
Google should be broken up, say European MPs - alexbash
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30228279
======
rtpg
I know a lot of people kind of scoff at the idea of breaking up Google because
they happen to offer the best product, but here are the 4 points mentioned

>The manner in which Google displays its own vertical search services compared
with other, competing products

> How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews -
> to include within its own services

> The exclusivity Google has to sell advertising around the search terms
> people use

> Restrictions on advertisers from moving their online ad campaigns to rival
> search engines

First point is kind of hard to fight in my opinion, since a company has the
right to publish its own services.

I don't see how Google gets away with the second point for non-CC'd material.
This definitely doesn't fall under fair-use (people don't land on the website
of the copyright owner because it's copied by google => devalue the work)

Third point is... don't know what precedent there is for forcing a company to
open up its network apart from ISPs/telecoms.

The fourth point seems like huge abuse of monopoly. I wasn't aware of these
restrictions before, and definitely seems to go against "don't be evil".

~~~
probably_wrong
> I don't see how Google gets away with the second point for non-CC'd
> material.

This is how I've been told it went by in Germany: there was a law drafted[1]
that said publishers should get compensation for snippets of their articles in
search results. This was a law apparently drafted directly in response to
Google's practices.

So Google sent a letter to most publishers, asking for royalty-free access to
their content, or otherwise they would not show up anymore on Google's
services. All publishers agreed to sign that, because being removed from
Google means losing a decent amount of your ad income.

That's how they get away with it.

[1] [https://gigaom.com/2013/03/01/german-parliament-passes-
googl...](https://gigaom.com/2013/03/01/german-parliament-passes-google-tax-
law-forcing-royalty-payments-for-news-snippets/)

~~~
fafner
This law makes me angry. How could have anybody been so stupid? Did the
publishers really think Google would just hand them over money? Google
announced even before it passed that they'd drop the content. They
underestimated what power Google has and if they drop you from the index then
you lose not them.

Now they are all handing over royalty-free access to Google. But all other
companies and people still have to pay. I mean the publishers think they can
make at least a bit of money that way. But they again don't seem to realise
that this only strengthens Google because all (potential) competitors have to
pay...

The Google folks must be really celebrating over this. A law specifically
designed to target Google has only strengthened them.

~~~
barsoap
> How could have anybody been so stupid?

We are talking about the people publishing "Bild", here. It's not actually
about being stupid, it's about being blinded by their own evilness.

Would you expect anything different from, say, Murdoch?

------
agd
> Google has around 90% market share for search in Europe

It's a complete monopoly and the barrier to entry is huge. Might be a good
thing to break them up.

~~~
gchp
I agree that its a monopoly, though I find it funny that serious time &
consideration is being given to discuss breaking them up.

Google are a company who have a product (search, among many). Their product is
successful (many people use search). Competitors obviously find it hard to
break into the market, and want to make that easier. Is this not how business
works? A company creates a product and tries to make it as popular and widely
used as possible? Also, is Google not at liberty to decide how it ranks search
results? Surely if they want to hide results from competitors they are allow
to do that?

If my company made car tyres, and 90% of car owners in Europe used my tyres,
I'd find it absolutely ludicrous if my competitors tried to break up my
company because its "unfair" that I have the market share.

Google has the market share for search, whether its "unfair" or not.
Competitors should work hard to push them off with their own products, not by
trying to break up the organisation. Seems somewhat petty to me.

There are other arguments which are valid such as:

> How Google copies content from other websites - such as restaurant reviews -
> to include within its own services

Disclaimer: I don't use Google products.

~~~
matthewmacleod
You're misunderstanding the issue here – monopoly isn't a problem, but abuse
of it is.

To use your example – your company makes car types, and has a monopoly. You
then branch out, and start making cars as well. And you redesign your tyres
such that they're only compatible with your car. Oh, and the roads everywhere
only work with your tyres.

That's an abuse of monopoly, and that's what the target is. Look at that fact
that Google products are starting to demand Chrome, or to push their other
services through their monopoly search engine.

I don't think the problem is that bad yet, but we have to be _super vigilant_
about that stuff or we end up with AT&T, Microsoft, or Standard Oil.

~~~
gchp
Fair point. I didn't pick up on this from the article. It's this exact reason
that I use Firefox & DuckDuckGo.

