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Google and EU Reach Tentative Settlement in Antitrust Case
AmiMoJo writes "Google has agreed to display competing site's results along side those from its own products in search results. The agreement comes as part of an EU investigation into Google's domination of the search market and its promotion of Google products at the top of each page. The EU has published screenshots (scroll down) showing how the changes will look once rolled out."
Part of the deal includes Google avoiding any fines. The appearance changes to search results are minor; Google services in the results are more strongly highlighted as such, and links to alternative services are provided (e.g. Yelp for Google Local results). Less visible are the major changes: third parties will be able to opt-out of having their data used for specialized Google searches, and "Google proposes no longer to include in its agreements with publishers any written or unwritten obligations that would require them to source online search advertisements exclusively from Google ... [or] to impose obligations that would prevent advertisers from porting or managing search advertising campaigns across competing advertising platforms."
Damn nice to see that last part about competing ad platforms. That sort of clause is the sort of thing I would expect Apple to do. It's pretty blatently ant-competitive.
So in summary, google did evil (once again) and to punish it, google is being forced to do away with one of its few remaining good deeds (giving smaller retailers a more even footing with big companies). Thanks big gov-corp-bank-iont.
Google IS a European company, its based in Ireland. I agree that it is retarded as it seems pitifully inadequate and lenient.
So while Google has to stop anti-competitive practices, they also have to make there web pages less useful. Brilliant.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Florian Mueller had an apoplexy on hearing the news; and is trying his damnedest to put a negative spin on big bad Google.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm not sure how the EU can mandate results in the "Sponsored" section. If alternatives get in for free, then they're no longer "sponsored". If Google decides the price, then they can charge 1 billion dollar per impression to exclude everyone except their own products. Is the EU mandating the price?
Will I get the choice to turn alternatives off, should I choose to not see them?
Google is an American company with offices in Ireland, but they are not based in Ireland. In case you haven't been keeping track the last few years, Ireland has become one the tech capitals of the world. All major American technology companies have offices there. It's called the Silicon Valley of Ireland, sometimes referred to as the Silicon Valley of Europe.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
They are there for tax avoidance reasons. But Google Ireland is certainly a company and if Google wants to retain it they need to play ball. I can't see their investors being happy if Europe decided to block their services.
How is this more anti-competitive than McDonalds' refusing to sell Wendy's products?
Keep on believing that shit, retard.
Seriously people, just use Bing.
Sign up for the Rewards shit and get free Redbox rentals or free gift cards for Amazon.com .
You'll get a massively better search experience for porn, and a better search experience for maps (this is more subjective though - I love Bing's aerial view), and almost an identical search experience for everything else. Bing doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Google (I don't think they have auto translate or reverse image search) but for 99.999% of what I search for, Bing gets me there just as fast as Google, and they pay me for the privilege.
Regardless of what you use, remember to block ads always and block javascript by default. Fuck em. The ad-supported web is a cesspool, and if the internet ad business died tonight we'd all be better off in terms of privacy, security, performance, layout and design, speed, and probably even content - no more aggregators, much less spam and far fewer parked domains, fewer shitty youtube "celebrities", etc.
Apple? They did get slapped with anti-trust issues when colluding with publishers on e-book pricing. Apart from that, though, Apple is a curious choice when finding examples of technology companies with past anti-trust abuses. The far more obvious picks here would have been Microsoft or Bell Labs.
In the shopping example, the results returned in the modified screen shot are crap. Did the EU force that too? That's not anti-competitive, that's anti-user.
Because Wendy's doesn't have to rely on McDonalds in order for people to find them.
Since Google dominates (something like 80%) in search volume, deciding to take your website elsewhere isn't really an option if you want to succeed.
Search Engines lead people to content. When they start providing content they are blurring the line, and when they start actively promoting their own content over others they are blowing the line out of the water.
What would they do, mandate that ISPs start filtering google.com?
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Depends on the depth and consistency.
Anyway. I was wondering the same thing.
Also are they mandating that on mobile devices there is a giant list that you have to scroll sideways to see?
If they wanted to they could. It wouldn't be favourable but what else could they if an internet company that has offices in the EU doesn't want to play by the rules? They can't make them close up shop until they sort out the problems.
How would they be able to do that even if they wanted to? They already want to filter out the pirate bay and they can't even do that successfully. Furthermore, they'd need a pretty damn good reason to effectively break all of the freedom of speech laws that each of the EU member nations have.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Can you name one law that stops 100% of the people from doing something? I don't think there are any because anyone determined enough will do it. But to say filtering Pirate Bay hasn't stopped a lot of people or that filter google wouldn't stop most people is a bit silly. Most people are barely technical enough to use their computer as it is.