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“WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies…”
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After reviewing [evidence from] Google, Microsoft and Apple… Mehta [gave a verdict]
Really, this is just a win for Facebhook?
We need a federated search engine. Whatever fedia.io runs on but for search.
I demand federated breakfast burritos!
How do you build a federated search index?
There’s YaCy, it’s just not good
Had a look: it’s 20 years and maintained by one single dude. Do you think one dude could compete with google? He needs help, and a lot of it.
I don’t know how. How do torrents work?
Torrent is file sharing. Apples an oranges.
No, I mean the tech behind it, not the concept. The bittorrent application is able to find a file to download from a bunch of other people. Not only the file itself, but parts of it. It’s a distributed search.
This works because it’s the same file just distributed. But in the case of search, every node would need to have the entire index of the web. If not, how would the client decide who’s index is better and which page rank fits better with the search? I really don’t see how this would work.
torrents have trackers, special servers that keep track of who’s got which parts of a file.
Can it be AI powered with cryptocurrency backend?
Also why? Searxng is a thing. I would argue search wouldn’t need to be federated. Makes sense for social media, web is already connected.
Isn’t searxng just a proxy for google and bing? Not sure how that “increases diversity” or “adds competition” or “improves search results”…
It can proxy anything you want to. There are a lot of searxng instances out there who have different setups. You could proxy only google or all the search engines that exist. Up to you. Ideally, I would make it so searxng can operate independently and have their own search engine algorithm but so far, this is the most open source and self hostable option available.
fr, searxng is the b0ss
Next do chromium
The judge said it was a monopoly but there does not seem to be any consequences at this time if ever.
Mehta’s conclusion that Google has been running an illegal monopoly sets up another legal phase to determine what sorts of changes or penalties should be imposed to reverse the damage done and restore a more competitive landscape.
The potential outcome could result in a wide-ranging order requiring Google to dismantle some of the pillars of its internet empire or prevent it from paying to ensure its search engine automatically answers queries on the iPhone and other devices. Or, the judge could conclude only modest changes are required to level the playing field.
Today was not about determining consequences / repercussions. It was only about deciding yes or no on the monopoly issue. The next step in the legal process is determining repercussions for Alphabet, and it seems like there are some pretty dramatic options on the table.
This is based on older evidence but the exclusive deal Google just signed with reddit makes it pretty clear the monopoly is planned and ongoing.
The funny thing is that this probably screws Reddit more than anyone. Obviously fuck 'em but funny either way.
It depends on the conditions of the agreement and how much they are being paid. Google’s worldwide market share is above 91% so reddit isn’t actually losing out on much site traffic by going exclusive.
Sure, but if the argument is that Google is paying to be a monopoly then they’re going to have to stop payment.
Google allegedly paid $60 million for access to Reddit for AI purposes. Reddit then disallowed access to all other providers, unless they can promise they won’t use the data for AI purposes.
Technically Reddit is the one disallowing access, but if the argument is that Google is paying for special access I don’t see why I wouldn’t extend to AI.
Reddit now needs to either argue their data is some special intellectual property worth $60 million or is at a price point more accessible and it sure as shit won’t be $60 million.
Reddit then disallowed access to all other providers, unless they can promise they won’t use the data for AI purposes.
That’s what they said publicly, but even search providers like Mojeek that have no AI capabilities appear to require some sort of “commercial agreement” to allow reddit scraping moving forward. It seems to me that Google was attempting to further distance itself from the competition with the agreement and that reddit went along with it because, in some way, it makes financial sense for reddit too.
That’s what I find so interesting about this result.
For example Apple is paid ~$20 billion, or arguably charges that amount, to be the default search engine. That’s REAL money when compared to the Reddit deal.
Google search is a monopoly? It is losing market share. They really should go after Chrome and its clones
Just because it’s losing market share doesn’t mean it’s not a monopoly, let alone an illegal one.
True I suppose
I just don’t like how Chrome is the “standard”
Then you should also not like how Google has a history of making their sites, which are market leaders in many cases including search, perform worse on browsers other than Chrome. That is considered anti-competitive behavior.
I agree but that is a different problem
Even if the punishment is largely symbolic and Google only pays a tiny (compared to it’s massive size) fine; I’d still call that a significant win.