I based my statement on this:

> The European Parliament has voted in favour of breaking Google up, as a
> solution to complaints that it favours is own services in search results.

The key part there being _..it favours its own services in search results_. In
my opinion they are free to rank search results in whatever manner they wish.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_In my opinion they are free to rank search results in whatever manner they
wish._

I get what you are saying. The problem arises when something like Google is
the front page of the Internet for so many people – a monopoly, essentially
becoming similar to a public service.

Let's say they decide to rank their own services high, and push competitors
down the list. That's a real problem, because it artificially raises the
barrier to entry to other market participants.

I can very easily see this becoming a problem with Google as they move into
more areas. And it's quite possible that breakup isn't the best solution, but
we really should look at what the answers might be before it's too late.

------
cbeach
I was blocked indefinitely from Adsense by Google's faulty algorithms (without
explanation and with appeals rejected without explanation). I lost the revenue
I'd earnt that month, and soon realised Google holds a monopoly in this space,
and no one else offered a comparable service.

I'm all for Google's stronghold to be broken. reply

~~~
1123581321
There are other text brokers. You just couldn't find one that paid as much as
Google. That's not a monopoly problem. A problem is if Google kept Adsense
payouts artificially low or charged advertisers too much because of their
market power.

(Also, a monopoly on the buy side is called a monopsony.)

------
fear91
Google's grip on search is absolutely enormous, especially in Europe.

They literally decide lives of thousands of people when they change their
algorithms. With one update, they kill thousands of websites someone lives off
and then they replace them with big brands or their own services.

This isn't healthy for anyone and I wish there was more competition. It would
do a lot of good to everyone.

~~~
dghf
But there is competition. Bing, DuckDuckGo, even Yahoo's still hanging in
there.

There are no technological or commercial barriers to switching search engines:
no-one is making people use Google search (except I guess maybe on Android
devices or Chromebooks -- I don't have and have never used either, so I don't
know).

People use it because either (a) it returns better results or (b) inertia.

If it's (a), using it is a rational choice (though one that could be trumped
by privacy or ethical concerns).

If it's (b), eventually they'll be knocked off their perch by a better search
engine.

~~~
mbel
> But there is competition. Bing, DuckDuckGo, even Yahoo's still hanging in
> there.

Only if you are English speaker and are looking for English sites (which is
the case only for minority of Europeans). Apart form Google other search
engines are localized either poorly or not at all.

~~~
pgodzin
Which sounds like a great service that Google provides that greatly
differentiates it from its competition, not a monopolistic barrier.

------
tomp
Why is this already on the second page?

    
    
      Google should be broken up, say European MPs (bbc.com)
      55 points by alexbash 1 hour ago | flag | 107 comments
    

This story is currently on the first page:

    
    
      Inside the Dynomak: A Fusion Technology Cheaper Than Coal (ieee.org)
      39 points by ohaal 2 hours ago | flag | 16 comments

~~~
bryanlarsen
This story has 2:1 comments:points. The other you link has 1:2
comments:points. A high comment:point ratio is considered an indicator of an
unproductive flame war.

~~~
tomp
Hm... well that's weird, to say the least. I mainly go to HN for the comments.
A lot of comments doesn't meant that there is a flame war, or that it's
unproductive. In this case, the _story_ , as written, isn't that remarkable,
but the ideas behind it, and the comments, are.

~~~
Tiksi
I generally go to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active)
when I'm in the mood for discussions over articles, and this is currently #1
there.

~~~
kyrra
Thank you, I didn't know about this feature of HN. Bookmarked for future
reading.

How did you find out about it, I'm not seeing it linked from the places I'd
expect.

~~~
Tiksi
There was a post about it some time back. I've always wondered why it's not
linked anywhere.

------
harperlee
I don't know a lot about the requirements of these operations; how can the
European Union guarantee that each Subgoogle does not agree with the rest to
provide services to each other that I can't access to?

I don't see how they can enforce that any company can be playing a level field
against another subgoogle competitor...

~~~
tomwilde
That's the real problem; they don't know what to do about it, but they'll
rather do anything instead of nothing. Either it's gonna be a lot of hot air
or turn out for the worse.

What's funny is that Google already operates as separate legal entities in
different European countries (though some countries share one HQ and hence
legal identity).

