>The Court of Justice said Google’s practice of favoring its own shopping search results over rival services “was discriminatory.” The ruling can't be appealed.
>Judges said that EU law forbids behavior that prevents “the maintenance or growth of competition in a market in which the degree of competition is already weakened, precisely because of the presence of one or more undertakings in a dominant position.”
Gonna be interesting to see if Amazon also gets hit by this very same thing as they seem to push their "Amazon Basics" brand above competitors too in their "market place".
With respect to the marketplace seller data, Amazon commits to refrain from using non-public data relating to, or derived from, the activities of independent sellers on its marketplace, for its retail business that competes with those sellers. This would apply to both Amazon's automated tools and employees that could cross-use the data from Amazon Marketplace, for the purposes of retail decisions. The relevant data would cover both individual and aggregate data, such as sales terms, revenues, shipments, inventory related information, consumer visit data or seller performance on the platform. Amazon commits not to use such data for the purposes of selling branded goods as well as its private label products.
In relation to the Buy Box Amazon commits:
- to apply equal treatment to all sellers when ranking their offers for the purposes of the selection of the winner of the Buy Box;
- and in addition, to display a second competing offer to the Buy Box winner if there is a second offer that is sufficiently differentiated from the first one on price and/or delivery. Both offers will display the same descriptive information and provide for the same purchasing experience. This will enhance consumer choice.
Lastly, regarding Prime Amazon commits:
- to set non-discriminatory conditions and criteria for the qualification of marketplace sellers and offers to Prime;
- to allow Prime sellers to freely choose any carrier for their logistics and delivery services and negotiate terms directly with the carrier of their choice;
- not to use any information obtained through Prime about the terms and performance of third-party carriers, for its own logistics services. This is to ensure that carriers' data is not flowing directly to Amazon's competing logistics services.
The commitments would remain in force for five years. Their implementation would be monitored by a monitoring trustee who would report regularly to the Commission.
I feel like companies like Amazon are large enough that they will find other hidden ways to do the same unethical things. Their size is fundamentally a problem.
Maybe a better example where the search is for "e-book color" and the listing for the Paperwhite doesn't match either "e-book" or "color", so it's not ranking high because it's matching the search terms well with the titles but seemingly because of something else: https://i.imgur.com/BoUjPPv.png
Why wouldn't a Paperwhite return with "e-book"? And given the results it's way more reviewed and probably way more popular than the other listings there.
And you searched what could be translated to "sleeve" or "cover". The hard drive sleeve has way more reviews and engagement than the rest, by a massive margin.
I hate Amazon search for many reasons, but this seems to be a reach of examples. Show me an example where the alternatives have equal review counts but are pushed way below the Amazon listings or way more specifically excluding terms. If you had searched for an iPhone case and it returned a hard drive sleeve I'd think there was something funny going on, but not with these examples.
The search is "e-book color", if a product doesn't mention "color" or similar in it's title, description or metadata, I don't expect it to show up. No other black and white e-readers seems to show up, only Paperwhite is the black&white reader that shows up.
> And you searched what could be translated to "sleeve" or "cover".
The search engine seems to think I'm searching for either a laptop cover or smartphone/tablet cover, as every single result on the first page are in those categories. Except, for the Amazon Basics one, which coincidentally also ranks highest.
I'm not putting these out there as "This is definitely proof Amazon is fucking with the search rankings" but more like "These results don't really seem to match what I expect or what I get at other similar websites".
> Paperwhite doesn't match either "e-book" or "color"
> either "e-book" or "color"
A Paperwhite most definitely matches "e-book". Very strongly.
Most fuzzy searches have multiple weighting parameters in the algo. You're right, it doesn't match "color" very strongly, but the fact it has >7k reviews and "5+ million sold last month" compared to 31 reviews its match for "e-book" probably has a pretty massive weighting. It's probably 1,000x stronger in its natural weight in terms of overall sales and engagement to anything else related to "e-book". I mean, its 400, 50, 50, and an undisclosed amount sold last month compared to five million.
That item is the lowest cost of the options depicted, and has more reviews (which are proportional to sales) than the rest combined. I think most algorithms would put it on top.
