Report: U.S. Anti-Trust Regulators Will Accuse Google of Crushing Competition to Maintain Monopoly (msn.com) 60
The U.S. government has readied an antitrust lawsuit against Google's search engine, accusing the company of "crushing competition to protect and extend monopoly," according to news reports:
The move comes after a 14-month long investigation, where the U.S. Department of Justice probed whether Google distorts search results to favour its own products and shuts off access to competitors, sources told Bloomberg. This is significant as Google enjoys a major 90 percent control of the U.S. online search segment and generates an enviable $100 billion revenue. Rivals have long complained of abuse of power to "snuff out the competition"....
Sources told Bloomberg action is expected within the next week or two, after the State attorneys general and Justice Department lawyers complete final preparations for the case this week in Washington. Officials met with Google reps the previous week to discuss accusations of search bias against competitors and providing of Google and other partners as default to users... "It's impossible for small search engine competitors to compete with Google's deep pockets and outbid it for valuable placements like Apple's browser," Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, said in his complaint to the Department of Justice.
In a recent statement, a spokesperson for DuckDuckGo said the company is pleased that the DoJ "is going to finally address the elephant in the room: Google's obvious, overwhelming, and anti-competitive dominance in search," adding that "a world without search defaults" would benefit consumers.
Google's search engine "decides the fates of thousands of businesses online," notes Bloomberg, "and has funded Google's expansion into email, online video, smartphone software, maps, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles and other forms of digital ads."
Sources told Bloomberg action is expected within the next week or two, after the State attorneys general and Justice Department lawyers complete final preparations for the case this week in Washington. Officials met with Google reps the previous week to discuss accusations of search bias against competitors and providing of Google and other partners as default to users... "It's impossible for small search engine competitors to compete with Google's deep pockets and outbid it for valuable placements like Apple's browser," Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, said in his complaint to the Department of Justice.
In a recent statement, a spokesperson for DuckDuckGo said the company is pleased that the DoJ "is going to finally address the elephant in the room: Google's obvious, overwhelming, and anti-competitive dominance in search," adding that "a world without search defaults" would benefit consumers.
Google's search engine "decides the fates of thousands of businesses online," notes Bloomberg, "and has funded Google's expansion into email, online video, smartphone software, maps, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles and other forms of digital ads."
But But Google (Score:1, Flamebait)
Googles contribution to human society, not the number one search engine, no they corrupted that, the number one advertising company, the number one cheer leader of mass consumption to out environments demise, all whilst cheering how green they are, the planet's number one hypocrite, every single one of them, either a high priest or a minion of over consumption, constantly targeting, constantly pushing, consume more, buy more, you are a loser if you do not continue to consume, burn more, eat more, spend more
They notice that _now_? (Score:3)
Clearly, these people are completely unsuitable to prevent monopolies. To be effective, you have to nib them in the bid when they are still growing. Waiting until they peak and then waiting some more is not going to be effective in any way.
You've got the timeline backward (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately you have the timeline backward.
First, was the acquisition, the terms of which were that ByteDance must keep Music.ly separate from TikTok.
Then Bytedance merged Music.ly into Tik TikTok.
Next Senator Schumer and other leading Democrats demanded the investigation and appropriate intervention.
Then the administration began the investigation which Schumer has asked for.
THEN some people some of whom used TikTok, put in fake ticket requests.
Then months later the investigation wrapped up and a deal was reached which makes Rik Tok just barely, technically, compliant with the law by indirectly having 60% US ownership, making them no longer a covered entity.
The Trump ticket prank in 2020 didn't cause this investigation that started in in 2019, at the insistence of Chuck Schumer, the head Democrat in the Senate.
https://youtu.be/DPpYItDxMqU?t... [youtu.be]
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The Trump ticket prank in 2020 didn't cause this investigation that started in in 2019, at the insistence of Chuck Schumer, the head Democrat in the Senate.
No, but it was sufficiently timely to alter the outcome.
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Well the outcome is that they were allowed to get away with it, so ...
They need 51% US to not be covered. ByteDance, a Chinese company, now owns 80%. The administration agreed to allow it because ByteDance has some US investors, so they counted that as indirect US ownership of the new entity.
