European Parliament to Call for Breakup of Google

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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A report from Financial Times says that the European Parliament is making preparations to draft a proposal to break up Google’s search engine from other Google services. The Parliament has no official standalone power of its own, but recommends actions to the European Commission.

The matter underscores worry over Google's expansive reach and the search giant's potential to abuse its influence to hurt competitors.
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Google does have its hands in so many different markets and services, they are able to leverage one another and corner markets, which isn't good for free enterprise which needs competition.

Youtube for example was started by a couple schmucks in an apartment, and a great service, and then Google came in and FUBARed it using all the wealth they have from their other services.

If companies like Google aren't considered a modern monopoly, I challenge anyone to give me an example of a corporation that is.
 
Ducman69 said:
Google does have its hands in so many different markets and services, they are able to leverage one another and corner markets, which isn't good for free enterprise which needs competition.

Youtube for example was started by a couple schmucks in an apartment, and a great service, and then Google came in and FUBARed it using all the wealth they have from their other services.

If companies like Google aren't considered a modern monopoly, I challenge anyone to give me an example of a corporation that is.
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wal-mart and facebook.
 
Maybe some Euros can explain this to me but...

Who the #$%^ do they think they are telling google what business they are allowed to enter and bundle with their other businesses?

This reminds me of the time microsoft was forced to provide a browser choice option in Europe, they actually forced microsoft to highlight competing products in their own software?
 
Ducman69 said:
Google does have its hands in so many different markets and services, they are able to leverage one another and corner markets, which isn't good for free enterprise which needs competition.

Youtube for example was started by a couple schmucks in an apartment, and a great service, and then Google came in and FUBARed it using all the wealth they have from their other services.

If companies like Google aren't considered a modern monopoly, I challenge anyone to give me an example of a corporation that is.
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I keep hearing people complain about what google did to Youtube, yet I can't think of anything "worse" about it. It used to be something I could only find the odd video I wanted to watch, now it is something I can make a living off. How is that fubared? Seems to me people just hate progress.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I keep hearing people complain about what google did to Youtube, yet I can't think of anything "worse" about it. It used to be something I could only find the odd video I wanted to watch, now it is something I can make a living off. How is that fubared? Seems to me people just hate progress.
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Yes because shit tonn of ads in your bedroom dumbass videos is progress :rolleyes:
 
Good luck with that. What if the US tried to break up a EU company. All hell would break loose. This is just ridiculous.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I keep hearing people complain about what google did to Youtube, yet I can't think of anything "worse" about it. It used to be something I could only find the odd video I wanted to watch, now it is something I can make a living off. How is that fubared? Seems to me people just hate progress.
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Functionality-wise it's done nothing but improve, but I think most people have a problem with it being linked to your Google account. I know I do.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
Functionality-wise it's done nothing but improve, but I think most people have a problem with it being linked to your Google account. I know I do.
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Ads and being forced into the Google's social network/tracking garbage are not improvements.
 
misfitsfiend said:
wal-mart and facebook.
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They are just big companies, how do they even approach the number of different services/products that Google does?

Think about everything Google is in to:
They have a desktop OS, mobile OS, online advertising technologies, video hosting, cloud computing, social media, email, calendar, remote desktop, messenger, search engine, navigation system, cloud storage, maps with street views, google earth, web store, merchant checkout system, image hosting, they make computer and mobile hardware, and software to name a few. And in many of these they aren't dabbling, but are industry leaders.

Walmart is just a store chain with trucks for shipping.

Facebook is just a social media site that has a few games.
 
I doubt very much that the EU can do shit to alter a U.S. based company like Google. It'd be like the U.S. tried to force Bosch to split up. We have no jurisdiction there, they have none here.
 
madmat said:
I doubt very much that the EU can do shit to alter a U.S. based company like Google. It'd be like IF the U.S. tried to force Bosch to split up. We have no jurisdiction there, they have none here.
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Fixed in light of no ability to edit posts in here.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I keep hearing people complain about what google did to Youtube, yet I can't think of anything "worse" about it. It used to be something I could only find the odd video I wanted to watch, now it is something I can make a living off. How is that fubared? Seems to me people just hate progress.
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Exactly, you can make a living off it.

