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EU To Hit Google With Antitrust Charges
Bruce66423 sends news that the European Union has decided to hit Google with antitrust charges that could lead to fines of over $6 billion. The EU has been investigating Google for five years now. "The European Commission has highlighted four main areas of concern in its investigation: potential bias in Google’s search results, scraping content from rival websites, agreements with advertisers that may exclude rival search-advertising services and contracts that limit marketers from using other platforms." They're also keeping an eye on Android-related business practices.
It's their product, they can do whatever they want with it. Don't like it? Use something else. It's not like you are forced to use Google services. A real antitrust would be if they did backdoor deals to make sure products from the competition were subpar. But with Bing and Yahoo being the main competitor, they don't really need to do anything, do they. Because who in the right mind would use those awful services that never return the right results.
Pretty much captures it. You can also go, with Politicians: They don't care why they'll take your shit anyway, Or "Google didn't bribe enough people in the EU"
ITT Butthurt google fanboys whining.
The clan of Microsoft lead shill companies got their wish.
Captcha: charity
For all of the problems they listed, isn't Apple far bigger and far worse with said problems? Why do I need Apple hardware to merely develop iOS?
Isn't Android something of a problem? At least I can change search engines no-cost, who cares if they show a map with their search results (that's kind of what I'd want if I'm searching for a location or business, isn't it?). But Android has become progressively more closed-source, Google-specific, and if I want to adopt a different app store, that's going to cost $200 at least.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
It's really time for Google to fork it and close it up to avoid these idiots from trying to slow it down or bog it down with their "recommended" suite of apps.
No they can't. I know it's hard for Americans with company worship to understand, but companies are held to account for their actions in the EU, and EU consumer laws have the express purpose of limiting the abuse of consumers by sociopathic profit-seekers. Anti-trust is part of that, because anti-competitive behavior screws other companies that are behaving responsibly. The relevant example here is consumer data protection which Google despises.
Sorry, but that's not how it works here. If companies don't want to be a part of EU consumer-friendly civilization, they can go wreak their havoc elsewhere. Here companies are expected to serve the public good, not just seek profit without rules nor accountability.
Those who cannot do - sue.
The entire premise of 'anti-trust' coming from a government, ANY government is laughable in every possible way. The only real monopolies that can abuse power are created by governments and it is government power that is abused by them, as for Google and other companies that compete among each other and may become dominant (for some time) in a market - this is due to the choice of the clients, who collectively vote for that company to be in a more dominant position at that time.
You can't handle the truth.
I know that because I just looked it up with Google su it must be true!!!!1!!1!
As soon as I read the headline, I hoped that Google would beat the EU. It took effort to remember the Microsoft anti-trust case of 25 years ago, and how -- for many of the same issues -- I wanted the DOJ to grind MS into the dust.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Even the highest fines anyone's given out so far are still marginal enough to be considered the cost of doing business for the penalized corporation.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
and the only advertisement was for adwords. Then, I searched for 'adwords competitors' and found competitors to adwords among the search results, but still no advertisements from competitors to adwords. This seems like the sort of thing they're complaining about. But, while I use Google search as if it were a utility, I don't think search is considered to be a public utility at this time. When I think about an analogy other than common carrier requirements, what comes to mind is requiring the Parcelforce logo and phone number be painted onto a corner of DHL vehicles so that people might consider the alternative service.
Exactly! Looks like we need to have all the antitrust discussions again - how it's ok to have a monopoly but not ok to use that to grab market share on other markets, how monopoly power does not mean 100% market share etc. Too many are too young to remember from the MS antitrust days or maybe they have forgotten all that.
And if you think that it's wrong of EU to investigate an American company, think about it this way: with EU and US doing these investigations, we can have more faith in that all monopoly abusing companies will be investigated somewhere - even if their home country is turning a blind eye. This is good on both sides - it's not like this will really have a huge effect on Google anyway.
EU (or any other governmental body) allows monopoly/trust imbalance to occur, then extracts fines...
It's like charging rent after the fact.