- Google can be REQUIRED to give users A CHOICE of Search Engines.
- Google can be FORBIDDEN from giving their OWN ENGINE an advantage in search results or advertising
- Google can be FORCED to ALLOW THIRD PARTIES access to the SAME APIs used in Chrome and Chromium.
- Google can be FORBIDDEN from BLOCKING THIRD PARTY FRONTENDS from using Google Search, Youtube and more.
Google can be REQUIRED to give users A CHOICE of Search Engines.
Don’t they, err, already do this?
I mean a search engine is literally just a website and absolutely nothing prevents you from just going to duckduckgo.com or bing.com or wherever. Don’t think Chrome prevents you from accessing other search engines in general, and last time I used it (admittedly a while back) it had a setting to change the search engine used by default if you just typed something into the address bar.
Don’t they, err, already do this?
No, They don’t. They have stolen that initial choice from you by paying companies to be the “default” choice. They do this to capture those who are lazy or indolent about their choices, or to entrap those who are too un-savvy to change the preference.
You do know there’s a big difference between a “default” option and a “mandatory” setting, right? Specifically that you do, in fact, have a choice to change a default?
Not forcing the user to proactively make a choice is not the same thing as denying the user the ability to choose.
Your argument is irrelevant.
DDGFTW
deleted by creator
It is much cleaner than bing
But yes
It was good until little while ago now I was getting ads whilst they were turned off.
Shatter the company like glass.
They are insanely huge. They should be 10 different companies.
At least ten, and maintain no logs on their users. All previous logs must be purged and rendered irrecoverable.
Or even better, Google could buy the US government
Alphabet is 10 different companies. Google is one of them.
Google is Alphabet.
This distinction is meaningless. It is like arguing that Facebook isn’t a company anymore and Meta is a totally new institution.
It’s Facebook. It’s Google.
Its FAANG companies not MAANA companies.
It might not be much but it’s still legal precedent that will hopefully help it reach critical mass. Like getting Al Capone on tax evasion
If that was true, duckduck and others wouldve dried up and faded away by now
They are way smaller than Google market share wise
Wonder what will happen to Firefox if this ruling means Google can’t pay them to default to their search engine. That’s a large chunk of their funding.
Wonder what will happen to Firefox if this ruling means Google can’t pay them to default to their search engine.
Yahoo was Firefox’s default search engine between 2014 and 2017. It would have lasted longer, but Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo prompted Mozilla to terminate it. They can sign a deal with another search engine if the deal with Google falls through. In China, Baidu is the default search engine, and in Russia, Yandex is.
Certainly Google will be more careful after this ruling, but nothing will actually go into effect at least for several years, if it ever does, because Google is appealing.
That’s a large chunk of their funding.
That’s true. When Mozilla resumed their search deal with Google in 2017, Google provided 91% of their revenue. But the percent of Mozilla’s revenue derived from Google has decreased every year since then, sitting at 81% as of 2022.
And recently, Mozilla has been trying to develop a privacy-preserving ads business.
I’m not a big fan of ads, but if Mozilla can actually make ads that don’t track users, and are uninvasive, they might be able to garner some market share in the ad space, and distance their revenue from Google even further.
Mozilla could do search themselves.
They previously had a big deal with Yahoo! For a few years didn’t they? They’ll just sign with whoever wants to give them money.
I hope windows will be next
Bit confused, Google has its own browser, its own search engine, and provides a somewhat easy method to access the majority of the Internet and does it well but some people are upset because they cannot compete? What is the point in doing something so good that you become the best in the business? Everyone comes to you for your service, but you get punished because you’re a monopoly? I’m thinking about Valve here as well. It’s a major retail platform for PC games because nobody does it better. Publishers get upset its top dog, and their shity half arsed clients get no light.
Is it not the point of a business to make money and be good at their service that they increase revenue yearly and drive innovation?
Google has its own browser, its own search engine, and provides a somewhat easy method to access the majority of the Internet and does it well.
The problem isn’t that it does it well, it’s that it did it well and it doesn’t anymore.
They dominate the market and can afford to make the search AI-inflated bullshit without any revenue losses.
Another part of the problem is the integration. Some google websites are rendered inoperable on Firefox, while others are made to have a worse experience.
