UK Politicians Want To Regulate Google... Because It's Good At What It Does
from the searching-for-a-clue dept
I recognize that there's been a weird backlash against Google in the UK, since Prime Minister David Cameron has been asking questions about why companies like Google aren't starting in the UK. Rather than actually looking into the core issues, it appears that many are simply trying to take Google down a notch instead. The latest, as pointed out by Glyn Moody appears to be a bit of a retread of some older arguments. However, it's being done by British MPs. Yes, they're suddenly calling on the UK government to regulate Google.Why? Well, as far as I can tell, the argument is that Google is good at what it does, and people like it, so thus it must be punished. I really wish there were more to it than that, but that really does seem to be the heart of it: let's regulate Google because we're jealous that it's successful.
The debate apparently was kicked off by MP Dominic Raab, repeating the old story about Foundem, whose only purpose in life seemed to be to bitch about Google. Foundem, of course, was a tiny search engine that no one heard of that offered little value, and was exactly the kind of website that people hate getting pointed to in search results, because it feels spammy. Google -- quite reasonably -- buried Foundem's results. It wasn't -- as Foundem's execs and Raab now claim -- because Google was "scared" of this competitor and was shutting it out of the market, but because Foundem sucked and people didn't like it.
Yet Raab uses this example of Google better serving its customers, as an excuse to regulate the company:
Mr Raab said that the effect was to suppress Foundem in Google search results. Mr Raab pointed out that the alleged treatment of Foundem would be sufficient to bury and kill off many businesses. He accused Google of deliberately "stacking the deck" against small competitors and called for government policy to address what he called �search engine transparency'.First of all, search engines are less and less the gateway to the rest of the internet in an age of social media. Even if Google dominates in search traffic, more and more people are finding out about other sites online from their friends via social media. Second, and more importantly, nowhere does Raab explain why what Google did was bad. He just assumes that it must be bad. However, if Google is suppressing bad results that users don't want, isn't that a good thing? Serving customers better is a good thing, and if Foundem's having trouble getting users, the fault is clearly with Foundem, not Google. And it's pretty weak for politicians to be looking to prop up a failed company, just because another company is good at what it does.
Mr Raab accused the regulators, Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading, of complacency. He called on them to take action against companies abusing dominance. "Search engines are the gateways to the Internet, and with a 95% share, Google is in a dominant position"
"If Google does not allow consumers to access potential competitors via its search engine gateway, they will be choked out of the market-place" he said.
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Filed Under: antitrust, monopoly, regulations, uk
Companies: google
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Sounds like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged
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Re: Sounds like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged
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You can even google "google alternatives" to find other search engines.
Try it: http://www.google.com/search?q=google+alternatives.
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I mean, isn't it sort of a bad business model if you are providing a search engine that you rely on Google to send traffic to you? Isn't that kinda doing it wrong?
If people are all ready using Google as their search engine, why on earth would they use another one?
The way I see this argument is that they weren't competing with Google, they were leaching off it. When Google made it so that they couldn't profit off this leaching any more they started whining.
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I was going to mention that also. Microsoft seems to be at the point in its life span where it is legislating, and suing to destroy all it competitors due to decreasing market share. They are going state by state and getting anticompetative laws passed to prevent foreign companies using pirated software and Linux from doing business in the US. This is aimed at forcing china to buy only microsoft products based on its patents.
Kinda scummy thing to do.
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I'm not defending Microsoft by anymeans, just pointing out that it's not just them. Unfortunately it's safer to exploit the legal system and governments to keep competitors at bay than be principled.
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http://www.makeupload.com/news/Microsoft+Files+Antitrust+Suit+Against+Google
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News Flash...
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Google Schmoogle
I found TechDirt from a friend who showed me an article from it but accidentally linked me to the main page instead of the article.
I found two fantastic sites that I now frequent, one thanks to a friend and one thanks to my Dad!
I found a site that archives the Australian music charts thanks to Wikipedia.
