Was it wrong for Google to do this?
I read up on this article from WSJ.
So recently, Google was hit with a massive $2.7 billion fine from the European Union over using it's market power dominance to promote their comparison-shopping service over other competitor's comparison-shopping services. It is stated that this was illegal under EU antitrust law, but Google -- like its competitors, are businesses at the end of the day and used its popular search engine to successfully compete and win.
What do you guys think? Do you guys think that is was wrong of Google to promote their own services over their competitors? Do you guys think that this is an attempt to monopolize? Other thoughts or comments?
Just an EU hit on American companies because we backed out of the Paris accord, told NATO members to pay up and pushed back on being the worlds sugar daddy for under performing countries.
Will see more as the EU struggles and needs to find review to pay for the refugees and PIGS countries and Brexit.
The EU is a fascist monolith that punitively punishes all institutions, organizations or individuals that oppose its radical left-wing agenda. It will continue to punish US firms as long as Trump stands up to it.
well said. sb'd
And that's going to continue
Hasn't this investigation been underway for nearly 7 years? Is this really a snap reaction to Trump's election?
It's interesting how anti-monopolistic policies are now viewed as 'ultra-leftist'. Unfettered capitalism leads to monopoly. Google is a fantastic company and deserves much of its success. But with a 90 percent market share in search in Europe, Google has a big responsibility to promote innovation and competition. Google was also warned about this practice for years and did not comply. It's now being punished for it.
They also predicted the flu before the CDC, maintain the world's largest library, and have arguably the best spell checker on the market
You cannot give me a single historical example of 'unfettered capitalism' producing a single monopoly that resulted in adverse outcomes for consumers. Not one. Go ahead and prove me wrong.
Nope. Google was punished for the same reason Apple was punished.
Nice phrenogistics
Esuric is correct: There is not a single example of capitalism producing a monopoly that negatively affected consumers. My understanding is that, even during the monopoly of Standard Oil, which leftists love to espouse as one such example, oil prices plummeted to record lows due to the company's efforts to squeeze out the competition through pricing. Any monopoly that negatively affects consumers has always been either supported by government or created by government.
The closest example of a monopoly negatively affecting consumers that I can think of would be the De Beers diamond monopoly, but this could simply be due to my ignorance of the economics surrounding this specific situation.
"Google has a big responsibility to promote innovation and competition?" Last I checked, Google's only responsibility was to make a profit (which I'm surprised you don't think is their responsibility, considering you work for a hedge fund) - what divine entity added promoting innovation and competition to their responsibilities?
"Google has a big responsibility to promote innovation and competition."
"Google has one, single responsibility to maximize shareholder value"
Fixed it for you.
Actually no. Google's sole responsibility is to do whatever the fuck Larry and Sergey want.
Agreed. Regardless what people think of the antitrust law, Google knowingly violated it and are now being rightfully punished for doing so.
Google could probably prove that it's algorithm was better, but that would require releasing their rankings algo not just price comparison
I hope the U.S. responds. Since overseas fines are tax deductible (as business expenses) this will cost the U.S. tax payer about $1 billion. We should respond by burying one of their shit companies. I fcking hate Europe and am ashamed daily that my blood is virtually all European.
They do this while we subsidize their defense expenditure, their pharmaceutical/healthcare industry and literally bailed out their major banks during the financial crisis.
This is right on. The U.S. military prevents Europe from speaking Russian (and Arabic), our military keeps the seas peaceful and open to international trade, our pharmaceutical research provides Europe with over half of new drugs and Americans pay full price for them while Europe price controls. And what do they do? They b*tch and moan about America, about Americans, about American companies, about our foreign policy, about our gun control policies, about our immigration policies, about our obesity. Europeans are the most ungrateful, repellent people to ever walk the face of the Earth. They disgust me. Ya know, at least the Iranians hate us because we're their enemies. We are Europe's protector and yet they still hate us.
Just like Facebook is trying to get into China.
There is a spot on the Venn Diagram of life where you can 1) understand a company exists to make a profit and 2) avoid sounding like Martin Shkreli and some of you should aim for that spot.
1) Is it wrong for a company to promote their own products over their competitors'? Seems like a blindingly obvious fuck no to me, but I'm not a European technocrat.
2) Yes. To say #1 a slightly different way - all of advertising/marketing is an attempt to monopolize (typically by more narrowly defining the market you're competing in, at least in the mind of consumers). If trying to have more market share / higher margins is illegal/immoral, the list of companies not in violation would equal precisely 0.
3) It's always amused me that the EU (which literally exists to reduce competition between governmental bodies, with the added bonus of doing so through the threat of physical violence) takes such a lily white, holier-than-thou tone when they use anti-trust enforcement as a pretext to supplement their structurally unsound financial position.
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