Google does have an effective monopoly in search, and it's not a bad idea to have some degree of regulation in place to make sure that it doesn't harm consumers. (Though nonsense like a 'right to be forgotten' is going too far, and should be dropped)
The problem is that that very well may not be the EU's only motive here. At about the same time that the charges were announced, Gunther Oettinger, the EU's Digital Commissioner gave a speech where he said:
Maintaining a level playing field and ensuring fair competition is one thing. Using the law to rig the market in order to engage in protectionism, however, is not acceptable. If the EU wants to pursue Google, they're going to need to do so in a way that is justifiably beyond reproach. Otherwise it's relatively easy for Google to restructure the way it does business internationally to avoid the EU from having any power over them, while still offering its services to persons in the EU, and to have many people cheer them on in the process.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
As a libertarian my position never changed, I always root for the individual (and a company is property of an individual, so the same logic applies) to win against the violence of the collective. Governments are the ultimate and most violent (wars) representation of the collective. Government is the ultimate weapon of the mob against an individual and his freedoms. Realizing that the real virtue is in the Individual freedom and the non aggression principle is how you fix the issue of tribalism destroying rationality.
You can't handle the truth.
They're at 65% market share, with Bing at 20% and Yahoo not far behind. That's not a monopoly.
Maybe if an EU company like Nokia could figure out how to put an open source smart phone operating system like Android on their phones, this lawsuit wouldn't happen.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
You couldn't buy a computer (and still can't) without Windows. You couldn't uninstall IE. Windows was actively preventing users from using competitor's products, and it was costly and time consuming to do so. Google is in trouble for not sufficiently advertising competing products. There's no barrier for entry to use bing instead of Google, or amazon instead of google shopping.
All one has to do to use another search engine is google "search engine".
Google doesn't even return Google when you google "search engine". It does return half a dozen other search engines, including Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo. A market leader perhaps, but not a monopoly.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Your point of view essentially says: "All and any anti-trust laws should be abolished because 'It's their product and they can do with it whatever they want'".
That bit about "backdoor deals" is just an ad-hoc argument not to apply anti-trust law in this case. Right? Abuse is abuse, back-door or front-door.
I'm curious what other laws you'd want to see abolished for reasons like that. Sarbanes-Oxley? FDA regulation of new drugs? Wildlife preserves? A lot of legislation is there for a very good reason: society at large is worse off without it. Don't cherry-pick just because you like the company.
In actual revenue the numbers are far more lopsided than that. the monopoly is not in the user base, it is in the advertising market base which gives google incredible power to dictate terms as none of the competitors can provide the same exposure even if they only charge a fraction of the price. This has allowed google to dictate some very obnoxious (And some say unacceptable) terms of use that are designed to lock in that monopoly.
Perhaps the reason you feel different is that Google isn't forcing people to use Google. This is a little bit different than Internet Exploder, which MS was forcing people to keep installed when using the OS. But one could just as easily type www.yahoo.com into the URL, or even www.bing.com into the URL. Heck those are easier, less characters. Perhaps people don't want to do this because Google is a better search engine?
Google isn't a Monopoly by any means. At the time of its Anti-Trust case, Microsoft was effectively a monopoly on all PCs, and was acting like a monopolist dickwad. Microsoft well deserved the Anti-Trust treatment. The unfortunate fallout from the Microsoft cases were that governments got the bright idea to bring Anti-Trust lawsuits any tech market leader. Google just happens to be in line this week.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
That's US numbers, in Europe Google has over 90% market share. In some countries above 95%.
This. You guys should look for a job at the EU commission.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
What Google should be investigated for is linking their search service to their failed social media service - in order for Google to establish canonical authorship on content, you have to link the page to a Google+ account, no other well known public profile (Twitter, Facebook etc) will do, you have to have an account on Google+.
That's something worth looking hard at.
As much as I simpathize with you, it is obvious that you are confused about who is Google's client, and thus, who the EU is pretending to protect here. Hint: you are not (unless you are an advertiser, that is).
But that is just noise. We all know that the strings in this case are being pulled from Redmon (Whashington), The U. S. of A.
For sur, Google will hit EU in the continental ranking.
www.richard-visav.com
that Google is a US company. Google is not a monopoly, they have lots of competition in all areas.
I really love the speed of the EU. Tomorrow they will fine Jesus after a complaint of Zeus about a non-competitive religion...