The results for the search "funda" are all smartphone or tablet covers, or covers for laptop. Except for that one Amazon Basics product which is a cover/protector for hard-drives.
Below its ranking (scrolling, not visible in the screenshot) are products with exact same score + more reviews + "funda" in the title. Shouldn't those, by your understanding, rank above the Amazon Basic product then?
Maybe; depending on their age, the content of the product page (videos, comparisons, etc.), delivery time, and the rate at which those who see the listing purchase it (after searching funda). I am guessing that Amazon uses some sort of Bayesian+ algorithm to figure out what to list.
How about non-online stores? In the US many major chain stores have their own brands. For example in grocery stores Safeway has their Signature Select brand, and Walmart has Great Value. In electronics Best Buy has Insignia, and Walmart has Onn.
Might be a distinction here because Google doesn't actually sell the products whereas Amazon is the actual retailer. Google is promoting their link to the product -- potentially even over the exact same retailer's direct link -- to take a cut.
> Fines imposed on undertakings found in breach of EU antitrust rules are paid into the general EU budget. This money is not earmarked for particular expenses, but Member States' contributions to the EU budget for the following year are reduced accordingly.
Also, because there are always people in these discussions commenting things they haven't given a single thought to. No, these fines do not finance the EU.
The EU budget is around €160 billion to €180 billion each year. Roughly 1% of the EU GDP, contributed by member states.
Fines this large are the exception, not the rule. So fines do make up a very small portion of the overall budget.
Not really knowing how any of this works, could Google just stop listing other merchant's stuff and be in compliance?
Obviously it'd take a hit on search value but I don't really understand how rating their stuff higher is any different than having a product page in the technical sense except that they also list other people's products.
So I'm not sure if this is due to their size and adoption or if it's because they are a search company that lists everyone's products.
I really have no idea about this and no real opinion, I am just wondering if hiding other people's results would solve this.
The weirdest corporate training I’ve ever taken, besides a certain very old tech company using pictures of monkeys in their anti discrimination training , pointing out you can’t technically age discriminate against a 45 year old and in their harassment training announced that flirty bisexual people can’t sexually harass you… sorry what was a saying?
Oh. It was Boeing saying that while bribery is generally VERY BAD, there are geopolitical situations where not only is it acceptable but we need to report it through proper channels so we can get a tax write off as a cost of doing business.
No, countries have the right to regulate businesses that operate in their jurisdiction. It's up to the companies to square that with their business model, or choose to do business elsewhere. I'm pretty free market, but this is common sense stuff: it has to work that way, or we've got the much bigger problem of either a techno dystopia with corporate nation-states, or else corporations becoming extensions of a government, waging war by other means on foreign shores.
I don't like the "battle against big tech" framing, but I think that's just what the publisher went with to make it sound dramatic.
I 100% agree that the EU has the right to do this. It may even be in their best interest to do so (idk, I'm not European).
My point is more that it's not "justice" in the criminal-justice sense (eg: consequences for murder/robbery). It's economic policy, largely orthogonal to "justice".
It might not be "justice" to you in the narrow definition you are creating, but fair economic and user privacy rules are justice to me and likely to most. I don't find it orthogonal to justice at all.
The EU council is composed mainly of the heads of state or heads of government of each member state.
All EU countries are democracies (at least supposedly, we have Hungary after all).
The heads of state/government on democracies are not conjured up from thin air buddy, those are elected.
You might be thinking of the European Commission, those are appointment by members of the council (that are elected) and confirmed by the European Parliament (also elected). The European Commissioners are more like ministers in a regular country. So saying they are unelected is as silly as saying that the minister of defense or minister of internal affairs in a country was unelected.
The EU Council is mainly composed by heads of state or government.
In some countries that may be a president (which is directly elected), in others a prime minister (which you may argue is indirectly elected by a elected parliament).
We may argue if presidentialism is somehow more democratic than parliamentarism, but prime ministers are undeniably elected (they are in the parliament after all).
Also, whatever regulations proposed by the EU council or commission, they have to be approved by the parliament. That's their whole job.
