Google rejects EU's search abuse complaint

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34076597

by Libertatea • 11 years ago

48 58 11 years ago

ewzimm3• 11 years ago

The only thing that seems suspicious there is the claim that traffic to aggregators has increased by 227% in the last decade. Overall Google traffic has increased by something like 500% in the last decade, so that would indicate a decrease in the percentage of redirections. I'm not sure if shopping aggregators are more or less popular, but that still seems like a deceptive number.

dynofuz• 11 years ago

and they only started displaying the product ads in the last 3-4 years. What happened to other shopping site traffic in that period?

cromwellian• 11 years ago

Just because overall traffic increased 500% that doesn't imply a decrease if you don't know what the distribution of searches are. If most of that 500% were looking for sports scores for example, then a 227% increase would be very impressive. Without more detailed data I don't think you can draw any conclusions.

ewzimm3• 11 years ago

Yes, that's what I mean about not knowing if aggregators got more or less popular over the last decade. I'm still not sure, but from a few searches, here's what I got:

Google Shopping is the #1 shopping aggregator according to this site: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/shopping-websites

The #2 Coupons.com, is going downhill fast: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/coupons.com

The #3, Bizrate.com, is also going downhill fast: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bizrate.com

So it does seem like Google Shopping is taking over traffic from other aggregators.

tyingq• 11 years ago

Some background that's related.

http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/img/ftc-ocr-waterm...

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

One of the interesting counter arguments (one in favor of monopoly) is that Google went from spending $337M a quarter on "paid distribution" (paying people to send their search traffic to Google) in Q1 2011, to $968M/qtr for paid distribution in Q4 2014. So Google is spending nearly $4 billion dollars a year to send traffic to their web site.

They can do that because their ad business is very profitable, but how much of that 'value' is because its worthwhile? And how much because its got the most volume?

One argument would be that Google's dominant position in the search advertising market allows them to fund this giant traffic buy, which prevents competitors from entering the search market. That is the classic Sherman Antitrust violation kind of thing in the US (and I believe much of the basis for the US Microsoft case where things were forced to be bundled by OEMs providing windows on their platforms, using Microsoft's dominant OS position to force their browser (internet explorer) on to the masses.

The trick is search an adjacent market to search advertising or the same market? I don't know, I can imagine arguing either side of that question.

Personally, I see Google's eroding CPC numbers as a sign they are losing their dominant position organically. It may not be happening as quickly as some competitors would like but it seems to be consistent. I also see that squeezing margins and driving changes like Alphabet, but that is simply speculation.

As a shareholder I think their decision to 'fight' here is probably not in their best interest long term (so many companies come out the other side of an anti-trust fight damaged for years and years).

magicalist3• 11 years ago

Wait, was the EU statement of objections only about comparison shopping?

kuschku5• 11 years ago

No, not at all.

The statement was mostly about Google scraping data and not linking back.

One case: They post a review about a restaurant on Yelp!

Soon later Google Places displayed the same review text, but did not link back to Yelp!

When Yelp! complained, Google suggested Yelp! should just use robots.txt to unlist their site complete, or put up with the scraping.

In return, Yelp! and other companies went to the EU and complained.

magicalist3• 11 years ago

No, not at all.
The statement was mostly about Google scraping data and not linking back

That's been somewhat the narrative around here, but that doesn't appear to be true at all:

The Statement of Objections takes the preliminary view that in order to remedy the conduct, Google should treat its own comparison shopping service and those of rivals in the same way. This would not interfere with either the algorithms Google applies or how it designs its search results pages. It would, however, mean that when Google shows comparison shopping services in response to a user's query, the most relevant service or services would be selected to appear in Google's search results pages.

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4781_en.htm

I didn't realize this. I thought it was more wide ranging.

kbenson3• 11 years ago

If that's what this specific set of objections are about, then the article does a spectacularly bad job of explaining the issue.

This seems simple enough to be handled by a site AUP. If Yelp's AUP said their content could only be used be aggregators in the case where it was clearly linked back, then it would be up to Google to comply or not use the data in an infringing manner.

If Google attempts to strong-arm Yelp, it's up to Yelp to capitulate or buckle down, but a case on what someone "threatened" to is different than a case on what was actually done. In the U.S. laws often take a while to challenge in court because they have to actually be exercised before they can be challenged.

mahouse2• 11 years ago

That ! cracked me up. I was yelling mentally.

dragonwriter• 11 years ago

Wait, was the EU statement of objections only about comparison shopping?