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
The difference is not the behavior, the difference is that in the Google case, you as consumer don't see it. You don't see all that happens in the background when search results are sorted, when advertisement is selected. All you see is the final result, and on first glance everything seems to be in order. But the question here is (and I don't know it either), if Google deliberately manipulates search results and ad placement to push their own products and services over competitors, which would be an anitcompetitive behavior and is equally punishable in the EU as well as in the US. But just because you as consumer don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means it may be better covered up
And if you think that it's wrong of EU to investigate an American company, think about it this way:
Google is a European company.
Actually, many European companies.
http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/locations/
Google's European headquarter is in Ireland... well, actually, it's an Irish company that is headquartered in Bermuda.
Google USA licenses its IP to Google Ireland Holdings (headquartered in Bermuda).
In turn, Google Ireland Holdings sub-licenses the IP to its wholly owned subsidiary in the Netherlands: Google Netherlands Holdings B.V.
Then Google Netherlands Holdings B.V. sub-sub-licenses the IP to another Google Ireland Holdings subsidiary: Google Ireland Ltd.
To coordinate all this, Google has a network of corporations in individual EU States, usually just "sales support" staff who run the ad-sales and ad-placements.
TLDR: The EU can't break up Google USA, but they can force Google Ireland Holdings to GTFO or change the way it offers services in the EU.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
He could buy Mac, SGI, Sun...
But it would be quite easy for Google to avoid that issue and have it work for them too. Say they won't scrape search results from rivals if they become known to them, add a tag to say it's a search site so it can be automated, then request that any other competitor cannot scrape either (cite Bing). if the convention is that a spider must reject requests from a search site not itself, then everyone avoids this anti-trust issue, Google don't get fined (post facto law, here: it wasn't obvious that spiders would not be allowed on competitor sites, now it is), and they don't have to maintain a list of competitors up to date, costing them.
It also stops others trying to make off with Google's efforts.
Do no evil, eh? Ah, well. So much for that. (Not that any of us are really surprised.)
Then that would be a slam-dunk breech. I do not know if that is in any way, shape, or form, correct or just a complaint of a competitor butthurt that Google does search well (even if it's mediocre at best with many other things). IF that claim is true, however, then this is fine. If it's merely a statement of false claim,then it will be found false and dropped.
And the deals that are not a genuine meeting of minds that, in the EU, not the USA, cause an anti-trust investigation, so Apple totally ARE within scope. Exclusivity deals can, even without monopoly finding, be against the law. It's called bundling. If it's coercive, then it's illegal. Hard to prove because all pricing and motivation is hidden behind the corporate bastion wall.
And the government is the property of an individual (no corporation/company/business of any size is owned by a single person, none of the stock exchange listings), so the same logic applies.
Unless that isn't logic you're using but rationalisation of your preconception as somehow rational.
Which it isn't.
He can use no tracking, write their own, use Microsoft's, some other company. What MAY be an issue is having to use a suite of services from Google if you want to use their ad revenue service. This, however, is no different from Microsoft or Apple's "brand marketing budget" for those selling that company's goods exclusively or with quotas. Google, if found in the wrong on that count could justifiably proffer both of those for the same treatment.
To me its clear the EU is just an example of a government entity trying to gain monetary rewards from a company on the premise that is defending freedom of choice. A real BS defense because their has always been choice in what they claim is not. Just the the whole Microsoft fight where the EU claimed Windows tied with IE unfairly prevented other browsers from being used? This was totally bogus and in fact browsers have always been openly distributed free. So how is that affecting anyone? I would not expect Apple to distribute IOS or OS X without Safari or any of Apple's other software. Nor would I expect of Android, Google's Chrome OS or Microsoft's Windows. They all offer suites of value added services and apps. The EU is most certainly not defending anyone but themselves.
This is why we need to stop progressive movements like the EU who claim to be defending us the citizens from the bad guys. I wonder how many EU citizens reaped the rewards of Microsoft's millions paid to the EU?
