The Friendly Monster
Member
What are you talking about? You think I'm bitter about VW paying fines to the US? VW broke the rules, VW got caught, VW agree to pay a fine. This is regulation in action and working for the consumers' benefit.
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Google fined record 2.42bn euros ($2.72bn) by European Commission
- Thread starter Moskalova
- Start date
That would be bad business, but as seen from your earlier comment basically telling Google to troll EU, you lack any understanding of it
I'm a consumer. I don't really see any benefit from VW being fined, myself. American people could care less about VW emissions, it all politics/business crap. Someone didn't bribe the right politician so they got fined.
Some government agency will probably just use the money to finance fining even more companies.
Man with Knife
Member
So you're telling me american companies have to run to the EU because their own country can't and doesn't want to get shit done (as proven by a lot of comments by the tools in this thread)?
Sad!
Muffin1611
Banned
What the fuck is this shit even? Google is making business in the EU, hence needs to obey regulations for monopolies. They knew that beforehand.
Google is literally monopolizing the search engine market and using it to gain benefits in another market. That's fucking illegal. End of story.
If you want companies being able to crush competitors in other sectors they're expanding into because they have a monopoly in their own, hell, you do you. Advocate for shit like that where you live. But don't come crying when big companies abuse their monopoly in ways that hurt customers.
The Friendly Monster
Member
Am I being trolled? This is lunacy. Do you really not understand? The fine is to dissuade anti-consumer malpractice.
Muffin1611
Banned
You literally have no clue what you're arguing about.
You're not being trolled. You're just arguing with someone who identifies as a "consumer" and is thus absurdly loyal to his favorite companies. Basically, he grew up and lived his entire life believing that capitalism can't do anything wrong and thus any regulation or fining of big business is viewed as an attack on him.
Remember this when you next time see people defending shitty practices done by Nintendo or Sony. These people think that companies are people and their friends.
TetraGenesis
Member
Ah, got ya.
ClosingADoor
Member
What are you talking about? They should have fought it? They were in the wrong and fined for it. That is how fines work.
As a consumer, you need some protection from these companies. VW faked the environmental tests in their cars. This means that they lied to you about the car you bought from them. This means the car polluted more then allowed, which has health and environmental consequences. The benefit of fining them is that companies don't screw your ass over every way they can.
They're keeping Yelp out of my search results, which is basically doing gods work, so I'm ok with it.
Any reviews website (Yelp) that says "you have to download our app to see HQ pictures in the reviews" deserves to be filtered into irrelevancy and buried on page 5.
I prefer google Maps/Reviews and it's why I use Chrome. I don't want a bunch of third-party results forced in. The google rating system is consistent and integrated with the Maps app, which we use everywhere in the US because we drive cars to get places. I don't want to go to trip advisor, yelp, etc. I want the results from Google.
TL;DR: I want to search 'Restaurant' in Chrome and get results of places to eat from Google Maps, not some third party. Then I can just click 'directions' and I'm on my way. I don't want a page full of YELP reviews that have 2 blurry pictures and then I have to remember/copy/paste/etc some address to get there. It shouldn't be illegal to make things convenient.
ClosingADoor
Member
This has got to be a joke. You seriously don't understand how a company with 90%+ marketshare should not abuse their position to push their own services up front when trying to enter a new market, and thus creating an unfair marketplace where competition does not stand a chance anymore.
Please read the ruling here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-1784_en.htm
You people really don't have a fucking clue about the scales here. The 2.4billion is fucking nothing in the financial problems of Greece. Greece has been given 219 billion euros to date and there now talks about a third bailout package. On top of the ~200 billion of just direct cash thrown in Germany, France and Italy bought 130 billion euros worth of Greeces bonds (which in reality have a value of pretty much 0 as nobody will buy them off you)
Anyway all these fines levied by the EU Commission go to the EU budget and none of the bailouts have been paid from that. The bailout money comes directly from the EU member states budgets. As from EU its just baffling looking at comments by Americans (I think) who clearly have no clue how the EU and its various institutions work.
You can get that convenience with EU laws. When Microsoft got fined the result wasn't the obligation of having firefox or chrome replacing internet explorer.
Google would likely be ok if the the default setup for comparison shopping service wasn't giving any unfair advantage to google shopping, and if you could choose to have google services like google shopping as your main/favorite result as an option in your google account settings.