When I want to find the availability of a DVD, I go to Amazon and ezyDVD first (both found from simply hearing about them)
When I want to find the availability of a song, I go to Wikipedia first and usually eBay second when I find out that it is actually 25+ years old and hard to get.
In fact, I have only one website that I frequent that I found through Google - and even then it was linked to from another site!
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Me: Do you have this ______ ?
Company: You should check ______ instead.
Me: But... I don't like them, that's why I asked YOU.
Company: I like me too, but I'm not allowed to give you what you want.
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Google can suppress Foundem for "low quality", but they can't suppress blatant piracy sites for illegal activity?
Typical Google.
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Re: Google can suppress Foundem for "low quality", but they can't suppress blatant piracy sites for illegal activity?
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Re: Google can suppress Foundem for "low quality", but they can't suppress blatant piracy sites for illegal activity?
As has been pointed out again and again google has no way of knowing what is authorized and what isn't that isn't there job.
This is clearly shown in the Viacom vs Youtube case. Many of the videos complained about where actually uploaded by Viacom employees. So how is google supposed to know which videos/files are legit and which aren't when even the copyright owners get confused.
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Re: Google can suppress Foundem for "low quality", but they can't suppress blatant piracy sites for illegal activity?
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I use dogpile rarely, but they sometimes have different results than google, so I do use them, but rarely.
If foundem wasn't on the first page I'd never see them...and probably neither would a lot of other people.
Were they ever on the first page of serps? And if not, how far down the serps would most people go to find a search engine?
I rather used to like Miss Dewey, it'd be nice to get her back since it helped surpress the boredom from time-to-time :)
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No because Google is operating outwith our retarded police/nanny state & Tards like Raab - make a living out of funnelling everything good into the states control...
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Full text of the "debate"
I put "debate" in ""s as it was more or less the three of them ranting at Google (I managed to catch some of it live) with no one there to put them right.
I found it particularly interesting to hear Ed Vaizey (Minister at DCMS) going on about wanting to "stay focused on the need for an open internet" the same week he was in secret talks with the copyright lobby and ISPs over web-blocking.
As one of his constituents, I'm tempted to write to Mr Raab and point out his errors (and how "search neutrality" is a meaningless or self-contradictory phrase), but I don't suppose it will do any good. Plus, this debate was a couple of weeks ago - do people think it is worth it?
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Re: Full text of the "debate"
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Sorry, in the day of government imposed plutocracy, that's just what politicians do. Look at television and the lack of broadcasting and cableco competition thanks to the government.
"Search engines are the gateways to the Internet, and with a 95% share, Google is in a dominant position"
The mainstream media channels are the gateway to the airwave broadcasting spectra and to cableco broadcasting yet they unduly crush criticisms about them and pro-IP criticisms, yet I see politicians doing absolutely nothing about that.
The purpose of allowing search engines to exist isn't to ensure competitors profit too. It's to serve the public good. If Google is doing such a good job that competitors can't compete, then I see no problems with that. It's a free market and competitors have just as much a chance of competing because everyone has very easy access to those competitors. If Google starts doing poorly and a competitor can better serve the market needs, competitors will naturally prevail. That's free market capitalism. It's not about ensuring or a competitor a job, that's similar to communism. It's about letting the free market serve the public.
This is nothing short of another attempt by politicians to eventually instate search engine monopolies that result in censorship and bad results and huge revenues for the monopolists (for not innovating and for doing nothing) who then use that revenue to contribute to political campaigns. Just like with everything else, the government has to grant a monopoly on any non-monopolized successful industry that consumers benefit from to minimize consumer benefit and maximize industry (and political campaign) benefit. It's very sad and unacceptable. At least in the U.S. there is almost nothing that the government doesn't grant a monopoly on. Mailbox delivery, electricity delivery, Cableco infrastructure, broadcasting spectra, everything you buy is covered by multiple, often ridiculous, patents, taxi cab monopolies, copy'right' monopolies, the hotel industry, and the list goes on and on and on. Then the mainstream media likes to turn around and harp about how they support the free market capitalistic society that doesn't exist.