How they plan to further "break it up" I can't imagine.

~~~
soneil
I don't think the aim is geographic boundaries, but functional boundaries. eg,
Google Advertising is the only ad network allowed on Google Search.

To use a loose analogy with the Microsoft trials; msft having a monopoly on
the desktop wasn't the problem. They earned it. Using that monopoly to create
a second monopoly in the browser space, was the issue. Hence the unbundling.

In this case, Google having a monopoly in search isn't the problem - again,
they've earned it fairly. But using that monopoly to prop up additional
monopolies in, eg, advertising, is problematic.

I don't think they'll actually try to split Google up. It's so-far sabre
rattling, and this decision just ensures they actually have a sabre to rattle.

But if, eg, third-party advertisers were allowed to compete with Google on
Google's own properties? That'd be interesting.

------
SCHiM
Sometimes things change, Google search is so big in Europe (the article sites
90%) that perhaps we should no longer view it as a private company.

A good Internet search engine has a huge impact on less tech-savvy people. My
parents have never ever used anything but Google, and don't even understand
that there are _other_ search engines out there. As such perhaps we should
view it as a public utility. Just like the public transit system brings people
to real destinations google search brings people to virtual destinations.

At the same time this shouldn't deprive Google of its revenue. So an approach
should be taken which enforces neutrality in search results but also leaves
room to serve adds.

I think that recent actions from Google are partially to blame for this
attention from the European council. There have been warnings thrown Googles
way. As it stands I believe Google is even breaking privacy laws with the
fusion of Youtube and Google+ behind the scenes. There was also criticism from
the Council about google blurring the distinction between adds and real
results. So this can't come as a surprise to Google.

------
kakakiki
Then Microsoft. Now Google. History repeats.

~~~
CmonDev
Microsoft pays taxes AFAIK, unlike Google.

~~~
jackweirdy
Barely [in the UK at least].

------
tbolse
Here is the link to the original press release:

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-
room/content/2014...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-
room/content/20141125IPR80501/html/MEPs-zero-in-on-internet-search-companies-
and-clouds)

------
bad_user
Having a monopoly is not a good reason to break them up. Being a monopoly is
not a crime in itself, because as a fact of nature, monopolies happen.

Microsoft was accused of having a monopoly that abused its power contrary to
the Sherman Antitrust Act, however they went through a lawsuit for this.
Therefore as an European I'm disappointed by how the European Parliament is
handling this, especially because some of their reasoning I'm reading about in
this article are flawed. So where's the lawsuit in this case?

If the EU wants to ensure a level playing field for rivals, then maybe the EU
should lower its taxes instead and do more to encourage startups. Because
really, it's not the presence of Google in Europe that prevents rivalries from
happening.

------
throwawayaway
If they actually knew what they were talking about, they would be voting to
decentralize the internet, not break Google up. I don't think trying to break
up Microsoft or fine them for bundling internet explorer achieved a whole lot.

They are looking at the problem the wrong way.

~~~
rvschuilenburg
> I don't think trying to break up Microsoft or fine them for bundling
> internet explorer achieved a whole lot.

I don't know. Is Internet Explorer still the most used webbrowser?

~~~
throwawayaway
I think you are a bit blind if you think that decision is why people started
to use other browsers.

------
lumberjack
Ideally the EU would figure out a way to prop up its own IT companies instead
of being wholly reliant on US based ones and then coming up with threats of
lots more paperwork whenever they find their backs against a wall.

This is what is happening here. Lots of smallish companies depend on ads in
the EU and they are obviously being hurt by Google's monopoly. Realistically,
breaking up Google just means lots more paperwork for Google. It won't
actually mean new competition in search.

Despite all this, whenever a government entity is in need of some IT
infrastructure it's always Microsoft, HP and other US based companies that get
the contract.

------
aroberge
I am puzzled regarding the various rants (by politicians and others) of the
type "we must break up Google"... Let me mention a couple of points which I
never see addressed by people pushing this idea:

1\. There exists a well established protocol/convention (robots.txt) that can
be used to indicate to search engines that "these pages should not be
indexed", thus preventing copying content from those pages. As far as I know,
Google respect robots.txt. Companies (most often, news related organizations)
that complain about Google copying their material can make use of robots.txt
to prevent Google from indexing their content. Are they saying that Google
does not respect this? ... or that complaining companies are clueless about
this?

2\. How do they think a pure Google Search company, without ad revenues, could
generate revenues to sustain its operation? Search (for microsoft, yahoo and
google) [and free email services] are most likely something akin to loss
leaders / promotional tools.

Legislating against anti-competitive behaviour (e.g. restrictions on
advertisers to move their online ad campaigns to rival companies) is something
that should be done if indeed it is occuring. However, everything else appears
to be without logical foundation to me.

But perhaps I am missing something...

