European Parliament wants Google broken up

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The other thing about breaking up Google is that search is pretty much the only business at Google that makes a profit.

Do you think Google Play is a loss making venture?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Do you think Google Play is a loss making venture?

It is inescapably tied to Android.
Which ain't cheap.
I doubt the Google Play vig is enough to keep android going, which is why I said they would have to try to charge for it. By itself Play obviously generates cash but it is immediately soaked up by the rest of the Android empire.

[HarryT]

Forgive the stupid question, but how does the search engine make money? Do people pay for high product placement?

[paulsalter]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Forgive the stupid question, but how does the search engine make money? Do people pay for high product placement?

A lot is in ads

If you do a search for Amazon, the first 2 results will be for amazon.co.uk

the first result however is an ad directing you to amazon, use this link and google get paid

many people click the top result when searching (just from experience watching them) and this is usually the ad related link

[HarryT]

Thanks for explaining that: I didn't know how it worked.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by paulsalter

A lot is in ads

If you do a search for Amazon, the first 2 results will be for amazon.co.uk

the first result however is an ad directing you to amazon, use this link and google get paid

many people click the top result when searching (just from experience watching them) and this is usually the ad related link

They also make money off banner and sidebar ads placed on other websites based on relevance. (They share revenue with *those* sites, of course.) It all works off the same system: the same algorithms that parse queries and queue up relevant links also queue up relevant ads to all websites subscribed to their ad placement service.

A lot of websites also use Google search to provide site search features. eCommerce sites too but many of those prefer Amazon's A9 because it is more product and retail focus so it does a better job of offering up relevant products.

There isn't much money in search per-se; the money is in serving ads to eyeballs.

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Exactly.
but the Brusselcrats gave up on subtlety ages ago and American companies have been thrir preferred targets fir decades now.

GE, Lockheed, Boeing, Monsanto, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Adobe, and now Google. You're really nobody on the global scale if you're not targeted or vilified in Brussels at one time or another. Sometimes both.

Waah, waah, waah,

give me a break. The US never hesitates to push for its own economic advantage and often enough resorts to outright protectionism. Foreign ownership is not allowed for TV stations and airlines in the US. Financial companies are shaken down by the Treasury for alleged sanction violations.
We shouldn't even talk about the outright nationalism that surfaced when the US Air Force looked like buying Airbus planes as tankers.

With US tech companies being the willing helpers for US espionage and with US courts demanding the handover of emails of foreign users that aren't stored on US servers, any company has to be completely reckless to use US companies for the storage of sensitive data.
If anything, US companies haven't been kicked enough.

Anyway, I wonder what this has to do with ebooks and what a political thread is doing here under "ebook-news"?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They also make money off banner and sidebar ads placed on other websites based on relevance. (They share revenue with *those* sites, of course.) It all works off the same system: the same algorithms that parse queries and queue up relevant links also queue up relevant ads to all websites subscribed to their ad placement service.

A lot of websites also use Google search to provide site search features. eCommerce sites too but many of those prefer Amazon's A9 because it is more product and retail focus so it does a better job of offering up relevant products.

There isn't much money in search per-se; the money is in serving ads to eyeballs.

And I wager the search function programming is set up to give specific answers to a query that make some things more likely to pop up as possibles than others, and those who link with Google somehow are nearer the top of the list of search returns. I mean if I type in say Presidents I might get a varied response but if I type in US Presidents then things are more streamlined.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

And I wager the search function programming is set up to give specific answers to a query that make some things more likely to pop up as possibles than others, and those who link with Google somehow are nearer the top of the list of search returns. I mean if I type in say Presidents I might get a varied response but if I type in US Presidents then things are more streamlined.

Yup.
On a photography web site a search for canon shouldn't get too religious.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Yup.
On a photography web site a search for canon shouldn't get too religious.

No, the camera is just a tool. If you can't with Canon, then not even a Nikon will help.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No, the camera is just a tool. If you can't with Canon, then not even a Nikon will help.

Canon the camera brand is being deliberately conflated with canon the church canon.



Because google usually has to guess which one you want.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Canon the camera brand is being deliberately conflated with canon the church canon.



Because google usually has to guess which one you want.

...and it would be embarrassing if Steve's DigiCams started raising Cain.

[fjtorres]

Today, the US mission offered up their opinion:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-e...ope-1416943414

In an unusual move, the U.S. mission to the EU said Tuesday in an email that it had “noted with concern” the Parliament’s draft resolution. “It is important that the process of identifying competitive harms and potential remedies be based on objective and impartial findings and not be politicized,” the email said.

Legal experts expressed similar concerns, describing the Parliament’s move as highly unusual and warning it risked setting a dangerous precedent. “It is a very bad signal,” said Mario Mariniello, a former antitrust official who now works for Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. “Politicization is now getting to an extreme.”

No kidding?
"Viewing with alarm."

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

Anyway, I wonder what this has to do with ebooks and what a political thread is doing here under "ebook-news"?

Maybe the book part of broken-up Google would change. Maybe it would go back into the eInk reader business. But despite that, I agree this has close to nothing to do with eBooks -- because the effect on eBooks of such a breakup is so unpredictable.

Plus the biggest questions in my mind here are indeed political rather than literary. Does Europe really have the raw power to force the breakup of a big multi-national headquartered elsewhere? I'm not sure, but, probably, yes. Would it be a good idea to tweak the American elephant this way? Probably not.

[murg]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Plus the biggest questions in my mind here are indeed political rather than literary. Does Europe really have the raw power to force the breakup of a big multi-national headquartered elsewhere? I'm not sure, but, probably, yes.

How?

It isn't like google needs to have physical assets in Europe.

Google can just withdraw from operating businesses in Europe. Still provide search from US (or other) based servers. Still accept money from advertisers in Europe. Unless Europe makes doing business with Google illegal. Then that opens up a whole kettle of fish. Unless Europe blocks Google's feed into European's browsers.

These restrictions would probably run afoul of World Trade rules, etc.

Even if Europe takes away google.eu/.fr/.es etc, Google can just continue to use its new TLD .Google (which it can probably arrange even if it doesn't already have it, as the ICANN people will react to the uproar over this blatant censorship).