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Google Rejects EU Antitrust Charges, Says Evidence is Lacking (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the hit-back dept.

Google said Thursday it is rejecting accusations made by European Union that it abuses its dominant position with its shopping and advertising services, ramping up its fight back against the bloc's regulators. "The Commission's revised case still rests on a theory that doesn't fit the reality of how most people shop online," said Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, in a blog post. From a report on Reuters: "We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information we received. On the contrary, we improved it. That isn't 'favoring' -- that's listening to our customers," Walker said. His comments came as the company formally replied to the two charges, one of which it received in April last year and the other in July this year, earlier on Thursday.The official blog post here. Further reporting on Bloomberg.

45 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Yawn... by Feral+Nerd · · Score: 3, Funny

    Google Rejects EU Antitrust Charges, Says Evidence is Lacking

    They and everybody else ever accused of anti trust violations.

    1. Re:Yawn... by chispito · · Score: 1

      What's wrong, are they using their influence to keep Euroogle, the French-German-UK joint government-private joint venture from succeeding in the market?

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    2. Re:Yawn... by lbmouse · · Score: 1

      OK, so if I rob a bank I can just reject the charges and everything will be alright? I don't get this.

    3. Re:Yawn... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      OK, so if I rob a bank I can just reject the charges and everything will be alright? I don't get this.

      Here'a a more accurate anaogy: You are rejecting a couple of guys in suits with sunglasses and cigarette in their mouths who demand payment or, you know, things might get broken, be a shame if that happened.

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  2. Anyone expected Google to accept EU's assertions? by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    "We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information we received. On the contrary, we improved it. That isn't 'favoring' -- that's listening to our customers,"

    Really! Is Google's response a surprise?

  3. Google monopoly? by unixisc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If Google is a monopoly, what could it possibly have a monopoly on?

    Search engines? There is Bing, DuckDuckGo, Amazon and whatever Apple has underpinning its search

    Android? Yeah, there's Android, but there is also Cyanogen, and some other Linux based wannabe phone OSs, like FireFox OS, Tizen. And if one looks beyond that, there is Apple, and even Microsoft.

    Phones? Yeah, you may have the Nexus and Pixel, but there is Samsung, LG, Sony and a few others, notably Chinese. And again, there are iPhones, Lumias, Blu, and so on.

    And if they're talking shopping, as the above blurb suggests, I never use Google to search. It's almost always Amazon, and on a few occasions, I've ordered things online directly from store sites like BB&B, when the thing I wanted wasn't available in stores.

    1. Re:Google monopoly? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      Where did it say monopoly? This is anti-trust.

    2. Re:Google monopoly? by StormReaver · · Score: 2

      Apparently, Google has a monopoly on kicking the shit out of Apple and Microsoft by making things people want.

    3. Re:Google monopoly? by dugancent · · Score: 1

      Monopoly =/= anti-trust.

      --
      SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
    4. Re:Google monopoly? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Trust? Ants?

    5. Re:Google monopoly? by Minupla · · Score: 1

      Ant's are VERY trustworthy. I can predict their behavior reliably. Put food out, they eat it. Trust in it.

      --
      On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
    6. Re:Google monopoly? by phorm · · Score: 1

      I may use google to look things up about a given product, but I can't recall ever buying one from them. Usually I find some tech site reviews etc and then either buy it in-store, from Amazon, eBay, or a trusted retailer/eTailer.

    7. Re:Google monopoly? by unixisc · · Score: 2

      You might want to look up 'dominant position'

    8. Re:Google monopoly? by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Whoa...that brought up some...interesting websites.

    9. Re:Google monopoly? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Google said Thursday it is rejecting accusations made by European Union that it abuses its dominant position with its shopping and advertising services, ramping up its fight back against the bloc's regulators.

      'Dominant position' implies that they are using their high visibility in their shopping and advertising to promote other products/services of theirs. This implies that they have a monopoly on something - which I refuted above. I'm not a big fan of Google, but let's not hype their influence here. As I pointed out above, I rarely depend on Google Ads or Services to find anything. I usually do a search on whatever I'm using. If it's my Android tablet, then it's Google, but if it is my iPhone or iPad, it's whatever Apple uses. And if I'm shopping, I either use Amazon, or the website of whatever store I'm shopping at.

    10. Re:Google monopoly? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      You don't want to look up Google Pegs Market Niche.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    11. Re:Google monopoly? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      I know the argument, but have been saying that the evidence is not there that the dominance has let to new things for them

      Take the map example. Yeah, I have their maps. But they are by no means the only game in town: there is Bing Maps, MapQuest and a few others that I forget off the top of my head. If someone is using an Android phone or phablet, they'll probably use it just b'cos it's there, and it's so well known, but any iPhone user has Apple Maps, laptop users have Bing Maps (on Windows 8-10). Also, many people also either buy separate GPS units like Garmin or TomTom or Magellan, and some (like me) buy a navigation unit w/ their car.

