Google Should Be Broken Up, Say European MPs

An anonymous reader is one of many to send word that the European Parliament has voted 384 to 174 in favor of unbundling search engines from other commercial services in order to ensure competition. "The European Parliament has voted in favor of breaking Google up, as a solution to complaints that it favors is own services in search results. Politicians have no power to enforce a break-up, but the landmark vote sends a clear message to European regulators to get tough on the net giant. US politicians and trade bodies have voiced their dismay at the vote. The ultimate decision will rest with EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager. She has inherited the anti-competitive case lodged by Google's rivals in 2010. Google has around 90% market share for search in Europe. The Commission has never before ordered the break-up of any company, and many believe it is unlikely to do so now. But politicians are desperate to find a solution to the long-running anti-competitive dispute with Google."

Comments

Google votes to break up the EU

[LordLucless]

Because "non-binding resolutions" are so impressive.

EUgle?

[presidenteloco]

Why don't the Europeans start their own search and ad engine?

Oh, because they would lose?

What I don't understand here is Google does not have a monopoly on search services. They're just damn good at it and the market, with several other choices including Bing!, votes with its clicks. I'm not sure I see what's wrong with that.

Re:EUgle?

[vux984]

Why don't the Europeans start their own search and ad engine?

Because that would be entirely beside the point.

What I don't understand here is Google does not have a monopoly on search services.

This actually doesn't have THAT much to do with monopoly at all. Even in a highly competitive market with many search engine participants the argument to unbundle search engines from other products makes a lot of sense.

Just as unbundling internet access from other network services makes a lot of sense.

The search engines effectively are the gateways to the internet. To operate effectively it's best if they simply compete at being the best search engine, instead of being crippled by constantly being subverted by the other commerical interests of the parent company that wishes to drive consumers to particular pages they have interests in rather than merely being the best at return the pages the consumer wants.

I'm not sure I see what's wrong with that.

Because your fixated on whether there is competition. Whether or not there is competition is beside the point. If your bank forces you to open savings accounts and credit cards with them to have a mortage that bundling is anti-consumer and illegal... period. Because that sort of product tying has been deemed harmful.

Competition isn't the issue. It doesn't matter if there are 5 or 10 other banks to choose from. (Especially if they all do it too.)

Re:EUgle?

[vux984]

Your "analogy" fails.Because there's money involved.

As there is in search.

. Google forces nothing of that nature.

Ultimately every search engine controls what pages i see when i search for something.

As a society its reasonable proposition that we would want our search engines to be competing on simply being the best search engine, without risk of it quietly subverting its integrety to push any other agenda / product / viewpoint / etc.

Unbundling them from commercial interests would be a part of that goal.

I'm not saying we should necessarily do this, or that simply un-bundling them would solve all the potential problems either. I'm just saying that its a valid argument.

If you're displeased with their service, pop another browser.

And that solves what exactly? It neither corrects the behaviour you don't want from google, nor assures you the 'next browser' isn't engaging in precisely the same thing.

Re:EUgle?

[Bigjeff5]

If your bank forces you to open savings accounts and credit cards with them to have a mortage that bundling is anti-consumer and illegal... period.

When did Google ever start forcing users to sign up just to search? I'm pretty sure that's not a thing. Just like banks don't force you to have savings accounts and credit cards with them in order to have a mortgage with them, Google doesn't force you to sign up for anything to either search, or to show up as #1 in search. For the latter, all you've got to do is be the most popular thing for that search query on the internet.

If you want to show up in a prominent place on the search page for a particular query, even though you aren't #1 (or even #10, or whatever) on the internet for that query, well, that's going to cost you.

For Google's services, I don't see what search has to do with any of it. Is Google artificially bumping themselves in the rankings? I'm not sure if the EU is aware, but Google is absurdly popular. I'd be shocked if Gmail didn't come up #1 in a search for email, and low and behold it does. #1 on Google and #2 on Bing, somehow Yahoo comes up first on Bing, while MS takes up #2 and #3 on Google. However, Google's cloud service comes up #4 on their own engine and #7 on Bing. iCloud is the first commercial service on both (actually #1 and #3 on Bing).

So pretty similar results, and MS certainly isn't going to fix Google results in Bing. The EU is full of shit. Bundling isn't harmful unless it is exploited, period. It often leads to a greater overall benefit, as products are more likely to be able to interconnect. If there is evidence of exploitation, that's different, and the EU should drop the hammer on them. But there isn't any evidence that that is going on here that I've seen, so this is almost certainly just politicians being dickweeds at the behest of people who paid them a lot of money.

