Re:U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crac...
by darawk on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:01PM
(#26838448)
> Yes, but they own search ads and a large percentage of web ads (though the non-siloed web is becoming less and less relevant each year), and they do everything in their power to put people into their ad funnel.
You can call any company as a monopoly if you define its market narrowly enough. The hard question is making a good argument for your choice of market. Google is absolutely a monopoly in search advertising. But is search advertising the right market to consider? Google would argue the appropriate market is advertising as a whole, where they are clearly not a monopoly.
The ultimate question at hand is whether and to what extent consumers are being harmed by anti-competitive practices. I think in Google's case that's a hard case to make. It might be a bit easier for e.g. Facebook or Amazon, though.
Re:U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crac...
by warkdarrior on Friday April 16, 2021 @07:15PM
(#26840061)
Starbucks has a monopoly on coffee at Starbucks locations.
Re:U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crac...
by Spivak on Friday April 16, 2021 @07:32PM
(#26840180)
Which sounds like a crazy comparison but you’ve got people on HN saying that stores should be forced to carry products they don’t want to.
It’s completely unfair that Starbucks is taking away consumer choice by not selling Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
> They don’t. Amazon and Facebook both make a fortune from ads.
Yes, but they own search ads and a large percentage of web ads (though the non-siloed web is becoming less and less relevant each year), and they do everything in their power to put people into their ad funnel.
They control 50% of the mobile OS, 70%+ of the browser monoculture, and nearly 100% of search. They can order sites according to which ones use AdSense or AMP, neuter ad blocking (especially of AdSense), and collect behavior across the web even when website owners don't want it.
They're fucking up an entire set of technologies to further their goals.
That's not monopolistic. That's horrific. I don't think we even have a term to describe this yet, it's so bad.
We're all getting Big Teched.