Absolutely stunning that such a slip-up could occur during such a pivotal trial... even without the precise percentage, the importance of the Apple-Google deal is quite obvious, but the exact...
Absolutely stunning that such a slip-up could occur during such a pivotal trial... even without the precise percentage, the importance of the Apple-Google deal is quite obvious, but the exact percentage really does hammer in how significant this deal is to both parties.
Also kind of an important detail that should be public information during an antitrust trial. Also explains why Google is happy to keep funding Firefox. "We should keep this secret because it...
Also kind of an important detail that should be public information during an antitrust trial.
Also explains why Google is happy to keep funding Firefox.
"We should keep this secret because it looks really bad if people know" is a really big warning sign that something is wrong. IMO it's solid proof in this case. If truth being public ruins your case, you should lose, and you're a bit of a prick for trying to weasel your way out of the right call by omitting key details in the first place.
It'd be really easy to tell if Google is winning on its own merits: Ban them from paying people for making them default for 5 years. If their argument is being made in good faith, they won't see any harm from that judgement and should welcome it.
Turning around and saying 'but that gives competition an unfair advantage' just becomes Exhibit A on your market-share not being due to its own merits.
Google used to be a fantastic search engine, and 95% market-share would make sense circa 2004. I have no doubts that they'd be much closer to 20% market-share now if they were not already the dominant player.
Eh, I don't actually think this would accomplish anything if you did it now. The damage has already been done and Google is treated as the default without monetary incentive by most -- precisely...
Ban them from paying people for making them default for 5 years
Eh, I don't actually think this would accomplish anything if you did it now. The damage has already been done and Google is treated as the default without monetary incentive by most -- precisely because Google made deals like this in the past, when that wasn't the case.
And in which case, the ban won't hurt them in the slightest and they should welcome the free pass. Except everyone knows being the default has a lot more weight to it than anything else. If we...
And in which case, the ban won't hurt them in the slightest and they should welcome the free pass.
Except everyone knows being the default has a lot more weight to it than anything else. If we mandated Bing as default search engine on Chrome Google's marketshare would drop significantly inside of a year.
They're not paying out 36% because they're winning on merits. They're paying 36% because if Apple bought DuckDuckGo and made it default their revenue from Safari users would collapse by more than that 36%. Right now Apple is happy to collect the free risk-free money, which is frankly a smart business decision. I wouldn't gamble ~$18 billion at the chance of making ~ $30 billion either. But I probably would gamble $2 billion for a chance at $20 billion.
That arguement would have a lot more weight if they weren't paying out more than 10x the estimated worth of DDG.
Chrome is still by far the most popular browser despite Microsoft bundling Edge with Windows, so I'm not sure I buy this. In any case, I'm arguing against such a ban because I think it would be...
Except everyone knows being the default has a lot more weight to it than anything else. If we mandated Bing as default search engine on Chrome Google's marketshare would drop significantly inside of a year.
Chrome is still by far the most popular browser despite Microsoft bundling Edge with Windows, so I'm not sure I buy this.
In any case, I'm arguing against such a ban because I think it would be totally insufficient to punish Google for their previous anticompetitive behavior. It's not even a slap on the wrist to make them end payment like that after they've accomplished their monopolistic goals.
According to all the sources I could find quickly, Chrome has a majority share of more than 60% of the desktop web browser market, which obviously excludes android devices.
Why do you think Edge is "actively bad", as you put it? It runs on the chromium engine and they have virtually the same performance (Edge has a slight advantage even). Outside of specific niche...
Why do you think Edge is "actively bad", as you put it?
It runs on the chromium engine and they have virtually the same performance (Edge has a slight advantage even).
Outside of specific niche features, they have almost the exact same user experience IMO
The performance difference isn't significant enough to be a big factor, but I find Edge to be just sort of annoying to use. It's actually a general frustration I have with Microsoft's design...
The performance difference isn't significant enough to be a big factor, but I find Edge to be just sort of annoying to use. It's actually a general frustration I have with Microsoft's design approaches where I feel like unimportant stuff is constantly in my eyeline or stealing focus from my cursor in ways I can't find.
I only use Windows on work machines too, and it's often got a bunch of Enterprise settings and Edge feels the need to keep reminding me or notifying me of various settings and things. It's probably better when you're not laden with various corporate IT cruft, but Chrome also runs on the same machines and doesn't have that.
