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The Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Justice investigators would be looking at "Google's business practices regarding its research activities and other businesses." This is one of the biggest threats that US regulators have faced, but so far, we do not know much about the case. himself. the NewspaperThe company description was open, and the nature of Google's business makes it vulnerable to antitrust challenges in a variety of ways. Google dominates the search market, but also holds nearly 40% of the digital advertising market and Android is the most popular operating system in the world. In all these markets, critics have claimed that Google was simply too big and that it was being fined $ 1 billion to each of them in Europe.
The investigation is still in its infancy and it is unclear what the Department of Justice might consider worth investigating. But earlier EU fines, coupled with a 2013 Federal Trade Commission investigation, offer some guidance. We have broken down some of the major monopoly charges against Google, as well as how the courts and regulators have treated them up to now – from search engine rankings to the bundling of Android apps. (Google, perhaps with good reason, did not respond to a request for comment.)
Google has monopolized the placement of ads
Google is the leading player in online advertising: according to forecasts, its market share would be 37.2% in 2019, against 22.1% for its closest rival, Facebook. It earns money on two fronts: advertisers can buy advertising space through Google Exchange and websites can run Google ads through the AdSense program. He is accused of abusing his power on both sides of the transaction, which Google denies.
The European Commission has specifically studied Google's relationship with web publishers. In March, she found that Google unfairly banned AdSense customers from placing other search engines and ad units on their sites. (Google removed this clause but retained the right to have "premium" advertising space on websites until 2016.) Publishers had fewer options to sell their ad space, which potentially reduced their income. At the same time, Google's ads placement service users have also been pushed to exclusively use the search engine, which has complicated the task of competitors like Bing. The European court sentenced Google to a fine of 1.49 billion euros, claiming to have "strengthened its dominance" by illegal means. "Google's conduct has hurt competition and consumers," said the court, "and smothered innovation."
The FTC also reviewed this policy and, although it allowed Google to use the Internet in 2013, investigators privately expressed serious concerns about the practice. Bloomberg found that AdSense represented a declining share of Google's business and that the company changed its rules to avoid some of the major complaints. But the Department of Justice could still decide that these exclusivity agreements were helping Google – unfairly – to reach its current level of power.
Google has monopolized advertising sales
Antitrust oversight bodies are not just worried about how Google places ads on websites; they are worried about the way he sells this advertising space. Google has traditionally auctioned space in a way that has favored its AdX market. When publishers and advertising technology companies tried to work around this problem by calling the headers, Google then opted for a centralized system that would still confer a potential advantage to its own exchanges.
US and European regulators approved Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, which helped Google build its advertising empire in 2008. Since then, they've focused their criticism on things like exclusive deals. Google could argue that it does not hurt consumers and does not treat other trade unfairly. Header bidding can slow down the loading of pages. Therefore, discouraging can help internet users. Google has abandoned strategies such as the "last look" advantage, which allowed Google to raise its bids. Amazon has also begun to reduce the market share of advertising in Google and Facebook, which could also indicate increased competition.
Even so, "the fact that Google can dominate the advertising market is very dangerous," says Matt Stoller, a member of the Open Markets Institute Monopoly Group. This gives Google a power over how people can make money online – and, by extension, about the type of content that people see when they surf the web.
Google retrograde its competitors in research
But for ordinary users, advertising technologies may still seem a bit abstract, and Google's search is much more controversial.
Google uses the search to highlight other Google services, including its business analysis platform and its purchasing platforms. More worryingly, search results from competing companies are downgraded. Foundem, the UK-based price comparison platform, says Google has buried its site while promoting Google Shopping, for example. European regulators agreed that the company had exceeded the bonds, fining Google 2.4 billion euros.
Yelp's restaurant recommendation site also complains of Google's special search cards, which appear in addition to its usual results. (These two allegations are unrelated to President Donald Trump's conspiracy claims of "political bias in research.") "There is very good evidence that Google has somehow adopted a strategy to keep its competitors distance, "explains Yelp's public policy. director Luther Lowe.
The FTC investigated the manipulation of the searches but eventually cleared Google, despite internal problems. US antitrust law is focused on consumers, not businesses – and Google has successfully argued that it simply offers a better experience than these other sites. But since then, Yelp has countered this claim by conducting its own studies, suggesting that these cards reduce the usefulness of search results. Former FTC advisor Tim Wu called the search "surprising and shocking" and this could be taken into account by Google in a Justice Department investigation.
Google forces phone makers to bundle apps
Google is releasing its Android operating system under an open-source license, but phone and tablet manufacturers are required to license popular apps like Google Maps and Google Play Store. For a long time, these manufacturers had to bundle a range of Google services, including Chrome and search. This browser and these disadvantaged competitive search engines led the EU to impose a record fine of 4.3 billion euros. In response, Google has begun to offer European users a choice of browser and search engine. It has also unbundled its services in Europe and started charging application license fees.
This is perhaps Google's most direct equivalent to Microsoft's "browser war", which led to a massive antitrust lawsuit in the 1990s. The Wall Street Journal the reports do not mention Android, and the previous FTC survey focused more on ads and search practices. We will have to wait to see how extensive the Department of Justice's investigation is.
Google could monopolize the Web experience
All of the preceding claims have been around for years and relate to Google's core business. But these are not the only things that could grab the attention of antitrust watchdogs. Google AMP, for example, has thrilled regulators, activists and web publishers. The loading of pages is very fast on mobile browsers, but it also acts as a special web portal built by Google, offering the company a huge power. Google responded to this criticism by giving up some control of AMP, which is an open source project, to a multi-company committee.
To a much lesser extent, some critics worry about Google's decision to block "bad" ads on Chrome – noting that Google has the means and the motivation to promote its own ads in the process. Chrome holds about two-thirds of the browser. market. When a code suggested to Google to limit third-party ad blocking extensions, Ghostery's developers threatened to file an antitrust complaint, until Google said it had never intended to break the deadlines. extensions.
These complaints have not attracted so much attention and they risk remaining behind any antitrust investigation. But they recall that the scope of Google is constantly expanding, as well as complaints against him.
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