back to article Google: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am – stuck in the middle of EU

The European Commission’s antitrust case against Google is wrong “as a matter of fact, law, and economics,” so says, er, Google. On Thursday, the California monster publicly responded to the charges put to it by the Commish in April, namely that Google’s web search results unfairly promote its own online shopping services over …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems a simple one to solve..

    .. Google should not advertise services it offers itself.

    If it wants to be Amazon, there is a clear conflict of interest in then showing Amazon ads and its own and at that point it matters little if Google does it "right" or "wrong" - it shouldn't be advertising at all.

    That does mean, of course, that the more companies it buys up, the fewer ads it can run but that ought to eventually lead to some sort of equilibrium :)

    1. Sirius Lee

      Re: Seems a simple one to solve..

      Why? Why should Google not be able to sell products because some other companies are whining? If they have great products or offer great value why will a Google user not look for this great value.

      I don't look to Google for auction items, I go to EBay. I go to Amazon to see if one of their vendors has a product I want at a good price. When I search for a laptop Google shows me products from EBuyer, presumably because it knows I've been there before and written positive reviews.

      Perhaps the real problem is that some EU businesses want trade protection because they do not invest to compete. My view is 'tough luck'. As a European the sites I visit most frequently are those of US companies because they tend to offer me the value I want.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Seems a simple one to solve..

        Why? Why should Google not be able to sell products because some other companies are whining? If they have great products or offer great value why will a Google user not look for this great value.

        Nobody is saying that Google should do products, the issue is that is has a well established monopoly position in searches and advertising, which means it can favour its own services if someone is looking for something. The debate is over that specific conflict of interest.

  2. chivo243 Silver badge

    and you started out with nothing

    Great reference to a cool song. As far as the story, seems Google gets pretty much what the want? Extension here, more there. It's good to have lotsa law-talking guys...

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: and you started out with nothing

      I'd rather trust a man who doesn't shout what he's found,

      There's no need to sell if you're homeward bound.

      If I chose a side,

      He won't take me for a ride.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    What...

    What adds?

    1. asdf

      Re: What...

      That embedded image made me check that I still had privoxy enabled though lol.

    2. big_D Silver badge

      Re: What...

      I don't run an adblocker, but I've never seen such ads on Google... I get a text ad at the top, a white box with Asics homepage to the right and 4 text ads under that...

  4. Chris G

    Pro

    The video was definitely made by a professional ad maker , it had all the hallmarks of propaganda, I particularly like the fact that most of the search results they showed were in Pounds or Euros.

    My experience when looking for a product is that unless I type in UK or es, I get mostly .com responses and even when I type in UK in a search a lot of US companies come up before UK ones, I am guessing they are paying customers.

    1. Dan Paul

      Re: Pro (DUH!)

      That's how you use a search engine, you keep delineating the who, what, where, when and why till you narrow 10,000,000 hits down to what you are looking for.

      What the children at the EUC don't understand is that the three w's in a URL stand for... the WORLD WIDE WEB! Guess they only want the EWW. How apropos?

      When you search with ANY engine, you search the whole frikkin WORLD and that includes Google results,if you CHOOSE to use Google.

      If using GOOGLE is so "difficult" to understand, there is always Bing or some other search engine. Google doesn't prevent you from using them unlike some operating system manufacturers I can think of.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pro (DUH!)

        .....and yet when it suits the ad flingers they can geo locate you down to the town you live in.... Maybe people come to expect that more often - especially from one of the biggest profiling operations in the world!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pro (DUH!)

        I really loved your post. It shows how there is only one way forward: a EURO Google that only shows EURO results for EURO shoppers. People offended by worldwide choices can just go there for ALL of their online shopping searches. The Eurocrats can then sleep better and everyone wins. People who want to be forgotten can start on the Euronet first. What could go wrong?

        I frequently search, refine, and search until I can get a local supplier in Europe (particularly for heavy stuff). I also do the math. Today, I bought the cable tags and stickers I needed in Hong Kong and the UK respectively (for shipment to France) for about 10 quid. I wouldn't have had a hope in hell of finding them anywhere else in Europe and even if I did, they would have cost me a relative fortune. Local shops? You must be joking.

        Perhaps, one day... the politicians.... will get a clue..... a race to the bottom will actually benefit consumers, even if it hurts protected monopolies, increases choice and cuts into tax revenues (maybe)...

        It is really time to get with the program. If you don't like the googelator search purchase facilitator, then write your own, without any legislative code. Alternatively, keep your brick and mortar corner shops open as long as you can. Or better yet, keep them open much longer by advertising your wares on the internet like the rest of the cool kids.

        The Googlebot (internet) is a facilitator, not a pirahna. The sooner people figure this out the sooner they can benefit from it.

        1. jnffarrell1

          Re: Pro (DUH!) Right you are

          I doubt there is a farmer left in upstate New York still making shoes with the industrial strength sewing machine sold to him by my grandfather and made in my great grandfathers machine shop in Manhattan.

          That was the definition of cottage industry in New York, however, cottage industry is alive and well in Frankfurt, protected by the illusion of German law.

        2. fajensen

          Re: Pro (DUH!)

          a race to the bottom will actually benefit consumers

          I find it is an interesting proposition that people will invent and create great things without money for food and shelter, manufacturers will invest vast sums on production facilities for products that cannot be sold for a profit, speculators will lend money that cannot be paid back to the ventures and states that cannot collect taxes will still "keep the lights on" - *all that* for the sake of "benefiting consumers" (who all must be on welfare anyway since no one can afford to pay them wages to consume for).

        3. nijam Silver badge

          Re: Pro (DUH!)

          > a EURO Google that only shows EURO results for EURO shoppers.