It used to be YOUtube, as in you the people. Now its a commercialized mess where everything is some super channel promoted by their search to be on top results for everyone, because they want profit sharing, with every redesign making it dumber and dumber to use for average Joes in order to make advertisements more prominent and create "professional" youtubers and what not. So yes, it went from a video hosting site for the people to television version 2.0, with constant advertisements, constant takedown notices for fairuse uploads from average Joes, and a crapton of "annoying orange" and "pewdiepie" and makeup queens being paid to promote products.
 
jpm100 said:
Ads and being forced into the Google's social network/tracking garbage are not improvements.
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Agreed on the latter, but not the former. It has to be monetized in some form or fashion, right? Google isn't a charity service.
 
greedy government bullshit.

company providing a service that everyone wants to use, because it's better than the competition = evil monopoly

government forcing people to shell out large sums of money for things they wouldn't otherwise pay for = bedrock of civilization
 
wabbitseason said:
Agree. No "progress" has been made on Youtube. It's just been monetized, shitting all over the user experience.
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so why hasn't someone come out with an ad free competitor? If they have, why hasn't it taken off in popularity?

Also, why don't you just use adblock?
 
spintroniX said:
so why hasn't someone come out with an ad free competitor? If they have, why hasn't it taken off in popularity?

Also, why don't you just use adblock?
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How the fuck do I know? Any point hidden in there?

Also, adblock doesn't do anything for ads before videos.
 
I dunno... A lot things that Google does is funded by ads/search: Android, Google Fiber, and so on may not happen if the company was split up.
 
Laughable dough heads...Google will tell them to go pound sand...there are on 2 kinds of countries , those who use the metric system and those that have been to the moon
 
I am going to assume that everyone here complaining about ads had their wallets open, ready to sign up for ad-free youtube subscription(s) and/or on-demand content, correct?
 
cj3waker said:
Government intrusion can not lead to free enterprise
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*facepalm* Government intrusion is needed for free enterprise to thrive. The government isn't a manager or a boxer, its a police force or a referee if you will.

They should not run businesses, we know this from history, but what we have also learned is that you need an overseeing body to ensure that:
1) Everybody plays by the rules, no low blows
2) Ensure that free enterprise can exist by providing an environment in which businesses and entrepreneurs with great ideas can compete, and that isn't possible with mega-monopolies in place.

I'm a Libertarian, but that is still a form of government, because government is NECESSARY.

If government isn't upholding its one primary economic duty of upholding the laws for a level and ethical playing field and breaking up monopolies as they inevitably spring up with growth and mergers and acquisitions, then its not fulfilling its one productive economic purpose. Now if you want to pretend that is communism or something, then you're advocating economic anarchy.
 
spintroniX said:
so why hasn't someone come out with an ad free competitor? If they have, why hasn't it taken off in popularity?

Also, why don't you just use adblock?
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Google gets a soft touch when it comes to copyright. I don't know what dark deal they made but they get different treatment than other video hosting sites.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Because corporations, which operate exclusively to generate profits and are by definition greedy are totally innocent and would never do anything that would have negative consequences.
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corporations are created by the government, and only exist because of government laws
 
cj3waker said:
Government intrusion can not lead to free enterprise
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No. But it can lead to competition and not the end of it. 200 years ago when the lofty virtues of free enterprise where extolled, mega monopolies were virtually infeasible with rare exception. Crossing the country took months you just couldn't manage it. So even if a monopoly formed in a region, at the fringes of that region there was a competitive element that could spread back in. FF to about 100 years ago, travel, commerce, finances were vastly more sophisticated and a National or Trans-National Monopoly became quite possible.

Competition is the Free Market's only virtue. Without it, it is no better than any other system. And with the ability to collude and form monopolies on a massive scale, its possible to distort the marketplace from within, especially if they can employ the aid of a willing on complicit government but they don't absolutely need them .

Therefore its necessary to have pinch of government in a small but effective policing role. Anything more is like morphine. A little in the right place and the right time is a moral and good thing, but more is addiction and even more is suicide. But moderation is lost on modern society, it has to be purely one thing or purely another. Even the idea of moderation has to be taken to a form of purity where is its not one other but but both. The two must be in equal quantities. .
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Because corporations, which operate exclusively to generate profits and are by definition greedy are totally innocent and would never do anything that would have negative consequences.
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Do you really believe for every evil thing you can name a corporation has done, I can't name something worse done by government?
 
