The European Commission, a group that proves the UK is better off outside the EU, fined Google $2.7BN for EU Antitrust Violations Over Shopping Searches.
The EC claims
- Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service: when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine in relation to which Google’s comparison shopping service wants to show results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results.
- Google has demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results: rival comparison shopping services appear in Google’s search results on the basis of Google’s generic search algorithms. Google has included a number of criteria in these algorithms, as a result of which rival comparison shopping services are demoted.
According to the EC nannycrats, Google has an “unfair” advantage. Google has been instructed to “stop its illegal conduct within 90 days.”
The EC also has two outstanding formal investigations into Google’s Android phone business that “breach EU antitrust rules.”
Google Response
A Google Blog post tells The Other Side of the Story.
When you shop online, you want to find the products you’re looking for quickly and easily. And advertisers want to promote those same products. That’s why Google shows shopping ads, connecting our users with thousands of advertisers, large and small, in ways that are useful for both.
We believe the European Commission’s online shopping decision underestimates the value of those kinds of fast and easy connections. While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently, our data shows that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches.
We think our current shopping results are useful and are a much-improved version of the text-only ads we showed a decade ago. Showing ads that include pictures, ratings, and prices benefits us, our advertisers, and most of all, our users. And we show them only when your feedback tells us they are relevant. Thousands of European merchants use these ads to compete with larger companies like Amazon and eBay.
Not About Competition
Writer Daniel Lacalle provided a better defense of Google in The EU Google Fine Is Not About Competition But Against US Tech Giants.
I read with surprise the report that the EU has provided to justify the largest fine ever, $2.7 billion, for alleged “unfair use of its search engine” and “abuse of dominant position”.
Does it have any merit? None whatsoever. The EU is showing a worrying lack of understanding of online sales and search engines and twists its arguments to make a dominant position and an abuse that simply do not exist.
Let us start from that unfair view of the abuse of dominant position. How does the EU arrive at such aggressive figures? By ignoring real competitors.
This is the first but crucial and puzzling part of this misguided action. The EU does not consider Amazon, eBay, or the more than 300 price comparison sites that have surfaced since 2005 as “competitors”.
The EU assumes that Google abuses its market position because it is the most widely used search engine. But it does not understand that the use of Google versus other alternatives, Bing, Yahoo etc… is a completely personal choice, not an imposition. No one opens their brand new laptop and finds themselves forced to use Google or Google shopping…. But to say that Amazon and eBay are not competitors of Google Shopping is simply a way of manipulating facts to arrive at a pre-designed conclusion: The evil of market abuse.
The EU is so entrenched in a view of competition that comes from the old economy, that it forgets that disruptive technology companies lead because they can immediately replace those inefficiencies of the market that oligopolies and monopolies create. By the way, they should know that no monopoly can exist without the explicit approval of the government.
Meanwhile, the EU continues to defend European national champions and state oligopolies and disguising thinly veiled taxation decisions with calls for competition.
There is a small problem. The EU will lose in its misguided battle against US tech giants. But there is something worse. It is losing the technology race.
What the EU should do is ask itself why there has been no Google, Amazon, Netflix or Facebook created in Europe. The answer is sad and simple. The EU itself would have prevented it with unfair regulation and fines in order to maintain its “national champion” dinosaur conglomerates.
Surprise Not
It’s a mystery how anyone could have been surprised by the EC’s response. Otherwise, Lacalle pretty much nails it.
Daniel Lacalle is Chief Economist at Tressis SV, has a PhD in Economics and is the author of “Escape from the Central Bank Trap”, “Life In The Financial Markets” and “The Energy World Is Flat”.
Heart of the Matter
The consumer is at the heart of the matter.
They have a choice. They freely chose Google over Yahoo! and Bing despite massive attempts by other search engines to compete.
If consumers did not like Google services, they would choose something else. It is that simple.
Any Edge is Unfair!
To socialists, any edge is unfair, and must be eliminated. Dominance in and of itself proves unfairness!
In the name of “competition”, customers will now have a model forced on them the customers do not want.
In France, the Booksellers’ Union sued Amazon and won. Amazon was ordered to stop free shipping of books.
The EU cannot compete in technology because the nannycrats don’t really want competition, they want social fairness and protection of weak dying industries like bookstores and internet models that customers don’t want.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The EU nannycrat bastards (sorry to repeat myself) do it because they can. Let’s all hope the EU implodes. It was unworkable from the get-go.