Re:EUgle?

[theVarangian]

Why don't the Europeans start their own search and ad engine?

Oh, because they would lose?

What I don't understand here is Google does not have a monopoly on search services. They're just damn good at it and the market, with several other choices including Bing!, votes with its clicks. I'm not sure I see what's wrong with that.

This isn't about a monopoly per se. The issue is that Google has got the same business unit that handles their web search operation also pushing Google services. The result is that Google is actively discriminating against competing services and since these competitors don't have their own search engine with a dominant market share to fall back they are proverbially stuck up shit creek without a paddle. It's a bit as if, say America Online, owned world's entire internet backbone and was preventing competing ISPS world wide from accessing that backbone on equal terms in order to gain a competitive advantage for their own ISP division. That being said Google has an 80% market share in the US/Europe and that pretty much makes them a monopoly in my book or at the very least something pretty close to a monopoly and monopolies are IMHO usually bad. Many of the people on this forum screamed their heads off in the past when Microsoft was doing something like this. Instead Googles army of fanboys is now out in force again trying to paint a big yellow smiley over the whole thing.

Re:EUgle?

[gbcox]

Because your fixated on whether there is competition. Whether or not there is competition is beside the point. If your bank forces you to open savings accounts and credit cards with them to have a mortage that bundling is anti-consumer and illegal... period. Because that sort of product tying has been deemed harmful

Well, the fact of the matter is that Google isn't forcing anyone to do anything. They provide methods to extract your data and stop using their services if you wish. What people seem to be upset about is that they are really good at what they do and everyone wants to use their services. It isn't a crime to be successful, contrary to what Microsoft and their paid off politicians in the EU are trying to connive. Add to the fact that Google is an American company. If Google was a German company we wouldn't be talking about this. No one has alleged any crime or harm to consumers... rather this is about competitor profits. Microsoft is just playing their old FUD game. They figure even if they don't win the lawsuit or get Google to split up (which they won't) they'll sow enough FUD to make people believe Google is the evil empire. This is just a bunch of sabre rattling. At the end of the day the only way the EU is going to stop people from using Google is to order their IP addresses be blocked - and that just ain't gonna happen. People would just freak out.

Re:EUgle?

[TWX]

We tended to scream because we were forced to pay for Microsoft's software when we bought computers, and despite non-Microsoft software being the preferred software for some types, Microsoft bundled their lesser-software with their OS and even when we changed to something else, made it prompt to try to become the preferred application again.

When I open my web browser, if it's Microsoft's, I default to Microsoft's Bing search engine. If I choose a different browser then I probably default to Google, but I can change it and it stays changed. I am also not required to use Google as my default start page, and I can visit any site on the Internet that I choose. I am not required to use a search engine if I know the URL that I want to go to, and even if I use Google to search for the name of another company that does something that Google also does, I get that company's result first, not after Google's own product. Funny enough, Bing's search for "maps" brings up Google's maps for me as the top link.

I don't think that Google takes away the consumer's choice in the way Microsoft's policies do. Microsoft doesn't provide links to competitors' software. Google may provide links to their own services first, but they don't provide only links to their own services.

Personally I think they'd have a much better argument, though still incomplete, arguing on Android instead in how it uses Google Mail and other Google services, but since Apple is so strong in phones and tablets that would be hard to support.

Re:EUgle?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Because your fixated on whether there is competition. Whether or not there is competition is beside the point. If your bank forces you to open savings accounts and credit cards with them to have a mortage that bundling is anti-consumer and illegal... period. Because that sort of product tying has been deemed harmful.

What does Google bundle with its search engine? I do not need to use Chrome to access Google search. I do not have to have a GMail account, nor use Google+. I can use Google Search from iOS or Windows Phone or Blackberry OS. What is the bundling that you're concerned about?

Re:EUgle?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Huh. I just Googled "Free email account" and the first three links were mail.com, gmx.com and yahoo.com. Google's GMail came in fourth. I guess Google doesn't understand how to properly bundle/discriminate against competitors given they're not doing what you say they can/are doing.

Re:EUgle?

[vux984]

When did Google ever start forcing users to sign up just to search?

You are missing the point. The point is not whether google is illegally tying products, because they are not. The point is that as a society we deemed that tying products was harmful.

Just as we could deem that a search engine company providing other services is harmful. Not because its a form of illegal tying, but because its harmful in similar ways.