~~~
rtpg
1\. robots.txt is not a replacement for copyright law, it is a "protocol" used
by most crawlers.

2\. A pure Google Search company could show ads, by being a client/distributor
of ads from a (pure) Google Ads company. Just like how ads on your blog get
you money.

------
DannyBee
Sigh, the number of people here who think they understand antitrust law
because they followed the news of the Microsoft case is sad. It kind of makes
having a serious discussion about it really hard, because people don't
understand the legal requirements for being a monopoly, various forms of
antitrust harms, etc, and so end up simply disagreeing because they have a
"wrong" view of what the law says.

I'd put together an "engineer's guide to not sound silly when arguing about
antitrust law on the internet", but i'd get raked over the coals for my
affiliation.

~~~
mike_hearn
In fairness to the great unwashed (which I guess includes me), anti trust law
manages to seem quite vague and more importantly enforcement of it appears to
be highly political and selective.

It's impossible for people to learn all the laws they need to follow in depth
these days, there are just far too many and they are all far too complicated
and subjective, so people learn by example. When we look at anti-trust law
there's really one big, comparable example in the tech sector, which is
Microsoft. And there they were found guilty but then Bush got elected and
nothing was done. And anyway the crux of the matter was bundling of a browser,
but this is now standard for all operating systems. So it's very hard to
figure out what people are meant to learn from all this.

I guess there is also the Intel/AMD case that I remember. That one seemed more
clear cut and obvious.

------
cbeach
Curiously this story (formerly #1 on front page) has been buried on HN in
favour of a dupe that has less votes. What's going on PG?

------
BillFranklin
Are there laws on monopolies in the EU?

~~~
matthewmacleod
Yes. Extensive details:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_law)

~~~
BillFranklin
Thanks

------
oconnor663
> long-running anti-competitive dispute with Google

Freudian slip.

------
Donzo
Not that it'd ever happen, but I would very much enjoy watching what would
unfold if Google ceased to provide services to these nations.

Can you imagine the backlash?

~~~
Dewie
I seem to remember that I used Altavista before google.com. I guess I would
move on to another search engine. DuckDuckGo might be good enough, I guess,
and there's also Bing (I guess DDGo uses Bing?). Most people would use
whatever search engine that the browser than defaulted to. Maybe they'd still
find what they want.

People would have to find other video sites to procrastinate and entertain
themselves than YouTube. I don't know if there are any video sites which are
competitive when it comes to providing content compared to YouTube. If so I
guess people would go back more to professionally made entertainment (yes, of
course not all or perhaps even most of YouTube is amateur).

People would replace Google+ with... oh that one doesn't matter.

~~~
pjc50
The European alternative to Youtube would be Dailymotion, a French company
part-owned by Orange.

People are used to getting the occasional "This video is unavailable in your
country" failure from Youtube; this might be less of a problem with a local
operator.

~~~
Dewie
It's local to France, at least.

------
sidcool
This would be very difficult legally.

------
davidw
That's kind of underhanded to do that on a day when most people in the US are
on vacation and aren't available to respond.

------
known
Why did Google deviate from "Do No Evil"?

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
Sorry, not picking on you. Someone says this in practically every Google post.
The answer is: "Evil" is subjective.

------
vince_refiti
The European Union should be broken up.

~~~
oblio
When debating pro-against EU, we should never forget how pre-EU Europe looked
like. We've been incredibly good at killing each other. I'd pick a huge
beauracracy over arms races any day of the week.

