Google is one of the most anticompetitive companies to have ever existed. MaBell has nothing on the new AI overlords.
The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane, and the fact that they've made it so companies have to pay to protect their own brand is beyond fucked. It ought to be illegal.
And they own the largest media company in the world and have a commanding lead in AI and autonomous vehicles. They're bigger than most countries and are poised for world domination.
Break these MFs up already.
To think the government got mad at Microsoft for IE. Jeez. We used to have a spine when it comes to antitrust.
Is anyone actually going to switch their default search engine on their phone now? We're so locked into the Google ecosystem. Feels like a slap on the wrist that won't change user habits one bit.
Damn, it still surprises me that Google search pre installed, is not just a normal thing. As in it is pre install because Google pays for it, not because vendors thinks it’s the better search.
Seeems more obvious when written out like this
Why aren’t these discouraged with such massive fines that the board and shareholders oust executives? Just another example of how weak the laws are from stopping unfair competition by mega corps. Small businesses and even rich startups have the decks stacked against them.
A educated guess would be that the establishments intentionally want to have these monopolies around, so they stand down on the antitrust stuff, and in they would get total control and surveillance. That is how you get these guy like Peter Thiel going to Standford to recommend everyone to start a monopoly as their business model. In reality these guy (groups with low cost access to capital) have no clue how to really run a business they are just heavily subsidize by the establishment.
The punishment should be percentage of government ownership. This dilutes the shareholders shares, which punishes who needs to be punished, but avoids the 'your fines will shut down the company' argument. Also when the government has ownership they have access to much more internal visibility and just general hassle. No company wants that.
This was a settlement, if the fines were massive, the settlement wouldn't have come as easily. And then if you start fining companies from other countries a lot, it becomes a trade issue and things get messy. In the worst case those companies just pull out of your market, and you are left with small businesses and startups but that might not make up for the services that the mega-corps were providing, and that might have adverse effects on other businesses in your country.
So what happens is that they wind up going with non-massive fines to enforce compliance as a trade off (like you wouldn't deal out the death penalty for someone who was caught stealing).
> Telstra and Optus to only pre-install Google Search on Android phones they sold to consumers, and not other search engines.
> In return, Telstra and Optus received a share of the revenue Google generated from ads displayed to consumers when they used Google Search on their Android phones.
So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited.
It's not about who made money directly. It's about Google using its market dominance to increase its market dominance. Telstra and Optus are not accused of abusing their market dominance because they don't have anything like market dominance so they are hardly a concern in this particular situation.
If I'm reading this correctly, this is about the deals Google had, between December 2019 and March 2021, with Telstra, Optus and TPG (apparently Australia's three largest telecommunications companies), to be the default (and only) pre-installed search engine on Android phones sold by those companies, and those companies would in return be paid by Google some fraction of its search-ads revenues.
Some things I'm curious about, and would be helpful context:
- Why did they stop in 2021, and is it normal for these things to take 4+ years to resolution?
- Does Google have similar deals in other countries, e.g. in the US does it have similar deals with T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T? If yes are they are similarly anticompetitive, and if not why not?
- Similar question about the agreements Google has with Mozilla and Apple, to be the default search engine on their browsers.
- Roughly how much would this deal have been worth to Google? I imagine it's not very likely the providers would have chosen a different default search engine, though without this deal they'd likely have more options pre-configured so users would have had more choice (and this I imagine is the primary anti-competitiveness complaint in the first place).
Pretty wild that it took this long for something so obviously anti-competitive to come to light formally. I mean, locking in default search exclusivity on millions of devices in exchange for ad revenue kickbacks? Classic textbook behavior.
It’s my opinion that Telstra, TPG and Optus should also be fined, since they were taking part and a beneficiary of the anti-competitive behaviour - they were willing parties.
This isn’t naive behaviour, this sits neatly under the definition of anti-competitive behaviour and bears similarity Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour involving PC vendors.
Once there is some meaningful effect on the bottom line, revenue, market cap, criminal liability for shareholders, this is just a waste of time. Googles revenues and profits grew significantly from 2019/2021, even if they get the massive fine, it will be insignificant for the company, as well as for the executives who made the decision to go with something like this.
