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[notaskwid]

LOL at people stanning for Google. If google doesn't want to pay they can take their fucking business elsewhere. All the money they take in profit should be returned to the people they explore anyway.

Sent from my chinese android phone.

 

[Winterblink]

Cool, because this is not about internet regulation but about anti-competitive practices. Which also applies to internet companies.

The funny part about it being anti-competitive is that those are paid results by other retailers. Google thinks you're looking for a product, so provides quick access to stores selling that product. It's not like it's linking to a department store owned by Google.

Oh well, I guess the fix is that they turn that feature off for the EU and pay/appeal the fine.

 

[witchedwiz]

In every one of these threads it is pointed out how the EU regularly fines EU companies for hunderds of millions up towards multiple billions of euros.

Some of the highest fines have been given to Daimler (German), DAF (originally Dutch I think), Saint Gobain (French), Philips (Dutch), LG (Korean), Volvo/Renault (French), Deutsche Bank (German), Siemens (German). Those are some of the largest EU companies you can find.

But sure, the EU only targets the poor American companies.

Don't bother..
Quite some americans just like to whine for nothing when it comes to corporation, especially us corporations..
I agree with funkypapa...

 

[Kthulhu]

Facebook, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon should all be broken up. They're simply too large and their financial capabilities make it so hard to regulate them when they can overwhelm legislators with lobbyists and FUD. It's not healthy for democracy to have companies with so much influence.

Shouldn't you have your democracy set up so that only individuals can influence them in the first place?

Edit: I'm all for sensible regulations, but none of the companies you mentioned are big enough to warrant breaking then up.

 

[barit]

Good. Google really went too far with this shit. Can't find anything without getting tricked to click on some online shop sites. The first five results are always paid advertisments of sites that mostly have nothing to do with what I wanted. Fuck them

 

[Tk0n]

Holy shit at people taking mega corporation's side.

fat cat defence force

 

[TheDarkLord]

If governments don't enforce fair competition rules, that is exactly what happens, just look at net neutrality, to get an idea, it is regulation to prevent companies from regulating as they see fit.

If i'm looking for Government intervention and web regulation i'll go live in China or North Korea. The only reason Bitcoin has thrived for so long is because of zero regulation is being enforced on it. Some markets like Technology and Crypto-Currencies would do better with less.

 

[avaya]

I disagree that a 10% rule (or more) should be applied every time; the logical conclusion if that actually happened would be that companies would need to seek approval for every activity from the Commission for every new activity they take, because if they make a mistake or even if their lawyers think there is nothing wrong with an activity, that means that you automatically give up 10% of your revenue.

Like you said, it took 7 years for the Commission to determine whether or not this activity broke the rules, and they are still investigating Google's other activities. Even if it just takes 1-2 years for a Commission to make a determination on whether a proposed activity will break the rules, it would stifle activity and definitely be considered over-regulation if companies are afraid of getting a 10% fine without preclearance from the Commission. As an active example, Google has proposed implementing ad-blocking in Chrome by default. Hard to say whether it violates any anti-competition rules, but if there was always a 10% fine for violating anti-competition rules, it would stop Google in its tracks even if at the end of the day (after a 7 year investigation?) the Commission might clear it and say it is okay.

I disagree due to company size. This is why using revenue as a fine metric is absurd when it comes to the FANGS except Amazon. It should be tailored by industry so it can be targeted so that even a small fine can be painful enough. There is little to no real impact for Google for the acts they have already committed. There is virtually no pain. Even at 10%.

Hypercaps with 35-40% FCF margins and double digit growth need much larger fines than your traditional minimal margin retail business equivalents. They have virtually no disincentive to engage in similar behaviour later. Investigations rarely take 1-2yrs with these firms due to their many obfuscations. The pay-off on an NPV basis is huge for Google to engage in similar shit down the line.

