double their resolve, they get to help Apple while defying congress.
What could be better.
Money well spent. Your investment is paying off. (As Sergei gives a nice pat to the Congresswoman lounging in his pocket)
And while you're at it, also leave Britney alone! Look at all she's been through!
FCKGW 09F9 42
I see Google has finally figured out how Washington works. The whole thing reminds me of the Senate hearings scenes from The Godfather Part 2.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Google can use politicians to avoid obvious outcome. This only makes such an investigation more urgent.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
"Well, we can't say if it's illegal until we review the results later."
This is the exact same kind of thing they do in corrupt nations where the government has all kinds of laws you can't help but violate if you want to survive, which then get held over your head for "donations", or if you get too uppity.
Congress can't conjur into existence magic to put Humpty together again, but they can beat the hell out of anybody with the temerity to try.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Nothing ever changes.
The timing is rather suspicious given Google's stance against what are arguably some of the largest lobbying groups in the world. It would be a shame to find out that the FCC is just another cog in the *AA's war machine.
Regardless of your position (that is, what team you may be rooting for) I think generally speaking, we're all responding with the same sigh of dread.
If there is real proof that Google has a monopoly (i.e. they control the market) and that they have acted illegally by manipulating results wrongly or have forced tied products to their search engine, they SHOULD be investigated. The real issue here is that Google has a LARGE share, but does not have a monopoly. In addition, does anybody have any real proof that Google has manipulated results or forced other products to be tied to their search engine?
Good examples are ATT, IBM and MS. Is there any proof that Google has acted like these companies did? I have not seen it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It seems an anti trust case would be clear cut. Look at the algorithms. If the algorithms are creating a horizontal monopoly by intentionally hiding the compitition in search results then Google is guilty. If the algorithms just show the links that people click on the most then Google is innocent.
Why is he so concerned about Google, hmmmm?
if Romney wins, then Google will be immune and so will all other big businesses.
Did that just say a DEMOCRAT stuck up for Google? WTF? I only thought Republicans protected corporations..
Leave FTC alone.
The FTC wants to go after much loved Google that not many individuals have a problem with instead of actually doing their jobs in anything else. Only in America can you get away with deceptive advertising as long as you have some fine print hidden where nobody is looking that says "product claims not actually true". You got to take everything you hear with a grain of salt because there is no regulation at all. God bless America.
More like congressman is declaring FTC not to be above the law.
Google earned its keep fair and square and the FTC is probably in bed with Apple and Microsoft.
There are PLENTY worse players to go after and attacking google is blatantly selective, and the FTC knows it.
That everyone slams google and drags them through the mud over every single while other companies like say Apple do the same things and worse but get no attention at all from anyone. Apple is allowed to do similliar if not the same things, railroad anything they consider to be competition and just generally act like dicks but they are never held responsible for it. All the while google is the whipping boy.
So I take it as he says google shouldnt be singled out. Which I do agree with because all efforts are concentrated on them and when they happens they are blamed for everything and take extra hard hits they dont deserve. Even microsoft isnt really critized anymore, google has taken their place as the industries scape goat.
Besides lets face facts. In the grand scheme of things has google really done anything that terribly bad? No not at all. But thanks to the internet and armchair activist nerds everything gets blown way out of proportion. Google may have done a few shady things but they never have harmed anyone, mistreated customers, or whatnot. The good they have done for their users (in most cases 100% free to the customer at that) far outweighs anything negative they have done. While they could use some polish they are still the industry standard for how a quality company should be.
Why is it they are only willing to go to the mat for corporate interests and never seem to have time to do the business of the people? They spent most of this year on vacation but they seem to have time to threaten a government agency if they dare touch a rich corporate contributor. Shouldn't they be threatening them if they DON'T go after Google?
Funny you should ask.
Baseball is also above the law when it comes to monopolies:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2008/12/3/678134/the-history-of-baseball-s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Baseball_Club_v._National_League
That's not to imply that Google is a monopoly, just that there's a precedent for excusing an organization from rules that apply to all the rest.