. Bundling isn't harmful unless it is exploited, period.

And that's a great study you just did. I mean, you searched for "email" and you searched for "cloud" and you looked at the first 3 results in no less than 2 different search engines. Because clearly if google was going to manipulate the results they would ONLY do in the most blatantly obvious evil with a capital E way possible.

Well, I'm convinced.

It often leads to a greater overall benefit, as products are more likely to be able to interconnect.

What needs to interconnect with a "search" engine?

If there is evidence of exploitation, that's different, and the EU should drop the hammer on them.

Because it would be wrong for society to proactively decide what the rules it lives by are? It can only react to abuse?

But there isn't any evidence that that is going on here that I've seen,

And you've clearly settled the matter there, right? ;)

so this is almost certainly just politicians being dickweeds at the behest of people who paid them a lot of money.

Who benefits financially from search engines being decoupled from other commercial pursuits and thus paid these politicians lots of money to make it happen. I'm in agreement with you that "follow the money" is a good maxim to have when looking at politics ... so where does it lead us here? That's a good question.

Re: EUgle?

[vux984]

So you are saying that private companies should build and conduct business the way society tells them to, for the benefit of society. That's pretty much the view of economics fascism advocated. It doesn't work.

That's a pretty simpleminded view of it. Next you'll be telling me that consumers shouldn't be able to regulate companies to prevent them from using lead paint in toys because: fascism.

Re:EUgle?

[Almir43]

You probably have adblock installed. For me it comes up right on top, under sponsored results.

Re:EUgle?

[rmstar]

Well, the fact of the matter is that Google isn't forcing anyone to do anything.

As an experiment: try to get by without using google. The argument is that by being so successful and ubiquitous, people are forced to use it, giving google powers that society might not want to give them for very specific reasons. If it's "their fault" or not is completely besides the point.

If Google was a German company we wouldn't be talking about this.

Because if Google was a German company, it would have never been allowed to become the privacy busting, surveillance octopus from hell it is now.

While they're at it

[rossdee]

They could abolish the speed of light and make the internet go much faster.

Re:No clue?

[nitehawk214]

That was the quote I came to wonder about. Why vote and make a decision that that have no power to enforce or do anything about.

Seems like European politicians are as useless and wasteful as American ones.

Re:No clue?

[rtb61]

The whole idea is stupid. What governments should of course be considering instead, if they find biased internet searches so troubling, is to create a government body that provides the same service upon a completely neutral basis. The problem then comes into how to sort the list, who gets first page ranking and who misses out. So hold a conference, invite various groups and individuals and set rules for search sorting and set major penalties for attempting to search optimise, also provide the means for registered end users to readily filter out and promote sites based upon how well they match the search criteria. Do it all ad free, based upon the majority of companies getting better consumer access without bias, on consumers saving time without having to wade through irrelevant search optimised shit search sites, in fact allow users to flag them with a view to prosecution far disrupting user network search activity. Government spending should always have a focus on saving the majority of it's citizens money where that taxation investment is far less than the money citizens save in the more efficient provision of services.

So should internet search be private or public and should citizens have a choice whether to use the private service or the public service. In this case only a handful of private companies benefit and the cost of a huge number or private companies and this cost is inevitably passed onto the consumers.

So should net neutrality extend to search neutrality, well, at least search fully controllable by the end user and their choices of what a good search results and which ones 'search optimisely' suck.

European Union should be broken UP

[Cyberax]

Yours, truly --- Google.

Re:ITT:

[Notabadguy]

ITT: Fools who are apoplectic over the idea of Apple exercising control of its app ecosystem and Microsoft bundling a browser with their OS find a way to contort themselves into the illogical stance that Google engaging in the same type of practices is "totally for our own good, fuck the EU."

You nerds never cease to amaze me.

IOS isn't free. Android is.
Windows isn't free. Google is.

Perhaps you forget that you couldn't uninstall IE, choice was hard to come by, and today is nothing like then. You can choose to not use Chrome easily. You can not use google easily.

The directive does not mention google.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

No Clue indeed. No clue from almost anyone reporting on this piece of news. (it is dissapointing that the BBC headline is so wrong)

Have a read of the Euro Parliament's Press release or (unbelievably better than the BBC) Tech Crunch.

Its a general resolution about online search engines bundling services & about the need to enforce European Competitions laws in the online space.

Re:The directive does not mention google.

[BarbaraHudson]

The resolution underlines that "the online search market is of particular importance in ensuring competitive conditions within the digital single market" and welcomes the Commission’s pledges to investigate further the search engines’ practices.