      So yeah, if you are a new map company trying to enter the market, you are SOL, but that by no means implies that customers don't have choices. In fact, the only time I've used Google Maps is when I was driving a U-Haul van, where my phone was the only GPS that I could use, and which didn't have a navigation unit of its own. When I drive my own car, I use the car's navigation unit: that way, when I have to plot directions to somewhere, I put in the address or landmark, and get voice directions w/o having to look at my phone all the time. Cars that have CarPlay or Android Auto would allow one to use those phones w/ the navigation unit, but cars that don't - they would provide maps separate from Google.

      So I don't see that Google would ever be able to charge anything for Google maps: if anything, those services are vehicles for their advertising, not the other way around. So Google is 'guilty' of the converse of what is being alleged - using its various services to promote advertising and achieving dominance there, not leveraging its advertising dominance to conquer services like shopping

    12. Re:Google monopoly? by penix1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And what exactly do you think anti-trust laws cover?

      Antitrust laws cover more than just monopolies. It covers collusion and price fixing as well (usually in the same charge since it is almost impossible to have price fixing without collusion). It isn't illegal to be a monopoly. What is illegal is abuse of that monopoly. Also, it isn't required for a business to have an absolute monopoly to be considered as a defacto monopoly. It is called "market dominance" and abuse of that dominance has the same effect as if they were a monopoly.

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    13. Re: Google monopoly? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      As far as customers went, the Microsoft of the 90s was a dream company - just like Netscape, Google and Silicon Graphics once were. Every product of theirs was quality - at the time. Yeah, you had the issue of alternate OSs being crap, but everywhere that Microsoft had competition, they really exceled. Internet Explorer snatched market share from Netscape, Office pummelled Lotus and Word Perfect, VC++ ran rings around Borland, NT on Intel pretty much killed off Unix on Intel (before Linux came along), and so on. The issues people had then w/ Microsoft was the price of their software, and the licensing terms. But aside from that, the main people who had issues w/ Microsoft were their competitors - Netscape, Sun, Lotus, Word Perfect, Borland, et al. And Bill Clinton's DoJ, who w/ the one act of announcing the anti-trust investigation, started popping the dot com bubble in 2000.

      Contrast that w/ today, where Microsoft is an object of ridicule. In the phone segment, they are exactly where the Linux guys are in the desktop segment. The telemetry, the forced upgrades, the forced updates, the bugs... none of this was there during the Gates, or even the Ballmer eras.

    14. Re:Google monopoly? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      But how can (let alone does) Google do any of that stuff w/ its ad dominance?

    15. Re: Google monopoly? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      So people on iPhones or Windows laptops, do they explicitly type out - or bookmark - google.com every time they want to search, or do they use the built in search tool provided? If they do the former, they're consciously choosing to go w/ Google. If they do the latter, then they're using other engines, like Bing

    16. Re:Google monopoly? by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      When I search for something on Google, a list of categories appears. Right now it's: All, Maps, Images, Videos, and under More: News, Books, Flights. Additionally, in one of the search result spots, there's a list of images and a link to click for more images. Well, not long ago, one of the categories was Shopping, and sometimes, there would be a list of shopping search results, like the list of images. Someone in the EU wants Google to give Their shopping search site equal billing with its own categories when someone does a search on Google. If I had a site that got such equal billing, I could probably make a ton of money charging merchants a small fee for their shops to appear on my site. I think they want to claim that Google having a link to only their own shopping search results on their general purpose search site is like Microsoft having IE integrated with Windows Explorer on their own OS. I think the notion is that because Google has so much market share on general purpose search, they're supposed to act in regard to search, somewhat more like a public utility than a private enterprise. I just bought the cheapest laptop available at Walmart in Costa Rica, and if Win10 in EU looks anything like this (it's my first Win10 product), MS has a fine example that times may have changed in regard to this theory.

      I reckon the result will be no more Google shopping. But, perhaps, for people with Google accounts, the search page could have plugins that would allow users to cooperate with 3rd parties to edit the functionality of the search page on browsers that have their Google account cookie. Managing a search page plugin store ought to be a similar headache to managing the Android app store. Of course, if those 3rd parties had a good enough product, they could probably get users to add that fine search directly to their browser. On another hand, there'd likely be a big market for search page skins, and not seeing their skin would encourage users to make sure their browser has that cookie.

    17. Re:Google monopoly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It has a dominance of mobile operating systems and search engines. It uses those to create its ad dominance. IMO, that in itself isn't a problem. What is a problem is the terms manufacturer's have to agree to to bundle the Play Store with Android, terms that force manufacturers to take a bunch of other apps along with the Play Store, terms that also forbid creating a forked version of Android. So manufacturers can either have there own version of Android, or Google's version with the Play Store, as many people actually want the Play Store on their devices, this inhibits manufacturers developing competing versions of Android.

    18. Re:Google monopoly? by Rob_Bryerton · · Score: 1

      Like what? Online advertising?

    19. Re:Google monopoly? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Search engines? There is Bing, DuckDuckGo, Amazon and whatever Apple has underpinning its search

      And in 1995, I could have said of Microsoft's monopoly - There is BSD Unix, Linux, Solaris, Sol, OS/2 and whatever Apple had.

      Monopolies are not stupid absolute.

