Tag: monopolies

Google “fiddled its figures” – official

Posted on March 20, 2015 by - News

330ogleThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) considered taking Google to the cleaners in 2012 for abusing its monopoly position but in the end decided against the move.

That’s according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which said the five FTC commissioners decided not to pursue their findings.

FTC investigators discovered proof that Google abused its monopolistic position and used techniques that harmed competitors such as TripAdvisor.

The reason the FTC did not pursue the case was because it was going to be hard for the poor dears to prove its case. They also felt that Google was “popular”.

Google has a different angle on the findings claiming there was no need for the FTC to take action because it isn’t evil.

The European Commission (EC) doesn’t appear to be shying away from investigating Google, despite a series of high profile spinning events Google organised towards the end of last year.

The FTC discovered that Google interweaved its own products into search results, skewing objective results.

 

Russia takes aim at Google

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

330ogleGoogle is under attack again by government agencies, but this time its Russia that’s being accused of anti-monopolistic practices.

Search site Yandev asked the anti-competition watchdog to investigate claims whether it was taking advantage of Google’s Android operating system and shutting out competing apps.

Google is denying it behaves in a monopolistic manner and according to Reuters said people have complete control over apps on devices.

The same wire says that the European Commission is also pursuing Google to answer questions about whether its dominance in the mobile operating systems marketplace precludes competition.

And that’s not the end of it – the USA is also putting Google under the magnifying glass, even though Google said it will keep Android as an open system.

Google tells News Corp to get lost

Posted on September 25, 2014 by - News

OgleA senior VP at Google has released a detailed rebuttal to an attack on its business practices by Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.

In her Dear Rupert letter, Rachel Whetstone said that Google is on the side of publishers “which used to be controlled by a relatively small number of media organisations”. Ouch.

Google, she said, also invests in training journalists in its Google for Media programme.

She claimed  that far for being a platform for piracy, as Murdoch alleged, Google had done more than practically anyone else to tackle online piracy, by removing 222 million web pages from Google Search due to copyright infringement last year.

She said Google is not the gatekeeper to the web, and has plenty of competition from other companies including Amazon, Kayak, Expedia and Yelp.

She revealed that Google changed its search algorithms 500 times a year. She defended the Android operating system.

She denied that Google is commoditising the ability of specialist publishers to generate advertising revenue.

She rebutted News Corp’s claim that “the shining vision of Google’s founders has been replaced by a cynical management”.

She has a lot more to say too.

Intel accused of gouging customers

Posted on May 6, 2014 by - News

Intel-logoAn American newspaper claimed that Intel is taking advantage of its near monopolistic position by hiking microprocessor prices for servers.

The Wall Street Journal said over the bank holiday weekend that ASPs for Intel server chips soared.

Intel told the Journal that customers wanted higher end CPUs for server systems. But the Journal points out that now Intel microprocessors represent 97 percent  of the server market.

AMD used to be a contender but it isn’t any more, and only has a teeny weeny three percent of the market, according to US outfit Mercury Research.

Intel’s pricing isn’t competitive any more and it needs someone to kick its butt, said the Journal, quoting a manager from Tyan, a Taiwanese server motherboard company.

Intel had no comment to make at press time. Our sister pub, TechEye, said this morning that AMD is planning some kind of response.