It calls on the Commission "to prevent any abuse in the marketing of interlinked services by operators of search engines", stressing the importance of non-discriminatory online search. "Indexation, evaluation, presentation and ranking by search engines must be unbiased and transparent", MEPs say.

And it's also not only unenforceable, but impossible. Every evaluation and ranking algorithm that is not based off a random number generator carries, by definition, biases favoring some criteria over others. There will always be someone crying foul because they're lower in the rankings. This is a tar pit.

Re:No clue?

[Kjella]

The whole idea is stupid. What governments should of course be considering instead, if they find biased internet searches so troubling, is to create a government body that provides the same service upon a completely neutral basis.

"Neutral", seriously you want a government imposed Pravda? Or are you just trying to set up such an absurd left wing straw man to get everyone on Google's side? What the EU is generally against is bundling products and services because it hampers competition and creates vertical collusion and hidden costs. Say you buy a car only to find they use IP, warranty terms, secret error codes and such to make sure you only use original parts, authorized service dealers, approved fuel and tires from partners and so on . There's laws curbing such behavior because it's in the consumers' interest that car companies compete on making cars, auto repair companies compete on maintenance and repair and tire manufacturers compete on making car tires. It doesn't mean the government should jump in national everything so everybody gets "fair" maintenance on their cars.

For example, during the first iPhone launch here they tried playing the "exclusive carrier" game bundled with a high monthly cost, but our consumer laws demand you can terminate such a agreement by covering their loss. So those who wanted another carrier would sign up, got their iPhone, insta-canceled, paid for the full price of the phone and was free to sign up with another carrier. That effectively killed it, pretty soon after you could buy it directly with no subscription and sign up with whoever you wanted. And that's how it should be, phone manufacturers compete on phones and carriers compete on being carriers. Companies don't want free markets where prices are low and competition intense, they want dysfunctional markets where they can make huge profits. This is very obvious in software where they want you to buy into the Microsoft stack or the Apple stack or the Google stack. If the bits and pieces were compatible and interchangeable you'd see a lot more competition and many smaller third parties providing a few parts. Bunding is a way for megacorporations to make sure only megacorporations compete.

Not just Google

[c]

They voted to "separate search engines from other commercial services".

They just voted to break up Google, Microsoft, maybe Yahoo, Baidu, and as a consequence have ensured that no large corporation would bother getting into the search engine market.

At least, that would be the case if it actually had any teeth. I can't imagine it sticking...

Re:No clue?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Google should be broken up," say politicians of the European Parliament, to whom Google has not learned to make "donations", unlike national European governments, or the government of the United States.

"Christ, Almighty!" said Google lawyers. "Doesn't this ever end?"

Re:It's just a political vendetta

[Zontar The Mindless]

Here's another theory, from an MEP (Julia Reda, Pirate Party, DE) who thinks it's German publishers wanting to charge "ancillary copyright" licence fees for linking to their publications.

Re:No clue?

[rtb61]

Gees, I made it pretty clear I wanted a choice, either use public or private with the public one subject to full public review and with the ability to filter out results and promote others ie leaving you in total control. Do you not read and comprehend. Google can do what ever the crap it wants with searches as long as people have reasonable alternatives to select from and likely a government managed version with clear public rules and guide lines with actual end user control over the results is the best option, as long as of course it only remains an option and not government forced choice.

Re:No clue?

[jmac_the_man]

This is very obvious in software where they want you to buy into the Microsoft stack or the Apple stack or the Google stack. If the bits and pieces were compatible and interchangeable you'd see a lot more competition and many smaller third parties providing a few parts.

We're talking about search here. What's the Google Stack here? They have a desktop operating system (Chromebook) a browser (Chrome) and a search engine (Google Search). Google doesn't give me meaningfully different results if I use Microsoft's OS and Mozilla's web browser. I haven't tried this myself, but I hear you can use Google's browser and/or Google's OS to get the same results from Microsoft's search engine that you'd get if you were using the "Microsoft stack."

There is absolutely NO switching cost involved in changing search engines. The European regulators are looking for a bribe here, and I hope Google tells them to crawl the web themselves.

Re:Why is competition not a good criterion?

[vux984]

So why isn't anyone making a big deal about Microsoft any more? The big issue at their trial was bundling the browser with the OS. They are still doing that.

That was the American anti-trust trial, and America ultimately fell on its face when it came to enforcing the antitrust issues it was pursuing.

