But what about Duckduckgo advertising its browser on its search homepage? Would that be a problem too? Or is it only because Google has a dominant position in search?
Would it be an issue for Apple to advertise its browser on macOS? Every time I get a system update on macOS, I get a “what’s new” thing for Safari, even though I never use it (Firefox is my default browser on my work computer). Is that okay? Is it okay if Microsoft does it as well?
What about Mullvad advertising its browser on its webpage, which is selling a VPN service? Mullvad Browser integrates Mullvad VPN features, so it’s directly related, kind of like how Chrome integrates Google Search features and Safari integrates macOS features.
I’m not sure where I stand here. Saying company X can’t do what company Y can do just because company X has a dominant position just feels wrong. I’m all for attacking abuse of dominance, I just think this argument is a little weak.
The way you describe the MacOS one makes it sound like a system update change log, an entirely different thing.
Yeah, it’s a “what’s new” OS update, but that includes Safari features, which isn’t strictly an OS thing. Microsoft got a lot of flak for including IE with the OS (well, a bit more than that, they tried to block Netscape from accessing “private” APIs that IE had access to), and it seems to follow that Apple should get a similar amount of flak for having an unfair advantage with Safari having access to OS features before anything else.
One would be abusing monopolistic power, the other isn’t.
Is advertising “abusing monopolistic power”? I get Microsoft getting hit with anti-trust because they actively prevented competition, but both MS and Apple advertise their other products through their OS (e.g. IE and Safari, Office 365 and iCloud, etc).
Google should absolutely get hit with anti-trust when they are shown to make their sites perform worse on other browser engines (happens a lot w/ Firefox, where just changing user-agent improves perf). But I’m not so sure that they should be hit with anti-trust for advertising their other products, because that’s an establish practice.
I’m not trying to be combative, just wondering what the policy would look like.
A changelog is a changelog
Sure, and I would expect to see the Safari changelog when I launch Safari. But I get it when I upgrade my OS, and Safari (in my eyes) isn’t an OS feature. I don’t use Safari, so seeing Safari changelog is an ad. Likewise for Edge on Windows, I don’t use Edge, so seeing an Edge changelog from an OS update is an ad (not sure if MS still does that, I haven’t used Windows in years).
Google advertises its products on its search page. Microsoft advertises its products on its OS (initial run, pretty much every update). Apple does the same with macOS.
So what exactly is the proposed change? Do we block advertising for other products if you have a certain share of the market? Or does it come down to the manner of advertising?
In my mind, “monopolistic behavior” means doing something to undermine competition. If you’re merely pushing your own services and not interfering with other options, I don’t think that’s anti-competitive. For example, is Valve’s pushing of its Steam Deck on their store anti-competitive? Valve is dominant on the PC gaming market and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re dominant in handheld PC gaming as well (e.g. compare to Ayaneo, Asus ROG Ally, etc). That sounds similar to how Google is dominant in both search and browser market share. I don’t think Valve should be treated as a monopoly though since they’re not really doing monopoly things (no exclusives except a handful of Valve-made titles, no special discount for using Steam Deck, etc).
I get it, Google is bad, but what exactly are they doing that’s bad that should be restricted? What exactly should the law look like? We can’t punish companies because we feel they’re doing bad things, we need a system of laws that specifically lays out what’s not okay. AFAIK, Google doesn’t meet the current standard, so what exactly should that standard be?
Sure, and I would expect to see the Safari changelog when I launch Safari. But I get it when I upgrade my OS, and Safari (in my eyes) isn’t an OS feature.
But if its updates are packaged with the OS updates, it makes sense for its changelog to be shown alongside the rest of the OS update.
Google advertises its products on its search page […] So what exactly is the proposed change? Do we block advertising for other products if you have a certain share of the market?
Yes. And the percentage of the market share is already defined in antitrust law.
In my mind, “monopolistic behavior” means doing something to undermine competition.
Such as using your monopolistic position in Search to push your browser?
If you’re merely pushing your own services and not interfering with other options, I don’t think that’s anti-competitive.
How isn’t it? How is that fair competition?
