Google to be hit by €1B ($1.12B) fine within weeks as EU finds it guilty in antitrust case

[MadyTehWolfie]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It's a good thing you don't make the laws then, because that would create an incredibly unfair and absolutely not-free-market.

"It's their own fault a competitor is sabotaging them. They just need to sabotage back!".

 

At that point the market is no longer dictated by who is offering the best product at the best price. It's ruled by whichever company has the most money and power to dedicated to ruining the competitor. You might be OK with that horrible business practice, but luckily for consumers there are laws in place to prevent that from happening.

 

Except it's not. Some of the fundamentals of a working capitalism system is that there exist a competitive market, which is free from monopolies (de facto monopolies or not). That's why government regulations is a very important part of capitalism. To what degree things should be regulated is up for debate though.

 

Except ShopRite and Hannaford does not have 90-95% marketshare. If they did, and were in Europe, then they would be under similar regulations.

 

That's funny, because I don't have to deal with it. 

Maybe it is you who needs to #DealWithIt that companies are not allowed to do whatever they want, if it harms competitors.

Except there are products that Google doesn't even make. As far as I can tell. They only produce cell phones, their phone service, a chrome book, and a search engine. All of these things they don't have a Monopoly on as there are a crap ton of phone makers and chrome book makers. Aside from that it wouldn't be sabotage to other companies because I wouldn't choose their product anyway regardless of where it was in my search. Other then that Google is still letting them sell and promote their stuff just after their own products. Not my fault people can't scroll down and be educated consumers. That's one of the reasons we have Prius drivers thinking that are saving the environment when the impact to the environment of making the batteries is worse then driving a has guzzling truck.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, FakezZ said:

I do not understand. The big corporations pay governments to impose more and more regulation that is fucking up their competitors.

Not in my country they don't, New Zealand is ranked 4th most democratic country in the world and 1st equal least corrupt country in the word. We have a whole ton of consumer laws and regulations and even more corporate regulations, I think you might be identifying the wrong cause and effect for the problems you are trying to point out.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, FakezZ said:

I do not understand. The big corporations pay governments to impose more and more regulation that is fucking up their competitors.

No, you really do not understand.

Big corporations are not paying the government to impose these types of regulations. These rules are explicitly made so that they can not fuck up competition. If anything, big companies (those who pay lobbying groups) would want these rules abolished because they are preventing them from for example killing competition with anti-competitive methods.

I think you've watched too many movies, or read too many articles about lobbying which you did not fully understand and are trying to apply them to areas where it does not happen or apply.

 

Companies usually want as little regulations as possible, because that's when they can do whatever they want.

Have you perhaps been reading the propaganda from American ISPs, which are currently doing everything in their powers to stop title 2 classification? Because that's one example of regulations which are desperately needed, and the big companies are fighting it because they want to be able to screw over their customers.

 

1 hour ago, FakezZ said:

You want more regulation to make it so that companies cannot do that

Again, when did I say I want more regulations? You keep putting words in my mouth.

 

1 hour ago, FakezZ said:

I say there should be no regulation like this in the first place because the first thing cannot happen.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. That's as illogical as saying we should make murder legal, because then nobody would murder anyone.

What you are saying makes legitimately no sense.

 

 

57 minutes ago, MadyTehWolfie said:

Except there are products that Google doesn't even make. As far as I can tell. They only produce cell phones, their phone service, a chrome book, and a search engine. All of these things they don't have a Monopoly on as there are a crap ton of phone makers and chrome book makers. Aside from that it wouldn't be sabotage to other companies because I wouldn't choose their product anyway regardless of where it was in my search. Other then that Google is still letting them sell and promote their stuff just after their own products. Not my fault people can't scroll down and be educated consumers. That's one of the reasons we have Prius drivers thinking that are saving the environment when the impact to the environment of making the batteries is worse then driving a has guzzling truck.

You have clearly not looked into this whatsoever, because you are talking about something completely different.

Go do some research about this topic and then come back to me.