What are you smoking? So.. companies (that are collectives of select inviduals) are inviduals but governments (that are collectives of select inviduals) are collective? Makes no sense. You can't live alone in the woods, or, well, you can, and it's your choice to make right now. There are places on earth where there is little to no government control. The local "companies" run the show there. Somalia is a good example. Collectives is what has made many things of today even possible. Government isn't some entity of it's own, it's owned by citizens, inviduals. If they decide to ignore goverment there is no government but a perfect anarchy, which won't last for a long, because the ones that form collectives WILL win agains inviduals.
Also, pretty much all wars have been fought between monarchs or dictators, inviduals, or close knit tribes. There are very few wars that had both sides as truly democratic entities with armies concisting of the people themselves, not professional soldier who have the need to justify their existance.
TLDR: The EU can't break up Google USA, but they can force Google Ireland Holdings to GTFO or change the way it offers services in the EU.
But aren't they just holding companies for the IP (as you explained) and the actual services are provided by a completly different entity? Your search request may run on servers not owned by Google Ireland or Google Netherlands.
bickerdyke
Your premise is wrong. The people making searches aren't googles customers. Or are you paying them to use the search? Their customers are advertisers, who cannot choose someone else to advertise with because google will not show them on search if they do. Or will artificially drop their rank. The problem would be solved overnight if google didn't have almost monopoly on search engine using consumers. It's hard to buy those eyeballs from elsewhere, hence google is in monopoly position, and that means they have strict rules to follow so they can not use their monopoly of consumers to force competition out.
Hey, we can't figure any way to write taxes against corporations, so every so often, we'll fine guys we see doing well.
The EU, and I use the term Union very loosely, can not even get their own members to follow the rules Brussels sets. When you guys grow up, and stop acting like independent counties, then we can talk about union. Maybe you should have a civil war and then you can unite.
It's been said before, but bares repeating: If you're using Google's "services" for free, then you are the product and not the consumer/customer.
Such an antitrust case is about protecting Google's consumers/customers from Google's de-facto monopoly in the market.
You (the product) switching from google to another search provider only means that Google has 0.00000001% less product to sell, and is unlikely to impact anyone.
However a business (the customer) switching to another provider, could (and would) cut that business off from over 90% of its potential customers (you). Something that is likely to impact them greatly (if not kill the business).
I would love to never have to use AdWords again. As someone who works with Google's advertising products (AdWords & DoubleClick) everyday, I can tell you that I would much rather spend all of my advertising budget with Bing. Google's products are completely fucked up. If you are using the APIs, you can't even authenticate in the same way across products. Anyone who thinks "All the best talent" works at Google has never used any of their APIs because the proof is in the pudding. Bing, Salesforce.com, & Twitter all have easy to use APIs that make working with them easy. Every time I find out I have to work with Google, I think about quitting my job. It is just that painful.
This is the second company that I've been at where the CMO doesn't even care about Bing. Yet, Bing is a much better product from the advertiser's point of view. I'm a Marketing manager that knows how to code (I came out of the math department not B-school). I don't have the "us vs them" attitude that a lot of devs have. I just want to automate everything in the easiest way possible so I can get more work done. Bing is easy. Everything Google related is a PITA.
Google isn't a Monopoly by any means. At the time of its Anti-Trust case, Microsoft was effectively a monopoly on all PCs,
Actually, if you look at the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft you can see that it wasn't the fact that Windows was installed on 99% of PCs that they objected to. It was the fact that they used that position to then lock others out of other markets, such as media players and web browsers. The fix was to require the creation of Windows N, which is just Windows without Microsoft's media player pre-installed (thanks EU for cutting out some bloatware), and to implement the browser choice window.
Google is now in the same position, where they use their dominant position in search to push users to their other products like YouTube, Gmail, G+ etc. If you create a Google account so that you can customize your search settings you automatically get a Gmail account, a YouTube account, a G+ account and basically everything else they offer. When you search for "email", the first link is a "sponsored" link to Gmail (Google paying themselves for advertising) and the first real search result is another link to Gmail.
The solution that the EU has proposed (according to leaked documents) is to split up all the different services so they have separate accounts again (like the stopped Microsoft from bundling), and to require other competing services to be given equal prominence in search results (similar to the browser choice window).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
https://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine&oq=search+engine&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3345j0j4&client=ubuntu&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8
The article is about increased scrutiny from Europe for a range of tech companies on a variety of issues. In terms of Google it mentions there is no specific list of charges yet. The summary indicates there is a specific list of charges and names a dollar figure. So for example when talking about hypothetical charges the articles says, "If Google fails to rebut any formal charges, Ms. Vestager could levy a fine that could exceed 6 billion euros, or $6.4 billion" which is very different from the summary.