You don't "buy" favor in Washington, you buy favor by making sure that you are indispensible to (lots of) congressmen through both direct funds and influence in their own backyard. A K Street lawyer with a nice donation and a healthy expense account is really just there to remind congressmen of how much good you do back in their home district, and what an awful economic blow it would be to lose you from their little corner of the world.
This kind of stuff goes on all the time, though it may not be so blatant. Knowing that the house majority would like to strip every last vestige of power from most of the executive branch regulatory agencies makes even Democrats feel confident in flexing a little muscle.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Congress might react by curtailing its regulatory authority."
Says one congressman. Go away little man.
... that actually gets it. He was one of the 5 or so congresscritters that "stood in the way" of SOPA during the House Judiciary Committee hearings. He even understands the seedy underbelly of the net without going apeshit with wild claims. Someone this "net literate" in Congress is a rare thing indeed. There are a few with Rs next to their names that also get it, but they are rare as hen's teeth also.
>Google is a monopoly
The market is that way because every other competitor's product sucks more. Yahoo somehow keeps finding ways to suck more as time goes on, even though it seems like it can't possibly suck more. Google Maps is unparalleled, for example. Nobody else has the equivalent of Google Earth. There is Google search and then there is "everyone else" - mirroring "IBM and the seven dwarfs." They may as well be Cuil. And after, what, a decade of Hotmail being a laughingstock, I'm not motivated to use And unlike other companies that "maintain monopolies," Google doesn't go out of its way to "cut off the oxygen" of its competitors or partners - they don't have to.
I don't like big corporations and Google's size makes me uneasy. But I have problems finding serious fault with how they got to where they are today.
And when the FTC actually ever takes Microsoft seriously, then maybe I'll give them the benefit of the doubt going after Google. But they didn't and won't so I won't.
--
BMO
Sounds like this congressman is declaring Google to be above the law.
The law generally requires there to be some kind of proof, or at least claim, of wrongdoing prior to spending a pile of cash on an investigation. So it would be quite the opposite- the Congressman is declaring that the law ought to be followed, even when it's a large corporation.
What a worthless piece of shit of a country you americans are running.
Huh, imagine that. Hate based on ignorance breeding more hate and ignorance. I guess we don't have a monopoly on stupid people here in the 'States.
You say they're boosting their map app, I say they're giving me the results I want, as Google Maps is noticeably better than the competition.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
I'm sure the same was said to the SEC before the 2008 financial collapse......
We don't have much detail yet, but I think this is really going to be about Google "bundling" services. When I search for a local restaurant, a map and reviews pop up. When I type a ticker symbol, a stock quote appears.
While I love these services, I see how they might be questionably anti-competative. See Microsoft and the trouble they got in over Internet Explorer, Media Player, etc.
It seems it would be bad for consumers if they find Google guilty, but I'm not sure if the quality of the tool shields them from the claim that they coercing consumers into using their products.
We're facing some of the core issues that were warned about so long ago.
Do Not Track is proving to be a key issue, with a stand off building between advertisers/marketers/corporations, and various 'providers', and users. DNT has the potential for wrecking the models of many content providers, crushing the online ad business, and doing so by ensuring users can be 'left alone' despite the powerful drive to reach them no matter their preference. This is not much different from the Do-Not-Call fights not long ago with the telemarketers. Will the FTC and other agencies get into this fight as they did with Do Not Call, on the side of consumers, or wil the cave to the Internet and try to avoid it? Watching Microsoft try to implement DNT and being told outright that some advertisers will just ignore it sounds like the boilerroom types threatening to ignore Do Not Call, and indeed some did. Only fines worked, and then not perfectly. Will we get DNT?
Google is of course doing whatever is legally permitted, and more where there isn't much legislation to call upon. We will have to decide how we want to be tracked online, and then petition our representatives to force that, and then deal with the global Internet and all the non-US entities that may have different ideas. I don't blame Google for this, but until we legislate it, they will do whatever makes money.