"Mr Raab pointed out that the alleged treatment of Foundem would be sufficient to bury and kill off many businesses."
The customers treatment of boycotting a business can be sufficient to bury and kill off many businesses. Wal marts treatment of not offering advertisements for Kmart or any other business in Wal-Marts store is sufficient to bury and kill off many businesses.
Not promoting another business is not the same thing as killing off and burring that other business. What kills off and buries other businesses are government imposed monopolies, like taxi cab monopolies, broadcasting monopolies, cableco monopolies, etc.... That's sufficient to kill off and bury other businesses. Having a competitor not promote its competition is not.
"He called on them to take action against companies abusing dominance."
So Wal Mart is abusing its dominance by not advertising for K-Mart in their stores.
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"If Google does not allow consumers to access potential competitors via its search engine gateway, they will be choked out of the market-place" he said.
hey genius... see that thing up at the top that starts with http?? ya..its called an address bar
type in something up there in a properly formatted fashion and bingo... you are there.
the internet was kinda designed that way and google is not any sort of gateway, its a tool... if you want access to googles competitors just go to their site.
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Whoa! Vaizey told MPs to take a hike on Google probe
"The EU anti-trust probe is, I think, an adequate remedy at the moment, and I gather that the OFT looked into the matter three or four years ago and does not feel the need to do so again at this time."
source for this is the April 6th Story in the The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/net_neutrality_foundem_google_uk_probe_rejected /
Of course Vaizey's answer wouldn't have had anything to do with Google helping the UK government out over blocking digital "piracy" sites
q15....
"Jeremy Hunt: Yes, but the other point I would make is that there may be other ways to do this. One of them, for example, is making it harder to find those sites on search engines like Google. One of the encouraging things that has happened as a result of roundtables that have been set up by Ed Vaizey has been that Google is co-operating in a way that has not happened previously. It is now much harder to find many of those sites than it has been before, but I am sure there is much more work that can be done.
Q16 Ms Bagshawe: That is a tremendous achievement for the Minister for the Arts, which the industry is very grateful for. �"
(taken from the uncorrected transcript of March 30th meeting of parliamentary Culture, Media, Sport Committee, questions to Jeremy Hunt (Vaizey's boss) about our Digital Economy Act )
see http://scibella.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/the-lion-the-lamb-shall-lie-down-together/ for links to the transcript etc..
Last thing, now that the Judicial Review of the Digital Economy Act has come out in favour of the UK government maybe they don't need Google so much anymore over digital piracy - so who knows how that feeds into the Hargreaves IP review/Google=fair use= "End of civilisation as we know it" (Daily mail, ITV, record companies etc) fight that's shaping up in the UK.
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well
No but they COULD suppress the "low quality" pirate sites and just push the higher quality ones to the top of the view...if thats what you'd like? :)
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Gov at its best
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Their argument was that Google were manually penalising their rankings while Google's own shopping comparison service was getting top billing on results.
Foundem was penalised for lacking unique content whereas if you look at Google's service it is pretty much the same. Reviews are aggregated from other sites and nothing is really original. Both Foundem and Google Shopping simply offer a decent price comp service.
By promoting Google shopping and actively devaluing competitors from their search results may be considered illegal in UK monopoly law. I feel, whatever the outcome, people are obliged to at least investigate.
Okay, Google will want to promote their own services highly on their own search results, that's a given. But Microsoft want to use their own browser on their own operating system....
Whether you agree or not, Google is a near monopoly so has to be looked at the same way as monopolies on other industries.
I don't think you can ignore it just because they are good at being Google...
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Regulation of Google
Free Travel Guides-World Tripplanner:
http://www.travelaskthelocals.yolasite.com
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sidestepping the issue
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http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php/digital-britain/635-calls-for-controls-on-google-in-uk-parliame nt
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