
Google Gets Record $2.7B EU Fine for Skewing Searches - rinze
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-27/google-gets-record-2-7-billion-eu-fine-for-skewing-searches
======
okket
Potential dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14643712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14643712)

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wand3r
While I think net neutrality (as it is defined) is important Google is a
serious consolidation risk. Gmail has 1b users the internet has 3.2-3.5.
Google probably controls 2/3 of that. Not only is search quality going down,
but this is absurdly dangerous. Controlling shopping results is tame compared
to the potential for misuse

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sddfd
> Not only is search quality going down [...]

How so? I like to think Google Search is constantly improving. Do you care to
elaborate?

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martin_bech
Because the first page (at least above the fold) is literally all adds, for
many searches.

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arkitaip
I haven't seen an ad on desktop for years thanks to adblock. But mobile is
getting pretty awful, true.

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userbinator
I wish there would be a similar reaction to Google "skewing" searches in
general towards what seems to be the most popular and highly-SEO'd, but also
not very useful nor informative sites. When searching for more obscure things
I sometimes have to go beyond 3-4 pages to find the good content, repeat with
small variations of the query, etc. I often even go to the "last" page of
results, without finding anything (and think to myself, "this is the Internet,
where all of human knowledge is supposed to be; and yet, why can't I find
anything about X?") I also seem to trigger the "you may be a bot" CAPTCHA more
frequently than before.

Of course, that's unlikely to happen because there's no money in it...

IMHO the usefulness of Google as a search engine has decreased rather
noticeably within the past few years. It's become less precise, less thorough
(they've always been inflating the result count, but recently it seems worse),
and nearly hostile to those "advanced seekers" who know exactly what they're
looking for. I still remember, many years ago, discovering new and interesting
"corners" of the Internet with Google. If Fravia were still alive, he may have
something similar to say.

To a huge majority of the Internet-using population, Google is _the_ Internet.
It holds a huge amount of power in controlling the information people can
find, and that's absolutely scary. It's something that governments have always
wanted.

~~~
__ddd__
When I'm performing a precise search, where the search engine should do
exactly what I tell it, I use Duck Duck Go. I use Google when I want to rely
on their "smart" algorithms. Basically I default to DDG, and if I'm not
finding the results I want, I see if Google's magic can do better.

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wiz21c
Although I don't like advertisement, my understanding is that Google provides
massive added value there. So why on earth do they have to skew their results
?

Or, maybe I don't properly understand "skew", i.e. the european commission
condemned not so much a voluntary bias from Google rather than a "natural"
bias from Google...

The good news is that if we can constraint Google on economical ground, we can
also constraint them on more ethical stuff, such has fight against
terrorism...

~~~
sddfd
For the european market there is the product search engine
[https://geizhals.eu/](https://geizhals.eu/) which is in all aspects better
than Google Product Search ever was.

However, when you search for a product on Google Search, for example, "intel
7600k", Google Search displays the side bar "Google Shopping Results" but no
link to this site.

I imagine people who do not know about geizhals tend to just use Google
Shopping then..

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shubhamjain
A fine of this scale sets a dangerous precedent. How hard would it be wrong
everything that Google has built with the same logic? Aren't inline word-
meanings hurting revenues of the dictionary sites? How about currency
conversions?

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Cozumel
Google is a private company/website, couldn't they just put a disclaimer up
saying something like 'we're only going to show you results from our stores,
if you don't like it, go elsewhere'.

People aren't forced to use Google, and Google can show you what they like. Is
that the real issue, that they were saying they treated all companies fairly
but didn't?

~~~
rahkiin
Except Google has pretty much a monopoly on search. It is barely an option
'not to use google'. Once you reach a status like that, different rules apply
than saying 'we can do what we want because we are a private comoany'.

If you have questions and ask someone, they tell you to search on google. Same
if you ask on chat channels and forums.

~~~
amarant
Like hell they do(have a monopoly)! there are plenty of other searchengines
out there, and ther is nothing that forces you towards google (unlike some
other services, all search engines are available everywhere, barring
government censorship in some countries)

try Bing.com, duckduckgo.com, or even yahoo.com (and there are many more)

and then tell me google is the one that should be sued because of the results
in their searchengine

A really hate when people confuse "better than everyone else,with margins"
with "has a monopoly". It's not even like their searchengine gets pushed on
computerbuyers by the software installed by default, since that software would
normally be windows with accompanying browsers, that all try to push Bing.com
as their default search engines...

but people use google anyway because they generate the best results to
searches, if they stop doing that, there's nothing to stop everyone from
switching, that's why they have to keep it good. there's no lock-in.

what really pisses me of with these decisions is that if you replace "google"
and "alphabet" with placeholder-names, none of their arguments holds water to
any reader. try it yourself! ;)

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xg15
> _Like hell they do(have a monopoly)! there are plenty of other searchengines
> out there, and ther is nothing that forces you towards google..._

90% market share.

Besides, I keep hearing that argument but it never made sense to me. The
monopoly is not (mainly) about the _users_ of the search engine - they could
in theory switch to something else (even though for some mysterious reason,
most of them don't. See above.) The actual monopoly is for the sites that
depend on Google to be found. The simple choice for then is to submit to
Google's standards or lose the majority of their traffic. So talk of force is
justified here.

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__ddd__
I have shied away from certain designs because Google has very specific ideas
about how a site should be structured, rooted in the pre- web app days. If
Google had real competition, they would adapt to better index "modern" designs
and architectures. Instead, developers/designers have to limit ourselves if we
want Google to not only index our content, but not penalize our rankings.

~~~
nasalgoat
Well, that or look at your headers and serve the googlebot what it expects,
and show everyone else what you actually want to show - as long as it's not
too different content-wise.

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easytiger
You can be quite certain if google recognised their revenue in in France, not
Ireland, this would not have happened. Yet another shakedown, no matter what
you think of the merits of the case

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purpleidea
Why so low? (Not sarcasm)

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pdog
Yet... the EU still wonders why they don't have a Silicon Valley.

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kuro-kuris
For a society where you don't go bankrupt for being ill and less than a
percent of the population is in jail I am willing to trade not having Silicon
Valley.

~~~
huhtenberg

        Don't feed the trolls

