Reuters has revealed 18 of the 19 official complainants forming the basis of the European Union's anti-trust case against Google. Yelp's public policy director Luther Lowe told Reuters that "It's been clear from our meetings that U.S.-based companies have helped lead the charge by providing substantive evidence of Google's harm to consumers." The Register has this handy list:
- BDZV, an organization of German newspaper publishers
- Ejustice, a French legal search engine
- Elfvoetbal, a Dutch football (soccer) news site
- Euro-Cities, a German provider of city maps
- Expedia, a US travel site
- Foundem, a UK price comparison site
- Hot-map, a German mapping firm
- ICOMP, a UK-based organization for online businesses
- Microsoft
- Nextag, a US price comparison site
- nnpt.it, an Italian online news aggregator
- Odigeo, a group of travel sites headquartered in Spain
- Streetmap, a UK road mapping service
- TripAdvisor, a US travel site
- VDZ, a German magazine publishers association
- VfT, a German business listing site
- Visual-Meta, a German lifestyle shopping aggregator
- Yelp, a US business rating and comparison site
- An anonymous complainant
[More after the Break]
"I suspect the FT has got the wrong end of the stick and misinterpreted a nuanced comment about the extent to which different kinds of services compete with each other," she said.
Less than two weeks ago, the search monster was slapped with a Statement of Objections (SO) by the EU Commission for abusing its dominant market position in search by directing users to its own Shopping service. Such a move is usually the first step on the road to punitive measures.
Google's argument is that is is not abusing dominance in the online shopping market because it is not dominant in that market – this is where Donahoe's comments will help Eric Schmidt sleep well at night.
However, complainants argue that merchant sites like eBay and Amazon are distinct from price-comparison sites such as Moneysupermarket.Com, Nextag and Twenga.
According to its own rules, the Commission's first step in a so-called Article 102 investigation is to assess whether the undertaking concerned is dominant or not. "Defining the relevant market is essential for assessing dominance, because a dominant position can only exist on a particular market. The relevant product market is made of all products/services which the consumer considers to be a substitute for each other due to their characteristics, their prices and their intended use," according to Commission rules.
Given that an SO has already been issued, it is likely that Vestager has already thought about this and come to the conclusion that Google is abusing dominance.
According to Raff, "Google is putting a brave face on it, but there is no question that this is the beginning of the end... Not even Google's formidable PR machine can put this genie back in the bottle."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:02PM
So Microsoft is advising about "harm to consumers". Well, admittedly they would know.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:12PM
A little context, Microsoft's involvement in the EU case has been known for years, these other companies were unknown.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:28PM
I thought their previous involvement was in a different (similar) case.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:46PM
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-15/ok-google-how-did-the-eu-get-to-this-point-a-timeline [bloomberg.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Nerdfest on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:33PM
"deceptive conduct to lockout competition in the mobile market." And this case isn't against Apple?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday April 28 2015, @07:33PM
"deceptive conduct to lockout competition in the mobile market." And this case isn't against Apple?
Wot?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Tuesday April 28 2015, @07:34PM
Troll? Did you know that Apple is now blocking apps that mention Pebble support [androidpolice.com]? Get a life.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @10:15PM
Yeah, well, you dared to suggest bad things about Apple, inventer of the MP3 player, windowed desktop, home computer, discoverer of colors, designer of rounded corners, and of course, protector of all that is Good.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:08PM
.... protector of all that is Cool.
TFTFY
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:09PM
If Google crushes Microsoft. Bonus point! :P
The whole antitrust complaint smells rat anyway. They are just gaming the government courts.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:16PM
What is this "Microsoft"? Every other contributor on this list merits a short explanation except for Microsoft.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:38PM
As the name already says, it is a very small company; the submitters probably couldn't find any further information about it.
I think they are in the business of selling architectural elements; at least I've found some indication that they sell windows.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:45PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:03PM
> So Microsoft is advising about "harm to consumers". Well, admittedly they would know.
Corporations have no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:12PM
Price comparison sites, news aggregators... Microsoft!
It would be in my personal interest as a consumer if google could offer a cookie to filter out search results pertaining to these organisations.
(Score: 5, Funny) by dyingtolive on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:43PM
I agree. News aggregators are silly and a waste of time.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Touché) by snick on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:07PM
Price comparison sites [google.com] and news aggregators [google.com]?
Yep, scum.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @07:47PM
You know full well what I meant - searching for something and wading through site after site that has gamed the search results whilst carrying no actual content. They're spammers and if I were CEO of Google, I'd be looking to sue them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:43PM
OK, so how many of the names in that list will turn out in the coming months to be either (a) owned by Microsoft (b) receiving cash from Microsoft (c) staffed at the highest levels by ex-Microsoft managers or (d) otherwise beholden to Microsoft?
I would be surprised if the number was less than 50%.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:49PM
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:36PM
That's all well and good to conjecture, but brief pseudo-random digging suggests they're mostly not.
They're all competitors to Google in one field or another, and that's both expected and tricky. Their motivations are suspect because every one of them would benefit from Google sinking. But they're also the ones(other than consumers) who are most affected by anti-competitive practices.
There's no easy shallow analysis here. The only way to make any serious inference is to look at the claims they're presenting to the courts and assess those on their merits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:45PM
Isn't that pretty much the definition of legal standing?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:29PM
Kid: "Please make that bully stop punching me. He punches me every day."
Principal: "You're only saying that because it would benefit you."
Kid: "Well, yeah. That's the point."
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:52PM
You noticed the sentence that followed that one. The one that qualified that by also implying their relevance towards anti-compete investigations?
No?
Well then the final sentence of my post is the thesis: that motivations and financial incentive aren't enough to digest the situation and we need to look at the evidence.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Wednesday April 29 2015, @01:08PM
Yes, that would be interesting to know.
On the other hand, though, it wouldn't invalidate the complaint. The accusation stands or falls on its merits, regardless who is making the accusation. If Google is abusing its position, then that's wrong, full stop. (Or period, according to preference.) Implying otherwise would be a sort of corporate 'ad hominem' argument.
(Of course, if the accuser is also guilty of the same thing, then they should be punished too. I'm not trying to defend Microsoft here. After all, we're all smart enough to see beyond a simplistic 'goodie-vs-baddie' interpretation… aren't we?)
[sig redacted]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:49PM
Of course, those companies that see Google as their competitor are going to be pushing for and backing this move. That has no bearing on the question of whether Google is in fact abusing its market position.
For a basically identical situation, consider the anti-trust action against Microsoft in the US when they started bundling Internet Explorer - sure, Netscape was heavily involved in lobbying for that action, but that doesn't mean Microsoft wasn't doing it or that it wasn't illegal.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Informative) by Spamalope on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:41PM
Google's argument is that is is not abusing dominance in the online shopping market because it is not dominant in that market
The offense is using market dominance in one area to force out competitors in another. Google does have search dominance, and is using that to gain advantage in another. (a.k.a. not competing on the merits) Via adwords, Google analytics and Chrome/Android they can
spygain insight into consumer behavior and how they use competitors products.Netscape's complaint vs Microsoft was that they used their monopoly in the OS market to force one in the browser market. (which was about the least of their crimes in that regard - like sabotaging Wordperfect's Windows efforts)