On the other hand, for better or for worse, The Windows "N" editions available in Europe actually do not come with Windows Media Player, in compliance with EU law, as a result of the antitrust case that took place in Europe.

Re:It's just a political vendetta

[Dutch Gun]

Note in the article that they've all but admitted they're going to fine Google billions of dollars no matter what - hell, they've already figured out how much they want to extort. To me this sort of sounds like prep work to justify a shakedown yet to come.

Predecessor Joaquin Almunia tried and failed to settle the case. A series of concessions made by Google were rejected, leading Mr Almunia to suggest that the only option was a fine. This could be up to $5bn.

Meh

[snowsnoot]

I'm all for breaking up companies that abuse their power of controlling content delivery by favoring their own products (waves to Verizon/Comcast RE: Netflix) however in this case I dont see it. A quick Google search for "tablet" where there is competition between Android, Windows and iOS based devices shows no slanting of any kind in the search results. I'm not in Europe so I can't say that I would get the same results if located there, but I would be interested in exactly what kind of evidence there is to suggest that Google is acting in an anticompetitive manner?

Re:No clue?

[sFurbo]

While I haven't been following European politics lately, I would think that this is part of the power struggle between the European Parliament (elected directly by the European voters) and the commission (members are selected by the governments of the member states, though I think the parliament have to approve the final result). Traditionally, the parliament have had very little power, and has been getting more power (primarily at the expense of the commission) a little at a time. This kind of votes are usually held to highlight who has what power in the hopes that it will help them change it (so basically telling the people "See? If we had more power, we would do something about this issue.").

Europe is jealous

[xonen]

Europe is jealous because we not have a major ICT culture. Yes, we have some `big` companies filling pockets with overpriced projects that never finish in time and always need maintenance after delivery doubling the price.

What we do not have is a (economic) culture where start-ups can flourish. Where smart entrepreneurs can easily find investors and employees. Europe looks at Silicon Valley and is very jealous. But instead of some self reflection and trying to catch up with USA - and other players like China - we turn to more legislation, more import taxes, more protection of the own markets and eventually more unemployment, more taxes and less knowledge.

The only knowledge we build is heavily institutionalized - like universities and the R&D departments of some multinationals. The only thing politics care about is how to collect tax - not how to improve economy and freedom and prosperity.

They're overstating the effect

[Godai]

I was a conference, GeoWeb I think it was, in 2008. It was for web-based GIS (Geographic Information Systems), basically cartography & the web. This was maybe a year or two after Google bought out Keyhole, and Michael Jones (I think it was him) from Google was there. Also, Google had just released Chrome so there was a lot of discussion about it. I wanted to pick Jones' brain about some KML eccentricities because I had just written a KML reader & writer. I had to wait behind about five other people who just wanted to talk to him because he was from Google.

One conversation though sticks out. Some guy (who seemed somewhat sycophantic for some reason) was going on & on about how Chrome was going to change the world because it was from Google, and they'd make sure it was awesome and because they could use their influence to make sure everyone used it. I remember that Jones cut him off there (sounding more than a little annoyed) and he told the guy (paraphrasing): "Google can't make anyone use anything we write. The search engine lets us put anything we create in front of their eyes at least once -- that's it. If they try it, it has to live or die on its own merits, we can't force people to try or use it."

MEPs clearly go techno-stupid.

[MrL0G1C]

Google has around 90% market share for search in Europe.

This is a near monopoly and the biggest reason they have this monopoly is because their search simply works better, I've often tried other search engines and they're just not as good.

complaints that it favors is own services in search results

This is like complaining Mcdonalds favors it's own burgers. It's their search, why shouldn't they point to their own services. Would anyone expect a search on IBM's site to offer HP services?

Long-running anti-competitive dispute with Google

[lippydude]

"politicians are desperate to find a solution to the long-running anti-competitive dispute with Google."

And we all know who's really behind this 'dispute'.

link

link

What is wrong with these Tech Idiots?

[Your Average Joe]

Break up Google? Huh?

WTF is Microsoft? Windows has ALWAYS collected statistics and sent them to the bINg search engine. Have you installed ANY Microsoft Office products? Windows Genuine activation? Why are they trying to break into the Tablet market with a Desktop OS? Why did the Desktop users have to suffer with the Tablet Tiles in MS office? The XBox was a money looser for years and still is not competitive with the PS4, so they are using the desktop and office cash to feed the game console.

I think the MS lobbyist have taken over the decision making of the EU, plain and simple.