And if I could come up with that answer in 1 minutes, don't imagine for a second that nobody at google didn't think about it. Those company know very well what they are doing, and that the fines, at the end of the day, are negligible compared to the benefits they get by the time they get punished.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Where's that Billy Madison clip when you need it
Mysterious
Banned
Not Apple, just Alphabet and Microsoft. Apple's product lineup isn't all that diverse.
Camp Freddie
Member
Well the main benefit is that your air isn't being filled with particulates and your government has some extra cash that you aren't being taxed for.
The VW scandal did have some people in Europe feeling suspicious that Ford or GM wouldn't be charged the same amount and that US politicians wouldn't have made such a big deal about it, but pretty much everyone agrees that VW were in the wrong and doubled down on the wrongness by trying to blame rogue engineers or some such bullshit.
Muffin1611
Banned
Then maybe Google shouldn't offer a classic search engine where all normal websites can be found instead of artificially promoting their products they have in another industry.
Yeah, exactly this.
IF someone makes a BETTER product than I'm interested.
YELP is literally an inferior product in every way. I don't want a government to force their shitty website and reviews into my search results. If I wanted YELP results, I'd download their app or search on yelp.com. I choose not to go to yelp because yelp sucks.
I want Google's results. They are consistent and integrated with Maps. That's why I am searching on Google in the first place. If yelp sucks, they deserve to be irrelevant.
They should make a special bubble for European search results or something, so that ours can stay the way it is.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
In a way it makes sense: Google gathers data from others without permission, which is what makes their service attractive to begin with, and then push their content to the front. If they were in an agreement for all data published on their site then it would be a different story.
It's no different than if one company had a teleporter that allowed them to send people anywhere in the world, and then used that as an opportunity to push all of its services and products. Their ability to send people anywhere would normally be expected to depend on an agreement with the destination owners, but in this case it doesn't, which gives them an unfair advantage.
That being said, I think the advantage Google has is over estimated.
It's no different than if one company had a teleporter that allowed them to send people anywhere in the world, and then used that as an opportunity to push all of its services and products. Their ability to send people anywhere would normally be expected to depend on an agreement with the destination owners, but in this case it doesn't, which gives them an unfair advantage.
That being said, I think the advantage Google has is over estimated.
Muffin1611
Banned
GOOGLE IS A SEARCH ENGINE SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO NOT ONLY SHOW YOU GOOGLE WEBSITES
The government is only forcing Google to not unfairly promoting their own stuff with it.
And yes it's unfair, since they're offering search for other companies stuff in the first place ffs
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
You have no idea how monopolies work, do you?
I have a giant crater in my forehead from face-palming after reading some of these posts. Abusing (near) monopoly for your own gain = bad. You get fined.
Not exactly rocket science now, is it? "BUT IT DOESN'T AFFECT *ME* NEGATIVELY"
Typical "Fuck you got mine" mentality lol
Not exactly rocket science now, is it? "BUT IT DOESN'T AFFECT *ME* NEGATIVELY"
Typical "Fuck you got mine" mentality lol
What are you going on about. the ruling isn't about hiding google's search results its about preferring googles own services over others regardless of market popularity. if yelp is as shit as you say it is and not many people use it then it wouldn't start appearing in your search results.
What google has been doing is hiding other services. meaning that if there was a better product you wouldnt know about it because googel is using their monopoly on search engines to hide it from you.
What is it with people being OK with companies abusing their monopolies. its like you want to be fucked over by large corporations.
ClosingADoor
Member
If someone makes a better product, but Google pushes its own product forward, then that better product can't survive. That is why this is unfair competition and they are being fined.
Google Shopping was not superior to alternatives, they literally bumped it to the top by abusing their position.
I don't think you read the ruling, here it is again, answers why the fine is perfectly justified: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-1784_en.htm
Google is playing the game very smart. They constantly make little steps to have websites give them more data and structure their content in certain ways, and then they can use that content to power their own services. They do exactly that with the AMP pages now for example, boosting websites that play by their rules there. And next year they will heavily influence the advertising space by making Chrome block certain ads by default. This all sounds fine for the consumer, but it gives Google a lot of power over the content of the web.
Yes, but the Google results are the useful ones. None of these other sites are as convenient to use. They are inferior.