For example, is Valve’s pushing of its Steam Deck on their store anti-competitive? Valve is dominant on the PC gaming market
Perhaps. But it’s also worth remembering that Steam is literally Valve’s store, of course they sell steam decks there.
People go to storefronts with the explicit intention of buying things. I don’t go to a search engine or email client with the expectation of having popups telling me to install a browser.
If I went onto Google’s storefront, I wouldn’t be upset about them selling Pixel phones there. I’d expect that their store would have their products for sale.
I get it, Google is bad
Nonono. No. I know your angle here, and it’s a clever one, but I’m not falling for it.
Don’t attempt to reduce my argument against abuse of market position to being some kind of fanboyish “hur dur Google bad, amirite guys?” - that’s not my argument. I’ve explained what my argument is.
but what exactly are they doing that’s bad that should be restricted?
As stated, they’re abusing their monopoly in one market to gain an unfair advantage that cannot be achieved by their competitors.
What exactly should the law look like?
The same as it is now, just actually enforced.
We can’t punish companies because we feel they’re doing bad things
There you go again. Trying to reduce my argument to being reactionary and feelings-based. I’ve explained my view multiple times, and it has nothing to do with my feelings, and everything to do with abuse of market position.
AFAIK, Google doesn’t meet the current standard, so what exactly should that standard be?
They definitely do, and they’ve got in trouble in the EU over it multiple times. Laws aren’t always followed, and they’re not always actually acted on by governments. Warranty void if removed stickers aren’t legal, yet pretty much all devices have them, for example.
it makes sense for its changelog to be shown alongside the rest of the OS update
I disagree. I primarily use Linux, and I get no such pop-ups when I run updates, but I do get a pop-up when I open the application in question. I do get notifications if there are important notices from packages though, like is there a configuration change to a system service.
There’s no reason for me to know what changes Safari has until I launch Safari. So it’s just an ad if it pops up at some other time.
How is that fair competition?
How is it unfair? If it’s just an ad, there’s no pressure there.
I draw the line at ads that put down competitors. I remember seeing Edge ads claiming Firefox was slow or insecure (forget which) within Windows. That’s not a regular ad (e.g. use Edge, it’s fast and secure), but active spreading of misinformation by a trusted source.
If Google did the same, I could totally see an angry anti-trust suit. But as far as I know, it’s pretty much just “use Chrome for a more integrated experience” or whatever.
Correct me if I’m wrong though, I haven’t used Google search in many years so I haven’t seen their ads.
First, the alleged monopolist must possess sufficient power in an accurately defined market for its products or services. Second, the monopolist must have used its power in a prohibited way. The categories of prohibited conduct are not closed, and are contested in theory. Historically they have been held to include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying and predatory pricing.
The closest is “product tying,” but there’s no requirement to use Chrome to use Google search or any of Google’s other products, and the opposite is also not true (you can select a different search engine, for example).
I’m no fan of Google, and I try to avoid their products where I can, but I haven’t seen evidence that they’re in violation of antitrust law WRT their advertisements for Chrome. I think they’re in violation for making competing browsers work more slowly on their services though, but that’s a separate thing.
Warranty void if removed stickers aren’t legal, yet pretty much all devices have them, for example.
Regardless, point taken. If you’re familiar with the provision you think Google is in violation of that isn’t being enforced (whether in the US or the EU), I’m very interested. I would like to see Google broken up, but I’m not sure on what grounds that might be.
It’s not unusual for OS changelogs to be shown before or after an update.
If you can’t see how Google pushing Chrome in Search, Gmail, YouTube, etc isn’t unfair or an abuse of market position, then I’m not sure what to tell you.
That’s them using their dominant position in a market to give them a leg up on competitors in different markets. That’s anti-competitive, and illegal.
Play Store case (and others) - I think this is kind of BS since Android allows third party stores, and I think they only lost because it went to jury; I think their 30% cut is ridiculous, but it’s in-line with similar app stores
I didn’t see any related to advertising Chrome across their services, which indicates to me that it’s more a strong case at all, at least not compared to the other allegations. And I’m not sure how it would be anti-competitive unless they prevented other browsers from advertising or messed with who saw advertisements for other browsers.
