
European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google - tombowers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30228279
======
Brakenshire
To copy from the previous discussion. These are the issues that are up for
debate:

>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

In my opinion, there's zero chance of Google being broken up, what's more
likely is that limited regulations get introduced for services as they are
provided in Europe. I recall there being a great hoo-haa about the EU breaking
up Microsoft, what actually happened were regulations that they unbundle Media
Player and Internet Explorer, and provide some networking specifications to
allow for third party clients to interface with Windows. I imagine something
similar will happen here.

~~~
pasta_2
The intention was never to break them up. MEPs calling for it is just to show
the EU Commission that they have the political support to take the gloves off.

If you actually want to know the justification for the EU doing this you
should read this paper by Ben Edelman.

[http://www.benedelman.org/publications/google-
tying-2014-10-...](http://www.benedelman.org/publications/google-
tying-2014-10-26.pdf)

He's consulted for various Google competitors but he's also a professor at
Harvard Business School, and the argument he makes is sound.

~~~
DannyBee
If by "consulted", you mean that Ben has been paid to come up with papers
exactly like this for various anti-google lobbies, many many times over the
past 10 years, then yes, he has "consulted".

Ben has literally no legal training in antitrust law that i'm aware of, so his
opining on it is somewhat interesting.

(I edited this comment because Ben does have a JD from Harvard law that I
forgot about, so he does have legal training, just not anything related to
antitrust law)

When he's not writing antitrust papers, he's busy writing scare papers about
click fraud, or online ad deals.

There are plenty of people who have views i disagree with, and respect. But
folks like Ben, whose views seem to change entirely with who is paying him
(i've watched him argue the same thing both ways depending on whether MS was
doing it or Google was doing it), are not even worth arguing with.

You only have to look at his testimony list to see where his views lie, and
have since 2006.

~~~
dmethvin
> Ben does have a JD from Harvard law that I forgot about

A major omission when attacking someone's legal qualifications.

> When he's not writing antitrust papers, he's busy writing scare papers about
> click fraud, or online ad deals

Yes, and they're scary because they are true. The insidious thing about click
fraud is that consumers are the mules who do the work but generally are only
indirectly harmed. Advertisers and merchants really get screwed. Ben has been
exposing those situations for a decade.

> You only have to look at his testimony list to see where his views lie, and
> have since 2006.

Actually I worked with him in 2005 and his views were consistent then as well.
If he works on behalf of people who share his views, that's not a bad thing is
it? It's fully disclosed, which is more than I can say for many of his
attackers.

~~~
DannyBee
FWIW: Ben is not fully disclosed by a longshot

See, e.g., [http://mumbrella.com.au/google-adwords-benjamin-
edelman-3700...](http://mumbrella.com.au/google-adwords-benjamin-
edelman-37001)

------
cbeach
Why is this story showing on HN, whilst the following one (on the breakup of
Google) has more points, and was previously top of the HN front page?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8666921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8666921)

Interestingly the above story has comments that are far more scathing about
Google, whereas the story I am now commenting on, which HN has favoured has
mostly arguments in defence of Google. What's going on, PG?

~~~
_wmd
It can happen due to 1) significant numbers of users flagging the link, 2) the
admins demoting it, or 3) it attracting too many comments too quickly
("controversiality"). It seems likely 1 and 3 happened here, but due to a lack
of transparency it's always impossible to rule out 2.

~~~
cbeach
It may be "controversial," but it is also big news and very HN-worthy.
Disappointing to see that HN's algorithms are so trigger-happy

~~~
davidw
The resulting discussion is mostly not very interesting though. Maybe the
algorithms are doing a better job than we thought!

------
c3o
I work for the Pirate Party MEP in the Parliament. My understanding is that
this is mostly about German (and to a lesser degree Spanish) publishers
putting pressure on Google for their various interests, including that they
want to be paid when Google uses snippets of their content in Google News:
[https://juliareda.eu/2014/11/breaking-up-google-or-just-
bank...](https://juliareda.eu/2014/11/breaking-up-google-or-just-bankrolling-
publishers/)

~~~
skrebbel
Curious, what is the Pirate Party's stance on this? (I have no idea how to
find individual MEP votes on bills)

~~~
avz
I think there are actually two interesting questions here since there are now
many Pirate Parties in Europe. One about the general stance of pirate parties
and one about the stance of the German PP specifically.

I would generally expect a pirate party to support free-of-charge publishing
of snippets and linking to content on the internet as a basis for the open
internet. On the other hand, I wonder whether the German Pirate Party is able
to look beyond what may be construed as an interest of German publishing
industry.