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They set conditions, which were not going to be met. So they set new conditions which were also not met, and then they declared victory anyway. Typical.
If you call 1988 new (Score:2)
I guess if you call 1988 "new", sure.
CFIUS was first established in 1975, but was granted actual power over transactions in which a foreign investor has greater than 50% ownership in 1988. That's called a "covered transaction" or "covered entity".
Since the new company isn't 50% foreign-owned, it's not a covered entity. One could argue about whether the new arrangement meets the *purpose* of the 50% rule, but the rule is from 1988. Which I don't consider "new".
The new part of the law is one the president s
Re:They notice that _now_? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly, these people are completely unsuitable to prevent monopolies.
They've also failed to notice that Microsoft's latest versions of Windows/Edge are now going to unbelievable lengths to make people use Bing.
eg. Every word you type in the search menu goes to Bing, every new tab you open in Edge will show a Bing search page, Windows update sets your default browser and search engines, etc., etc. Even things like Visual Studio are now adding Bing search boxes all over the place.
Then there's Apple. Don't get me started on Apple.
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Then there's Apple. Don't get me started on Apple.
Apple can do what they want, why they are just a little underdog compared to the evil Microsoft and Google. Also Apple controls the hardware too, making it a vertical monopoly, this isn't a monopoly and they are free from anti-trust because reasons.
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They won't waste their time on Bing because nobody uses it. Apple is facing similar investigations AND civil legal action.
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To be effective, you have to nib them in the bid when they are still growing. Waiting until they peak and then waiting some more is not going to be effective in any way.
You must be new on this planet! Here, we always wait until it is almost too late to fix things. A good analogy would be that we always wait until a few deaths occurred before fixing something hazardous on our roads, like a dangerous crossing, curve, hill etc...
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To be effective, you have to nib them in the bid when they are still growing. Waiting until they peak and then waiting some more is not going to be effective in any way.
You must be new on this planet! Here, we always wait until it is almost too late to fix things. A good analogy would be that we always wait until a few deaths occurred before fixing something hazardous on our roads, like a dangerous crossing, curve, hill etc...
Naa, I know that. Climate change is a prime example. I still have hopes that some people will do a good job, but apparently that is just not possible when an organization is more than just a few people.
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The problem is the others don't measure up (Score:3)
Google got big because Google was better than what came before, like Yahoo and Altavista. And it continued to be better than what came later, as they tried to "out Google Google".
Frankly, they have an unfair advantage, in that they did a crapload more work than the ones that came before and after. Billions of sites scanned. Millions of computers thrown at the problem.
Those that come after want to create their own niche to fill. Bing wants to be the best integrated into Windows. DuckDuckGo wants to be "privacy based". And when people's desires correspond to the niche these search engines have, life is in harmony... except there isn't much money in harmony. Therefore, it's Google's fault.
Re:The problem is the others don't measure up (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The problem is the others don't measure up (Score:5, Informative)
... and bought out scummy rivals like Doubleclick for their data.
Re:The problem is the others don't measure up (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a time, from the early 2000's until around 2012 or so, when Google's results were indeed superior. Then they started catering to the masses who want to ask natural language queries like "who is that lady with the blue hair who sings that song about cats" or "bank of america login" and Google's search became complete crap for those of us who use search engines for obscure or highly technical queries. These days I often find myself using DDG or (gasp!) even Bing when researching anything technical, because Google is just going to return a list of "Having Windows Driver Issues? Try These Five Steps!" articles instead of the forum post that actually explains how to fix the problem.
And don't get me started on how the ads have been gradually redesigned to the point that they are now essentially indistinguishable from the actual list of search results...
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Google got big a few years before they did natural search questions. However it wasn't just better results that mattered. Another popular reason was that their interface was absolutely dead simple. At the time every other search engine was cluttered with ads and the result rankings were clearly paid. Many results were very low quality.
The experience was terrible and Google simply offered a better experience. Markedly Google today resembles their competitors back then far more than it does the Google of 20 y
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Honestly I like that Google offers natural language queries - they're quite effective for many things. I just really, really wish they hadn't also gutted their advanced search in the process.