Moreover these companies know exactly what they are doing when they engage in this sort of practice. They are not navel gazing fools, they are calculated and sharp. There is no ambiguity here. Google knew it abused its position with price comparison. Microsoft knew it abused its position with IE. Intel knew what it was doing with OEMs to AMD. I would love for them all to have to get pre-clearance, that is not over regulation that is called effective regulation.

 

[TatteredHat]

Lol, this thread has proceeded as expected. Can always rely on a couple of big corp cheerleaders to come out of the woodworks.

 

[close to the edge]

If i'm looking for Government intervention and web regulation i'll go live in China or North Korea. The only reason Bitcoin has thrived for so long is because of zero regulation is being enforced on it. Some markets like Technology and Crypto-Currencies would do better with less.

You're comparing censoring huge parts of the internet (or basically no internet at all in the case of NK) with giving a minor fee (relatively, considering its size) to a company operating on the internet? This isn't about internet regulation, this is about anti-competitive practices.

 

[Micael]

If i'm looking for Government intervention and web regulation i'll go live in China or North Korea. The only reason Bitcoin has thrived for so long is because of zero regulation is being enforced on it. Some markets like Technology and Crypto-Currencies would do better with less.

Got to say I was not expecting to find someone that was against net neutrality on neogaf, that was mighty silly of me.

 

[ClosingADoor]

If i'm looking for Government intervention and web regulation i'll go live in China or North Korea. The only reason Bitcoin has thrived for so long is because of zero regulation is being enforced on it. Some markets like Technology and Crypto-Currencies would do better with less.

Can you explain how this is "internet regulation"? Because just because it happens to be an internet company, doesn't mean the internet is now regulated. Anti-competitive practices are fined in every industry.

If you play by this rule, then should we also just allow hacking into peoples PCs, because otherwise the internet would be regulated? Can we sue internet companies for copyright infringement? Can we sue or fine internet companies at all?

To compare this to China or North Korea is just bizarre.

 

[tuxfool]

If i'm looking for Government intervention and web regulation i'll go live in China or North Korea. The only reason Bitcoin has thrived for so long is because of zero regulation is being enforced on it. Some markets like Technology and Crypto-Currencies would do better with less.

This is trade and competition related. I wonder if it would shock you to know that even in the US this happens with weak and toothless regulators.

Oh yes, all that lack of regulations totally helped things like Mt. Gox thrive and then lose people's money.

 

[TheDarkLord]

Got to say I was not expecting to find someone that was against net neutrality on neogaf, that was mighty silly of me.

its in response to this

Plus I find it strange that your response to a company having a monopoly over something as globally essential as the internet means we should just let them do whatever the hell they want, instead of regulating that to prevent abuses of power happening

 

[IISANDERII]

I would love to see American corporations boycott the EU and pull all of their business out of these countries. It yet again is all too apparent that the EU goes after American companies with the intent to use them to line their pockets for shitty reasons.

"shtty reasons" even though Google themselves admitted that their practice was shady.

 

[Micael]

its in response to this

Oh ok, since you quoted me, I assumed you were responding to me not something else, although my point stands, regulation is necessary, net neutrality is government regulation, yet it is my opinion that anyone that is against net neutrality is just ignorant of what companies would do with a free ticket to do what ever they pleased.

 

[Dascu]

A view from the complainants' side: http://uk.businessinsider.com/eu-google-antitrust-monopoly-europe-case-2017-6?r=US&IR=T

Most of the people doing the complaining are NOT Europeans — they are other American tech companies (and their lobbyists) whose international businesses have allegedly been screwed over by Google.

Americans can comfort themselves with the image of French and Belgian politicians, sitting behind glasses of red wine, moaning about "les Americains" ruining everything for the workers, but that is not the reality.

The best evidence for this came from Yelp and a coalition of companies it has formed that believe they are being screwed out of their natural, "organic" ranking in search results because Google simply dumps its own — often less relevant — content on top of the "real" search ranking of which sites are best.