This has nothing to do with Google phones or Google promoting their products.

 

Also, laws need to be designed to cater to the "uneducated consumers". Like I said before, do you read and research every single thing that's in the foods you eat? If I asked you what chemicals you have consumed today, would you be able to give me a detailed list of all of them? I certainly wouldn't, and that's why I am glad that there are regulations which makes it illegal for companies to put cyanide into my food. Because I sure as hell am an uneducated consumer when it comes to that, and I have no interest in learning all the things necessary to be able to pick out poisons substances in an ingredients list. I just want to pick up food at the store and trust that it is not filled with poison.

I bet you are not an "educated consumer" regarding a lot of subjects, and just blindly trust that regulations will keep you safe.

[MadyTehWolfie]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

No, you really do not understand.

Big corporations are not paying the government to impose these types of regulations. These rules are explicitly made so that they can not fuck up competition. If anything, big companies (those who pay lobbying groups) would want these rules abolished because they are preventing them from for example killing competition with anti-competitive methods.

I think you've watched too many movies, or read too many articles about lobbying which you did not fully understand and are trying to apply them to areas where it does not happen or apply.

 

Companies usually want as little regulations as possible, because that's when they can do whatever they want.

Have you perhaps been reading the propaganda from American ISPs, which are currently doing everything in their powers to stop title 2 classification? Because that's one example of regulations which are desperately needed, and the big companies are fighting it because they want to be able to screw over their customers.

 

Again, when did I say I want more regulations? You keep putting words in my mouth.

 

That makes absolutely no sense at all. That's as illogical as saying we should make murder legal, because then nobody would murder anyone.

What you are saying makes legitimately no sense.

 

 

You have clearly not looked into this whatsoever, because you are talking about something completely different.

Go do some research about this topic and then come back to me.

This has nothing to do with Google phones or Google promoting their products.

 

Also, laws need to be designed to cater to the "uneducated consumers". Like I said before, do you read and research every single thing that's in the foods you eat? If I asked you what chemicals you have consumed today, would you be able to give me a detailed list of all of them? I certainly wouldn't, and that's why I am glad that there are regulations which makes it illegal for companies to put cyanide into my food. Because I sure as hell am an uneducated consumer when it comes to that, and I have no interest in learning all the things necessary to be able to pick out poisons substances in an ingredients list. I just want to pick up food at the store and trust that it is not filled with poison.

I bet you are not an "educated consumer" regarding a lot of subjects, and just blindly trust that regulations will keep you safe.

That's what you said Google promoting their stuff first in search engines. So.....

[LAwLz]

25 minutes ago, MadyTehWolfie said:

That's what you said Google promoting their stuff first in search engines. So.....

I might have said that, but "their stuff" is not what you think it is. Go look at the article before commenting.

[MadyTehWolfie]

48 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I might have said that, but "their stuff" is not what you think it is. Go look at the article before commenting.

Nah personally don't care. It they aren't selling or promoting something tangible then I don't really care if they put their stuff before other people's. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

So when is the EU going to hate on Apple?

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

13 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

So when is the EU going to hate on Apple?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/apple-ireland-taxes_us_57c55fcee4b0664f13ca5147

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/not-the-apple-of-the-eu-s-eye-brussels-accuses-itunes-of-violating-competition-rules-a-475398.html

 

You mean like this?

[Mira Yurizaki]

5 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/apple-ireland-taxes_us_57c55fcee4b0664f13ca5147

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/not-the-apple-of-the-eu-s-eye-brussels-accuses-itunes-of-violating-competition-rules-a-475398.html

 

You mean like this?

I heard about the Ireland tax issue, but that's not really what I had in mind.

 

Did anything actually come out of the antitrust probe?

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Did anything actually come out of the antitrust probe?

The second one?  Yeah, they adjusted their UK prices to the same level as the rest of the EU and the case was dropped.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/09/apple_cuts_uk_prices/

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

5 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

The second one?  Yeah, they adjusted their UK prices to the same level as the rest of the EU and the case was dropped.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/09/apple_cuts_uk_prices/

 

Eh, that seems weaksauce to me.