Yes, the Statement of Objections at issue was.

Fact sheet: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4781_en.htm

kazinator7• 11 years ago

Google has the right to make whatever content they want appear when you navigate to their website and type something into the search box. Just like you and I have a right to put nearly whatever we want in our private web page.

They are not a public utility.

If you don't like what you see on Google, go search somewhere else.

If you don't like anywhere else, then run your own web crawler and build your own index.

The world does not owe you a spam-free, ad-free, impartial, quasi-complete search index with a query engine that responds in under a second. Such a thing takes a lot of research and money to produce and operate.

necessity• 11 years ago

Google has the right to make whatever content they want appear when you navigate to their website

Except they don't. Government can regulate what content can and cannot be shown (e.g. "The right to be forgotten"). I disagree with UE's decisions and the principle behind it (anti-trust policies), but they have the authority to do so. If they should have this authority and how far it should stretch is a rather large debate and prone to flaming.

kazinator7• 11 years ago

Government can regulate what content can and cannot be shown (e.g. "The right to be forgotten")

Sure, and "hate speech" laws and illegal materials.

But they cannot regulate you, for instance, into showing something that you are not showing.

Suppose I run a search engine and some politician is against my organization. I can drop most positive entries related to that politician from my index, keeping mostly the ones that point to negative material.

DannyBee3• 11 years ago

"Government can regulate what content can and cannot be shown"

Depends on the government. In the US, commercial speech (IE speech for the purposes of engaging in commerce or advertising) is a weird issue. Content-based regulations of commercial speech have to satisfy intermediate scrutiny (instead of strict scrutiny that noncommercial speech would have to satisfy).

Intermediate scrutiny is an odd test, but suffice to say, the government is not going to win in a lot of cases.

Essentially, at least in the US, the government's authority to restrict commercial speech has significant limits, particularly when it comes to content-based regulations.

caskance2• 11 years ago

They can regulate whatever they want. Tomorrow they might pass a law that makes it illegal to display the Google logo. That has no impact on Google's rights.

In some countries, women are not allowed to leave the house unless accompanied by a man. We recognize that women do have the right to do so, and that countries that disagree are stupid and wrong.

germanier3• 11 years ago

If you want to operate your business in a market you have to play by the rules set there. Nobody can and wants to force Google to operate their search in the EU, as you noted correctly. But if they wish to do so, there are laws they need to follow. If they operate a quasi-monopoly those laws are stricter than they would be for you and me.

There is certain type of content that you would agree that Google shouldn't be allowed to put on their website. It's just that in the EU there are some more restrictions.

kazinator7• 11 years ago

I didn't mean that Google has the right to put, say, child porn on their website.

If they operate a quasi-monopoly those laws are stricter than they would be for you and me.

To have stricter laws, there should be an actual monopoly. Google have no monopoly, only a "mental monopoly", so called mind-share. When people want to search for something, the first word that pops into their head is "Google".

A monopoly is something else, like not being able to buy a product or service except form a particular vendor, even if you want alternatives.

Also, a monopoly uses its power to prevent entry into the market: vendors who want access to the users who would like alternative vendors are hindered from starting up.

You're not paying anything for Google searches, and there are alternatives.

Google connected a farm of machines to the network, which provide a free service and don't prevent anyone from doing the same. How can that be a monopoly?

mangeletti• 11 years ago

If Google purports to be a search engine and then gives preference to search results that benefit them, it's ethically similar to an fiduciary adviser recommending things that make him rich without regard for your well being. Google is not in a fiduciary relationship to you, but a similar ethical situation arises because fair competition (which laws protect in most countries - e.g., including anti-trust laws here in the US) is hard to be had when one company is tricking its customers (by making their ads look similar to search results) into thinking they're getting more for less (e.g., getting free search when in actuality they're being led to potentially less desirable products for Google's monetary gain).

If Google instead purported to be a "find products we like to recommend" engine, this situation wouldn't arise. I suspect less people would use their service in this case, and that should illustrated the point: if the value of your service decreases when you tell the truth, then you're, by definition, gaining an a business advantage by being dishonest.

kbenson3• 11 years ago

Are these paid shopping comparisons, or whatever Google finds itself and tries to usefully show to users? If it's the latter, your statement should read as follows:

If Google purports to be a search engine and then gives preferences to search results that benefit their users (making Google indispensable), it's ethically similar to an fiduciary adviser recommending things that make his clients rich (making himself indispensable). Being indispensible has its own benefits and value.

kazinator7• 11 years ago

People using Google search are not customers. They are visitors to a free web site where you can type stuff into a box, and other stuff appears of that web site's choosing. There are various assurances made or implied about what that stuff consists of. Those come from the website itself, so you're foolish if you completely believe them.