Maybe the EU has more relevant laws (e.g. they have a requirement for OS vendors to allow use to choose their own browser), idk, but I don’t see how advertising their own products violates antitrust. I do see a lot of other viable antitrust allegations though.
But what about Duckduckgo advertising its browser on its search homepage? Would that be a problem too? Or is it only because Google has a dominant position in search?
Would it be an issue for Apple to advertise its browser on macOS? Every time I get a system update on macOS, I get a “what’s new” thing for Safari, even though I never use it (Firefox is my default browser on my work computer). Is that okay? Is it okay if Microsoft does it as well?
What about Mullvad advertising its browser on its webpage, which is selling a VPN service? Mullvad Browser integrates Mullvad VPN features, so it’s directly related, kind of like how Chrome integrates Google Search features and Safari integrates macOS features.
I’m not sure where I stand here. Saying company X can’t do what company Y can do just because company X has a dominant position just feels wrong. I’m all for attacking abuse of dominance, I just think this argument is a little weak.
The abuse of market position makes it far worse, and I’d argue illegal under existing competition law.
Your other examples are annoyances for sure, but not straight up anti-competitive/probably illegal.
The way you describe the MacOS one makes it sound like a system update change log, an entirely different thing.
Why?
One would be abusing monopolistic power, the other isn’t.
Yeah, it’s a “what’s new” OS update, but that includes Safari features, which isn’t strictly an OS thing. Microsoft got a lot of flak for including IE with the OS (well, a bit more than that, they tried to block Netscape from accessing “private” APIs that IE had access to), and it seems to follow that Apple should get a similar amount of flak for having an unfair advantage with Safari having access to OS features before anything else.
Is advertising “abusing monopolistic power”? I get Microsoft getting hit with anti-trust because they actively prevented competition, but both MS and Apple advertise their other products through their OS (e.g. IE and Safari, Office 365 and iCloud, etc).
Google should absolutely get hit with anti-trust when they are shown to make their sites perform worse on other browser engines (happens a lot w/ Firefox, where just changing user-agent improves perf). But I’m not so sure that they should be hit with anti-trust for advertising their other products, because that’s an establish practice.
A changelog is a changelog. If safari updates are in OS updates, then yeah that’s where the changes will be listed.
In a completely different market.
At the time, browsers were sold as standalone software. MS including it was an unfair advantage in that context.
Nowadays browsers aren’t distributed in that way, installing another browser takes seconds and they’re free. It’s nowhere near as anti-competitive.
Please don’t distort my words. I never said that. You know exactly what I said and the meaning behind it.
Google using their position in Search and on YouTube and Gmail to push you to install Chrome is an abuse of market position.
I never said advertising is an abuse of monopolistic power and you know that.
I don’t know why you’re being so needlessly combative here?
I’m not trying to be combative, just wondering what the policy would look like.
Sure, and I would expect to see the Safari changelog when I launch Safari. But I get it when I upgrade my OS, and Safari (in my eyes) isn’t an OS feature. I don’t use Safari, so seeing Safari changelog is an ad. Likewise for Edge on Windows, I don’t use Edge, so seeing an Edge changelog from an OS update is an ad (not sure if MS still does that, I haven’t used Windows in years).
Google advertises its products on its search page. Microsoft advertises its products on its OS (initial run, pretty much every update). Apple does the same with macOS.
So what exactly is the proposed change? Do we block advertising for other products if you have a certain share of the market? Or does it come down to the manner of advertising?
In my mind, “monopolistic behavior” means doing something to undermine competition. If you’re merely pushing your own services and not interfering with other options, I don’t think that’s anti-competitive. For example, is Valve’s pushing of its Steam Deck on their store anti-competitive? Valve is dominant on the PC gaming market and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re dominant in handheld PC gaming as well (e.g. compare to Ayaneo, Asus ROG Ally, etc). That sounds similar to how Google is dominant in both search and browser market share. I don’t think Valve should be treated as a monopoly though since they’re not really doing monopoly things (no exclusives except a handful of Valve-made titles, no special discount for using Steam Deck, etc).
I get it, Google is bad, but what exactly are they doing that’s bad that should be restricted? What exactly should the law look like? We can’t punish companies because we feel they’re doing bad things, we need a system of laws that specifically lays out what’s not okay. AFAIK, Google doesn’t meet the current standard, so what exactly should that standard be?