 

They fined Microsoft a crap ton because of a minor bug.

[typographie]

21 hours ago, ChineseChef said:

If everyone decided tomorrow that they would only use Bing, Google couldn't do anything about that.

Well, in theory Google could respond to that by stopping users from accessing Bing on the Android platform. To do so may not technically amount to a monopoly, and may not technically spell the end for Bing. But by doing that Google could deprive a competitor of 88% of all smartphones on earth… and not necessarily because Google offered the better product and 'won' through competition, but just because they felt like flipping the switch.

 

18 hours ago, ChineseChef said:

Heaven forbid we try a little survival of the fittest.

It feels a little silly to say something that seems so obvious, but we have anti-trust and anti-monopoly legislation because before that, we had trusts and monopolies.

 

We have tried "survival of the fittest" at several times throughout the history of our civilization, and we found that it resulted in situations that are contrary to our values and contrary to our greater interests. We know from experience that the free market would be perfectly content with businesses sending children down mine shafts, claiming false medicinal properties to sell bottles of nothing, or working to force competitors out of business.

[ChineseChef]

1 hour ago, typographie said:

-snip-

You bring up excellent points, and while I could continue arguing, I have realized my problem is not with the laws and their enforcement.  But with the fact that human society is so weak that we allow these things to happen and need the laws to stop them.  The proud ignorance and cold indifference of the masses is what allows any company to get away with things considered "bad".

 

In your Google blocking Bing example, if the entire consumer base decided to never again buy an android phone after Google did that, companies would be really hesitant to ever pull a stunt like that again.  But you and I both know that would never actually happen, and the companies know that most people will roll over and let anything happen.

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

They fined Microsoft a crap ton because of a minor bug.

What bug?

 

 

3 hours ago, ChineseChef said:

You bring up excellent points, and while I could continue arguing, I have realized my problem is not with the laws and their enforcement.  But with the fact that human society is so weak that we allow these things to happen and need the laws to stop them.  The proud ignorance and cold indifference of the masses is what allows any company to get away with things considered "bad".

I've seen a worrying trend where people accept more and more "bad" things from companies. I mean just look at this thread where people are literally using "well they are a company so they need to make money" as a defense.

Or look at any thread about Windows 10 and you will find a ton of users defending things which are strictly bad for everyone except Microsoft.

 

A lot of people will gladly lick the boot that repeatedly kick them in the face these days. And even worse, some people have started attacking those who gets upset when companies take advantage of their users.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, ChineseChef said:

You bring up excellent points, and while I could continue arguing, I have realized my problem is not with the laws and their enforcement.  But with the fact that human society is so weak that we allow these things to happen and need the laws to stop them.  The proud ignorance and cold indifference of the masses is what allows any company to get away with things considered "bad".

The problem is the collective society needs representation, the notion that simple buying power alone has any meaningful effect over a large corporation that is effectively a monopoly is naive.

 

Google could right now give away android and all phone business opportunities and wouldn't even matter, Google isn't Google because of any of that business.

 

You're right in the sense that we have laws that try and prevent crime, or laws that make things a crime, but it doesn't stop them being committed. There is no one answer or solution.

[typographie]

7 hours ago, ChineseChef said:

You bring up excellent points, and while I could continue arguing, I have realized my problem is not with the laws and their enforcement.  But with the fact that human society is so weak that we allow these things to happen and need the laws to stop them.  The proud ignorance and cold indifference of the masses is what allows any company to get away with things considered "bad".

Certainly, healthy consumer habits should involve skepticism, research, and personal accountability. But on the flip side, the businesses themselves are more often than not spending millions of dollars trying to manipulate public opinion towards their goals. I wouldn't say the problem is human stupidity towards the ends of social Darwinism, when the market itself is encouraging, perpetuating, and benefiting from that ignorance and indifference.