You are, honestly, just speaking bullshit about something you clearly don't understand, probably regurgitating bad takes you read online somewhere.
You literally just agreed with me in your first few sentences and then ended by saying I'm talking bullshit. Weird hill for you to die on since it's a minor detail and not even the main point in my original argument.
It just reads like you want to argue with someone online.
it's gonna get much harder to keep on pretending that unelected opereatives based out of the USA have attacked with violence, prejudice, and overall imperialistic intent all kinds of governments all over the world, including purported american "allies"
Not really, antitrust is far from being a new concept. It predates all the major tech companies. In fact, a cursory web search traces it back all the way to the Roman empire. and Google is definitely not the first to be hit by it.
However, if Google (or any major US tech company) believe they are being wrongfully targeted, they can always stop operating in EU.
Or you know, they can continue operating there, but follow the rules instead. Again, a very weird concept. Not sure you will understand it.
My argument is that the law in question is an EU economic policy targeting large US companies, not "justice" in the "law & order" sense of that word. This is a real position, not a straw man.
In return I've gotten mostly insulting responses (though some thoughtful ones have now filtered in). I'm not even complaining about any of these, mostly just curious why this topic riles so many people up.
In my reply I used some light sarcasm to convey my dismay at how wrong your original post was. If you read that as hostility or "heavy emotional reaction", well, that is a you problem.
We can refer back to your original post:
> The law here isn't some neutral concept of justice, but rather a regulation tailor-made by unelected officials to target large US companies.
1 - It ignores that antitrust law is a concept of justice, created to protect society against economic abuse that would otherwise harm it.
2 - It uses an old, boring, and plain wrong rhetoric about "unelected EU officials". Sorry, this is plain bullshit.
3 - It has a subtext of "poor US big tech company being unfairly targeted by mean EU government". Again, another boring and plain wrong rhetoric. Companies like Google are horribly abusive both to users and to the societies where they operate. I wouldn't be surprised if Google willingly ignored untitrust law in a cold calculation where they figured they make more in revenue then they lose in fines.
This is a wholly new concept of "antitrust" law which relies on market competition rather than consumer harm.
There is no overlap with prior antitrust except for the name and "big = bad". Even your point 3 exposes the real problem. People don't like google (neither do I, actually), impute ill intent to them, and want them punished.
My entire point has been that this is an EU economic policy, not traditional "justice" (e.g. punishment for robbery).
Doing some light googling, the basis of these antitrust laws is from "Regulation No 17: First Regulation implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty" [1]
Article 86 of the Treaty begins, "In order to combat crimes affecting the financial interests of the Union"[2]...
This is where it gets complex, buddy, but hang with me..."financial interests" is another way of saying "economic interests", so the EU itself explicitly calls this an economic policy.
And why wouldn't they? They can and should protect their interests. So why are ou are all over the place trying to shut down conversations about them doing so?
Yes, those pure, angelic and kind trillion dollar tech companies are being bullied by the big bad evil EU government because they are jealous of their success. They're just haters
Its not like it has anything to do with them consistently violating people's rights and having the biggest monopoly in the history of the world. Get it twisted, you must defend them tooth and nail because one day, it could be you. /s
Definitely. You start by showing me a comment defending google. All I could find is:
>People don't like google (neither do I, actually)
For the record, I am very confident that google is guilty with regard to these laws. I just also think that these laws are tailored by the EU to target large US companies like google as part of the EU's broader, anti-US tech economic policy.
What's the problem with regulations aimed at US big tech? If something it came too late. And for sure they don't need ahmeneeroe-v2 to defend them online for free.
I've answered this elsewhere in the replies: the EU has the right to form an independent economic policy and to write regulations in support of that economic policy and to prosecute/punish companies in accordance with those regulations.
I am just calling it by that: EU protectionism against big US tech cos.
The EU doesn't need meiraleal patrolling the internet helping them masquerade as punishing the evildoers.
Not to mention Google already lost a previous similar (identical?) case back in 2018 or something, but didn't do enough changes so they had to be fined yet another time.
Not sure why Google are unable to get lawyers good enough to explain laws and regulations to them, or if executive team just ignores the lawyers they have.