Yelp's evidence was elegant and simple: It used Google's own search API to create a browser extension that displayed Google search results without results that include promo boxes generated from Google+, the unpopular identity/social-network product that Google launched to counter Facebook. The extension shows you the "real" result generated by Google's algorithm, without the self-promotional fluff that Google layers on top of it.

 

[Barzul]

Good. Honestly sick of anticompetitive behavior. You see it in the financial markets a lot too like with the LIBOR scandal. Capitalism doesn't have a leg to stand on without proper regulation.

 

[Falchion]

Damn that's a crazy fine.

 

[numble]

I disagree due to company size. This is why using revenue as a fine metric is absurd when it comes to the FANGS except Amazon. It should be tailored by industry so it can be targeted so that even a small fine can be painful enough. There is little to no real impact for Google for the acts they have already committed. There is virtually no pain. Even at 10%.

Hypercaps with 35-40% FCF margins and double digit growth need much larger fines than your traditional minimal margin retail business equivalents. They have virtually no disincentive to engage in similar behaviour later. Investigations rarely take 1-2yrs with these firms due to their many obfuscations. The pay-off on an NPV basis is huge for Google to engage in similar shit down the line.

Moreover these companies know exactly what they are doing when they engage in this sort of practice. They are not navel gazing fools, they are calculated and sharp. There is no ambiguity here. Google knew it abused its position with price comparison. Microsoft knew it abused its position with IE. Intel knew what it was doing with OEMs to AMD. I would love for them all to have to get pre-clearance, that is not over regulation that is called effective regulation.

I disagree that the NPV is greater than 9 billion (you claim that even a 9 billion fine has no pain), please prove the NPV of Google Shopping being promoted in the past 7 years. Do you have figures on how much income has been earned from Google Shopping in the last 7 years?

My point is that if it is a 10% hard fine (EC is still investigating Google and will likely invoke fines for other practices) for every action, you will stop many companies from doing many actions because there is a fear of such a steep fine.

If you think that they are calculated and sharp and have no ambiguity regarding their actions, can you tell me which other investigations will be concluded with Google seen violating anti-competition rules? Is it abusing its position for specialized search? Is it abusing its position for prioritizing ads? We know EC already preliminarily thinks Google has abused its position with respect to Android and AdSense. Could it be found to be engaging in loss-leading activities with respect to non-search products to the detriment of rivals? Would ad-blocking in Chrome be an abuse of market position? If you think there should be a 10% fine for each violation, the existing conclusions would already add up to 30%, and future ones would add on top of that. If China or US imposed the same rules and fined for the same things, you would have a minimum of a 90% total fine (30% in each jurisdiction) for the violations that EC has fined. That would just be too steep of a fine that would lead to companies asking all governments for clearance before engaging in any activity.

The fine should be tailored to remove any profits gained from the activity, stop the activity, and impose some punishment. But 10% of global revenue for every violation is absurd. If you think they can tailor it to industries to punish low margin companies less, that isn't fair either. So if Amazon fixes prices and takes products off their store unless the companies install Alexa or Amazon Video on their devices, Amazon can be punished less because they are low margin?

 

[ShironRedshift]

Lol, this thread has proceeded as expected. Can always rely on a couple of big corp cheerleaders to come out of the woodworks.

Reading the linked articles, it's pretty clear that Google/Alphabet really messed up here and appears to be guilty of abusing their position. But even as someone who agrees with that position, can we knock posts like this off please? Not like they help or advance the discussion in any way. All they do is put people on edge. I mean, on one side, you had Google... but on the other hand, you had their competitors, which while they aren't as large as Alphabet/Google, they're still mostly mega-corps themselves. No matter where you come down on this, you're siding when some corporation or another. It's not like this case directly has anything to do with consumers, but rather how different corporations were interacting with and treating each other.

So no matter who you side with, whether you mean to or not (that is, whether you side with Google or you side with the Commission, even if you do the latter), you're still siding with the interests of one mega-corporation or another and arguing for them to be in a better position. And it doesn't help the discussion along anyway, and just puts people on edge, and even if someone else started it or whatever, it certainly doesn't help the discussion get any better, but rather just continues to drag it downhill instead by attacking people's motivations and making assumptions about them and their character, instead of their arguments.