I use Edge for specific use cases for work, but my god, the endless nagging is unbearable. Stupid popups for features I don't care about, on and on and on. The browser is perfectly fine...
I use Edge for specific use cases for work, but my god, the endless nagging is unbearable. Stupid popups for features I don't care about, on and on and on. The browser is perfectly fine technically; just get out of my face and let me work
Remember Edge also did not originally run on Chromium, and was almost as terrible as the IE that preceded it. And once someone 'locks in' to a browser, they're not likely to change unless there...
Remember Edge also did not originally run on Chromium, and was almost as terrible as the IE that preceded it. And once someone 'locks in' to a browser, they're not likely to change unless there becomes a really compelling reason. Like I'm gonna keep using Firefox unless it becomes a security hazard or they get caught selling my data.
They fixed the renderer (by resigning to the fact that they suck at it and throwing it away), but not really all the bad design decisions they made along the way.
Sure, that's definitely true. I remember trying Edge before and it was actively bad. The first time I tried it, i tried using the dev-tools to debug a web-app, but they literally didn't work at...
Sure, that's definitely true. I remember trying Edge before and it was actively bad. The first time I tried it, i tried using the dev-tools to debug a web-app, but they literally didn't work at all (like the UI didnt even render). I'm more curious why someone would hate it, but like Chrome, given that Edge is virtually the same as Chrome.
Personally, I don't like either; I'm in the Firefox camp, too. Chromium developers (moreso PMs) have way too many conflicts of interest for me to ever trust it as a browser engine.
And Chrome predates Edge. And Chrome-era IE was even worse than Edge. Having Google heavily promote Chrome on google.com was just as monopoly-weilding as Microsoft deeply embedding IE into Windows...
And Chrome predates Edge. And Chrome-era IE was even worse than Edge.
Having Google heavily promote Chrome on google.com was just as monopoly-weilding as Microsoft deeply embedding IE into Windows and making it default. If Google was forced to promote all browsers which had Google as the default search engines equally I'd bet Firefox, Opera, and Safari would have much larger marketshares.
I haven't used Edge, so I can't say much on that front, but I don't think the current statistics reflect that there isn't an "inherent pull factor to use Chrome". It would not have captured over...
I haven't used Edge, so I can't say much on that front, but I don't think the current statistics reflect that there isn't an "inherent pull factor to use Chrome". It would not have captured over 60% of the desktop market to the exclusion of other Edge alternatives like Firefox based solely on Edge being shit.
You get how powerful being the default or the assumptive player is, no? People are lazy and take pride in not being "technically saavy" and a lot of them have taken the bait that the big players...
You get how powerful being the default or the assumptive player is, no? People are lazy and take pride in not being "technically saavy" and a lot of them have taken the bait that the big players can aftually be trusted or allow their defaults to stand.
I obviously get how powerful being the default is -- I'm arguing that preventing Google from taking certain actions to establish themselves as the default in the future are insufficient because...
I obviously get how powerful being the default is -- I'm arguing that preventing Google from taking certain actions to establish themselves as the default in the future are insufficient because Google has benefitted so much from their past actions to establish themselves as the default. Google is the default now even just in the minds of consumers, which is a much more powerful position than it was in earlier in its history, and preventing it from paying people to make it the default in the future will not remedy all the things it did in the past to reach where it is today.
Weirdly, I'm ok with FireFox defaulting Google because most people who go out of their way to FF seem to get that part. And it doesn't seem to have a workable business model in place outside of...
Weirdly, I'm ok with FireFox defaulting Google because most people who go out of their way to FF seem to get that part. And it doesn't seem to have a workable business model in place outside of that Google deal. I do hate that someone's gonna fall through the cracks tho :(
I don't particularly mind because it needs to default to something anyway. Realistically I don't think we're likely to break Google up, which imo would be the only thing approaching a real solution.
I don't particularly mind because it needs to default to something anyway. Realistically I don't think we're likely to break Google up, which imo would be the only thing approaching a real solution.
I hope Google chokes on regulation and dies as much as the next person, but I’m not a fan of the law forcibly A-B testing with a business, no matter how big they get. Regulate the space until...
d be really easy to tell if Google is winning on its own merits: Ban them from paying people for making them default for 5 years
I hope Google chokes on regulation and dies as much as the next person, but I’m not a fan of the law forcibly A-B testing with a business, no matter how big they get. Regulate the space until there’s genuine competition, I’m all for it, but this isn’t the way to go about it.