On the contrary. Google have the best lawyers. And they did the math and came up that the profits from several years of now following the laws makes up for any potential fines for breaking it.
You know that scene from Fight Club when on the plane, Edward Norton's character explains to his seat mate that he works for a very large car company where they have mechanical issues that kill people all the time, and his job is to do the math and only issue a recall if the cost of the lawsuits is greater than the cost of the recall. Google, Apple, et-al have the same thought process for following the law.
> Google have the best lawyers. And they did the math and came up that the profits from several years of now following the laws makes up for any potential fines for breaking it
Some companies have surely done this. But most haven’t, and given how poorly Google is run, I doubt they did.
Lobbying is part of democracy. Lobbying is neither good or bad. It's certain groups who are lobbying that you may feel corrupts democracy. But that's a feature of democracy; it also includes those who want to corrupt it. Lobbying is essential for legislation advocacy. Lobbying is how lawmakers get educated. How do lawmakers know what issues to address? What legislation to pass?
Edit: My bad, the above page is just Antitrust cases made by the EU against Google. All the litigation sorrounding Google has it's own Wikipedia category (!!) as it's so much at this point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Google_litigation
I am very much against the type of regulations in the EU (or places like Brazil) that hurt freedom of speech or privacy of chats or whatever else. But I do support regulations to break up monopolies or remove other anti competitive barriers. We have too many large corporations that are so powerful that they are like governments. They distort our market but also our speech and politics and all that. Choice and competition is important. I think anti trust actions against Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart, financial companies (JP Morgan Chase or Visa/Mastercard), medical industries, and others needs to go much further. And it can’t stop at the EU.
Powerful entities influence the world. The difference is that the government (in the EU) is ostensibly democratic and private companies are unaccountable optimization engines.
Not everything is democratic about the EU, since the top representatives are not elected by the people. Just like the United Nations is not a democratic organization. The EU president is not elected by popular vote, for example. She is appointed by the parliament, similar to how kings in the past were appointed by a council of lords.
Yes. But there is a difference between a president being elected by popular vote and a president being elected by a parliament. One of them is democratically elected. The other is not. EU citizens are not allowed to vote for the EU president.
And a parliament is not necessarily a democratically elected body, historically they weren't. The EU parliament is though.
I think this may be a misunderstanding of the word "president". The role you're talking about is more like that of the Speaker of the House in the US or the UK. Both are elected by members of the chamber, not a popular vote.
> The role you're talking about is more like that of the Speaker of the House in the US or the UK. Both are elected by members of the chamber, not a popular vote.
Not really. The commission president is certainly (not even remotely) the equivalent of the Speaker in the British parliament (maybe a slightly closer in the US).
Not even Prime Minister would be a real equivalent since the commission isn't appointed by the parliament and it has relative very little say in what the commission does. In certain ways it's not fundamentally that different from some of the pseudo-democratic European states in the 1800s where the job of parliament was only to rubber stamp the laws written by the appointed government (of course there is no equivalent of the King/Emperor).
I'm confused. We started off talking about how the President of the European Parliament is elected, but now you're talking about the European Commission. Those are separate bodies, the latter drafts laws. There's no country that elects the head of its civil service, is there?
No, I'm not referring to the speaker of the EU parliament, I am referring to the president of the European Commission, which is right now Ursula von der Leyen. She was appointed by the EU parliament and not democratically elected.
The EU leaders makes things as confusing as they are able to, in order to be able to do what they please without the population understanding much, but she (von der Leyen) is very much promoted as being a "real president", acts like a "real president" in foreign affairs. It is only when pointed out that they are not democratically elected that people start making excuses that the EU president is not a "real president".
Which way is it? I think the rulers of Europe want to have it both ways, so that they can smoothly direct their subjects as they please.
IMHO that would be perfectly fine on its own (or do you think that any parliamentary state is not a "real democracy"?).
But the problem is that she was appointed by the Council/National governments and the parliament just rubber-stamped their pick. If the relationship between the Parliament and Commission were the same as between the parliaments and governments of other countries it would be perfectly fine.
> "real president"
You clearly don't speak French? What's a "real president" anyway?