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“our data shows that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches.”
Yep. I have tried to found and did find direct links to material providers in my rather limited field and succeeded finding cheaper alternatives. Thanks to Google.
And as anyone can observe, Google findings have normally rather many pages so if one is lazy or incompetent to use the search, then one can only blame oneself.
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Roast them mikie roast them!!
Get Outlook for Android
________________________________
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Sounds like Ayn Rand’s Anthem to me.
_aleph_
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How does a fine help competitors?
We see this in every government. They seek out and define unfair competition, fine them, and pocket the “winnings”. Meanwhile competitors still lose as do customers.
Socialist governments despise competition as it allows winners (who are NOT government) and then tax the winners pretending it emulates fairness, when in reality it is simply jealous punishment. If they truly cared about losers, they would direct their efforts at eliminating drag on these companies, rather than inventing even more drag on the winners.
As always government imposed economic justice is just another way of using “fairness” as an excuse for theft.
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Careful Mish, you might get fined again!
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Don’t use them anymore because their search is skewed in favor of their ads rather then content.
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They control 90% of the search market as many of their competitors are a front for them. The only real competitor is Bing. Yandex (Russia) is still too small.
Be careful using some of these – StartPage.com, a Google front and ‘privacy’ search advocate, actually fingerprints, or allows fingerprinting of, your machine. Is this fingerprint sent to Google? Very invasive – it can identify specific machines behind a network gateway, for example.
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Epistrophy, this is not the case. StartPage.com is completely independent of Google. We purchase search results from Google and serve them in privacy. We even offer a free proxy so you can view 3rd party websites in privacy, too.
We do not collect or share any user personal information. Nada. We do not fingerprint. In fact, Edward Snowden even recommended StartPage.com no-logging privacy. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_RnBX3l124
We are located in the Netherlands, where privacy is protected by law. Our privacy promises are 3rd-party certified, too.
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Brave browser records blocked fingerprinting with StartPage. This does not happen with DuckDuckGo. I am only reporting what I detect each and every time I connect with your search engine.
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Liz we are very careful with security here. We use encrypted, cached DNS with RPZ, encrypted http connections, ISP tests for traffic shaping and we carry out traces to find out where our data passes via our internet servers. We also operate multiple firewalls and routinely have external security checks on our network. StartPage is registering attempted fingerprinting 100% of cases. No other search is registering this effect. I don’t know why, it is just what have recorded.
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Hi Epistrophy – I’m a colleague of Liz’s. When you say “StartPage is registering attempted fingerprinting 100% of cases.”, do you only mean in Brave? Or are you seeing warnings about fingerprinting elsewhere?
Thanks! – Justin
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Hi Epistrophy. The tech team is investigating. Thanks!
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Hi Epistrophy. Just got this info back from the the tech team:
“We’ve replicated this finding in the Brave browser. This seems to be in reference to WebGL, a graphics library that we use for features like maps and instant answers so we can draw them on your screen. You can read more about it here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API. None of our use of WebGL does any fingerprinting whatsoever – we are just drawing to the screen and letting you interact with a graphical map, for example. We will look into this more, in case there is added detail that comes up.”
Always feel free to contact our tech team if you have any questions or concerns: Support@StartPage.com Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
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Forgive me if I go against the grain. I use google searches quite a bit and I notice that too often I am directed to less than optimal websites. doesn’t matter if it is the US or France. granted, I am the unusual shopper/investigator/client. I have been thinking about using a different search engine simply because google keeps sending me to a limited number of places and I know there are more out there. So pardon me if I question some of the comments for Google and against the EU. If i were in charge of google searches, where would I send individuals? Where I will be rewarded with paybacks of one kind or another. It is business and human nature. Don’t kid yourself that Google is altruistic, it’s not and it doesn’t pay in the world of business and profits. Mind you, google isn’t like Facebook, a total piece of fecal material, but its aroma is hardly rose like.
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I had no idea you were prevented from using different search engines. Damn Google!
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If I wish to use a different search engine I can, just means I need to find one that does what I want. There is a lot of garbage out there. it’s not like 1995 when one had only a few to choose from. so I suppose I shall need to see what I can fine. google is not bad but is is not first class.
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So your lack of desires to find an alternative means Google must change?
I’m not defending Google as I have my own suspicions that they tilt information but why complain? Do the leg work and find an alternative. It’s your responsibility.