Good post. When I read the summary, I thought it would have been snarky but somewhat truthful to revise the summary to reflect the true situation:
The European Commission has highlighted five main areas of concern in its investigation: potential bias in Google’s search results, scraping content from rival websites, agreements with advertisers that may exclude rival search-advertising services, being a US company, and contracts that limit marketers from using other platforms."
The EU selectively targets these large fines only at non-EU based companies, which I don't think is coincidence. I agree it was smart to investigate, but they haven't really produced much in terms of evidence to substantiate a $6bn fine. This isn't nearly as egregious as what MS pulled in the past, but its being treated as such.
Or build his own ... and it's not like if you didn't like IE you couldn't install another browser.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
"a company is property of an individual"
No, it isn'. It is the commonal property of its shareholders (whose count may sometimes get down to one), whose interests are represented by the Board of Directors.
But then, (democratic) countries are the commonal property of their citizens, whose interests are represented by the Government.
This means that whatever rationalization you want to come with in order to preserve companies can and should, ipso facto, be applied just the same to countries.
What is wrong with EU? Can I sue Southern Fried Chicken for not to sell BigMacs?
I have found Google is now setting up Google Plus accounts for local businesses. Without their knowledge or permission. If you're a small business you had better start filling in your G+ profile, because it looks bad if the contact details are wrong or incomplete. If you have a website is irrelevant - the G+ profile appears first.
Has Google decided to create a G+ account for me?
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
You can enter www.yahoo.com any time and use yahoo instead of google. For a while now. Since Yahoo Search used to be powered by Google.
But anyway. You could also download and install ANY OTHER BROWSER, even using IE. Microsoft DID NOT force you to use IE to browse the web.
And Google is in a dominant position, and, while it doesn't force anyone to use their products or services, they showcase them in a very special way. Go to www.google.com. Do you see any ads? YES, ONE: An ad for CHROME, which, guess what? Is the dominant browser now. Fine. Let's say I'm the Mozilla Foundation: google, how much would it cost to put the Firefox ad in google's home? Google: "we don't sell ads for the google home".
THAT, my friend, is abusing a position of power.
You couldn't buy a computer (and still can't) without Windows.
But with a computer you could always buy the parts and build your own. Slashdot will regularly feature posts from companies selling non-Windows computers. Just because IE is installed doesn't force you to use it.
This is a little bit different than Internet Exploder, which MS was forcing people to keep installed when using the OS. But one could just as easily type www.yahoo.com into the URL, or even www.bing.com into the URL.
But could just as easily launch Netscape from their desktop as they could IE from their desktop.
Yep. Got all those things when I created a google account. Don't use any of them. And they've never tried to force me to use them, nor forbidden me from using something else for the same purposes...
So, where, exactly, is the monopolistic behaviour?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You couldn't buy a computer (and still can't) without Window
you could have bought a mac, or SGI, or a Sun or DEC workstation, or depending of the timeframe, an Atari or Amiga. Today it's trivial to buy with Linux pre-installed or no OS at all.
You couldn't uninstall IE.
It was a core component of the OS, you could however install Netscape and use that instead, if you pleased. I did, and so did millions of others, until Netscape started to suck.
Windows was actively preventing users from using competitor's products
In a few instances, Lotus for example, though I don;t recall ever being unable to use WordPerfect.
Google is in trouble for not sufficiently advertising competing products.
It's actually in trouble for prioritizing its own products over competition in search results, or in other words, leveraging its dominant market position in one sector to improve its position in another (kind of like, for instance, leveraging a dominant position in the OS market to improve position in the browser market). Spin it around all you want, it's actually the exact same behaviour with different products and different markets.
There's no barrier for entry to use bing instead of Google, or amazon instead of google shopping.
The only barrier for entry regarding Macs, SGI, Sun, DEC, Atari and Amiga was price, but that was the vendor's doing, not Microsoft's.