And if we succeed in limiting Google and others, we should expect that the days of 'free' on the Internet , as in 'free services', are numbered. GMail is only free to you because ad revenue supports it. When you start denying the ads, you will need to pay for what was supported by them. It's just that simple. Will we? And then, google gets out of the 'beta' model and gets into the paid-for model, where customer service is necessary, and people will complain when Gmail goes haywire.
There is an outfit that is doing the paid-for model already, and seems moderately adequate. Yahoo! mail is available with POP/IMAP access for a fee, and they seem to be doing it well enough for a small fraction to pay. If I were the Yahoo! CEO, I would be lobbying behind the scenes for DNT, as it would force others (Google mostly) to find some way to fund their operations without stealing the info users would rather they not, and might force them into a new revenue model. One Yahoo! could possibly compete with.
Between the Partiot Act, TSA, SOPA, DMCA, copyright law abuses, and domestic surveillance, our government is edging closer to a full-fledged confrontation with the electorate. We will have to fight for our freedoms again in my lifetime. Privacy will not be the issue. Due process will become the issue. Watching me, intercepting my communications, and compelling my cooperation without discernable benefit are the coming issues. Already here, just not yet painful enough for us to complain. TSA Kabuki Security Theatre is one of these, NSA snooping another, and government management of healthcare another. When the governemnt decides to offer you different healthcare options based on your apparent lifestyle, based on your online data, we'll realize that none of this was good for us. And government-provided anything will always suffer from financial constraints. That will lead to making decisions based on budgets. Don't think it won't. Already, with private health insurance, you make these decisions.
We have a big fight ahead of us.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The ignorance is yours if you believe the FTC doesn't have the authority to investigate Google.
... who ISN'T on Apple's payroll...
because you know that on the other side of the door, certain GIANT PREDATORS in REDMOND are making that case happen with their dozen bought-and-paid-for congress persons.. So Google and this representative from Colorado get a little bit of embarassing news coverage.. well the part that isnt in the paper is worse, I bet you
So let me get this straight, Jared. You want the FTC to stop using its congressionally allocated regulatory authority as it was intended to be used or you will take away its authority though no abuse of said authority has occurred?
That's bullshit, Jared.
If the FTC takes action that you disagree with then hold a hearing on it and demand that they provide a merit-based argument for their actions. Don't threaten our anti-trust system to help out your donors. Google is more than fair game for an anti-trust investigation. If we don't investigate a company as large and dominating as Google then why the hell even have anti-trust laws at all?
I say press on, FTC. Your job is to investigate precisely these matters and enforce regulations that have been duly enacted into law, not kowtow to FUD-based threats from blowhards.
It is interesting that all of the blame is placed on "advertisers/marketers/corporations". The fact is that the sites you visit, the very sites that you wish to send DNT=1 to, are profiting from targeted advertising. In fact those sites are using that profit to provide you with content that you want as well as to feed their families. When you stop visiting those sites or start paying them directly then the targeted advertising will go away. Its not about regulation, its about consumer choice. Make different choices get different results.
Fair use allows google to show a MapQuest link in its search results. But to actually show a map Google would have to licence map data from MapQuest. Copyright law prevents Google from using other peoples data the same as they use their own. Google can only show a snipit or a summary. The same goes for other types of data. Google can't include good twitter or facebook integration without a license or an api.
Dear Mr. Jon Leibowitz,
Just because google is large should not make them above the law. As a congressman you SHOULD both know better and SHOULD be protecting the people from companies of ANY size. Shame on you!
Proof we need change in this country. Who elected this fool?
Alleged contributions to a nations economy qualify of course for not falling under existing law.
Fire that congressman.