Why shouldn't a company be forced to follow a rule that is logically consistent with the legal arguement that they are making in court? Doing A-B testing to verify a legal arguement seems...
Why shouldn't a company be forced to follow a rule that is logically consistent with the legal arguement that they are making in court? Doing A-B testing to verify a legal arguement seems perfectly fair. It's not like I'm proposing A-B testing against companies that aren't already under legal scrutiny.
My proposed ruling has no impact on Google if what they are saying isn't a bald-faced lie.
Maybe make it a settlement offer? You can take your chances with the ruling, or put your money where your mouth is.
As a hypothetical (because I've been binging Suits)... If a company is being targetted by the SEC for insider trading, and their legal defense is 'But we use a proprietary algorithm to make all our trades', then it would (IMO) be perfectly reasonable to force them to disclose that algorithm to an underperforming third party under an NDA and compare earnings after 3 years. Either the algorithm will improve the third party's earnings, and the arguement has merit, or they're lying.
Banning Google from paying to make them a default would likely mean the death of Mozilla. That would further solidify the Chrome/Chromium based browser market share.
Banning Google from paying to make them a default would likely mean the death of Mozilla. That would further solidify the Chrome/Chromium based browser market share.
While I agree the Mozilla Foundation as-such would probably collapse, I think Firefox itself would continue on in one fashion or another. I think this is further evidence that Google has too much...
While I agree the Mozilla Foundation as-such would probably collapse, I think Firefox itself would continue on in one fashion or another.
I think this is further evidence that Google has too much power.
Absolutely stunning that such a slip-up could occur during such a pivotal trial... even without the precise percentage, the importance of the Apple-Google deal is quite obvious, but the exact percentage really does hammer in how significant this deal is to both parties.
Also kind of an important detail that should be public information during an antitrust trial.
Also explains why Google is happy to keep funding Firefox.
"We should keep this secret because it looks really bad if people know" is a really big warning sign that something is wrong. IMO it's solid proof in this case. If truth being public ruins your case, you should lose, and you're a bit of a prick for trying to weasel your way out of the right call by omitting key details in the first place.
It'd be really easy to tell if Google is winning on its own merits: Ban them from paying people for making them default for 5 years. If their argument is being made in good faith, they won't see any harm from that judgement and should welcome it.
Turning around and saying 'but that gives competition an unfair advantage' just becomes Exhibit A on your market-share not being due to its own merits.
Google used to be a fantastic search engine, and 95% market-share would make sense circa 2004. I have no doubts that they'd be much closer to 20% market-share now if they were not already the dominant player.
Eh, I don't actually think this would accomplish anything if you did it now. The damage has already been done and Google is treated as the default without monetary incentive by most -- precisely because Google made deals like this in the past, when that wasn't the case.
And in which case, the ban won't hurt them in the slightest and they should welcome the free pass.
Except everyone knows being the default has a lot more weight to it than anything else. If we mandated Bing as default search engine on Chrome Google's marketshare would drop significantly inside of a year.
They're not paying out 36% because they're winning on merits. They're paying 36% because if Apple bought DuckDuckGo and made it default their revenue from Safari users would collapse by more than that 36%. Right now Apple is happy to collect the free risk-free money, which is frankly a smart business decision. I wouldn't gamble ~$18 billion at the chance of making ~ $30 billion either. But I probably would gamble $2 billion for a chance at $20 billion.
That arguement would have a lot more weight if they weren't paying out more than 10x the estimated worth of DDG.
Chrome is still by far the most popular browser despite Microsoft bundling Edge with Windows, so I'm not sure I buy this.
In any case, I'm arguing against such a ban because I think it would be totally insufficient to punish Google for their previous anticompetitive behavior. It's not even a slap on the wrist to make them end payment like that after they've accomplished their monopolistic goals.
There are far more android devices than windows devices and most of those have chrome as the default.
According to all the sources I could find quickly, Chrome has a majority share of more than 60% of the desktop web browser market, which obviously excludes android devices.
Edge is actively bad though. Not just less good. There's a significant push factor to not use it rather than inherent pull factor to use Chrome.
Why do you think Edge is "actively bad", as you put it?
It runs on the chromium engine and they have virtually the same performance (Edge has a slight advantage even).