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  4. Oh by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

    Gosh, if I had known that you could just reject charges then I would be a free man now.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:Oh by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      you could, but it's only an argument in a trial, not a verdict...

  5. Just did google search for evidence by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

    But nothing came up in the search results.

  6. Re:Oh so Google is making me do that by sycodon · · Score: 1

    We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information...

    Is that why never get any shopping results when looking for 45ACP?

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  7. Fog of Google over EU by pubwvj · · Score: 1

    So in retaliation Google forgets the EU, erasing all the EU member countries from their database resulting in worldwide amnesia, plummeting EU markets and clever stitching of Google Maps that show Russia now on the Atlantic coastline... It's a smaller world after all.

  8. Re:Anyone expected Google to accept EU's assertion by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    surprise!

    * but I think Google has a good point in the subject (but I can be very wrong: I'm not from EU [I'm Brazillian])

  9. Re:Clever by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Whut?!?

  10. Re:While I'll never stand up for the UN by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    No (you knew "confession", don't you?)

  11. Re:Anyone expected Google to accept EU's assertion by mindwhip · · Score: 2

    When searching for a specific branded product by name and model number, as I need to make am exact like for like replacement, and the first 6 results are for the competitors of the product I searched for, instead of stores selling the specific thing I want, I can't see how this is can be called anything even close to "improving" the results.

    --
    [The Universe] has gone offline.
  12. Re:Can I also "reject" charges? by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    really, it's very racist...

  13. Re:Google Forgets the EU... by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Or they could join Brexit and plant themselves in England

  14. That's because Google delisted the evidence by jader3rd · · Score: 2

    Once Google delisted the evidence, they figured that prosecutors won't be able to find it now.

    1. Re:That's because Google delisted the evidence by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but they only delisted the evidence because an EU citizen demanded they forget it.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
  15. Re: Anyone expected Google to accept EU's assertio by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

    What makes you say that's Google's doing? SEO tries to do exactly that, and Google has been sued a few times for squashing some SEO practices.

  16. Evidence by Toshito · · Score: 1

    "We googled it and we couldn't find any evidence of wrongdoing on our part, your honor"

    --
    Try it! Library of Babel
  17. Re:Google Forgets the EU... by unixisc · · Score: 1

    That's what - Apple has Ireland, so Google could take (post Brexit) England

  18. Customers vs. cattle by larryjoe · · Score: 1

    "We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information we received. On the contrary, we improved it. That isn't 'favoring' -- that's listening to our customers."

    Google is stating the truth. It's just that we have to keep in mind who Google's customers are. The vast majority of Google service users are cattle and not customers. We don't pay Google any money, and in return Google doesn't consider the impact of their actions on the general public. There are cases where Google interests coincidentally align with general public interests, but that's just coincidental. The drivers of Google actions are Google customers. I certainly wouldn't blame Google for fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities to their stockholders, but at the same time, it would be disingenuous of Google to claim that they aren't willfully harming the interests of their customers' competitors.

    Of course, all of this is really tangential to the legal question at hand, which is whether Google is abusing it's dominant market position.

    1. Re:Customers vs. cattle by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 1

      You're only seeing part of the picture.

      Android isn't the product Google sells. Google search isn't the product. Gmail, Youtube, and all the other services Google provides are not the products that Google sells.

      YOU are the product Google sells. The reason Google search is so awesome is so that YOU will use it, and Google can then sell your viewing of their page to advertisers. Same with Android, Youtube, Gmail, Drive, all of it.

      The happier Google can keep its product, and the more Google knows about its product, the more they can charge for their product to their customers: other businesses.

      Now, that sounds like a horrifying twist from a cyber themed James Bond villain, but frankly, I remember the internet in the 90's. I'm totally OK with Google's business model.

      The gist of it is, Google virtually single-handedly fixed the Internet in the 90's, and as a result of that their Internet Pie is deservedly huge. Microsoft and Apple are pissed off because they have yet to figure out a way to provide a service to Google's customers as well as Google does, and so they have failed to snatch more than a tiny piece of Google's Internet Pie.

      Frankly, unless there is evidence of Google actually rigging their services to steer traffic away from MS or Apple beyond simply providing a better product, then I think the EU should go pound sand. Now, if they do find actual evidence of Google behaving badly (and not just "oh you're too popular, you need to be less popular so we can compete too") then by all means, fine the hell out of them.

      Google's business model is built on trust between themselves and their product, though, so I would be really surprised if they were actually rigging their search results.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    2. Re:Customers vs. cattle by larryjoe · · Score: 1

      You're only seeing part of the picture.

      Android isn't the product Google sells. Google search isn't the product. Gmail, Youtube, and all the other services Google provides are not the products that Google sells.

      YOU are the product Google sells. The reason Google search is so awesome is so that YOU will use it, and Google can then sell your viewing of their page to advertisers. Same with Android, Youtube, Gmail, Drive, all of it.

      I see this and completely agree. We are the cattle, to be fattened, slaughtered, and sold.

  19. Re: Anyone expected Google to accept EU's assertio by mindwhip · · Score: 1

    The "sponsored" tags next to 3 of them.

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