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Completely agreed, Boolean search hasnâ(TM)t worked properly in years. Try to do an exact search to replicate it and you lose the ability to perform filtering by date and so on. Then thereâ(TM)s all the censorship issues. Google has become something in desperate need of disruption. I wonder if they even realize it.
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Google got popular because there were no ads on their homepage or interleaved in the search results. Period
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Google's search became complete crap for those of us who use search engines for obscure or highly technical queries.
Have you tried phrasing your technical query in natural language, rather than using a list of keywords? I find it works much better. I think a lot of technical people who've been using Google since the beginning find it less effective because they're still trying to use it the way they did 20 years ago, but the engine has changed. It's actually gotten much smarter and better in most ways, but the way you have to use it has changed.
As an example, while typing this I found myself struggling to remember how
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So when will they look at Amazon? (Score:1)
They are all evil. And as long people behave like sage grouse in a lek [app.goo.gl] there is not much regulators can do. The female sage grouse picks the male picked by most other females, thus small initial advantage snowballs up. The winner might not really be the best male.
Its like trying to have a democracy with totally apathetic voter
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Well, you linked to [app.goo.gl] which is a Google site. That's an expected result.
Remember life before Google? (Score:2, Funny)
I do.
https://ifunny.co/picture/i-ju... [ifunny.co]
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I'd love to see some policy that would discourage such large-scale rent-seeking behavior - perhaps something like your property tax rates go up based on the number of properties you own. Something like tax owed = value of property owned * tax rate * number of properties owned. Make it completely impossible to make a profit owning more than a small handful of rentals so that property values fall until normal people can afford to buy.
Of course you'd need to also close the obvious loopholes of owning lots of
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every apartment complex in 30 miles of where I live (save for a few slummy ones you really wouldn't want to live in ). When my kid moved cross country we found the same company owned both apartments. My rent went up 20% this year. The same mega corp is buying up houses and renting them, so I can't just buy house.
/.ers are letting them do it because they like shit posting and they hate it when they get downmodded until nobody can see their shit posts. Christ, what a world.
Meanwhile there are 2 companies that own every grocery store in my city. AT&T bought up all the baby bells (John Oliver had a bit on it years ago). Go count the number of health insurance providers sometime.
But yeah, Google. We should be spending our time on mother fucking Google.
This is politically motivated. Not because of Google's political stances (they don't have any in particular, Google just wants to make money) but because there's a real want and need to exercise control over the Internet.
I forget who said it, but if the rich understood what the Internet was they never would have let it happen. Now they understand, and they're moving to bring it under their thumb.
And a large chunk of
What you are seeing is the result of the growth of publicly traded REITs in the past 20 years combined with growing institutional investment interest in real estate. Almost all of the big property companies are either themselves, or are owned by, investment firms. The top 8 or so own more than 100,000 rental units nationwide (and that was in 2016). People like to blame small players and individuals buying up a couple of properties but it's much larger than that. I agree it's becoming a problem and needs to
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. AT&T bought up all the baby bells (John Oliver had a bit on it years ago).
Correction: It was Southwestern Bell that bought everything up, including AT&T. It then decided to skin and wear its AT&T suite in a homage to Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill.
YouTube monopoly even worse (Score:1)
They should focus on YouTube too.
Government should protect the weak from the strong (Score:2, Informative)
In the search arena Google is a Monopoly. And they use that monopoly to leverage their other interests such as youtube. Facebook and Amazon do the same.
Break them up.
A load of BS (Score:2, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it now, Google is not and has never had any monopoly in the search market. Please answer these questions:
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That list is not an exhaustive list of all the ways to take advantage of a near monopoly.
The Network Effect stands in the way of competition. You can't get big enough to index enough without first getting big enough. Same with Facebook: you make it easy to connect up with people by first connecting up with people. One-stop social shopping.
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The counter argument to this is Bing - it's earlier iterations are older than Google, was the default on almost all PC's for years .. has ~ 5% of the market
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I don't disagree that Google did more things right than other search companies, including Yahoo and Altavista.
But the rewards for being the best shouldn't last forever if it results in a near monopoly. Bing can copy whatever strategies Google used for success. But the Network Effect acts as a barrier.
Monopolies rarely remain sharp anyhow. They get complacent over time and spend resources preventing competition and lobbying politicians rather than on innovating.
