This fine is moronic on so many levels I'm just cringing in disbelief:
Google search engine is not a public service - they don't owe anything to anyone, they are free to show whichever results they want to and deem necessary.
Google is not the only search engine in the world - there's Bing, Yahoo and others. How on earth can they abuse their "monopolistic" position if there's none?
Google is not selling you their search engine - it's provided basically free of charge (sans ads you may or may not click).
In Europe, we don't care if it's a public or private service - your rights are still equally protected. IOW, in Europe a private company also cannot screw you over in ways a public organisation cannot.
I know that's an unknown concept if you live in the US.
how is google showing up in a google search abuse? Will they fine Amazon for having amazon sales show up in amazon search? They're not burying competing search results. They're not redirecting amazon links to their own shopping site.
No, it's a big American (and therefore evil) company being fined for not having paid enoough to the right european politicians. Don't believe me? Notice that the apple monopoly is okay, but Google giving away a cell phone operating system is clearly abusive. Right. This is clear
how is google showing up in a google search abuse? Will they fine Amazon for having amazon sales show up in amazon search?
Amazon doesn't have market dominance in search, so that's not relevant.
Suppose that 90% of all washing machines sold in the EU were Bosch washing machines. They would have market dominance.
Then, suppose Bosch announced that you would void your warranty unless you used Bosch branded detergent. That would be an abuse of dominant market position - muscling in on the detergent market by leveraging dominance in washing machines.
Google is being accused of muscling in on the price-comparison market by leveraging the dominance in internet website search.
Imagine if Google decided to get into the used car business, an all of a sudden searches for "used 2010 Hondo Civic" returned results from Google dealers at the top, and other dealers a surprisingly long way down. That would be seen by many as abuse of market position.
You could argue that in a free market, people will just stop using Google to search, and will start looking for new cars in Bing, and order will be restored to the world. Many people in Europe have less faith in the market's ability to just correct these sorts of things.
That's because in the US, a free market in internet service is against the law. In other words, local ISPs have an actual monopoly, enforced by the government. The market hasn't failed here; it has never been tried.
This is utterly insane (Score:2, Troll)
This fine is moronic on so many levels I'm just cringing in disbelief:
Re: (Score:0)
In Europe, we don't care if it's a public or private service - your rights are still equally protected. IOW, in Europe a private company also cannot screw you over in ways a public organisation cannot.
I know that's an unknown concept if you live in the US.
Re: (Score:0)
how is google showing up in a google search abuse? Will they fine Amazon for having amazon sales show up in amazon search? They're not burying competing search results. They're not redirecting amazon links to their own shopping site.
No, it's a big American (and therefore evil) company being fined for not having paid enoough to the right european politicians. Don't believe me? Notice that the apple monopoly is okay, but Google giving away a cell phone operating system is clearly abusive. Right. This is clear
Re:This is utterly insane (Score:4, Informative)
how is google showing up in a google search abuse? Will they fine Amazon for having amazon sales show up in amazon search?
Amazon doesn't have market dominance in search, so that's not relevant.
Suppose that 90% of all washing machines sold in the EU were Bosch washing machines. They would have market dominance.
Then, suppose Bosch announced that you would void your warranty unless you used Bosch branded detergent. That would be an abuse of dominant market position - muscling in on the detergent market by leveraging dominance in washing machines.
Google is being accused of muscling in on the price-comparison market by leveraging the dominance in internet website search.
Imagine if Google decided to get into the used car business, an all of a sudden searches for "used 2010 Hondo Civic" returned results from Google dealers at the top, and other dealers a surprisingly long way down. That would be seen by many as abuse of market position.
You could argue that in a free market, people will just stop using Google to search, and will start looking for new cars in Bing, and order will be restored to the world. Many people in Europe have less faith in the market's ability to just correct these sorts of things.
Re: (Score:2)
That and people don't go to Amazon to search for non-Amazon sources of a product.
Re:This is utterly insane (Score:4, Informative)
Many people in Europe have less faith in the market's ability to just correct these sorts of things.
And there are plenty of examples in the US, where the markets don't correct. The topic of crappy internet providers is almost a weekly item here.
Re: (Score:1)
That's because in the US, a free market in internet service is against the law. In other words, local ISPs have an actual monopoly, enforced by the government.
The market hasn't failed here; it has never been tried.
Re: (Score:1)