How about people who use other free stuff? People who load up GNU/Linux and log in to a Bash promp --- are they "GNU customers"? Does GNU have a monopoly because the users don't bother to find out about other operating systems and believe all the evangelizing which tells them that GNU/Linux is the best?

PretzelFisch• 11 years ago

Except Google has no fiduciary responsibilities to search consumers.

tomvbussel3• 11 years ago

Google has a search engine monopoly (at least in Europe), this gives them the obligation not to abuse this. If they're using their monopoly to promote other services (such as when directly show Maps in the results, without offering other providers of maps the same option) or if they're scraping content without linking back (such as with Yelp), they're abusing this monopoly.

kazinator7• 11 years ago

There is no such thing as a "search engine monopoly".

The word "monopoly" doesn't mean "lack of viable alternatives", except colloquially. (Colloquial uses of the term are not appropriate in context; that is equivocation.)

r3bl• 11 years ago

Yes, Google has full control. That's why Google doesn't have to deal with DMCA requests (after all, he's just pointing to other links, right?), that "Right to be forgotten" nonsense and now this thing. /s

When a site is small, it's easy to control its content. When a site is considered to be the standard for something (like Google is for searching the web), then it has to deal with these kinds of things.

kazinator7• 11 years ago

these kinds of things

"These kinds of things" can be articulated as "the sense of entitlement of the collectivist horde".

makeitsuckless• 11 years ago

It's interesting how libertarians keep confusing their ideology with the law in a democracy.

rue2• 11 years ago

In the EU, we have a legislation that (at least sometimes) actually evaluates things in the context of the world we live in today as opposed to the 18th century. Thus, it can dynamically react and even proact to situations—such as for example treating a de facto utility (Google search) in the manner of a de jure utility.

To paraphrase some guy, “If Google don't like what it see in EU, it go somewhere else.”

hobarrera• 11 years ago

Google has the right to make whatever content they want appear when you navigate to their website and type something into the search box. Just like you and I have a right to put nearly whatever we want in our private web page.

Having the monopoly in search engines (admit it: they have over 95% of the users in Europe and the US), anti-trust regulation comes into play, and it stops being so simple.

current_call• 11 years ago

Since when do corporations have rights?

Google will do what the EU tells them to do or the EU will use violence to make them do it.

dogma1138• 11 years ago

"If users search for "price comparison" they will get Google's own ads before links to rival services"

Ehm no it wont....

If you search for price comparison you get nothing but price comparison sites, if you search for price comparison computers you get nothing but price comparison sites again, if you search for price comparison [buy] computers you will get some direct advertisement with prices.

I've started using Google Shopping in many cases it finds items which are cheaper than Amazon (for the most part discounting Argos and some other bigbox marts the cheapest Retailers in the UK at least as far as London goes). Unlike many price comparison sites it's easy enough to find a local store near you with the item you need in case of an emergency (If it's not on Amazon now ;)) and some times the price difference can be sufficient to not use a service like Amazon (30 days no hassle return is more than worth the occasional premium on Amazon for me). While I understand that this might be driving some people out of business price compression sites are just behind the curve and as "skewing" search results go than those sites are a much bigger offender than Google is.

Heck if i got to Pricegrabber (UK) now and search for "lenovo yoga 2 pro" I only get 1 relevant result on the 1st unfiltered page for what i want for 999gbp if I click the filters on the left and select laptop computers that result wont be shown, that result wont show up and the lowest result will be for 1098 GBP.

If i use Google Shopping i only get relevant results, the cheapest one is for a refurbished 494GBP and the cheapest new one is for 539 for a better model that there is on Pricegrabber....

The price comparison sites are just utter garbage, they don't update the product pages, they don't verify if the product is in stock or not, they don't give you alternative options and they give you an order of magnitude less results.

Google just grabs everything from it's index, the EU complaints is like telling email providers in the 90's that they need to stop offering mail-to-fax services and telegram services because it hurts the postal service...

If pricerunner, pricegrabber and the 1000 other price comparison sites weren't utter garbage this wouldn't be an issue you cannot legislate progress or lack of it.

Google rejects EU's search abuse complaint

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