The issue is that Google by being the default search engine could slowly subsume all the profitable markets that run on the internet.
Once they kill off potential competitors then there is no reason to be competitive on price or quality.
Think of it as sort of a net neutrality for the search engine. People here are totally okay with telling Comcast they can't leverage their ISP near-monopoly to win the video streaming market.
Why should we allow Google to leverage their search monopoly into capturing other internet markets.
Except they're not. The default search engine for Firefox is Yahoo, for IE it's Bing. It's just for Chrome and maybe Safari. They are in no way stopping or even hindering you from using other search engines. Your example of Comcast, however? They actually got several local governments to sign contracts saying no one else could run copper to your home. HUGE difference.
> It's been illegal to get an exclusive cable franchise since the early 1990s.
You're conflating issues here. A cable franchise is using the cable in the ground to deliver television and the fees are paid to the local government yearly. These are regulated differently than internet access AND installing new utilities into communities.
> Google probably has more marketshare than Comcast does (even if you only include areas where Comcast operates).
Marketshare isn't comparable here. You're trying to compare an (arguable) utility versus an online service. The entire analogy if flawed; stop trying to force it.
The initial franchise agreement will cover the costs and fees associated with the initial installation of getting the wires in the ground. It's illegal for municipalities to grant any sort of exclusive telecommunication franchise.
I'm not sure what your point is, but nowhere[1] in America is Comcast legally protected from competition. You can build a new cable network, a new fiber network, or even wireless.
[1]maybe some super old franchise agreement that has been in tact since 1992 still exists but I doubt it. They are usually about 10 years.
>Marketshare isn't comparable here. You're trying to compare an (arguable) utility versus an online service. The entire analogy if flawed; stop trying to force it.
I don't see why categorizing the company as a utility really has anything to do with it. If you want to get technical, ISPs haven't been treated as utilities (and despite what journalists say that really isn't what Title II is about).
I don't see why providing internet access and internet search results are so wildly different that a comparison can't be made.
People here are totally okay with telling Comcast they can't leverage their ISP near-monopoly to win the video streaming market.
Why should we allow Google to leverage their search monopoly into capturing other internet markets.
The easy response is that I don't have a choice to switch to someone other than Comcast. Whereas I can pretty trivially switch to use a search engine other than Google.
ISP choices aren't that much more limited than search engine choice. Google and Bing appear to be the only large-scale commercial search engines running. Ask, Yahoo, AOL, etc. are powered by Google or Bing.
But I don't think that really matters. The fact that you can not use a monopoly doesn't really diminish the monopolies power, especially when the monopoly power is used to attack other markets.
Does the existence of linux make it okay for Microsoft to lockdown desktop applications and charge 30%?
I'm really struggling to see understand your stance here. I think ISP choices is a much different situation from search engine choices and consider it pretty ridiculous to compare them in a meaningful way.
Does the existence of linux make it okay for Microsoft to lockdown desktop applications and charge 30%?
Again, I'm not seeing the comparison. Are you saying that any given user switching search engines is comparative in difficulty to switch from one OS to another?
The difficulty of switching is straw man. In Europe, a monopoly just means a product or a company with a near-100% control of the market. It doesn't have anything to do to the presence of competitors, the difficulty of switching, if the product is a commodity or not, and so on. In Europe, Google Search has >90% market share so it's a monopoly, and thus it is subject to regulations in the way they use their product they wouldn't otherwise subject to. The same will happen to Android as they approach 90% market share; Google will be forced to do things that Apple will fully get away with, because being a monopoly makes you subject to additional regulation.
I'm sure you're aware that switching over to Ubuntu is not nearly so simple, so I don't need to explain hardware compatibility, backing up data, cross-platform app availability, etc. If it were really so simple, System76 and Dell's Project Sputnik would not be such big deals.
Google also competes against Yandex and Baidu, to name just two. That Yahoo uses Bing for their back-end doesn't change the fact that they're a legitimate competitor as well. It's possible Yahoo will revive their in-house search technology once their deal with Microsoft expires, too.
And speaking of counterfactuals, we can't just ignore Bing's existence because "Microsoft may tire of it". Any company would hypothetically be a monopoly if all their competitors gave up...
Indeed. In most markets there are at best, two options. And one of them will likely suck. In Chicago, it's Comcast or AT&T. And AT&T's top speed is Comcast's minimum speed, so your choice is made up.
Chicago is a bad example. I had RCN in both the gold coast and streetville and UVerse access depending on building contracts.
But I'll grant you that most areas it's cable v. DSL. But DSL is a lot cheaper and is plenty fast for most users. It isn't a purely fungible product but it close enough. IMO.
Not a lawyer, but is "could" the threshold here? Because Google "could" behave badly, but isn't yet (presumably, or it "could" would not be the word used), it gets punished?
My next startup could be so successful that everyone uses it for everything. Better outlaw me from doing startups!
Once they kill off potential competitors then there is no reason to be competitive on price or quality.
Think of it as sort of a net neutrality for the search engine. People here are totally okay with telling Comcast they can't leverage their ISP near-monopoly to win the video streaming market.
Why should we allow Google to leverage their search monopoly into capturing other internet markets.