What a naive statement and yet you are modded insightful. How a monopoly is earned is not the question of anti-trust law. It's what you do with it once you have it. Telco's and power companies get them through regulation. Google through organic growth and purchasing distribution (like the Firefox deal). Some argue Microsoft got theirs through shady means (I don't want to go there). Some get dragged to anti-trust without having a monopoly at all (they can assert monopoly control even without 90+% market share). The question is what a company does once they have monopoly power.
You strike me as someone who takes this personally, who either works at Google or feels some personal connection. The comment about Apple and Microsoft blips clearly on the butthurt fanboy radar.
So the logic is.... If politicians like an entity (or use it on a daily basis), it should..... not be affected by pre-existing laws?
Just checking...
I am comforted by the vision that I've had, seeing past the days on Earth when Google held what it deemed was the world in its hands.
I don't think the people who blindly defend Google have an understanding of what Google is doing with its search results. Let me give you my experience as a site owner.
I run a popular sports website. On April 24 2012, I saw a 30% decrease in traffic. I figured that maybe interest in my sport had cooled off because the season was winding down, or that it was a temporary situation. But the traffic didn't get any better. But then I noticed when searching Google that my site wasn't coming up as often as it used to. In fact, when searching for topics that were only covered on my site, my site wasn't being returned in Google. If I went to Bing, they came up right at the top, but Google searchers were left thinking that no such information existed on the internet.
I learned that on April 24, Google put in an algorithm that penalized websites for "webspam". What is webspam? They identified it very vaguely, but the examples they gave were egregious - people who put thousands of unrelated words on a page, or people who were running massive link exchanges designed to boost other websites' popularity in Google's results. But my site did none of that - yet Google cut it from appearing in the search results by about 70%.
Do you know what recourse I had as a site owner? Zero. Google doesn't have a customer service department. They have an online forum staffed by volunteers who are, quite honestly, arrogant and abusive. Occasionally an actual Google employee drops in, but they won't answer questions because they don't want people to be able to figure out their algorithms.
My story has a happy ending because last week, my penalty was lifted. No explanation, no communication, it was just something I noticed. Many others have not recovered, and there is always the threat of having the penalty applied again. To be clear, this penalty is applied by an algorithm, not by a human. There is no human ability to override it. That's just wrong, and scary too.
Some have speculated that Google's algorithm penalized sites in order to force them to purchase advertising on Google. Imagine that you're making $500 a day from your #1 Google spot. No need to advertise. But if Google demotes you, then maybe you'd spend $250 per day to get back to the #1 spot? It's speculation, but well-reasoned - before I learned that I was demoted by a penalty, I increased my advertising with Google to try and get traffic back. Google's advertising profits went up after they put this penalty in place.
Another reason that Google gives for penalizing sites is if they have "too much advertising". So they want sites to remove advertising. That itself is an antitrust problem - because less advertising on sites means more demand for Google advertising.
Google also penalizes websites that run affiliate programs that Google doesn't find "add much value". Let's say that you have a site that reviews books, and in your review you provide an Amazon link so that if someone buys the book, you get a commission. Google doesn't like that. They want to send the user to Amazon instead. They want to cut out the middleman.
Google may also be (or may soon be) penalizing or rewarding sites that don't mark up their data in a way that Google can interpret with an algorithm. But since Google has expressed an interest in cutting out the middleman - websites - when it comes to returning information, this could be an attempt to force sites to train their own replacement. They're already doing this - they pull data from Wikipedia (which Wikipedia editors have manually scraped from other websites) and display it right on Google's page. No need to leave Google for your information.
By applying penalties, Google has become like a credit bureau. Last I checked, credit bureaus were regulated in the USA because they have the power to do significant damage to people via things like errors and omissions. Credit bureaus have to give you a chance to correct your credit rating, to fix errors, and they have to give you a general idea as to what
The barrier to entry for a competitor is just a click or browser home page away. In regards to search, there isn't the lock-in like we saw with Windows.