Similar as with Meta and their MITM approach when they bought Onavo to spy on users.
Back in the iPhone 4 era, I had a simple app on the App Store called "3D Coin Toss" that I wrote in a day. With zero promotion, it brought in a predictable ~$700/quarter from ads and an IAP to disable them.
Interestingly, all my discoverability came from Google. My app was on the first page of search results, which drove users directly to the App Store.
Then, Google decided to compete. Searching for "coin toss" started returning Google's own top-of-page inline coin-tossing app as the very first result. Users could now toss a coin without leaving search results. Unsurprisingly, my user acquisition tanked.
It was my first experience with this, and I remember thinking, "Is this fair? Why is Google competing with me?"
> In the undertaking, Google commits to removing certain pre-installation and default search engine restrictions from its contracts with Android phone manufacturers and telcos.
> The three telcos can configure search services on a device-by-device basis, and in ways that may not align with the settings set by Google. They can also enter into pre-installation agreements with other search providers.
Before we go patting Australia on the back for helping consumers, all they are really doing for the end user is allowing another corporation to set your defaults.
The anticompetitive behavior they are admitting to isn't that they are taking away choice from the end user, it's that they have agreements in place to prevent telocos from forcing their own software on you or signing contracts with Google competitors to force their software on you.
Remember this when you're next phone comes with the non-removable Telstra browser.
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[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 46.7 ms ] threadGoogle is one of the most anticompetitive companies to have ever existed. MaBell has nothing on the new AI overlords.
The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane, and the fact that they've made it so companies have to pay to protect their own brand is beyond fucked. It ought to be illegal.
And they own the largest media company in the world and have a commanding lead in AI and autonomous vehicles. They're bigger than most countries and are poised for world domination.
Break these MFs up already.
To think the government got mad at Microsoft for IE. Jeez. We used to have a spine when it comes to antitrust.
So what happens is that they wind up going with non-massive fines to enforce compliance as a trade off (like you wouldn't deal out the death penalty for someone who was caught stealing).
Google is a plague, and the sooner its gone the better.
> In return, Telstra and Optus received a share of the revenue Google generated from ads displayed to consumers when they used Google Search on their Android phones.
So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited.
Some things I'm curious about, and would be helpful context:
- Why did they stop in 2021, and is it normal for these things to take 4+ years to resolution?
- Does Google have similar deals in other countries, e.g. in the US does it have similar deals with T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T? If yes are they are similarly anticompetitive, and if not why not?
- Similar question about the agreements Google has with Mozilla and Apple, to be the default search engine on their browsers.
- Roughly how much would this deal have been worth to Google? I imagine it's not very likely the providers would have chosen a different default search engine, though without this deal they'd likely have more options pre-configured so users would have had more choice (and this I imagine is the primary anti-competitiveness complaint in the first place).
This isn’t naive behaviour, this sits neatly under the definition of anti-competitive behaviour and bears similarity Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour involving PC vendors.
Similar as with Meta and their MITM approach when they bought Onavo to spy on users.
Interestingly, all my discoverability came from Google. My app was on the first page of search results, which drove users directly to the App Store.
Then, Google decided to compete. Searching for "coin toss" started returning Google's own top-of-page inline coin-tossing app as the very first result. Users could now toss a coin without leaving search results. Unsurprisingly, my user acquisition tanked.
It was my first experience with this, and I remember thinking, "Is this fair? Why is Google competing with me?"
So we now have META, MSFT, GOOG, AAPL all with major government actions against them.
Maybe its just not possible to get that big without doing something anti competitive?
> The three telcos can configure search services on a device-by-device basis, and in ways that may not align with the settings set by Google. They can also enter into pre-installation agreements with other search providers.
Before we go patting Australia on the back for helping consumers, all they are really doing for the end user is allowing another corporation to set your defaults.
The anticompetitive behavior they are admitting to isn't that they are taking away choice from the end user, it's that they have agreements in place to prevent telocos from forcing their own software on you or signing contracts with Google competitors to force their software on you.
Remember this when you're next phone comes with the non-removable Telstra browser.