Your definition of uncompetitive behaviour isn't the legal definition, and besides, the same rules have to apply to everyone, or not at all. google doesn;t get a free pass because you like them.
You don't seem to understand what this is about. If Google hurts a business's page rank because of some business practice, the general public who resoundingly do use Google will not find said business as quickly (or at all), meaning Google can skew an entire market if it wanted to, as long as it did it quietly enough to not scare people off from using Google.
You are just guessing, it seems. There is no evidence to suggest these different organisations are all in cahoots to overturn Google. Plus, them having a monopoly doesn't matter - it's about abusing their position in the market. They just have to be sufficiently large to abuse that position, way before becoming a monopoly.
I wanted the DOJ to grind MS into the dust.
And to that I say, Fuck You. Apple is great if you're a faggot that likes to be fucked up the ass by the ghost of Steve Jobs. Linux is great if you want to feed off the toe jam crust that falls from Stallman's feet and the narcissistic abuse dished out by Linus who's bitter because he married a behemoth of a woman. For the rest of us that just love computers for what they can do, there is Microsoft. Just a company that makes a product we can use. Again, I say, fuck you. I wouldn't want to live in a world where an asshole like you determines the course of progress.
As a fanatic religious fascist my position never changed
I always root for anything that gives an advantage to my favorite kind of people
You really should check your writing, you keep making embarrassing errors. I fixed 'em for you this time but I won't always be here to do that for you.
Google is not a European company. Google has subsidiary companies that are registered in many countries, but they are mostly just sales offices. From your link: "We moved into our headquarters in Mountain View, California—better known as the Googleplex—in 2004.". Most international companies have subsidiaries where necessary -- either for tax purposes, or because the local governments require it.
Same thing for McDonalds, IBM, or any other multinational company.
Personally, I'd like to see Google just close their EU sales offices and let the EU eat dirt. Then they will just complain that they have absolutely no way of getting any EU companies listed in the search engine at all.
Step 1: Offer a compelling product.
Step 2: Offer it in a cheaper *and* more open way that the competition.
Step 3: Repeat step 2 over and over while network effects kick in. As trust and network effects continue to escalate, you become the "default choice".
Step 4: Only go here when you want to be evil. Stop offering such a good price. Don't be as open as you used to be. Structure your prices around keeping competition out rather than simply being "better". Hire lobbyists and start offering regulatory officials vacations in order to provide "an environment conducive to product education".
Google is now just sticking its toe in the water for Step 4. Microsoft charged into Step 4 as early as they could.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
That's not really important, the effect is what's important. We wouldn't see the current level of hatred for IE if people hadn't felt like they were stuck with using it at some point. In fact Microsoft did take away market share from Netscape in the 90's without acquiring it through providing a superior product or even better marketing.
TIL: most of the commenter's here were not even born or were children when MS had their antitrust shenanigans, no wonder there is such WTF from them.
20 somethings are always trouble in IT, just enough life experience to think they know what they are doing but too little to know why these rules exist in the first place.
captcha: mature
> Perhaps people don't want to do this because Google is a better search engine?
The matter is NOT about google search engine, it is about google SHOPPING search engine. How can a newly competing shopping search engines get to be known if
1. everyone is using google search and is happy with it (to find shopping search engines, or results various shopping search engines)
2. google search tricks the results and place other shopping search engines in page 23482 ?
You could certainly buy a "computer" without Windows. Just like you can now --- except now it's easier.
IE could always be uninstalled, you just couldn't do it the "easy" way via Windows "Uninstall Programs".
You could also customize your Windows Install - since 98 all the way through to Win 8.1 and choose NOT to install IE. Although it required some effort and work, and if you so chose to not install IE, it was still recommended that you keep MSHTML among a few other pieces. Otherwise you would wind up with internal renderings that wouldn't work, and would be unable to read help files. Now if you didn't care about those internal renderings, then you could install a standalone help-file reader, CHM-reader. That would also bring quirks and issues, as the reader from sourceforge didn't really work as well.
Making a bunch of bullshit statements doesn't make them true.
The EU press release (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4782_en.htm) mentions it received two complaints regarding Google and Android.
I wonder who might have initiated them (maybe Apple and Microsoft?).