And I say this as someone who makes no qualms about Google messing up hear and has the same take as you--stuff like this is still annoying me. So can we please tone it down and focus on the decision itself, rather than assuming things about people's motivations which don't even make much sense given the nature of the situation? Would be appreciated.

 

[Barzul]

Damn that's a crazy fine.

It has to be crazy or it isn't a deterrent. If it was some minor fine like we often see stateside with our regulators then it just becomes a cost of doing business.

 

[elyetis]

Your example compared a single US company involved in an ambiguous infraction being assigned the same penalty as a group of European companies involved in the most obvious and severe form of criminal monopoly abuse.

It's like saying that there is no racial bias in criminal courts because a person of race A gets the same sentence for drug possession as a person of race B who commits murder.

Parrallel can be hard to draw, like MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco, and DAF settled, which in itself gave them a 10% reduction in fines.Microsoft in 2013 was "only" fined 560m euros ( when in theory they could have fined them up to $7bn or something like that ) which is less than what Volvo/Renault ( 670m€ ), Daimler ( 1008m€ ), DAF ( 752m€ ) were fined in that example. And when you compare it to their respective annual revenue that difference increase even more.
The objective is not to kill those company, nor is it to only give such a small fine it won't prevent them from doing it again.

 

[Sulik2]

Gotta love the EU. When they fine companies they actually make the fines big enough that company doesn't just shrug and dig out some change from their couches.

 

[Winterblink]

So Google posted a blog today about their opinion on the decision:

https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/european-commission-decision-shopping-google-story/

I've read the actual press release on the decision from the EU Commission and it's a solid read about how they came to their decision. Google's counter argument is also a pretty interesting read. I use a lot of Google services myself, and while I'm no fan of anti competitive practices this is kind of an interesting case when you get into the specifics of how the function works.

 

[MisterFalcon]

So what you are saying is that Google puts its own service above the rest - and also in a much more visible template with the images and such, which it doesn't allow for anything else. That is exactly the problem, they put their own products before others.

But the claim is that other shopping services are artificially put lower and that without these illegal practices they would be on the first page. Unfortunately the EU documents give no examples of such shopping services, apparently amazon is not one. In this case of searching for wireless headphones you have:

-The Google Shopping part
-Articles on wireless headphones
-Websites of stores that sell wireless headphones
-Websites of manufacturers of wireless headphones who also sell directly to the public
-Websites that collect prices of wireless headphones and link to stores

The last category is what this is apparently all about. Checking a few of these sites like pricegrabber or shopzilla don't add a lot, pricegrabber puts a $400 Sennheiser at the top while shopzilla has a $25 set of earbuds there and not a single Sennheiser in the first 20 results. Neither uses the location from my IP to give local results while Google shopping does.

What is a shopping site that is better then Google Shopping that is being forced into the wasteland of Search Result Page 5 ? The ones I saw were worse.

 

[geestack]

i hope google appeals and then they get slapped with an even bigger fine.

 

[Flo_Evans]

To me this is like saying a grocery store can't promote its own brand of milk. If I walk into the store I expect them to try and sell me their stuff first.

EU seems to view companies as utilities which seems strange to me.

I wonder how you could retaliatory force google to provide a fair search result of their own services, they write the algorithms. Their other services are also insanely popular.

 

[TatteredHat]

And I say this as someone who makes no qualms about Google messing up hear and has the same take as you--stuff like this is still annoying me. So can we please tone it down and focus on the decision itself, rather than assuming things about people's motivations which don't even make much sense given the nature of the situation? Would be appreciated.

When you have people here hoping Google gets away with breaking anti-competitive regulation and/or claiming that the EU only has it out for profitable US companies that's really the only thing I can conclude as far as their position is concerned. That's not a stance argued out of good faith. And these people always show up in every single "EC fines a company" thread on this forum.