But if its updates are packaged with the OS updates, it makes sense for its changelog to be shown alongside the rest of the OS update.
Yes. And the percentage of the market share is already defined in antitrust law.
Such as using your monopolistic position in Search to push your browser?
How isn’t it? How is that fair competition?
Perhaps. But it’s also worth remembering that Steam is literally Valve’s store, of course they sell steam decks there.
People go to storefronts with the explicit intention of buying things. I don’t go to a search engine or email client with the expectation of having popups telling me to install a browser.
If I went onto Google’s storefront, I wouldn’t be upset about them selling Pixel phones there. I’d expect that their store would have their products for sale.
Nonono. No. I know your angle here, and it’s a clever one, but I’m not falling for it.
Don’t attempt to reduce my argument against abuse of market position to being some kind of fanboyish “hur dur Google bad, amirite guys?” - that’s not my argument. I’ve explained what my argument is.
As stated, they’re abusing their monopoly in one market to gain an unfair advantage that cannot be achieved by their competitors.
The same as it is now, just actually enforced.
There you go again. Trying to reduce my argument to being reactionary and feelings-based. I’ve explained my view multiple times, and it has nothing to do with my feelings, and everything to do with abuse of market position.
They definitely do, and they’ve got in trouble in the EU over it multiple times. Laws aren’t always followed, and they’re not always actually acted on by governments. Warranty void if removed stickers aren’t legal, yet pretty much all devices have them, for example.
I disagree. I primarily use Linux, and I get no such pop-ups when I run updates, but I do get a pop-up when I open the application in question. I do get notifications if there are important notices from packages though, like is there a configuration change to a system service.
There’s no reason for me to know what changes Safari has until I launch Safari. So it’s just an ad if it pops up at some other time.
How is it unfair? If it’s just an ad, there’s no pressure there.
I draw the line at ads that put down competitors. I remember seeing Edge ads claiming Firefox was slow or insecure (forget which) within Windows. That’s not a regular ad (e.g. use Edge, it’s fast and secure), but active spreading of misinformation by a trusted source.
If Google did the same, I could totally see an angry anti-trust suit. But as far as I know, it’s pretty much just “use Chrome for a more integrated experience” or whatever.
Correct me if I’m wrong though, I haven’t used Google search in many years so I haven’t seen their ads.
Ah, okay. I’m in the US and am not familiar with EU law. I’m also not a lawyer, but this Wikipedia article on antitrust sums up my understanding pretty well:
The closest is “product tying,” but there’s no requirement to use Chrome to use Google search or any of Google’s other products, and the opposite is also not true (you can select a different search engine, for example).
I’m no fan of Google, and I try to avoid their products where I can, but I haven’t seen evidence that they’re in violation of antitrust law WRT their advertisements for Chrome. I think they’re in violation for making competing browsers work more slowly on their services though, but that’s a separate thing.
I’m pretty sure those are only explicitly illegal in the US, though they’re unenforceable in most reasonable jurisdictions.
Regardless, point taken. If you’re familiar with the provision you think Google is in violation of that isn’t being enforced (whether in the US or the EU), I’m very interested. I would like to see Google broken up, but I’m not sure on what grounds that might be.
It’s not unusual for OS changelogs to be shown before or after an update.
If you can’t see how Google pushing Chrome in Search, Gmail, YouTube, etc isn’t unfair or an abuse of market position, then I’m not sure what to tell you.
That’s them using their dominant position in a market to give them a leg up on competitors in different markets. That’s anti-competitive, and illegal.
I haven’t seen a credible argument along those lines. The credible arguments I’ve seen are:
I didn’t see any related to advertising Chrome across their services, which indicates to me that it’s more a strong case at all, at least not compared to the other allegations. And I’m not sure how it would be anti-competitive unless they prevented other browsers from advertising or messed with who saw advertisements for other browsers.
Maybe the EU has more relevant laws (e.g. they have a requirement for OS vendors to allow use to choose their own browser), idk, but I don’t see how advertising their own products violates antitrust. I do see a lot of other viable antitrust allegations though.