More likely this is saber rattling by the EU to help convince Google that it should stop using tax avoidance schemes to pay way less than the true amount it owes in the various EU countries.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I keep hearing people complain about what google did to Youtube, yet I can't think of anything "worse" about it. It used to be something I could only find the odd video I wanted to watch, now it is something I can make a living off. How is that fubared? Seems to me people just hate progress.
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Google improved it. Without google powering youtube it would probably got shutdown by now cause RIAA/MPAA threatening to sue them
 
It doesn't matter if the tax residence of a company is in the US. If it operates within another countries or countries legal boundary it is subject to those laws.

EU anti-competative laws are actually almost the same as US, it just the application cannot be influenced by bribes^M^Mlobbying

Google makes a fucktonne of profit in the EU, profit google makes because it is permitted to operate in the EU.
If the commission finds google to be too big and it is distorting the market in its favour it can ask google todo a number of things
It can request spinoff entities with request being key.

Non support will be faced with increasing fines and eventually loss of ability to trade in the EU.

MS faced the same thing - the thing about the browser... The pick screen was introduced because MS stated they cannot decouple IE so it was a compromise...
MS and mediaplayer was along the same lines...
MS tried to bribe EU nations w.r.t. their office forum... This didn't go down well.

There are steps the commision can do *if* the commission did.
Remember right now it isn't with the commission, its with a reporting dept. It doesn't mean the commission will agree google have become

Its a silly report and while Google are big and leverage, they are not abusing their position BUT don't be think being an american company means it can ignore foreign laws
 
wabbitseason said:
How the fuck do I know? Any point hidden in there?

Also, adblock doesn't do anything for ads before videos.
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Firefox adblock plus does prevent ads before youtube, blip vids and twitch streams. It has done this for long time.
 
spintroniX said:
corporations are created by the government, and only exist because of government laws
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Humans organize into groups in order to jointly become more powerful, productive, or dominant than individuals are capable of becoming alone. Humankind has a history of countless instances where that is the case. Corporations are merely representations of one way in which humans have organized and while the named construct called a corporation may not have the exact identity it does presently without a legal framework, large groups of people organized into a business alliance of some sort have existed to the scale in which they're able to given the technological limitations of any particular point in time and would work to achieve dominance among other businesses regardless because their owners are human and thus, greedy. Therefore, your point is stupid and mindlessly follows a theory of a world vision that cannot exist in practice. Not that you care, you're just blindly following someone with a personal agenda, acting as a mouthpiece for a thing you're incapable of actually reasoning out, yet want to parrot (though you could never actually do anything aside from complain in a computer forum with narrow one-liners) to feel as though you're doing something grand for the world.
 
jpm100 said:
Do you really believe for every evil thing you can name a corporation has done, I can't name something worse done by government?
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I think this would make it more easy to get if I put it in a FTFY kinda format. :)

jpm100 said:
Do you really believe for every evil thing you can name people having done, I can't name something worse done by other people?
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There you go! Corporations are made of people and people are all pretty much stupid, evil, greedy, and awful. Governments are made of people with all those same attributes too. What makes it work out pretty well is that all those silly heads pit themselves against one another, vying for this and that for a huge number of dumb and superficially good reasons and it's all this back and forth struggling that makes it possible for individuals to kinda have a happy, hug-a-cat and read-a-good-book kinda life. If you take away some part of that group-on-group pinch-y and hair pull-y fighting that boys have to do because they're walking meat piles of hormones and ego without replacing it with something that serves the same purpose, you get a big fat and even more broken mess.
 
As expected, americans take this as a US vs EU thing which is kind of sad.

Most people don't seem to realize that google is a lot more than search and search itself is not really a search but a BROCHURE. Having said that, they not only can but DO filter the results of every query to make money. Yes, they bury competing products. Belive...

This move will also make it harder for this US government sponsored spying company to just hand over bits about us.

A welcome move.
 
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