I'm not on the side of any corporation, unless you consider the EC a corporation. These are our laws, corporations can either abide by them and face the consequences for breaking them, or they can take their business elsewhere.

 

[ClosingADoor]

But the claim is that other shopping services are artificially put lower and that without these illegal practices they would be on the first page. Unfortunately the EU documents give no examples of such shopping services, apparently amazon is not one. In this case of searching for wireless headphones you have:

-The Google Shopping part
-Articles on wireless headphones
-Websites of stores that sell wireless headphones
-Websites of manufacturers of wireless headphones who also sell directly to the public
-Websites that collect prices of wireless headphones and link to stores

The last category is what this is apparently all about. Checking a few of these sites like pricegrabber or shopzilla don't add a lot, pricegrabber puts a $400 Sennheiser at the top while shopzilla has a $25 set of earbuds there and not a single Sennheiser in the first 20 results. Neither uses the location from my IP to give local results while Google shopping does.

What is a shopping site that is better then Google Shopping that is being forced into the wasteland of Search Result Page 5 ? The ones I saw were worse.

But then if Google doesn't see those shopping sites as relevant to show on the first page, why is it showing its own shopping site there?

The problem is, Google does not use its standard algorithm to decide the placement of their own shopping site. They put it on top as the standard. Read the press release from the EU and all your questions will be answered: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-1784_en.htm

Especially this part:

Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service: when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine in relation to which Google's comparison shopping service wants to show results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results.

Google has demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results: rival comparison shopping services appear in Google's search results on the basis of Google's generic search algorithms. Google has included a number of criteria in these algorithms, as a result of which rival comparison shopping services are demoted. Evidence shows that even the most highly ranked rival service appears on average only on page four of Google's search results, and others appear even further down. Google's own comparison shopping service is not subject to Google's generic search algorithms, including such demotions.

 

[Nipo]

What in theory would google pulling out of the EC even look like? EU citizens would still just go to the US website.

Not allow people with addresses in europe to access its search/youtube/gmail etc? There would be riots on the streets. Google is more powerful than most governments at this point since it controls the flow of information .

 

[CTLance]

Hooray, I guess?

Google can pay this fine comparatively easily and has had ample time to adapt their offering, plus the damage to the market has been done (and their comparison service has been established, which might or might not have happened without the unlawful boost). So, eh.

Still, better than nothing, and I hope EU continues to play whack a mole with the big industries whenever they start any shady business.

 

[Barzul]

What in theory would google pulling out of the EC even look like? EU citizens would still just go to the US website.

Not allow people with addresses in europe to access its search/youtube/gmail etc? There would be riots on the streets. Google is more powerful than most governments at this point since it controls the flow of information .

They're not going to pull out of the EU, there's too much money to be made. And they will cede global market share to competitors. Like you said they control the flow of information, that is worth a lot more than 2.5 billion.

 

[Dascu]

To me this is like saying a grocery store can't promote its own brand of milk. If I walk into the store I expect them to try and sell me their stuff first.

EU seems to view companies as utilities which seems strange to me.

I wonder how you could retaliatory force google to provide a fair search result of their own services, they write the algorithms. Their other services are also insanely popular.

That would be the same market. This is one company using its leverage in one particular market where they have dominance (search) to promote their products in another one (price comparison). You can definitely argue, and this is what Google does, that there is a strong consumer benefit from 'bundling' these things together. It's the same for Microsoft and pre-installing Internet Explorer on their OS/Windows. There's a convenience here, but it maybe comes to an unfair (?) disadvantage for others.

Imagine if you had a taxi company with 90% of all the rides, indeed due to your good service, nice cars, good prices. But then every time a customer gets in and asks for a hotel or restaurant recommendation, you systematically suggest them those of your own family. And in effect, since people 'don't know any better', your family hotels and restaurants totally benefit and become dominant in their respective markets too, not really due to them being 'better', but because of your referrals via your taxi business.