A third part is giving its services preferential treatment onstead of having thekr algorithm be unbiased towards in-house services.
Edit:
Once upon a time the best browser game in town was Internet explorer. Similar stuff happened (actually even less blatant then Google). Microsoft basically controlled Web standards. The biggest sin they did was bundle IE with Windows, at least according to the US suit.
It’s about exploitive behavior. Note that your example, valve, hasn’t been sued successfully about monopolistic behaviour as they don’t try to sit down competition, they just remain better than their competition, which is how it’s supposed to work.
But shitty businesses who lose customers start interfering in the ability of others to compete with them. F.i. Google cutting a deal with Reddit to be the only search engine to index the site.
The problem is not having the monopoly, it’s exploiting it’s qualities. Google for example exploits the fact that they know how much ad revenue each site makes them and thus can rank them higher. They also can rank their own products such as YouTube or Chrome. Another exploitation of their monopoly is that Google is the default search engine of Chrome instead of giving the user choices
There is no issue with YouTube, another monopoly, since it’s business model is driving engagement and making money from ads but not exploiting its position.
Valve is another monopoly but it doesn’t block people from putting their own launchers onto their platform. It doesn’t block you from installing another store like Apple does and in general is nowhere near as all-encompassing as Google.
The problem is, if one company dominates search, you have no way to evaluate whether they are doing it well.
The problem is, if one company dominates search, you have no way to evaluate whether they are doing it well.
You could just go to other search engines and run the same queries and compare results.
For example, I did a search on 6 different search engines earlier today looking for a specific Reddit thread related to an update to a certain Skyrim mod without quite naming the mod (because I couldn’t remember the exact name of the mod, and was hoping to find the Reddit thread to get the mod name or Nexus link). All 6 had the Nexus page for the mod itself within the top 3 results, and all of them but Google and Yandex had the Reddit thread in question on the first page.
Google forces exclusive deals and its popularity means people optimize for it. Other search engines don’t have a chance when people expect Google.
Who do they have an exclusive deal with? Are there sites you can currently only search on Google? Or browsers or similar that require you to use Google?
The biggest one these days is Reddit but there are also cases historically
If one company is stifling competition, then competitors don’t have the resources required to innovate.
When you look at competitors offerings, you’re seeing the best they can do in a google-dominated market.
Real competition benefits users.
I’m with you on this.
In this thread are people who screams monopoly, thinking they know what it means. One comment said Google is a monopoly, followed by “along with <other giant companies>”
They’re giants because they’re successful and good at what they do. They’re successful because people are benefiting and find values from the products they use. The moment these giants stops “exploiting” people will be when they stop bringing values to society.
They’ve confused economic reality with their own ideal reality.
There’s much more to company’s popularity than just the product quality.
Google, along with some others, pays money for browser developers to be the default engine - so that people never bother to try something else and actually see how good or bad Google is compared to everything else.
Facebook (Meta) is known for predatory business practices like forcing startups to sell out or have their concept forcefully stolen and them destroyed.
Amazon dominates by plunging the prices of their in-house products below payback to drive the competition into bankruptcy, then acts as a monopoly, driving prices up.
There’s plenty more such examples, but let me stop here for now. Giant corporations have powerful levers that are only available to them as they approach market dominance. And when they get 'em, fair play is over.
They’ve confused economic reality with their own ideal reality.
… and the irony in this statement is overwhelming, after the fairy tale you’ve just outlined about those providing the most value to society gathering the most power & influence.
Websites and articles that have nothing to do with search or Google have to be designed specifically for Google’s search algorithm. I think that’s pretty crazy.
Interestingly, SEO is increased with semantic HTML which benefits people who need screen readers since it is easier to parse. But, also. Fuck google
Unfortunately, people play a lot of weird tricks with semantic tagging for SEO, making them less useful to screen reader users. Not to mention that Google has a very specific, very limited interpretation of the tags, so a lot of tags that would be useful for accessibility are unused or misused.
My information must be old, but what you are talking about still better than just span of div of div of span of div right? People still try to have any amount of meaningful structure?
Not to mention googles push for an identification standard that would effectively ban any non chromium browser from all major websites.
Search Engine OptimizationGoogle Optimization