I want results like this that I can directly navigate to:
I don't want results like this, where I have to go to another site, download an app, etc. to get the information:
What's stopping Yelp and these other companies from making a product that's convenient to use? Why do I need to download their app to see HQ restaurant review pics? Why do I need to have their crap in my search results? I don't.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
"I like how this is so laws shouldn't apply to it"
The point is, if Yelp offered you the kind of services you want it wouldn't matter because Google would bury it on page 3 after it promotes its own services.
ClosingADoor
Member
Those are not shopping results, which this specific case is about. The current issue is this:
See those images? That is Google Shopping. They are a price comparison website. Google places it on top by default, instead of having it follow the same rules they force on other price comparison websites.
That said, the fact that you happen to like Google services does not matter for the law if the way they present those services are anti-competitive. I can make the best services tomorrow that are 100% what you want, but if Google pushes them to the bottom unfairly in favor of their own inferior service, mine can't exist anymore due to Googles dominant position in search.
moreover perhaps yelp has to do that shitty app images thing to make sure people download and use their app instead of going through google because thats the only way they can retain the same amount of traffic
TarpitCarnivore
Member
When Google is driving traffic and results down they're not allowing a better product to survive. Yelp is not a search engine to the web, it's a very specific focus and it's not driving traffic to outbound links from search.
Google can literally bury a site with a single algorithm change when that site has done NOTHING in the wrong. So many websites have to bend over and work to make SEO work well on Google, and for what? So Google can prioritize Google AMP links to the top of search results. AMP links that could have very wrong information.
Whether you like it or not Google (and Facebook) are portals to the internet for a vast majority of the world. When a single entity is controlling every aspect of content that is shown to the user that can be very worrying; seriously consider how much 'fake news' played a pivotal role in things of late and their rankings in Google.
Muffin1611
Banned
If Yelp is appearing so far above, obviously people are using it and liking it, no? That's how search engines work, goddamnit. Why should Google Shopping get in the same spot while not actually being liked as much? What is fair about that?
You're arguing that it's inconvenient for you, so go ask Google to give you better filter options. It is NO EXCUSE for them to break regulations that are there for obvious reasons.
Then you can, you know, do the fucking search within Google Maps lol. And what's stopping Yelp from creating a search engine that holds 90% of the market? I dunno, could be this monopoly of Google's. Not sure though!
If you want better integration on google of things from other companies, it's on google. You can be sure that if Google made an API which allowed websites to have more visibility on Google, those companies would jump on it.
There are ways to game search engine algorithms. Google sells relevant advertising on its searches, if you do not like its layout... bing.com is always accessible, there is nothing stopping you from going there.
No, if Yelp had a better product, I'd search on Yelp, not google.
When I want to buy something I typically search for it on a retailers page - Best Buy, Amazon, etc. I don't just search for it on google.
I actually do search in Maps a lot
Muffin1611
Banned
I think I should just rip my head off, I don't know if I can take these replies anymore.
BING ISN'T THE HOLDER OF A MONOPOLY
ABUSING A MONOPOLY TO GAIN IN OTHER SECTORS IS RIGHTFULLY REGULATED
Edit: Okay, fuck this. I'm out. Both of you are either willfully trolling, don't have any knowledge about the topic, or having a knee-jerk reaction because it's the EU targeting a US company. Or all of that. I dunno, I don't care.
Neither of you is arguing in good faith and trying to refute arguments. You're just repeating your bullshit like some mantra.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
Yelp, Amazon, best Buy, etc are not search engines. They're market places
The Friendly Monster
Member
So if you want to browse Google Shopping you click on Google Shopping and you won't get any other results. This is about Google using their search engine to promote their other services.
People search for restaurants and other places on Google. Google has a monopoly in the search engine market. Google is using its huge market power for search engines to promote its other services at the expense of others which if left unchecked could lead to Google having a monopoly in the restaurant review market for instance.
So the EU is a monopoly that promotes itself?
They see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Honestly, it's not that surprising to see people on a videogame forum defend companies like they're defending sports teams.
Many gamers identify strongly with various companies, and mistankely think that companies are their friends.
So naturally an attack on a company is seen as an attack on themselves.
Trickster
Member
Comments in this thread are so ridiculous that I don't even know if this is a serious post or not lol
Pai Pai Master
Banned
That's not how it works and the world doesn't revolve around what you personally want.
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