Also if we go that route you do know that the e.g. German, Italian, Greek etc. "presidents" are also not elected directly?
Nominated by the Council and appointed by the Parliament. No, it is not real democracy. It is "representative democracy", at best. And I believe Europeans are defending this system just out of the human habit of defending status quo. If it was arranged anyway else, they would argue that was the best. If the EU had presidential elections by popular vote, do you think anybody here would argue that those should be scrapped for parliamentary appointment?
Europe doesn't have the strong traditions of freedom and individualism. The tradition is collectivism and people accepting that they are to be ruled over, without that bothering them too much.
"There is no "President" of the EU in the US sense of the word." <- This statement by a previous commenter is what I'm referring to when writing "real president". No, I don't speak French, and this conversation hasn't been in French.
In reality they have a somewhat limited say in who the Commission president is going to back and almost no influence on its members. Compared to most national parliaments it's extremely weak and quite pointless.
It's pretty much a joke, it can't propose any legislation since it doesen't really control the "EU government". The could be a majority in the EU parliament that would support passing specific legislation and they couldn't do anything about that, not even have an actual vote.
How did that competition between private companies work out for US hath system? Are Americans getting better bang for the buck? Are they getting faster internet at home due to competition between ISPs? Are Americans getting more paid vacation days due to the private market competition between employers? Why didn't competition between auto makers result in more efficient and less polluting engines until the EPA and EU forced them in the 80's? Did competition between food manufactures got them to eliminate lead and arsenic from food or was it government regulation that did it?
Competition existing doesn't automagically prevent or fix monopolies, duopolies, price fixing and other anti-competitive behavior from private entities who have the power to shape the market in their favor. Do you know why all those things are illegal even in the US? Because they work. If it wouldn't work it wouldn't have been made illegal. Private entities can much more easily collide to screw over consumers than consumers can collectively unite to do anything about it themselves. That's why governments and regulations exist.
The high competition is usually also the root of the evil, since they need to do things that other would not to get an advantage. Like using child labor somewhere. Create a solution for non-existent problem but then lobby some laws which will create this problem. There is no moral in public companies.
Elected politicians compete intensely with each other. Polling, focus groups, and pandering are common in democratic countries because people running for office want to do things that make voters like them. The system is far from perfect but you seem to be arguing that the government is free to use violence however it wants without consequence which is not at all realistic.
Companies collude to eliminate competition all the time. Or use tactics that make competition impossible.
And don't use violence? Give me a break. Even small scale companies like Wizards of the Coast sent the fucking Pinkertons after someone for possessing a magic card. You think Amazon is out here existing violence free? You think Nestle's suppliers are making chocolate without any violence.
Reminder: the term "free markets" originally referred to markets free of the distorting effects of monopoly. To ensure markets remain free, fair and available to all, legislators need to intervene. Otherwise they go to sh*t.
As aside, it's a common misconception that the EU acts to protect EU companies from outside competition. They don't. It's a side-effect of their mission to keep the EU a free market.
uhhh, in your example, a subsidiary of chevron paid the government to attack protestors. I'm sure there are small examples of companies actually conducting violence, but you should feel bad about yourself in that you couldn't even muster the effort to find something that disproved my point.
If you're suggesting the government should not be able to exert violence because corporations aren't, I'm listening but I suspect you haven't thought this through.
>and are not allowed to use violence to exert their will.
Define violence.
You may look at this and think "What are you, stupid?" But stick with me for a bit. Let's grab a few examples of free market atrocities. Asbestos; thalidomide; hexavalent chromium; fossil fuels (and hiding research since the 60's about climate change); the sugar industry (also famous for it's scientific gaslighting); Purdue pharmaceuticals, Oxycontin, and it's coincidental treatment for opiate addiction which was in the pipeline...
Now lets grab a few definitions of violence and see if we can bucket some of these into them without too much trouble.
Definitions numbered top of page to bottom. Are there any acts that fit the word violence that companies regularly do?
Take a look at # 7, quoted here:
7) Injury done to anything which is entitled to respect, reverence, or observance; profanation; infringement; violation.
