News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing dominance. Parent comment

Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by sweden on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @07:10AM (#14644230)
Because it works for you, it doesn't mean it works for everyone else.

Of all Google's services I don't care about:

- Google Shopping, I never saw a reason to use it and I never did, I prefer to use local shops or Amazon

- Google Maps, I actually prefer Open Street Maps. The amount of detail on OSM is staggering and in many ways, I think the data is much more complete than Google Maps

- Google reviews about restaurants and businesses, I prefer to use TripAdvisor

- Google Books, I prefer using Amazon and Kobo Store

- Google Flights, I was never able to get anything useful out of this service. I usually use Momondo

As you can see, the only thing that is interesting to me about Google is the search engine and yet, it keeps throwing to my face all these services I don't use and that I don't care about.

Worse, it takes the spotlight from the services I actually use. So yes, this is Microsoft all over again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by asr on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @12:59PM (#14647085)
Conversely, just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean everyone else feels it's broken. At the same time Google was introducing the shopping results that the Commission says were illegal, Microsoft was running advertisements with the slogan "Bing and Decide" that advertised how great a feature it is to do essentially the same thing.

So even if you don't believe Google, there's at least some evidence that a lot of people actually do like services showing up.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by Tritrin on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:11PM (#14649485)
>So even if you don't believe Google, there's at least some evidence that a lot of people actually do like services showing up.

Yes, and this is exactly what the decision entails, these services should be ranked on their own merit. Google shouldn't be allowed to artificially prioritize their services on searches but let them compete with others.

"It [Google] gave prominent placement in its search results only to its own comparison shopping service, whilst demoting rival services."

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by jasode on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @09:03AM (#14644954)
>- Google Shopping, I never saw a reason to use it and I never did, I prefer to use local shops or Amazon

I use Google Shopping for price comparisons across mutliple retailers. (The service was originally named Froogle.) I originally used Pricewatch.com but switched to Froogle/GoogleShopping because it had better results.

Unfortunately, the local shops and Amazon don't offer the same breadth of comparisons. E.g. if I want to buy a new harddrive, Google Shopping tells me whether the lowest price is at Newegg, BHPhoto, or somewhere else.[1]

If there is a superior substitute to Google Shopping, I'd love to know about it.

[1] example: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/3954751729784172026?...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by sweden on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @09:50AM (#14645334)
Those websites are primarily american, so I am assuming you live in America. In Europe, I would say Google Shopping is more bothersome than it is useful. Whatever point you were trying to make by highlighting the usefulness of the service in your region, you forgot to take into account the rest of the world.

Besides, if you like to use Google Shopping, no one is stopping you.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by jasode on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @09:55AM (#14645369)
>Besides, if you like to use Google Shopping, no one is stopping you.

I have no irrational loyalty to Google Shopping. I was genuinely asking for better price comparison alternatives. Not sure what prompted your petty sniping.

What's the superior European price comparison website you're using that should be ahead of Google Shopping results?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by orsenfelt on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @05:57PM (#14649885)
Interestingly, Google Shopping (when it was Froogle) used to be quite good - back when any eCommerce site could just send in the feed of their stock.

At some point they moved towards Google Checkout (Google Merchant/Wallet?) verification and the number of stores you could actually find with it dropped dramatically.

Now it's just high street retailers, a handful of the bigger online places and eBay. Not only is it not as useful, it's killed off the sites that came before it as they tried to adapt and survive.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by devoply on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @08:32AM (#14644767)
On operating systems you set preferences for which service/program to open when a certain extension is clicked. Similarly Google should be forced to allow you to set your preferences through your browser, i.e. not forcing you to login, on where you want to go when you type certain types of queries, like for instance directions or products. That would improve competition and give other service providers at least a good chance of their services being used instead of Google. And keep the system more competitive. Then Google can go and claim that this is what their users actually prefer.

This could work through cookies that the browser always makes available to certain or all sites that indicate preferences of the user.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by cbr on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @08:49AM (#14644867) 

    Google should be forced to allow you to set your 
    preferences through your browser, i.e. not forcing
    you to login ...
I see how this is at least possible in Chrome, but how would this work in browsers Google doesn't control?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:European Commission fines Google €2.42B for abusing domin... by simias on Tuesday June 27, 2017 @08:54AM (#14644900)
You could simply store an "anonymous" cookie. They already do it anyway for other settings. The first time I go on google on a new computer it asks me to review the privacy policy, it could also ask about those widgets.
[ Parent | on HN ]