So even if they had 95% marketshare, I don't see why the Feds would need to get involved. And that's ignoring Facebook and Twitter as non-search engine competitors.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
If corporations were not people, then when a corporation broke the law/got sued for a bigillion dollars, the stockholders would be held liable... this includes YOU with money invested indirectly via your 401K. Wanna loose your house/savings?
I would suggest.. maybe.. yes. Let the shareholders lose their investments.
This would bring an ugly bloodletting the first time or two that a corporation went through this. And then shareholders would start placing their money into companies with reputable management teams.
It would be ugly in the short term, but far better for business and the economy in the long term.
You stereotypers are all the same...
Every company of significant size/market share should expect to be investigated for anti-competitive practices. If they've done nothing wrong, they've got nothing to worry about.
Anyone calling for an investigation of Google, should also be calling for investigations into Comcast, AT&T, and other large media providers.
A good idea for Google is, at some point in the future, to give users two options at login: Paid mode and Free/Ad mode with explanation for each and how data is used. Majority of people will choose the Ad mode, but this will render this kind of attacks against Google as useless.
Yep. Here's why.
Things like this are always a nice reminder that prostitution to corporations is at least ONE thing our congress can agree on.
So the police is enforcing the law by catching drug lords who pay for the campaigns of the legislature. As an angry retaliation, the legislature is limiting the jurisdiction of the police. Sound like Mexico and Russia, in fiction. The police has to be fair and nondiscriminatory by law, right?
Actually, I've always figured that Europe/Asia did better with rail because of population density.
When you've got a system used by (and paid into) by millions of people, then it tends to have the funds to self-sustain a lot better than something which might move only thousands in the same time period.
I tried to submit this for an article a couple of days ago, but I don't have enough pull/cachet/advertising skills to pull it off...
Microsoft sold an operating system to you, the customer, or worse they had it pre-installed on machines so that you had little choice but to pay for the license with the machine. They then used the built-in browser etc to attempt to lock out competition. Even then, I would say that the browser wasn't so damaging as they attempted to push an MS-only browser/internet standard to go along with it.
For Google, your use of their product line starts when you go to www.google.com. But at that point, you're not really the customer, you're the product.
Google suggests their products, or those of their associates, on their site. It's a suggestion, followed by plenty of other results, sometimes for competitors (in other markets) sites/products.
Ever buy a baking product and notice where they have helpful recipes on the site. The recipe comes free, and suggests you use same-brand ingredients to bake the cake or whatever. Same with building supplies, often you'll have a suggestion with the "Ace tiles" to use "Ace grout" or "Ace sealer."
What was the solution to IE's on windows? Give users the choice of other browsers.
Google may display their stuff first, but they also show stuff from others' sites as well. How is that different?
To paraphrase Eric Schmidt: If Google is doing something it doesn't want investigated, maybe it shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
I'm just sayin'.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
We'll take our children to the viewing corridor and watch the corporations feeding the Congress Critters. Oh, isn't that cute, Look honey, Google just wrote that balding primate in the blue suit a $2,000,000 campaign contribution. Isn't the circle of life miraculous...
It is odd to see a legislator threatening the FTC so that it does not do what the legislator asked it to do.
The laws must be the same for everyone. It cannot be bad just for Google and remain as is for the others.
I can choose what ever search engine I want. Bing, Wolfram, Yahoo, whatever. It takes me all of 5 seconds.
Yet when I go to buy my generic prescription medication whose patent expired years ago, it costs twice as much as the harder to synthesize, but still patent protected, specific stereoenantiomer of the same drug.
When is the FTC going after obvious anti-trust violations like that?
..on anybody who is not satisfied and lie down while our rights are crushed.
I think this has more to do with extorting campaign money than regulatory affairs.....
I am less worried about Google specifically than I am with a Congressman who threatens a regulatory agency that they will be punished if they do their job of protecting people against unfair trade practices.
"He (Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO)) warned Leibowitz that if the FTC does choose to initiate an antitrust case against Google, Congress might react by curtailing its regulatory authority."
blindly antisocialist = antisocial