Companies do that all the effing time. In point of fact, it's practically their reason to exist at all. The corporation was initially formulated as a risk-impact distribution tool. That there is risk associated with it, implies an understanding that the vehicle can do harm.
And before you go saying "but that's not the legal definition..." I'm going to head that off with a single word, "Yet", and further seal off the wiggle room by referring you to the practical outcomes of all these allegedly non-violent exercises of corporate power; the scarring for life if not termination of of life by the thousands to million. You don't get kill counts that high through acts of human artifice, and still get to hide behind the bulwark of "but it wasn't violence" a kill via indirection is still a kill. a life ends or is irrepairably harmed. While their is a practical lenience extended based on the matter of human imperfections and inability to know everything, be everywhere at once; with technology, nowadays the old platitudes tend to ring a bit hollow. Where executives can literally sit on event streams created by their corporate systems; where reports that unequivocally say "bad shit'll happen", and it gets buried instead of escalated for the consideration of all; and to what end? To what benefit are these atrocities committed at the expense of the common good? The self enrichment of the few, and consolidation of wealth and power.
That my friend, is inarguably violence. That doesn't even require the 4th sense of violence either.
I guess I agree with both being a problem. Maybe the way I would put it is that once a company becomes large enough it is a lot like a government. For example, if a a few tech companies ban your speech, you effectively don’t have a useful freedom of expression. Being able to yell on a street corner is not a good substitute if you are censored online.
A government is by definition a monopoly. No company can become large enough to be like a government unless it has government backing. E.g. Walmart was feared to be becoming a monopoly by running smaller shops out of business and yet Amazon was still able to compete. Eventually someone else will outcompete both, as long as the government doesn't step in to protect them.
Google is a monopoly. But this is simply because their product was/is so much better than the rest. Anyone can access bing whenever they want but not many people care.
The question is not the monopoly by itself, it's to conquer other market by abusing it's power. If you own search and mobile os, without régulation, what could you prevent to own mobile service, then fiber, then delivery then car, then train, then whatever ?
Google was better for the five minutes that pagerank lasted. The only thing it's maintained since is being no worse than the competitors, while being the default. In order to become and remain the default they use the profit they make from their old purchase of doubleclick, since ads are what make Google money, in order to bribe and buy competitors.
There's no part of this that is good. Other than as a huge monopoly, they can afford to be huge on R&D, just like Bell. They still fail to make money on anything but ads, though, so it's not turning out as well as Bell.
There's all sorts of anecdotal evidence that google searches have gotten steadily worse, and google has stopped supporting parts of its search "API" that mitigated this. So they've been the market leader but haven't continued to improve search in any noticeable way.
Sure, other search engines can theoretically compete, but it is an enormous mountain to get enough data to be competitive... and just being "as good" is not enough to get people to switch. So without regulation, google is going to exploit a captive market.
There are network effects and other feedback loops that make competition not possible. For example, by simply having fewer users, you get less information to train your algorithms. But in Google‘s case, they also have the network effect of running an advertising platform. This platform is hard to compete against in itself. And it provides funding that would otherwise potentially go to other players so that they can invest in search quality. Just a thought. I have not thought deeply about this so I would welcome other opinions.
The best result for the consumer would obviously be the best maps integrated into the best search. That may end up apple maps or here wego with google search.
It'd be perfectly fine for Google to allow choosing your own maps provider, or just using geo:// URIs so whichever maps app you've got installed handles location links.
Through laws and treaties we've given the EU the duty to enforce this.
Yes anybody could use Bing, but they won't. That leads to big revenues for Google. Question now is, what Google does with those revenues. Do they invest in other markets where they otherwise can't compete to drive competitors out of the market? - Then they abuse the power they got.
That is clearly not an abuse of power, unless we have to adopt the ideology that anything a big company does with their profit is an abuse of power. Would you be happier if all profit went to shareholders and none to investing?
>The Court of Justice said Google’s practice of favoring its own shopping search results over rival services “was discriminatory.” The ruling can't be appealed.
>Judges said that EU law forbids behavior that prevents “the maintenance or growth of competition in a market in which the degree of competition is already weakened, precisely because of the presence of one or more undertakings in a dominant position.”