
Does Google harm local search rivals? EU antitrust regulators ask - tareqak
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust/does-google-harm-local-search-rivals-eu-antitrust-regulators-ask-idUSKCN1NZ2ER
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ariwilson
The EU has taken the position that all of these vertical specific search
engines are industries that should be treated separately from "general
search". I think this is faulty as \- from a customer perspective, I just want
an answer to my question regardless of the vertical \- from an industry
perspective every small competitor is of course going to complain that big bad
X is taking their business

So we just end up with arbitrary enforcement of the rules based on which
companies the EU is angriest at.

~~~
onetimemanytime
>> _I just want an answer to my question regardless of the vertical_

You want the _best_ answer and Google was not the best one for local for
example. But they stuffed it there because the could. When competition is
bankrupt or no one enter the space because Google will not rank you fairly
then the problem is bigger.

Like hotel bookings, do we know if they are best for shoppers or best for
Google's bottom line?

with 95% market share come responsibilities.

~~~
briandear
> Like hotel bookings, do we know if they are best for shoppers or best for
> Google's bottom line?

Sounds like a business opportunity. If the market isn’t being well served, it
would seem that someone might try to serve it. You know, like maybe
TripAdvisor or Booking.com or Expedia or the numerous similar companies.

We are basically saying that nobody will enter the search business because
Google is too good? That doesn’t make any sense. Nobody is compelled to use
Google. Every browser lets users choose alternatives. That people don’t is
probably because they think Google does a pretty good job for their needs. If
that isn’t true, then it should be realistic for a competitor to make it
better. IBM owned computing until they didn’t — nobody thought competing with
IBM was a high percentage play, but people did.

If the Europeans want to make some big tech, then perhaps making the
investment, M&A, and taxation environment more favorable is a good place to
start. Capital gains taxes are so high that there isn’t a huge amount of
incentive for moon-shot investments in Europe. Employment law (in France at
least,) is so Byzantine that there is a real fear of hiring fast and scaling
quickly because the consequences of a misstep are hugely expensive. Investors
in Europe look for high percentage 2x companies to fund rather than making
big, bold bets on 100x companies. One of the reasons is that you have a tax
structure that punishes success so the risk-reward ratio favors safer
investments. There is money in Europe, but much of it is through government
programs that require government friendly business plans and friends in high
places to even be considered. And the money that those programs do provide, it
certainly isn’t US-level. It’s extremely rare to raise €50 million in Europe,
but it happens all the time in the US.

It’s the indefinite pessimism of Europe that’s the root of it. See the book
Zero to One for a great explanation of that concept. Google isn’t the problem.
It’s a symptom. Look at DailyMotion as a case study. The French government
blocked the sale to Yahoo — which would have been a huge payday for the
founders and investors — a payday they would have, in the tradition of Silicon
Valley, could have been used to start angel or VC investing. (Although the
original founders sold to France Telecom for a relative pittance, and France
Telecom has the innovation level of a can of peas. So it’s possible to say
that the sell to Yahoo wouldn’t have made any ripples in terms of creating new
angel investors.) Instead DailyMotion, rather than becoming Yahoo’s YouTube,
languished into near obscurity compared to YouTube.

[https://m.france24.com/en/20130501-france-minister-
montebour...](https://m.france24.com/en/20130501-france-minister-montebourg-
blocks-meyer-yahoo-dailymotion-deal-usa)

Vivendi finally bought DailyMotion in 2015 at a valuation far below its 2013
levels.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2015/04/07/dailymo...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2015/04/07/dailymotion-
how-france-is-killing-youtubes-main-competitor/#96e6ae33eacf)

The point of the story is the socialist government of France cared more about
some misguided nationalism rather than actually creating an environment for
innovation, business and growth. Even in France, YouTube is far bigger than
DailyMotion and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with Google being
anti-competitive, but everything to do with this petty provincial bullshit
common with European government ministers.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
How is it an opportunity? There used to be a whole selection of businesses in
those niches. Some great, some terrible, some American, some European. Google
have been continually adding niches to their web search over the years. All
the way back to Froogle that became Google Shopping, that went from a
comparison search to paid listings only.

Are most people still going to search for price comparison sites when it's
right there on a Google tab? Are most people aware that tab may be ad only,
when Google have constantly done their utmost to disguise ads, "highlighting"
them in almost invisible colours?

Not a very compelling business opportunity to enter a market where 90% of the
clicks never get outside Google. Half of those who were doing fine in those
niches are forgotten, or closed. Just because some search monopoly decided it
wanted to grab all those other pies too.

~~~
dazc
Are there any price comparison sites that are not just disguised ads?