There's various ways to look at and assess this, but you can understand that at least on some level there may be problematic market situations here. It's up then to the lawyers and economists on the side of Google, the complainant companies and of the Commission to do this analysis and fight it out, eventually in front of the European Court of Justice.

 

[Dr_LucienSanchez]

Much of the liberal wing of GAF is usually very liberal until it comes to their own taxes and defending American corporations abroad. Then it nearly turns Reaganite.

It's an actual constant.

Yep, it's generally quite amusing to see the sudden shift when 'liberal' GAF discusses taxes or topics like this. Says a lot, probably.

 

[Doikor]

To me this is like saying a grocery store can't promote its own brand of milk. If I walk into the store I expect them to try and sell me their stuff first.

EU seems to view companies as utilities which seems strange to me.

I wonder how you could retaliatory force google to provide a fair search result of their own services, they write the algorithms. Their other services are also insanely popular.

Think your example with a small modification. In the whole EU there only exists one grocery store chain. (in terms of search in EU google has 90%+ share). And the non store brand milk would be on in some corner of the shop most people never visit to buy milk (outside the dairy section)

 

[Whompa02]

a drop in the bucket for Google.

 

[Winterblink]

a drop in the bucket for Google.

Basically; similar to how Apple's fine for 14 billion probably didn't even make them flinch.

 

[Frozenprince]

Isn't Google,Microsoft and Apple becoming what Standard Oil once was?

Becoming?

 

[AmFreak]

Your example compared a single US company involved in an ambiguous infraction being assigned the same penalty as a group of European companies involved in the most obvious and severe form of criminal monopoly abuse.

It's like saying that there is no racial bias in criminal courts because a person of race A gets the same sentence for drug possession as a person of race B who commits murder.

Without knowing details of these cases fines are normally based on the advantage you got from and the damage you did by misbehaving.
A company gaining millions won't be fined the same as a company gaining billions e.g.

 

[Nordicus]

A view from the complainants' side: http://uk.businessinsider.com/eu-google-antitrust-monopoly-europe-case-2017-6?r=US&IR=T

Thanks for that. Had not seen exactly how Google's rulebreaking manifests, but apparently Yelp showcased it in 2014 with "London hotels" search

The implication is that because Google dumps its reviews on top of those, it is using its 90% market dominance to essentially interfere in the market for — in this case — hotels. That, possibly, is antitrust violation. Yelp isn't complaining that Google dominates search, rather that it is using that dominance to distort markets outside of the search industry.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Got super excited for this thread once I read the news.
Didn't disappoint me, though it could have used some more of the "Jealous evil EU is wagging a shadow war against poor Us companies." discussion.
I give this thread a 7,5/10

 

[Volphied]

Jesus Fucking Christ. There are multiple people in this thread defending poor little Google.

America deserves Trump.

 

[Flo_Evans]

Think your example with a small modification. In the whole EU there only exists one grocery store chain. (in terms of search in EU google has 90%+ share). And the non store brand milk would be on in some corner of the shop most people never visit to buy milk (outside the dairy section)

I get it I just don't really agree that once you reach an arbitrary market share percentage you basically have to start helping rival brands compete.

The diffrence in a grocery store is you may only have one reasonably accessible to you, a different search query is literally seconds away.

If you are not going to allow the market leader to cross promote its other services you might as well say you can't provide more than one service.

 

[NullPointer]

Good.

Google needs to be checked.

 

[Doikor]

I get it I just don't really agree that once you reach an arbitrary market share percentage you basically have to start helping rival brands compete.

The diffrence in a grocery store is you may only have one reasonably accessible to you, a different search query is literally seconds away.

If you are not going to allow the market leader to cross promote its other services you might as well say you can't provide more than one service.

If you are tech savvy sure. For a lot of people Google is "The Internet". Basically if it doesn't show up at the first page of a google search it does not exist. "Internet search" means "Google search" to those people. I know it isn't Googles fault that people are stupid but still they have market dominance and within the EU that means the Article 102 applies.

