Ends, Means, and Antitrust (stratechery.com)

Analyst Ben Thompson on the European Commission's $2.7 billion fine levied on Google for anti-competitive behavior: The United States and European Union have, at least since the Reagan Administration, differed on this point: the U.S. is primarily concerned with consumer welfare, and the primary proxy is price. In other words, as long as prices do not increase -- or even better, decrease -- there is, by definition, no illegal behavior.

The European Commission, on the other hand, is explicitly focused on competition: monopolistic behavior is presumed to be illegal if it restricts competitors which, in the theoretical long run, hurts consumers by restricting innovation.

Comments

Control group

[Hognoxious]

In other words, as long as prices do not increase -- or even better, decrease -- there is, by definition, no illegal behavior.

This is utter twaddle. Without any shenanigans they might - due to technical advances - have decreased even more.

Re:Control group

[jonsmirl]

Google should simply make this whole block a biddable AdWords item.
Search image

Then if the external shopping engine's bid exceeds the total of the bids for the five items, the external engine gets control of the entire block.
"Shop for adidas boost on Google" would be replaced with "Shop for adidas boost on Price Grabber". And the five ads would be sourced from the external engine.

This is a win-win solution. The external engines can achieve exactly the same ad placement Google does, and Google gets compensated for generating the traffic if someone clicks. External engines still make money because they are after affiliate commissions which are far high enough to cover the cost of the clicks.

Solutions where these external engines get fed valuable, easily monetizable traffic for free are a non-started with me. Google has invested a lot of effort in generating this traffic, Google deserves some compensation if they pass the consumer to the external site.

Corporatism

[labnet]

The USA has a unique culture that was bought by the Puritan work ethic that promoted individualism and self improvement.
A good explanation is the three stages of maturity.
Dependance (child), Independance (teen), Interdependence (adult)
The USA seems to revere Independence, where Europe, Oceania focus more on interdependence.

Americans confuse this with socialism/communism and have a great fear that someone may undeservedly benefit from their labor. I can assure you being in one of these 'socialist' countries, that the benefits outweigh disadvantages.
Universal healthcare is terrific. Proper limits on monopolies. Much better support for poor people so they don't resort to crime. Higher minimum wages so low socioeconomic people can afford to live and spend it into their communities. Running prisons to reform rather than profit. Even better public transit systems.
Unfortunately, I don't see any cultural changes on the horizon.

Re:Corporatism

[iggymanz]

really, my relatives in Europe hate the healthcare system, waiting months for what should be urgent surgery. they make a lot less money too. We have a couple inner city subcultures (which are economically dependent by the socialism we do have here) that commit most the crime, that isn't a "poor" problem. By the way, some of those european countries are also recently dealing with their newborn criminal classes making violent crime.

Re:Corporatism

[rtb61]

They are not immature or teenage with no reason. Basically US society poisoned itself with lead (lead in petrol, lead water pipes WTF and firing lead at rifle ranges), the current decision markers being the worst of the lot. Millennials with much lower levels of lead seem to be pretty much on a path to recovery and the problems will resolve itself as they become the decision makers. Other countries decision markers also suffered, just not as badly as the US and their millennial generations are also making improvements.

Lead poisoning, lower IQ, reduce morals and reduce thoughtfulness (higher crime at all levels). Basically those in charge are full of lead and full of shit, just lying about everything, cheating as a rule and stealing when ever they think they can get away with it. They have not the slightest qualm about screaming lies into your face over and over and over again, even when they know, you know they are lying, they don't care, they just scream the same right wing lies until you give up and walk away (the idiots think they have won but you just ignore them from then on it and work around them). Coming from the lead addled generation, I know I can not change what my generation is doing, all I can do is mitigate the harm they cause (if you have some to spare, you don't suffer that badly, not that I appreciate the theft of intellect committed by greedy fuckwit dead dog dick sucking arse holes, who should be condemned to the hell of strangling beads). People should be really pissed off, between 10 and 20 IQ points stolen across the whole of society to feed the greed of a fuckwit minority, only morons would not be infuriated by the thought of 20 IQ points be destroyed, smart people know exactly the impact of 20 more IQ points and how it advantages them.