“WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies…”
After reviewing [evidence from] Google, Microsoft and Apple… Mehta [gave a verdict]
Really, this is just a win for Facebhook?
Google is the best internet search according to Bing.
I sincerely hope they get broken up.
Thoughts and prayers. (I don’t even know if I’m being sarcastic anymore)
Betchu they’ll just send a check of 1 B to the FTC and say “that should pay the fine + interest” then go on with their day. Happened in a similar fashion before.
Happy cake day. Yes, I‘m afraid that could happen. We‘ll see.
The punishment will be less big than the profit, they won’t stop, as usual.
Did you do a crime? Well as the authority round these parts, you know I get a cut.
If the fine is not large enough to impact their business then breaking the law will be a normal business decision and fines a simple business expense. It’s already like that.
We need a federated search engine. Whatever fedia.io runs on but for search.
How do you build a federated search index?
I don’t know how. How do torrents work?
Torrent is file sharing. Apples an oranges.
No, I mean the tech behind it, not the concept. The bittorrent application is able to find a file to download from a bunch of other people. Not only the file itself, but parts of it. It’s a distributed search.
torrents have trackers, special servers that keep track of who’s got which parts of a file.
This works because it’s the same file just distributed. But in the case of search, every node would need to have the entire index of the web. If not, how would the client decide who’s index is better and which page rank fits better with the search? I really don’t see how this would work.
Can it be AI powered with cryptocurrency backend?
Also why? Searxng is a thing. I would argue search wouldn’t need to be federated. Makes sense for social media, web is already connected.
fr, searxng is the b0ss
Isn’t searxng just a proxy for google and bing? Not sure how that “increases diversity” or “adds competition” or “improves search results”…
It can proxy anything you want to. There are a lot of searxng instances out there who have different setups. You could proxy only google or all the search engines that exist. Up to you. Ideally, I would make it so searxng can operate independently and have their own search engine algorithm but so far, this is the most open source and self hostable option available.
There’s YaCy, it’s just not good
Had a look: it’s 20 years and maintained by one single dude. Do you think one dude could compete with google? He needs help, and a lot of it.
I demand federated breakfast burritos!
The judge said it was a monopoly but there does not seem to be any consequences at this time if ever.
Mehta’s conclusion that Google has been running an illegal monopoly sets up another legal phase to determine what sorts of changes or penalties should be imposed to reverse the damage done and restore a more competitive landscape.
The potential outcome could result in a wide-ranging order requiring Google to dismantle some of the pillars of its internet empire or prevent it from paying to ensure its search engine automatically answers queries on the iPhone and other devices. Or, the judge could conclude only modest changes are required to level the playing field.
Today was not about determining consequences / repercussions. It was only about deciding yes or no on the monopoly issue. The next step in the legal process is determining repercussions for Alphabet, and it seems like there are some pretty dramatic options on the table.
Next do chromium
This is based on older evidence but the exclusive deal Google just signed with reddit makes it pretty clear the monopoly is planned and ongoing.
The funny thing is that this probably screws Reddit more than anyone. Obviously fuck 'em but funny either way.
It depends on the conditions of the agreement and how much they are being paid. Google’s worldwide market share is above 91% so reddit isn’t actually losing out on much site traffic by going exclusive.
Sure, but if the argument is that Google is paying to be a monopoly then they’re going to have to stop payment.
Google allegedly paid $60 million for access to Reddit for AI purposes. Reddit then disallowed access to all other providers, unless they can promise they won’t use the data for AI purposes.
Technically Reddit is the one disallowing access, but if the argument is that Google is paying for special access I don’t see why I wouldn’t extend to AI.
Reddit now needs to either argue their data is some special intellectual property worth $60 million or is at a price point more accessible and it sure as shit won’t be $60 million.
Reddit then disallowed access to all other providers, unless they can promise they won’t use the data for AI purposes.
That’s what they said publicly, but even search providers like Mojeek that have no AI capabilities appear to require some sort of “commercial agreement” to allow reddit scraping moving forward. It seems to me that Google was attempting to further distance itself from the competition with the agreement and that reddit went along with it because, in some way, it makes financial sense for reddit too.
That’s what I find so interesting about this result.
For example Apple is paid ~$20 billion, or arguably charges that amount, to be the default search engine. That’s REAL money when compared to the Reddit deal.
Google search is a monopoly? It is losing market share. They really should go after Chrome and its clones
Just because it’s losing market share doesn’t mean it’s not a monopoly, let alone an illegal one.
True I suppose
I just don’t like how Chrome is the “standard”
I agree but that is a different problem
Then you should also not like how Google has a history of making their sites, which are market leaders in many cases including search, perform worse on browsers other than Chrome. That is considered anti-competitive behavior.
Even if the punishment is largely symbolic and Google only pays a tiny (compared to it’s massive size) fine; I’d still call that a significant win.
- Google can be REQUIRED to give users A CHOICE of Search Engines.
- Google can be FORBIDDEN from giving their OWN ENGINE an advantage in search results or advertising
- Google can be FORCED to ALLOW THIRD PARTIES access to the SAME APIs used in Chrome and Chromium.
- Google can be FORBIDDEN from BLOCKING THIRD PARTY FRONTENDS from using Google Search, Youtube and more.
Google can be REQUIRED to give users A CHOICE of Search Engines.
Don’t they, err, already do this?
I mean a search engine is literally just a website and absolutely nothing prevents you from just going to duckduckgo.com or bing.com or wherever. Don’t think Chrome prevents you from accessing other search engines in general, and last time I used it (admittedly a while back) it had a setting to change the search engine used by default if you just typed something into the address bar.
Don’t they, err, already do this?
No, They don’t. They have stolen that initial choice from you by paying companies to be the “default” choice. They do this to capture those who are lazy or indolent about their choices, or to entrap those who are too un-savvy to change the preference.
You do know there’s a big difference between a “default” option and a “mandatory” setting, right? Specifically that you do, in fact, have a choice to change a default?
Not forcing the user to proactively make a choice is not the same thing as denying the user the ability to choose.
Your argument is irrelevant.
DDGFTW
deleted by creator
It is much cleaner than bing
But yes
It was good until little while ago now I was getting ads whilst they were turned off.
It might not be much but it’s still legal precedent that will hopefully help it reach critical mass. Like getting Al Capone on tax evasion
Shatter the company like glass.
They are insanely huge. They should be 10 different companies.
At least ten, and maintain no logs on their users. All previous logs must be purged and rendered irrecoverable.
Or even better, Google could buy the US government
Alphabet is 10 different companies. Google is one of them.
Google is Alphabet.
This distinction is meaningless. It is like arguing that Facebook isn’t a company anymore and Meta is a totally new institution.
It’s Facebook. It’s Google.
Its FAANG companies not MAANA companies.
If that was true, duckduck and others wouldve dried up and faded away by now
They are way smaller than Google market share wise
So stoked to see this. A bit disheartening to read this kinda shit, though=
“This victory against Google is an historic win for the American people,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “No company — no matter how large or influential — is above the law. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws.”
Only to be followed a few paragraphs down by
…a drawn-out appeals process will delay any immediate effects for both consumers and advertisers. The appeals process could take as long as five years…
Sigh.