          "This is a LOCAL shop for LOCAL people", I think you meant.

  5. Chronos
    Flame

    Bloody ads again.

    Perhaps when you have to defend your business model every ten minutes, it may just be that your business model is a parasitic nuisance.

    I know people, myself included, who will not buy anything advertised aggressively on principle. If your ad makes it harder for me to find the information I wanted (specs on a 'phone, a schematic, some code snippet with a common name) then not only am I never going to touch that product or the site pushing it with a ten foot pole, I'm going to actively ask others to avoid them as well. It's why StartPage and DDG are doing so well right now.

    I don't particularly care about positioning of ads because, patently, anyone serving them has a pecuniary interest in people seeing them anyway. Arguing over rankings is just splitting hairs. For those of us who use the web for research there is nothing more annoying and dispiriting than trying to find something and every promising link for information turns out to be another bloody digital salesweasel trying to pry open your wallet.

    So no, Google, not everyone universally adores your ads. A lot of us think that they, and you, suck.

  6. FF22

    Google's lawyers suck ass

    In order to violate the antitrust laws Google doesn't have to be "dominant in the shopping market". It's enough for them to be dominant in some other market (like search or online advertisement), and abuse that dominance for their gain in for ex. the shopping market. Or in any other market.

    So much about their legal defense.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Google's lawyers suck ass

      Immature European Union Politicians suck monkey balls. TFTFY

      There is no "dominance" or "antitrust" except that perceived by a bunch of lily-livered crybaby proxies that don't know what they are talking about and have never had any legal standing against US corporations, only their European based subsidiaries.

      1. FF22

        Re: Google's lawyers suck ass

        Butthurt clueless American drinking Google's PR Kool-Aid.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Google's lawyers suck ass

            CAVEAT EMPTOR. I buy stuff from China all the time (Ali Baba not so much). But I buy it on Ebay , etc, with Paypal insurance. If it doesn't work out, I just ask for a refund. Works every time. Try that with your local retailer on a bad hangover day. He is also buying much of his stuff from China (and other countries).

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Google's lawyers suck ass

          Butthurt clueless American drinking Google's PR Kool-Aid.

          Drinking? The poor chap is practically OD-ing on it..

      2. asdf

        Re: Google's lawyers suck ass

        FYI the obvious Trump supporter above does not speak for this Yank.

      3. asdf

        Re: Google's lawyers suck ass

        >never had any legal standing against US corporations, only their European based subsidiaries.

        Doesn't Google store most of their cash in their Irish subsidiary to avoid taxes like most US corporations (shout out to Texas Instruments for not doing so, but name says it all)?

  7. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    super-smart

    The same IQ as 9000 PE teachers

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You only need to round up the product...

    Not the individual IQs

  9. Mark 85

    What a hoot!!

    The concept of E-bay and "trusted merchant".... I find that if a particular product comes up on E-bay and Alibaba, I don't want it. Too much grief dealing with a Chinese product as far as "copied goods" (copyright and patent violation), shoddy workmanship and quality control, customer sevice, and import duty and (here's a big rip-off) import broker fees. </rant>

    1. Wommit

      Re: What a hoot!!

      " import broker fees."

      Umm. What are they? I've bought from both the USA and China and never had anyone ask for "brokers fees."

  10. Trigonoceps occipitalis

    that’s giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful.

    New use of the word "useful".

    1. ratfox

      Re: that’s giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful.

      You jest, but Google only makes money when people click on the damn ads. And since Google makes a lot of money, it must mean that a lot of people find the ads useful!

      1. Adam Inistrator

        Re: that’s giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful.

        See new google MICRO MOMENTS

  11. Jos V

    Don't care about google, really, but why was I just talking about memorable films last night where I was reminiscing about reservoir dogs, and other Tarantino movies, and then have the caption picture? Next thing you know there will be a Coen brother Fargo-like picture, or a Woody Allen snap.

    All of the above releasing a film soon.

    Ah well, might make up for the utter crap coming from the studios this year so far (no, mission impossible 2015 is also crap, solely on account of a certain tetan worshiper starring. At least Tarantino had the other one killed off quite early in another film).

  12. Decade
    Big Brother

    Why does Google have such a dominant position in Europe, anyway?

    One thing I don't understand about this Google antitrust thing is, why does Google have such an overwhelming market share in Europe? A couple Bloomberg guys looked, and reported that Google has far more market share in Europe than anywhere else. It seems like there is a ridiculous pessimism about individual choice, there.

    This is not late-90's/early-00's Microsoft. There is no contract saying, you must bundle Google or else you lose your profit margin on every PC you sell. The EU is home to Jolla and the Sailfish OS. DuckDuckGo proves that you don't need to be super-rich or super-spying to have a useful search engine. It's not Google's fault that everybody in Europe chooses to use their software and services.

    1. DavCrav

      Re: Why does Google have such a dominant position in Europe, anyway?

      " It's not Google's fault that everybody in Europe chooses to use their software and services."

      Nope. What is Google's fault, for the 100th time on articles like this, is when they look around and say "ooh, we have a monopoly. I wonder how we can abuse that fact to get market share in other sectors."

  13. DrM

    "Searching for Asics running shoes on Google will display its ads right at the top of the results page for the sports gear, effectively making Google an Amazon-lite."

    Only if you are dumb enough to not be running Ad Block Pro.

    1. sandman

      You are being all techie elitist here - the vast majority of people will never have heard of Ad Block. It's not being dumb, just not knowing it exists. Given that most web use is now over phones and tablets I'd suggest that an even smaller percentage of people are using it. Wouldn't be without it personally and always get a shock when I use a naked browser!

  14. captain semtex
    Thumb Up

    Kudos to the headline writer

    You should win an award for that!

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