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It’s not just Google that causes this behaviour. Your ISP, your DNS service and your geographical location data may also affect what you see – if you have a VPN and connect to Google via that you will likely get a different result.
I can conduct a search on Google and go down the street to relations who do the same and get different listings and ads. Some of this is caused by different ISPs, some of it because of different Google ‘user experience enhancement’ data. If you use a DNS like OpenDNS you will have this effect too. They are all competing for your desktop and your money.
If you want to see what your ISP is up to, try some of these tests from the Max Planck Institute:
http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/bttest.php
If you want to see who is fingerprinting you, try using the Brave browser:
https://www.brave.com/
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So Google moves their offices to the UK or Switzerland or someplace outside the EU’s jurisdiction — and charges extra for ads of EU based companies. Many Eastern European countries would happily tell Brussels where to shove it.
Problem solved… at least for everyone outside the EU.
When EU citizens grow a spine (I am not holding my breath, but someday…), we should all buy stock in whomever makes guillotines. Maybe there is a custom guillotine that lets Juncker take his last sip of brandy just as the blade starts to fall…
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Really Mish? A reference to Louis XVI demise gets comment sent into moderation?
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I told you to email me over comments
This is getting annoying. Next step I start deleting your tweets without reading them.
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Yahoo deleted my account because I didn’t log into it for over a year (I use that address to collect spam / store promos). Company account is not for blogging.
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Can’t Google reprogram so that anyone accessing from EU gets all results but with all phone numbers replaced with European Commission ones, and all links leading to EU web portals ?
Google News in Spain has been down for years now
https://support.google.com/news/answer/6140047?hl=es
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Seems to me if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. The day someone offers me a search engine without all the shenanigans, I’ll buy. How much would you pay for search that doesn’t have an agenda other than getting you the best result? $10/month? $20? $50?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/306570/google-annualized-advertising-arpu/
During the most recently measured period, the online company’s ARPU amounted to 6.7 U.S. dollars, up from 5.9 U.S. dollar per monthly active user in the previous quarter.
I’ll pay someone $10/month if they just give me good results and otherwise leave me alone. I’ve noticed far fewer issues with email, calendar and notes since I started paying Microsoft for a virtual Exchange server. And it really isn’t much of a stretch (I think $50/year + domain registration fee), very easy to set up, and it pushes to all my devices at the same time, just like Gmail. Oh, and I can send signed and end-to-end encrypted messages too.
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Good points. But personally I’m not comfortable with Microsoft either.
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To her credit Margrethe Vestager does play with a straight bat and she’d make a pretty good EU President compared to Junker and Tusk. Some of the decisions under her remit have been straight. I don’t know about this one.
The EU is coming after various technologies it wants inside the EU. Play ball and you get business. Don’t and they will teach you to. The EU market size is > US and they will use that as a commercial weapon.
All I can say is wake-up. There is an agenda. It’s EU wide and from the top and Supra-Nationalistic. The EU has not defeated Nationalism, just morphed it into Supra-Nationalism where it will be EU vs Others. A greater Europe is the end game. You might laugh but its not a joke. They want an Empire constructed without military conflict.
Any advantage the USA has will be sized up. The EU will use its market size and reasoning that it is standing up for individual Europeans but the end game is something else.
They have taken achieving aims via non-military actions to a level the USA is just not able to comprehend yet. Apple and Google are nothing compared to what comes next as entire industries have to move inside the EU to get preferential treatment. Product sourced outside will be marked down. Vendors told to source inside. This will be for key industries to start then others. It is not BS, it is no joke.
Trump says AMERICA FIRST, out loud. Others are EU FIRST but sensible enough to keep their mouths shut & just give the instructions to key industries and get on with it. Industries told clearly to source more in the EU.
In some respects the USA is naïve and too open about its plans.
UK and USA are targets.
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Well the EU Commission needs to find other sources of funding, with the Uk packing their bags.
Jean Claude Juncker needs some muge to pay for his fine wines and caviar.
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I was thinking the same thing. The fine was basically a tax for doing business. No different than paying protection money to the mob.
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another example of dummification of the masses. We have choices and do not need to be looked after by public servant half-wits! Educate people to make an effort to research for themselves and take own responsibilities.
Making people beleave all is safe/fair/correct etc as “regulated” is very dangerous.