~~~
barsoap
> On the other hand, I wonder whether the German Pirate Party is able to look
> beyond what may be construed as an interest of German publishing industry.

It's not actually in that industry's interest and even if in were, no, the
Piratenpartei is completely opposed.

Noone is seeing any problem with defending google in one instance, and bashing
them in another.

------
sfrank2147
A monopoly should be defined by barriers to entry, not just market share.
There's nothing preventing other large companies from entering the search
space, and in fact many of them have (yahoo, microsoft, etc).

There are true monopolistic firms like Comcast or Time Warner, where there are
serious logistic/economic barriers preventing other firms from entering the
market. This doesn't seem like one of them to me.

~~~
pacala
There are serious logistic/economic barriers to enter the search space.
Building a competitive search engine is very expensive. Ask the Bing people.

Yahoo Search is actually powered by Bing since 2009 according to Wikipedia.
Their own search engine was not competitive enough.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search)

~~~
dmix
Just because it is expensive and technically hard doesn't mean Google is
preventing them in any way.

What would be worrisome is if they abuse their market position. Is there
strong evidence they do this in search? It'd be more concerning if they did to
promote their other products.

~~~
pacala
I am refuting the statement "A monopoly should be defined by barriers to
entry, not just market share." made by sfrank2147, specifically interpreted as
"barriers of entry for search market", which are surprisingly high. Based on
his definition, Google is deep into monopoly territory.

What a monopoly really is and whether Google qualifies is a separate question,
and I'm recusing myself from commenting on this point.

------
cbeach
To copy from the previous discussion:

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

~~~
snird
Breaking up a company is a violent action. No one forced you to use their
service, and they do not use violence or any kind of illegal actions to kill
those who try to compete with them. Google simply are the biggest due to being
the best. It's that simple. If you'll break up everyone who is too good, then
what is the society we are walking toward in this situation?

~~~
pluma
Being best at their own economical interests and being best at their
customers' interests are not the same thing.

------
venomsnake
EU bureaucracy logic at its best - go after google and microsoft, but we let
apple do whatever they want. For me they with their closed ecosystem are both
bigger danger and more anti competitive than both Google and Microsoft
combined. Or at least force them to accept other web browsers in their store.

~~~
archgrove
Apple don't have anything even vaguely approaching a monopoly in any area.
Their market share in everything from phones to computers is < 30%; Google's
is > 90% for search. You can't have a "Monopoly on the contents of the iPhone
app store" any more than Coke has a "Monopoly on the contents of Coke cans",
and thus should be forced to fill some with Pepsi.

~~~
mbq
Yup; but it may be impacted by some privacy regulations in the future.

~~~
herge
It may also be impacted by the weather too. What privacy regulations are you
talking about?

------
Elrac
As someone living in Europe, I think they don't realize that, in a way, Google
is bigger than the European Parliament. The citizens of Europe barely take the
European Parliament seriously, and there's not much reason for Google to.

I happen to be a fan of Duck Duck Go. But I think Google can do without Europe
more easily than Europe can do without Google.

There's no need to go to extremes, either. Just like Microsoft, Google can
simply buy enough of the European Parliament to get them to quietly change
their minds.

~~~
brador
You know collectively Europe is the largest economy in the world? It's not
something any company can just shrug away.

I believe the goal of this and recent similar decisions is to fracture the
internet, allowing for easier law making and rent seeking.

~~~
Elrac
I know that. But I think you fail to realize that Europe is not the same as
its government, just as the US is not the same as the US government.

The analogy isn't perfect, but the citizens of the US want drugs. The American
government pours untold billions into its War on Drugs, and as a result there
are more drugs available in the US than ever before. Similarly, Europe's
Internet users want a smart, convenient master index to the Internet; and
they're not likely to knuckle under as docilely as the population of China,
whose government has been at least partially successful in locking Google out.

~~~
praptak
> Europe is not the same as its government, just as the US is not the same as
> the US government.

Btw, European Parliament is also not the same as Europe government. It has
much weaker influence on things than a typical parliament of a country.