~~~
ginko
For electronics there's Geizhals in the EU. That collects prices from most
online stores and gives you the cheapest offer for any given product. It's
also nice for researching gear in general, since it has tons of filtering
options.

~~~
kbwt
Also idealo.

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srkmno
The necessary song and dance to start a process that in a year and change will
cost Google a "record fine".

That what happens when the unofficale mandate is to counter the success of US
tech companies in the eurozone: first endow the commission with broad
enforcement powers, then pursue every frivolous complaint.

Come to think about it I've built an image search engine recently, maybe I
should lodge a complaint about Google for their images "vertical" search
function. This whole thing is ridiculous.

~~~
ehsankia
Is there a point as which Google is just running profit negative in Europe,
and they are better off just pulling off business from there? I'd love to see
how much of their economy would collapse without Google, let alone citizen
unrest. Just a small instance of snippet tax was shutdown pretty damn quick to
the impact, imagine the impact of all of Google being pulled out of Europe.

~~~
thomasz
Yes, definitely.

There would be unrest, rioting, insurrection, and finally, civil war. Europe
would be torn apart, the economy reduced to primitive agriculture. The
European people will offer their prettiest daughters to Page and Brin, draped
in blue, red, yellow and green veils to win back the favour of their distant
and angry masters.

~~~
joejerryronnie
Don’t forget goats. I can’t imagine how many goats Larry and Sergey would be
the proud owners of after this stunt.

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mrhappyunhappy
It's interesting that complain was made by a US company - Yelp. I'm curious to
who the other rivals in the complaints were.

~~~
hahla
Slightly off topic to your commment but... I’m actually concerned watching
Google increasingly cut into it’s search results. It’s easy to justify it as
one additional feature but take a look how search looked like 10 years ago to
what it looks like today. Even companies who provided services in specific
verticals are being axed overnight by Google adding a widget to search. Google
reviews are growing exponentially in search importance and that’s becuase the
priority and UI they can implement to highlight google reviews vs a
traditional search result (yelp). The internet landscape will look completely
different in the next 10 years.

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cavisne
Google should leave the EU. Drop an IP block and be done with it.

~~~
thefounder
And then what? Loose almost 50% of its value?

~~~
ehsankia
These fines are quickly adding up to more than their profit in Europe anyways.
Once they reach the point of running profit negative in Europe, wouldn't it
actually a better business move to pull out?

~~~
simion314
>Once they reach the point of running profit negative in Europe, wouldn't it
actually a better business move to pull out?

They can respect the EU regulation, stop the crap in the search and Android
and continue making money from the products they sell to enterprises. They
will lose some profits but the products that are respecting the laws will
continue making money.

~~~
ehsankia
Except you know that won't make them happy. Take the shopping example. They
had a product that benefited consumers and businesses, but in the middle, a
very tiny slice of the population (which who were in the business of making
product comparison sites) were losing, and they cost Googling billions. The EU
didn't even tell Google /what/ the solution was, because there isn't any, they
just blindly asked them to change things.

That shows you that it's not about "respecting" regulation. It's about shoving
it in their face and forcing them to comply.

~~~
simion314
Google has a monopoly on search, this means if I do a search say "best
programming language/framework for X" and if Google hijacks this and put
Google products on top then they are abusing the monopoly. It sucks for them
they can't abuse it and they can't push their products and make more money.

I think the idea is simple, do web search, don't promote your video,maps,
lanugages,services , don't add special code for Google products/services , and
stop prompting people to install Chrome if they search with other browsers.

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crazy_monkey
No, Google's competitors are trash.

~~~
corv
And why is that when many of their employees are from Europe?

The antitrust cases were lost for a reason.

------
ucaetano
"Hey kiddo, do you want to skip doing homework and brushing your teeth today?"

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joejerryronnie
At this point, US tech should go political full court press on the EU. Just
bait Trump into action based on European protectionism and “national
security”, sit back and watch it burn.

The ironic thing is that eventually, the EU will push out US tech but it will
not be replaced with Euro tech. It will be replaced with Chinese tech and good
luck to Vestager on squeezing one single penny out of Xi.

~~~
thomasz
There is zero evidence that the EU is trying to push out US technology
companies or that there is any plan to run some form of import substitution.
These fines are not arbitrary, and they do not hit "tech", they hit tech
monopolies with blatantly anticompetitive behavior like intel, Microsoft and
Google as well as European breweries, maritime car carriers, cement plants and
what not.

This is a fantasy, or more likely a projection of your own newly awakened
jingoistic tendencies.

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thrower123
The EU revealed in it's ludicrous capriciousness. I like Europe, but fuck
their governments if they want to do stupid things.

~~~
rimliu
Stupid things, n. — things that are not necessarily stupid but I do not agree
with them.