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I suggest you present your findings to the supreme court next time there's a case about monopoly abuse. I'm sure the judges will discard a ton of written law and precedent in favour of your questions ...
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Does Google search cost you any money? Is it even a product/service which is sold to the end user? How something which is handed out for free can even be considered a monopoly?
That right there, gets to the heart of the issue. You are looking at this from the wrong point of view. You aren't their customer. You are their product. The market they are in is not really "search engine" it is "advertising to people on the internet". If you are looking to advertise on the internet, you might have to go through Google, at least if you are marketing to more than a handful of people. You don't really have much choice (there are a few other options - Facebook and maybe Microsoft [Bing]). Goo
Re: A load of BS (Score:1)
FTFY
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Does Google use its dominant position in the search market to pay for preferential treatment by vendors?
Does Google use its dominant position in the search market in the above ways to prevent others from entering the market, thus ensuring that they lack access to the investment capital required to provide a superior product?
As for your question about unbiased results - yes, in fact, Google
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Microsoft does all of the above without being dominant in the search market
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That's SOCIALISM?!! :-O (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump wouldn't allow this as that would be socialism and big government. He is free market so this can not be ... unless he is not a true conservatives or Google did something pissed him off with search reseults/
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The default search on the default browser... (Score:5, Insightful)
on the default PC is not Google. That means that it's popular (90%? who knows) despite the fact that every one of those PC users has to go out of their way to change the search engine setting (which they do by downloading a different browser, Google's Chrome, usually).
Duck duck go don't even run a web crawler: they outsource to Bing for actual search results.
If any of them provided a competitive service, then perhaps they would be more competitive.
I remember life before google search, AltaVista and all. You can prize Google from my cold, dead, browser...
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It's incredible how badly Microsoft failed when they had the default browser, default home page and default search engine most computers. Their product was so bad that people were motivated to change the default, a fairly high bar for most users.
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You keep saying like this is all past tense.. it is still the *current situation*, which is the OP's point.
For all of the complaints of Google dominance - Microsoft still buckets all of it's properties as default, yet basically everyone manually switches to Google.
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Arguably, the most popular platform for accessing the web does have Google as default. That would, of course, be Android.
Microsoft's problem is that MSN search just wasn't very good. Also, that was back when Google actually had a superior product. Then Microsoft came out with Bing. Bing is still not great, but certainly on par with Google whose quality has been on a long, steady decline. However, by the time they came out with Bing, Microsoft had let their dominance in the browser market slip from thei
Great (Score:1)
Now weâ(TM)ll have to use DuckDuckGo which is shitty. Whenever we have something nice, government regulator fools come to take it away.
It does sound amusing (Score:3)
that the biggest complaint is Google is paying Apple too much.
Going to flop (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect this one's going to go as well as so many other anti-trust lawsuits have gone: not well at all. There's been too many precedents set that mere harm to competitors isn't sufficient. I don't see how the idea that a company can be forced to not spend it's money because it's got too much is going to fly either. I think Google's at a point where it does need to be told it can't steamroll everybody else just because it can, but the GOP's spent too much effort over the last decades insuring that companies can in fact use their financial resources to steamroll competitors and opposition for that to stand a chance now.
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I think Google's at a point where it does need to be told it can't steamroll everybody else just because it can, but the GOP's spent too much effort over the last decades insuring that companies can in fact use their financial resources to steamroll competitors and opposition for that to stand a chance now.
The GOP doesn't give two shits about consistency. Obama can't appoint a supreme at the end of his presidency, but Trump can, etc etc. The case against Google can go ahead if they want it to. The only question is how much bribery will it take to stop it.
Remember when.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Once again, David has become Goliath.
Older slashdotters might remember the time when coverage of then-young Google on Slashdot was effusively and overwhelmingly positive. For years not a hint of negative press. They had an amazing track record of churning out useful product after useful product. But now they're too successful, too big, and the tables have turned on them. It's the cycle of tech-life...
Re:Remember when.... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Accuse Google of Crushing Competition" (Score:2)
Do YOU actually notice the ants underneath your feet as you walk along? Well us neither. Now go away or we'll make you Bing It [expta.com] !
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