Antitrust

Sometimes something is so off-base that a straight analysis is wholly insufficient and warrants satire.

Google's 60-page proposed remedy document -- or "Commitments to address the EU's antitrust concerns of search bias -- warrants satire and ridicule. 

Google’s proposed search bias remedy is no remedy. It would be worse than the status quo.

If accepted by the EU, it would legitimize and entrench Google’s 90+% dominance of search and search advertising in Europe, and make it much harder for any semblance of competition to ever take root.  

Google’s proposed search bias remedies are so preposterous one has to use metaphors, imagery and analogies to understand what is really going on and what Google is really proposing.

The EU blinked. It's obvious the EU does not want a high-profile political confrontation with Google over a search monopoly abuse enforcement action.

Last May, when the Competition authorities announced they had a preliminary Statement of Objections for four monopoly abuses against Google, the EU competition authority trumpeted their preference for a settlement over enforcement action in this case, i.e. ruling Google a search monopoly guilty of monopoly abuse that warranted a material fine. In extending their public deadlines for Google three times, and then tentatively accepting the immaterial search concessions Google proposed, it is obvious the EU bent over backwards to avoid politically confronting Google. 

Look at the evidence to judge for yourself if Google bamboozled the EU Competition authorities.

Simply, compare the long list of major EU concessions to Google to the short-list of minor Google concessions to the EU – made in the EU-Google settlement negotiations to resolve the investigated problem of Google’s anti-competitive search bias.

The evidence shows Google dominated these negotiations. Given that most everyone would agree that the sovereign European Union is vastly more powerful than corporate Google, and given that the EU’s competition law and enforcement process is well-known to be very tough, a logical conclusion from the upside-down outcome of these negotiations is that Google successfully bamboozled the EU competition authorities. 

I.    Background

Please see my latest Daily Caller op-ed: "DOJ Joins FCC in Picking Wireless Winners & Losers" -- here.

• It is Part 7 of my Government Spectrum Waste, Fraud & Abuse Research Series. 

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Government Spectrum Waste Fraud and Abuse Research Series

Part 1: U.S. Government's Obsolete and Wasteful Spectrum Hoarding and Rationing

In advance of the Senate Antitrust oversight hearing for the DOJ and FTC Tuesday, please see my Daily Caller op-ed "DOJ & FTC Antitrust Report Cards" -- here -- to learn two of the big oversight questions for the hearing.

This is Part 20 in the Google Unaccountability Research Series.

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Google Unaccountability Research Series:

Part 0: Google's Poor and Defiant Settlement Record

Part 1: Why Google Thinks It Is Above the Law

Part 2: Top Ten Untrue Google Stories

Part 3: Google's Growing Record of Obstruction of Justice

See the abbreviation list below for the translations of the SMS text abbreviations used by EU Competition Chief Joaquin Almunia and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt in negotiating the EU-Google antitrust agreement via texting -- per reporting by the New York Times.

BFFN = Best friend for now

BFLOW = But FTC looked the other way

CIINST = Call it innovation not special treatment

CITY = Can I trust you

EPPAA = EU privacy people are angry

EPPFLYAIT = EU privacy people feel like you are ignoring them

EPPDGTJ = EU privacy people don’t get the joke

EAG = EU admits guilt

GANG = Google admits no guilt

GDFTCST = Google demands FTC special treatment

IHNLMN = I have not lost my nerve

IMFEG = Investigation must fully exonerate Google

Ironically six of the original European colonial powers of yesteryear, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, have aligned  to resist the new virtual-colonial-power -- Google’s hegemony over online private data.

These six leading EU members, which comprise 75% of the EU economy, have jointly launched national investigations of Google’s privacy actions. That’s because Google has paternalistically rebuffed and ignored the EU belief that Google’s 2012 unification of its sixty privacy policies is a serious violation of European data protection law, because it does not allow any meaningful use transparency or user choice to opt-out of Google’s private data collection.

“Google and the World Brain” -- Presented by Polar Star Films; Directed by Ben Lewis; An Official Selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. See the movie's website here, and facebook page here. To view the two minute trailer – click here.

Review: Four stars out of four. 

In telling the important untold story of Google’s Herculean and controversial efforts to digitize all the world’s books, Director Ben Lewis’ genius insight was unearthing the fascinating “why?” behind it all – which is Google CEO Larry Page’s deep passion for Artificial Intelligence or “AI.”

Google’s many innovations are well known. What has not been appreciated until the debut of this outstanding documentary film is how Google’s frenetic innovation machine fits together. Ben Lewis effectively offers us a new organizing principle to understand why Google alone has a mission to organize the world’s information – Larry Page’s quest to create an Artificial Intelligence.

Please see the full pictorial analysis in “Googleopoly X: Google’s Dominance is Spreading at an Accelerating Rate" – here.”

• (See Googleopoly I–IX at www.Googleopoly.net.)

The conclusions and recommendations for antitrust authorities are reprinted below.

• Note: Given the old adage is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, please don’t miss the Googleopoly pictorial charts that: make this complex subject much simpler and more accessible; tell this important story more interestingly and clearly, and enable the reader to better understand the critically important big picture dynamics addressed in this analysis.

A. Conclusions:

Google’s recent public actions appear to be a tacit admission that its antitrust risks in the EU are more serious than it has acknowledged publicly.

• First, Google’s recent newspaper settlements -- with the Belgian and the French media -- signal that Google appreciates it is now considered by the EU to be a de facto essential facility for consumer information access.
• Second, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s sudden, rapid acceleration of his selling of his personal Google stock holdings trumpet his apparent insider pessimism about Google’s growing antitrust, property-infringement, privacy and tax liabilities.     

Google’s Content Settlements