Article 102 of the Treaty prohibits firms that hold a dominant position on a given market to abuse that position, for example by charging unfair prices, by limiting production, or by refusing to innovate to the prejudice of consumers.

Sure if you think these laws suck start a campaign to get them changed. Most in EU actually like these so I doubt it will succeed. And if Google thinks they are too much of a problem they can pull out of the EU market (I doubt it. They are making lot more then that 2.4 billion fine every year from the EU. Alphabet last year had 90 billion revenue with 19 billion profits.)

 

[Dascu]

From the European consumer association: http://www.beuc.eu/publications/google-record-fine-paves-way-better-search-results-consumers/html

For a legal perspective, and 'in favour' of Google's position regarding bundling and tying as legitimate business practices: https://chillingcompetition.com/201...droid-complaint-post-33-bundling-allegations/

It's from the Android case, but I think a lot of arguments link to this case.

My two cents: this is a damn complex matter, as is any antitrust investigation of this scope and in this rather dynamic tech/digital marketplace. I would treat it like any other court case: leave it to the teams of excellent lawyers, economists and academics on all sides, and ideally trust in the judgment of a court of experienced judges. None of us on this forum are experts, none of us have access to the vast amounts of data and evidence this decision is based on, and none of us can really point fingers or make assumptions about how the market would've been in absence of Google's allegedly illegal behaviour. It's like taking sides in an on-going murder investigation and judging the guilt or innocence based on the good looks of the defendant.

 

[ClosingADoor]

I get it I just don't really agree that once you reach an arbitrary market share percentage you basically have to start helping rival brands compete.

The diffrence in a grocery store is you may only have one reasonably accessible to you, a different search query is literally seconds away.

If you are not going to allow the market leader to cross promote its other services you might as well say you can't provide more than one service.

A different search query is not going to fix this issue, because no matter what, Google puts their own shopping results on top.

And yes, once you reach a certain size, you start running into rules that mean you can't just promote your own services as easily and need to take into account different laws. Google can run every service they want, they don't need to shut down Google Shopping. But they need to have it included in their search engine under the same rules as competing services.

 

[JoeLT]

Are they seriously being fined for advertising their own shopping service WITHIN Google Search? How is this remotely illegal? Do they understand that Google Search is a service made by Google and not some god given right.

Can Facebook also be fined for advertising their own shopping services within Facebook?

To me this is like saying a grocery store can't promote its own brand of milk. If I walk into the store I expect them to try and sell me their stuff first.

EU seems to view companies as utilities which seems strange to me.

I wonder how you could retaliatory force google to provide a fair search result of their own services, they write the algorithms. Their other services are also insanely popular.

This sums up how I feel about this, how is this any different than a store advertising their own products instead of third party products?

 

[Volphied]

Are they seriously being fined for advertising their own shopping service WITHIN Google Search? How is this remotely illegal? Do they understand that Google Search is a service made by Google and not some god given right.

Can Facebook also be fined for advertising their own shopping services within Facebook?

This sums up how I feel about this, how is this any different than a store advertising their own products instead of third party products?

This was already explained before.

If you are tech savvy sure. For a lot of people Google is "The Internet". Basically if it doesn't show up at the first page of a google search it does not exist. "Internet search" means "Google search" to those people. I know it isn't Googles fault that people are stupid but still they have market dominance and within the EU that means the Article 102 applies.

Article 102 of the Treaty prohibits firms that hold a dominant position on a given market to abuse that position, for example by charging unfair prices, by limiting production, or by refusing to innovate to the prejudice of consumers.

Sure if you think these laws suck start a campaign to get them changed. Most in EU actually like these so I doubt it will succeed. And if Google thinks they are too much of a problem they can pull out of the EU market (I doubt it. They are making lot more then that 2.4 billion fine every year from the EU. Alphabet last year had 90 billion revenue with 19 billion profits.)