~~~
Elrac
Exactly. There's a lot less cohesion and a lot less centralized power.

Some European governments ship politicians off to Euro-government just to get
them out of the way. Perhaps not quite justly, the Euro Parliament is
sometimes considered a retirement institution for incompetent politicians.

~~~
tormeh
"In Brussels, no one can hear you scream" (Borgen)

------
MichaelMoser123
What is the point of this vote ? the article says that the European Parliament
has no authority to enforce such a break-up.

Also Google is not a European company (wasn't it based in the US ?), so what's
the point?

~~~
lnanek2
Technically I think Google claims their search technology is invented and
produced in their Ireland version of the company and just licensed to the US
one or something like that to defraud the US from taxes. So it is actually
more UK/Europe than it is US since they just kind of steal from the US.

~~~
Oletros
Mmm, no, Google, like a lot of companies has sold the rights for foreign
licensing of those patents to the Irish subsidiary

------
lnanek2
I don't think they have the power, but they can impose regulations and fines
Google would have to pay to do business in their area. I think it would be
great for the ecosystem if Google was no longer allowed to put their own
products at the top of search results. Google Finance ahead of Yahoo Stocks,
etc..

Right now Google uses their power to direct traffic to unfairly compete in a
lot of areas, so consumers don't get the best product. Looking at web metrics,
often 90% of the traffic to a web site is from Google, and companies live or
die based on that traffic. So unfairly placing your own products above others
kills them.

------
dogma1138
If i were Google i would give the EU a day without Google. But in any case the
EUP can vote for what ever they wan't they do not have any legislative power,
as it (and all other) power (s) within the EU lie in the hands of the European
Commission, which luckily is not "democratically" elected and it's members are
appointed by the Council of Europe.

The EU parliament for some time now has been a mess of fringe politics from
both the extreme right and left, all the crazy parties that can't get elected
in their own countries join forces and form even crazier pan European parties,
and whats worse is that all the crazy (and just plain bad) politicians that
can't get elected locally manage to get elected to the EUP...

~~~
adventured
I think if the Germans want to play nationalistic economic war, the US should
return fire at Porsche, BMW, and Daimler - claiming that they possess abusive
and unfair positions in the luxury car market, and proceed to levy extreme
penalties in the US market on those companies (with the US market being 1/4 of
their auto sales). Or perhaps try to force those automakers to divest those
brands for the US market.

If the Europeans aren't careful, all they're going to accomplish is a tit-for-
tat economic war.

~~~
dingaling
> Porsche, BMW, and Daimler - claiming that they possess abusive and unfair
> positions in the luxury car market

Can you explain how any of those examples are abusing their market dominance?

For example, if Porsche engines only ran on Porsche oil and petrol, available
only from Porsche fuel stations which required an annual membership
subscription, then that might be a problem.

~~~
dogma1138
Well TBH when you deal with those types of cars you are actually tied to quite
a bit of items if you want to keep the warranty on your car. BMW cars can only
be services at specific authorized service centers, and you can only use
approve lubricants, tires, and parts... And although the same goes for
virtually any other car the luxury cars put a huge entry barrier for service
providers and charge hefty fees for mechanic classes. But forget BMW, the best
monopoly example is Tesla the cars can only be serviced by Tesla, every part
is made by Tesla, and can only be sold by Tesla. One of the main reasons they
actually released their patents to general use is that the US car companies
were starting to build anti-trust cases against them...

------
arikrak
I know this won't happen, but it's a ridiculous idea. Google's search revenue
is what helps fund many of its other projects; they couldn't be separated.

------
pgodzin
If anything happens to come of this, what does "breaking up Google," or the
unbundling of search and ads businesses practically entail?

------
FreakyT
It's pretty clear that this and other their other specifically anti-Google
rulings are about protectionism and nothing more.

~~~
celticninja
what are they protecting? Its not as if there are small european based search
engines that are failing to compete with Google who would benefit fromt his
action.

~~~
thret
It's just a ploy to grab headlines and appear relevant, nothing will come of
it.

~~~
XorNot
There's a distinct category of "edgy" activist types which have decided Google
must be some sort of evil monopoly on the internet by a sheer failure of
understanding of why infrastructure business models can be monopolies, whereas
"being a popular search engine" really isn't.

