Google has a monopoly share, on this nearly everyone agrees. Where the disagreement has come is whether they have used their strength to illegally shore up their monopoly position. The court says yes they did.
Primarily it’s their buying their way into “show me” agreements with Apple, with other vendors, that shut out Bing, Duck Duck Go and others. But there are other factors detailed in the article.
Of concern going forward is whether Google’s nearly endless supply of queries positions them to also dominate AI and other fields in the future.
Google will appeal. I have little hope the new administration (whoever wins) will pursue aggressively. I am just wondering whether this will make Google to re-negotiate their contract with Apple and reduce the payment? or use this as an excuse to break that agreement and let $20 B fall into bottom line.
There are a handful of elites in Silicon Valley watching “other fields in the future”. I am not sure AI will pan out much better from here for the next two decades. I have my doubts. But another whole line of business would get interesting.
When you use your monopoly to keep other companies from competing in the marketplace - specifically by paying other device manufactures to make it difficult to use any other search engine.
Hawkwin
Who has no actual opinion on the validity of this case.
It’s not illegal to be successful. Heck, you can have a 100% market share and be just fine. It is when you abuse that market share to keep other competitors out of the market that your monopoly is adjudged abusive and you are subject to penalties, sanctions, or in dire circumstances, breakup (Standard Oil, Bell Companies).
The suit does not allege that Google got to be dominant through coercive means, but now that they are dominant that their purchase of paid rights to Apple screens and others makes competing by other entrants difficult, if not impossible. Duck Duck Go, for instance, does not have the resources to pay Apple billions of dollars for the rights, so they have to slog it out trying to get users to convert one at a time, a similarly costly and usually fruitless task.
It’s also being looking into that Google holds an advertising monopoly given its huge search share, but also ownership of YouTube and other sites, and the ownership of the “behind-the-scenes” placement of ads across the net which gives them effective control of that industry and makes it impossible for anyone else to break in. The obvious remedy for this is a breakup: Google should divest of Google Ad Services, allowing others to offer variations to coalesce audiences, potentially with lower fees and rates.
Noteworthy that the last major case was against Microsoft over the Explorer browser, which had a 90% share and now, thanks to neglect, is less than a quarter of that. While others have stepped up and made better browsers. That’s how it’s supposed to work, not crowding out all competitors with “monopolistic” tactics. Regular product improvement? Perfectly acceptable.
