EU Planning Google Break-up

Hello my Net Neutrality friends, while that debate was fun while it lasted. I think it's pretty much flamed out. So What is your stance on this topic?

It's no secret that the European Union hates Google. So they want to propose Google separate its Search business from all it's other businesses. They say its a monopoly. But should they have to power to regulate a US company. What about one as global as Google is?


http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/21/us-google-antitrust-idUSKCN0J525V20141121

Well Google search is not a monopoly, it just that all the alternatives are ****. I do not see what dividing up Google would accomplish.

Carjosse said:

Well Google search is not a monopoly, it just that all the alternatives are ****. I do not see what dividing up Google would accomplish.

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Google will be broken apart in some fashion. They are more of a monopoly than Microsoft was when they came after them over the netscape nonsense. The stronger argument is not over their search engine but over their ad sales, especially when combined with their control of a browser and some very key websites that generate ad revenue. I suspect, however, that American spying on Europe will drive the effort moreso than some concern over the company itself.

Declan said:

Google will be broken apart in some fashion. They are more of a monopoly than Microsoft was when they came after them over the netscape nonsense. The stronger argument is not over their search engine but over their ad sales, especially when combined with their control of a browser and some very key websites that generate ad revenue. I suspect, however, that American spying on Europe will drive the effort moreso than some concern over the company itself.

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Google is not a monopoly because there is no competition, it is because they are just simply better than any alternative like Bing. No matter how much the E.U. tries to split up Google it will still control a large majority of search traffic because it it is simply better.

Carjosse said:

Google is not a monopoly because there is no competition, it is because they are just simply better than any alternative like Bing. No matter how much the E.U. tries to split up Google it will still control a large majority of search traffic because it it is simply better.

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If the EU splits up google (or blocks them from access to their countries) then it will have more far reaching consequences than who uses which search engine. You do realize that companies pay google to make sure when you are looking for a new moo-moo for your grandmother that theirs is one of the first sites you see don't you?

ModerateGOP said:

Hello my Net Neutrality friends, while that debate was fun while it lasted. I think it's pretty much flamed out. So What is your stance on this topic?

It's no secret that the European Union hates Google. So they want to propose Google separate its Search business from all it's other businesses. They say its a monopoly. But should they have to power to regulate a US company. What about one as global as Google is?


European Parliament may propose Google break-up in draft resolution | Reuters

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Some points...

It is some people in the EU Parliament that are suggesting it. This does not mean in any way that "the EU" wants to do anything. To get this through, they would have to convince the 27 individual governments of the EU... good luck on that. But mostly it is a negotiation ploy, because of anti-trust investigations into Google (and other tech giants including Apple and Amazon), where they are not exactly meeting the agreed upon resolutions.

However saying that, they do have a point. Google has 90+% market share in Europe on search and hence online advertising. They are using this power to push other services like Android... and here comes the crux of the problem. Not only does Google have 90+% of search in Europe, but it also has a 70+% market share on mobile operating systems.. aka Android. And this share is growing every month. World wide it is estimated that Google Android broke the 85% marketshare boundary in the 2Q 2014 and it has only increased.

As for the American nationalists saying " but it is an American company"... irrelevant, it is a global company and because of its size (along with Microsoft, Apple and others) it needs permission to buy companies and expand in order to protect the consumer and not create monopoly like situations. Microsoft just bought Nokia, which had to be approved by both the US and EU regulators. This happens in all industries .. with the exception of banks it seems.. where there are huge dominating companies.

PeteEU said:

But mostly it is a negotiation ploy, because of anti-trust investigations into Google (and other tech giants including Apple and Amazon), where they are not exactly meeting the agreed upon resolutions.

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And to this I basically say boo-hoo.

I remember using the Internet before search engines. Yahoo, AltaVista, lots of engines have come and gone. So what?

Google does not provide a hard product, it provides a service. And yea, countries can try to "ban" it from their shores, but then I wish them good luck. Because that works both ways. Ban Google, you ban Google searches. And watch all the companies in your country get pissed because they can no longer be searched in the most popular search engine on the planet.

Of course, they are welcome to develop their own search engines.

And a handful of years ago, this type of bitching was going on over Yahoo. And in a couple of years it may be a completely different search engine nobody has ever heard of.

Frankly, I see no "anti-trust" here, because there are literally hundreds of search engines out there. WebCrawler, Lycos, Yahoo, Dogpile, Excite, Ask, AOL, Info, Bing, Hotbot, and those are only the ones off of the top of my head that are still around.

Anti-trust might apply if Google was the only one in town, but that is hardly the case. They are simply the most popular.

I always hate in the tech industry, where being successful means everybody and their brother tries to sue the dog snot out of you.

BING destroys Google, and it ain't even close, IMO.

Tim-

ModerateGOP said:

Hello my Net Neutrality friends, while that debate was fun while it lasted. I think it's pretty much flamed out. So What is your stance on this topic?

It's no secret that the European Union hates Google. So they want to propose Google separate its Search business from all it's other businesses. They say its a monopoly. But should they have to power to regulate a US company. What about one as global as Google is?


European Parliament may propose Google break-up in draft resolution | Reuters

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They have the power to regulate a business that operates in their country, just like we do.

I mean, you'd never argue that a Chinese car company gets to skip US vehicle safety laws when it sells cars here, right?

Hicup said:

BING destroys Google, and it ain't even close, IMO.

Tim-

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Bing's search engine is so bad that when it came out, it would steal Google search results and give you those.