~~~
celticninja
Being a monopoly is not necessarily a bad thing. It can lead to consumers
being negatively affected but that is not a foregone conclusion. YKK, the zip
manufacturer, has effectively had a monopoly on zips for a long time but they
produce high quality goods at a low price. The consumer gets a great deal and
the monopoly knows to keep the customer happy to keep their market position.

Google do search better than anyone else. Before Google I would use 2 or 3
search engines but once Google proved their Quality I had no reason to go
elsewhere.

~~~
kiiski
I think YKK is a bad example here, considering they were fined for beign part
of a cartel in Europe (2007). That doesn't seem like something that benefits
customers or gets them a great deal.

~~~
celticninja
I was unaware of that, however I do know that they produce a quality good at a
low price. they kept other manufacturers out of the industry for a long time
simply by producing a quality good at such a low price it was not worth the
capital outlay to get into the market for the small profit (per unit)
available. now of course the chinese can make things for fractions of what it
costs elsewhere so almost all alternative zip maufacturers are low quality
chinese manufacturers.

------
ouiya
Well, they are the only 'convicted patent troll' in the right definition of
the term: [http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/06/apple-google-
motorol...](http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/06/apple-google-motorola-
patent-troll/)

Using SEPs for suing others is wrong. Google has learning marketing ploys from
IBM, place ads in influential tech blogs, get lots of good PR, the same blogs
will call anyone a patent troll but Google.

And because I know this will come up- Patents are not evil- the system is
broken sure, people misuse trivial patents, but at the same time, people who
put hard work in their work need to be rewarded (for meaningful patents). If
I'm an academician and I've spent 5 years coming up in my life with something
innovative that would otherwise have taken a lot of time, then I should have
the option to sell it to someone who is better equipped to monetize it. It's
like an author hiring a publisher. So patent consortiums are not trolls, they
are like publishers. Google is because they misused SEPs.

Sidenote: I'm against those kiddish patents that are just about 'describing at
technique in which x y z'. I feel the patent overhaul should involve the FTC
creating a team that would decide the 'year' validity of a patent, and
companies having to pay for it. That notwithstanding, Google is a troll. And
just because it gives out free stuff, you guys like it.

~~~
Oletros
> Using SEPs for suing others is wrong.

Source for that?

------
kghose
Because the only de facto monopolies allowed in the EU are european, like
Airbus.

~~~
byEngineer
And NOBODY would even dare to think to treat Russian monopolies like that.
Monopolies that actually are a real threat to Europe. Like Gazprom.

~~~
tomp
Well... right now, Europe pretty much depends on Gazprom et al. They are
working fast trying to introduce alternatives (gas from US, new gas pipes
under the Mediterranean and from the middle east, fracking in the UK), but
there is a long way to go.

~~~
pluma
They spent years _not_ introducing alternatives and instead become even
further reliant on Russian gas.

... until the mess in the Ukraine started and they had to choose between
Russia and the US (again).

(insert snark about replacing one reliance with another via TTIP)

------
mikerichards
No matter what they say, it's obviously an anti-american action, plain and
simple.

If the EU wants a trade war, then they'll have it.

------
marak830
I cant see how their a monolopy. I almost switched to bing, except its results
were not accurate enough for me. I tried different email hosts but i was
getting too much spam. I dont touch google+ so that wasnt an option.

There is competition but (in my opinion) dont do enough or arnt what i want.
There isnt any way i see google stiffling competition that i can see as i have
tried quite a few (and do use them on occasion), to me it seems as if its more
because their not a european produce (as techdirt originaly noted and seemed
to ring true to me).

~~~
celticninja
well i kind of deciphered your comment, but I dont see how this has anything
to do with Google not being european. There is no european counterpart who
would benefit from this outcome, the biggest benefit would be to Microsoft
(Bing) andother American company and probably a whole host of other US tech
companies.

~~~
marak830
Your right i didnt make myself clear sorry, i was referring to a post made by
techdirt :

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141121/17314329218/eu-
pa...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141121/17314329218/eu-parliament-
wants-to-break-up-google-because-its-big-american-something.shtml)

And also to the fact that i dont believe they are a monopoly(nor do i think
their abusing their position), and as such dont think anyone has any right to
demand anything from them - especially breaking the company up.