Outside of specific niche features, they have almost the exact same user experience IMO
The performance difference isn't significant enough to be a big factor, but I find Edge to be just sort of annoying to use. It's actually a general frustration I have with Microsoft's design approaches where I feel like unimportant stuff is constantly in my eyeline or stealing focus from my cursor in ways I can't find.
I only use Windows on work machines too, and it's often got a bunch of Enterprise settings and Edge feels the need to keep reminding me or notifying me of various settings and things. It's probably better when you're not laden with various corporate IT cruft, but Chrome also runs on the same machines and doesn't have that.
I use Edge for specific use cases for work, but my god, the endless nagging is unbearable. Stupid popups for features I don't care about, on and on and on. The browser is perfectly fine technically; just get out of my face and let me work
Remember Edge also did not originally run on Chromium, and was almost as terrible as the IE that preceded it. And once someone 'locks in' to a browser, they're not likely to change unless there becomes a really compelling reason. Like I'm gonna keep using Firefox unless it becomes a security hazard or they get caught selling my data.
They fixed the renderer (by resigning to the fact that they suck at it and throwing it away), but not really all the bad design decisions they made along the way.
Sure, that's definitely true. I remember trying Edge before and it was actively bad. The first time I tried it, i tried using the dev-tools to debug a web-app, but they literally didn't work at all (like the UI didnt even render). I'm more curious why someone would hate it, but like Chrome, given that Edge is virtually the same as Chrome.
Personally, I don't like either; I'm in the Firefox camp, too. Chromium developers (moreso PMs) have way too many conflicts of interest for me to ever trust it as a browser engine.
And Chrome predates Edge. And Chrome-era IE was even worse than Edge.
Having Google heavily promote Chrome on google.com was just as monopoly-weilding as Microsoft deeply embedding IE into Windows and making it default. If Google was forced to promote all browsers which had Google as the default search engines equally I'd bet Firefox, Opera, and Safari would have much larger marketshares.
I haven't used Edge, so I can't say much on that front, but I don't think the current statistics reflect that there isn't an "inherent pull factor to use Chrome". It would not have captured over 60% of the desktop market to the exclusion of other Edge alternatives like Firefox based solely on Edge being shit.
You get how powerful being the default or the assumptive player is, no? People are lazy and take pride in not being "technically saavy" and a lot of them have taken the bait that the big players can aftually be trusted or allow their defaults to stand.
I obviously get how powerful being the default is -- I'm arguing that preventing Google from taking certain actions to establish themselves as the default in the future are insufficient because Google has benefitted so much from their past actions to establish themselves as the default. Google is the default now even just in the minds of consumers, which is a much more powerful position than it was in earlier in its history, and preventing it from paying people to make it the default in the future will not remedy all the things it did in the past to reach where it is today.
Weirdly, I'm ok with FireFox defaulting Google because most people who go out of their way to FF seem to get that part. And it doesn't seem to have a workable business model in place outside of that Google deal. I do hate that someone's gonna fall through the cracks tho :(
I don't particularly mind because it needs to default to something anyway. Realistically I don't think we're likely to break Google up, which imo would be the only thing approaching a real solution.
I hope Google chokes on regulation and dies as much as the next person, but I’m not a fan of the law forcibly A-B testing with a business, no matter how big they get. Regulate the space until there’s genuine competition, I’m all for it, but this isn’t the way to go about it.
Why shouldn't a company be forced to follow a rule that is logically consistent with the legal arguement that they are making in court? Doing A-B testing to verify a legal arguement seems perfectly fair. It's not like I'm proposing A-B testing against companies that aren't already under legal scrutiny.
My proposed ruling has no impact on Google if what they are saying isn't a bald-faced lie.
Maybe make it a settlement offer? You can take your chances with the ruling, or put your money where your mouth is.
As a hypothetical (because I've been binging Suits)... If a company is being targetted by the SEC for insider trading, and their legal defense is 'But we use a proprietary algorithm to make all our trades', then it would (IMO) be perfectly reasonable to force them to disclose that algorithm to an underperforming third party under an NDA and compare earnings after 3 years. Either the algorithm will improve the third party's earnings, and the arguement has merit, or they're lying.
Banning Google from paying to make them a default would likely mean the death of Mozilla. That would further solidify the Chrome/Chromium based browser market share.
While I agree the Mozilla Foundation as-such would probably collapse, I think Firefox itself would continue on in one fashion or another.
I think this is further evidence that Google has too much power.