~~~
vince_refiti
Don't they still subsidize their agricultural sector, and dump stuff on the
international markets and hurt non-EU farmers? I consider that to be very
uncompetitive.

~~~
anon1385
The common agricultural policy is largely an ecological and humanitarian
disaster. However, it's only one aspect of the EU, and most of the member
states would have similar subsidies if they were outside the EU anyway. Even
the anti-EU parties in European nations tend to favour maintaining the
subsidies (e.g. UKIP policy is to maintain the single farm payment after an EU
exit). The US isn't in the EU and still has a significant program of
agricultural subsidies.

------
TeeWEE
Google is using its cash cow, search to fund lots of new innovative projects.
If you break it up, you lose lots of innovation.

I do think that they should prevent Google from killing nice startups by
copying their services (hardly ever happens but it does)

------
brc
Ugh, not this again. The only real monopolies are those which are protected by
government regulation or control.

Google is out there on the freewheeling internet competing. It has a broad
portfolio of products, but their main revenue stream - ads from search engine
- has about the lowest switching costs of any product known to man.

Google is far from an angel, and the days of 'don't be evil' are a quaint
memory. But these European Regulators should look in their own backyard, and
perhaps spend some time dismantling their own regulatory mess. You never know,
undoing some of that red tape might even get their economy to grow. Stranger
things have happened.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_The only real monopolies are those which are protected by government
regulation or control._

This is utter, objective nonsense. Look at Microsoft as a case in point, which
had a near 100% market share of desktop operating systems. Nobody would claim
that wasn't a monopoly.

 _Google is out there on the freewheeling internet competing. It has a broad
portfolio of products, but their main revenue stream - ads from search engine
- has about the lowest switching costs of any product known to man._

It does, but the question is whether Google—which has a 90% market share—is
unfairly using the power that brings to promote their other services. That's a
perfectly valid question, and is pretty much the entire reason for the
existence of antitrust rules.

 _But these European Regulators should look in their own backyard, and perhaps
spend some time dismantling their own regulatory mess. You never know, undoing
some of that red tape might even get their economy to grow. Stranger things
have happened._

Currently, in Europe, Google has a share of the market that apparently Europe-
level government feels is doing harm to the industry through abuse of
monopoly. Isn't this exactly the sort of area we want government to intervene
in?

~~~
vixen99
You mean the unelected officials who decide these matters in non-smoke filled
rooms in an organisation that hasn't been passed by its own auditors in more
than 13 years (a business would have been taken to court by now) and has a
current black hole of £34 billion which has willy-nilly to be filled from
national coffers - no questions asked. All irrelevant to the subject under
discussion? I don't think so.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I'm sure it is relevant, and the EU has serious issues that need to be fixed.
But that doesn't affect the question of whether or not Google has a monopoly
which is causing market harm.

~~~
vixen99
Yes you are right (I got a bit carried away there!) but let's note "The
ultimate decision will rest with EU competition commissioner Margrethe
Vestager." \- an unelected official.

And while I'm on the irrelevancy track (apologies) - how about an unelected
foreign minister with, as reported by observers, no demonstrable talents and
certainly no mandate. What are we coming to?

~~~
lotsofmangos
I don't think she has ever been Foreign Minister, she's been an elected Danish
MP for 13 years, serving as Minister of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs,
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economic and Interior Affairs before
being nominated to serve as Denmark's EU Commissioner by Denmark's elected
government.

I'll note that the public in Denmark did not vote for her to be Deputy Prime
minister, they voted for her to be an MP, being a Deputy Prime minister is a
nominated position. There are lots of nominated positions in representative
democracies. In this case, the position is nominated by the elected government
of a host country, then the selected nominations get voted on by the elected
EU parliament. It is a bit like the process of nomination to the US supreme
court, only the whole set gets voted on.

There is an argument for the Commissioners to be initially selected by
election in member states rather than through nomination and that was raised
in 2010 by European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, though I don't know how
it is progressing.

She couldn't be a foreign minister though, if you meant it in the other sense,
as she is definitely from Europe and is in an EU post.

------
datashovel
I kind of feel sorry for Europe, that their leaders can't see the enormous
positive impact Google is having on the world.

And in general I hate behemoth corporations. Google is different. The moment
they start behaving like other Fortune 100 companies is the moment I stop
rooting for them.

There are still too many complacent monopolies in the world to break up
Google. Unfortunately Google is the only one with the money and the balls to
fight them.

~~~
CmonDev
And of course we should change the taxation just to make them stop evading?

[https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=google%20taxes%20evasion)

~~~
datashovel
I definitely don't believe in doing illegal things. If they're doing illegal
things they should be prosecuted. If what SHOULD be illegal is NOT illegal,
then IMO that's on the law makers.