The allegations revolve around the infamous agreement manufacturers have to sign if they want to include any Google apps in their Android devices (including the Play store, Gmail, Youtube, etc...). If you don't know it states that if you want to include any of Google's apps you must include a certain group of them (it was around 15 I think). It also states that you shall not develop any Android forks.
I do agree this agreement is abuse of power and I'd really like it if this resulted in we being able to uninstall (without rooting or other trickery) Google apps from Android devices, even if it means I have to pay some money to Google for the base OS.
A quote out of context? Seriously?
"At the time of its Anti-Trust case, Microsoft was effectively a monopoly on all PCs, and was acting like a monopolist dickwad"
You left out the "acting like a monopolistic dickwad" and the went on two paragraph rant about how I missed that point. How very Microsoft of you.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
"Their customers are advertisers, who cannot choose someone else to advertise with because google will not show them on search if they do. Or will artificially drop their rank."
So are you saying that if someone advertises with Google and Bing, that Google will drop them simply because they use Bing? Or are you complaining because search engine results are provided based on advertising dollars?
For Google, I'm not sure either is true - Google claims advertisers are given space around the search results, but the search results themselves get taylored to the searcher, not advertisers. Maybe Google is lying here, but at the moment that seems more speculative and cynical than factual. But simply giving advertisers better results still isn't illegal, and both Bing and Yahoo admit to the practice.
Maybe the EU has hard evidence on how Google rigs results for advertiser that exclusively use Google, but one would figure if the proof exists it would be rather big news already. Or at least it would be big news on Bing and Yahoo.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
But then, (democratic) countries are the commonal property of their citizens, whose interests are represented by the Government.
Several problem with this. First, the claim to communal ownership of the entire country is extremely suspect. Was it homesteaded from unowned land or purchased? If purchased, did the seller have the right to it? Governments generally move in to a country by conquest, i.e. theft on a grand scale. They don't homestead the land they rule, or purchase it from the rightful owners (though sometimes they do purchase territory from another government). Second, unlike shareholders in a company, citizens can't cash out if they happen to disagree with the direction taken by the board of directors. Citizenship is non-transferable, and even abandoning it is very heavily penalized. Citizens are opted-in involuntarily at birth and aren't allowed to opt out in any practical sense—being forced to give up everything you've earned, move to another country, and never see your family again doesn't count. (And even then the U.S. will try to keep claiming you owe taxes.)
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Google has a dominant market share in search, and a more than dominant share in paid online advertising.
If and when it uses those markets to improve its position in other markets where it doesn't, yet, have a dominant share - then it's abusing monopoly power and subject to being reined in by antitrust laws. The fact that it's not a literal monopoly? Irrelevant.
So is it abusing that position? I suggest you try the following searches in Google:
'huckleberry finn full text'
'Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people'
Then ask yourself: why don't they give the same, or even remotely similar results? And why are more than half the top ten links for the second result, to a site where you can't even read the full text?
El Reg has an excellent article looking into what it is that Google is alleged to have done wrong, complete with specific links and references. Take a look before blindly exonerating the company you happen to like.
First, I'm not blindly exonerating Google. Google isn't a monopoly. That is not an exoneration, that is a fact.
As far as this "like" of Google you claim I have - you are full of shit. For instance, I don't like Google's data collection tactics, and I use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine. You are spouting off without knowing what the fuck you are talking about.
Second, the article you linked to is not excellent, it is complete bullshit. The author starts off saying that Google has been crappy for the Internet. A hardly a reasonable position, but its nice of him to start off telling us he is an irrational Google hater. The claim that the US courts don't look at how companies treat competitors in Anti-Trust is complete nonsense. And is it vertical or verticals? I don't think the author knows. His explanation of what Google has done to deserve the EU investigation is opaque - so Google is controlling verticals to punish companies that are spamming? It makes no fucking sense.
If this is why the EU is going after Google, then it is sad. It would be nice if governments tried to better regulate what Google does with the data it collects, but this EU Anti-Trust nonsense is none of that. It is just a thuggish shakedown by a government.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Is it me or is Europe anti success oriented? They sued Microsoft because they put in Internet Exploder in the OS. Crazy Europeans. There are other search engines out there. Use another one if you want really.
Paul E. Bahre