Improving quality isn’t anti-competitive (original) (raw)

Thursday, August 27, 2015

10 comments :

1. 
   Can you link us to Google's full response? Thank you.
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3. 
   As a retired lawyer who practiced in the field of intellectual property I find this opinion well reasoned and convincing. The European view seems more about protecting old technology and by that measure is by itself anti-competitive. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
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4. 
   Is it simply about trying to improve quality, or more like trying to make the all of the information free so that one company can exploit it for profit? Google's power is all about the network effect, and there seens to be nothing wrong about lawmakers' wanting to regulate firms disproportinately benefiting from the network effect, which has been hitherto left unregulated for too long. Personally, I think that arguments about "helping consumers making choice" has been much overblown. Consumers in this era are simply part of the products and the choice they make is often not their own choice.
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   1. 
      And of course ... Google is NOT the only search engine out there. If someone else does it better, use them.
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   2. 
      Under EU competition law dominant undertakings are subject to a special responsibility not to abuse their power. Winning through fair competition in one market (general searches) does give anyone the right to abuse that power in another market (specialised search services).
      Whether that is what has happened or not is totally up for debate and I really look forward to seeking the Commission's decision and Google's response in court. But to take such a simplistic classical economic view of the market ignores the practical realities.
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5. 
   This is not a comment but rather a request:
   Where does an individual find information to defend this (read: any) business's rights? How is this business practice (read: the pursuit of profit) an issue on any scale? By what right does anyone have to tell this (read: any) entity how to conduct business? When and how did Google (read: anyone) force the "consumer" to utilize its services? Do (or did) these ideas exist?
   Regards,
   Anonymous
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   Replies
   1. 
      It is called antitrust law in the US and competition law elsewhere.
      The merits of various levels of enforcement are the subject of great economic debate.
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6. 
   I thought that the European complaint was actually about how Google is a dominant platform which essentially stops any other company performing the same kind of service in Europe. It may equalise products and services across different retailers, but it's Google itself at issue here - do we want a dominant platform? No.
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7. 
   The EU are socialist technocrats. Well-reasoned and convincing arguments are irrelevant. Technocrats have to do something - anything - or their lives are meaningless and a waste.
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