Getting more than sick of this. (But lets not pretend this is an EU issue only! UK is also at the forefront of controlling citizens – at least can still pretend it “all comes out of Brussels”). But at least they have a chance that change will come.
Is there still a country out there where there is hope?
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“What the EU should do is ask itself why there has been no Google, Amazon, Netflix or Facebook created in Europe.”
These four companies have outgrown their usefulness. They are becoming parasitic. Ask yourself, if Facebook or Neflix were closed tomorrow, would there be any negative economic impact? Well, billions would not be sucked out of the economy for no productive purpose. So not really.
Amazon, a once useful service that is at least connected to the physical economy, has outlived its usefulness and become parasitic. They are out to destroy every mid-sized market sector on the planet, one by one, with their comparatively unlimited resources. These industries do not stand a chance – they will be squashed like ants under a steam roller.
Then there is Google, that has a 79% share of the search market. I believe that this figure is significantly understated because many of the listed competitors, such as StartPage are a front for the Google search engine – so my guess is something greater than 90%. Their true competitor is Bing (Microsoft) at about 8 percent. Even the once mighty Microsoft cannot compete with Google.
I don’t know about you but that is what I call a dominant market position. So 90% of all searches across the internet will see Google selected businesses/results first.
By this logic maybe we should have one oil company, and one auto manufacturer, and one supermarket, and one department store, and one courier, and one cab company and one rail company, and one newspaper and one television station, and one software company, and one internet search company, and so on, and so on because this is where things seem to be headed.
I don’t agree with the fines. That is just extortion. Break them up instead and stop the government corruption that allows them to grow so big in the first place.
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You’re putting the cart before the horse. Those companies aren’t in their current position because of a monopoly. They have a monopoly because they’re much better at what they do than the competition.
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So was Rockefeller. He used his oil monopoly to take over the railroads, and the railroads monopoly to take over just about everything else. At one point I believe that he controlled something like 50% of the commerce of the United States.
At least Rockefeller was drilling oil and delivering goods. But what do Facebook and Netflix offer to the real economy?
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StartPage.com is completely independent of Google. We purchase search results from Google and serve them in privacy. Google never sees you while you are searching through our site, and we do not log or share any user personal information.
We are located in the Netherlands, where privacy is protected by law. Our privacy promises are 3rd-party certified.
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Liz, if StartPage is completely independent of Google, then why does your web page contain the words ‘Enhanced by Google’ in a prominent position? Secondly, why do you not put on your webpage a guarantee that you do not fingerprint, as you do guarantee you do not record the IP address?
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StartPage.com delivers actual Google search results in privacy. That’s why.
StartPage is a separate company from Google and does not share your personal data with them.
StartPage acts as an intermediary between you and Google, so your searches are completely private. StartPage submits your query to Google anonymously, then returns Google results to you privately. Google never sees you and does not know who made the request; they only see StartPage.
Since Google never sees your IP address or interacts with your web browser, you do not receive tracking cookies from Google. What’s more, since Google can’t determine your interests based on your past search history, you receive standard search results rather than Google’s “personalized” results.
StartPage never record your visits, your searches, or your IP address, and does not use tracking cookies. StartPage does not “fingerprint,” either. Thank you for your suggestion to also mention the fingerprinting.
NOTE: StartPage has a sister search engine Ixquick.eu that returns search results from other search engines. Ixquick.eu is a 100% private metasearch engine that does not query Google or Yahoo. Ixquick.eu also comes with all the great privacy protections of StartPage.
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It’s so simple…
You charged Deutsche Bank and Credit Agricole for what many US banks are doing, EU charged Google and Apple for the same. What goes around comes around. Since major US agent in EU is berxiting expect more to come from Germany and France in charge of EU now.
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Next up, the EU Commission is going to fine McDonald’s for not placing the Whopper on its in-store menus, never mind giving the Big Mac preferential placement.
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Google is by no means an innocent party in any aspect of their business. They are a censoring entity no matter the view taken by virtue of the business they are in. How many of the readers have actually gone in and altered your advertising profile in the google settings for your account? Better yet, how many ever know they can actually control that and more?
Here, have a peek to start
https://myaccount.google.com
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Man, these guys are beyond hopeless! Seriously, if you search Google for a product, don’t you expect to be shown Google results?
If you go into a Renault dealership in France and ask for the best car for your needs, do you really expect to be shown a Toyota?
The liberators from the Caliphate, just can’t arrive fast enough to save that place!
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