The classic idea of a firm monopolizing an industry is that it raises price and reduces output. The classic criticism of the US government’s use of antitrust law is that it goes after companies only on the basis of their size and often makes cases against firms that have been lowering prices. That is they apply antitrust law to help competitors rather than consumers. I don’t think anyone is looking at this case correctly. The real problem is consumers don’t know what they are paying for google’s services. They are paying by giving to google valuable information about their behavior. This occurs when households use gmail, as well as when they do searches. Similarly with other large internet companies such as Facebook. The way to help consumers in this environment is to require these firms to share the revenue with their users.
If a company gains its revenue from advertising fees & charges via a product that is free for users but those advertising costs cause the advertisers to raise the prices of their products, thereby leading to rising prices in multiple market sectors are consumers not then caused financial harm by the company's practices?
I would guess that the advertising is more efficient with google and other search engines because it is targeted to consumers who are likely to be more interested in the product. So I doubt it is resulting in higher prices. If it does you may be correct, I don’t know. What I am suggesting is that if google has a monopoly it is on information valuable to advertisers and it gets this information from providing a combination of free and paid for services. Not only are consumers providing this information free of charge, but they don’t know the value of it because many, if not most don’t realize this is why they don’t charge for searches and the basic level of gmail.
I think we need a whole new regulatory environment to deal with social media and not only private sector abuse but government abuse of the information it aggregates. Personally, I think the government induced censorship is the more serious problem.
I do think that users should not just be forced to use their free services, but paid a fair share of the marketable value of our habits and private information, the tech/information. The industries have come up with the monetary value of all such information that they sell already.
It would go a long way in satisfying me if they would give ME an option for accepting monies or not having their intrusions such as they give would be competitors.
The government seems to not be seeing the angles here. Google is right that defaults don't matter much. They found that out when they dropped default payments to Firefox and people changed to Google anyway. Why then is Google still paying Apple... and not just a small default fee, but tens of billions a year? They are paying them to not start an Apple search engine business. Google is not afraid of Bing, very concerned about a potential Apple search engine. It will be interesting to see how Google argues that A) Defaults don't matter B) We are paying Apple $10b a year... for nothing.
The classic idea of a firm monopolizing an industry is that it raises price and reduces output. The classic criticism of the US government’s use of antitrust law is that it goes after companies only on the basis of their size and often makes cases against firms that have been lowering prices. That is they apply antitrust law to help competitors rather than consumers. I don’t think anyone is looking at this case correctly. The real problem is consumers don’t know what they are paying for google’s services. They are paying by giving to google valuable information about their behavior. This occurs when households use gmail, as well as when they do searches. Similarly with other large internet companies such as Facebook. The way to help consumers in this environment is to require these firms to share the revenue with their users.
If a company gains its revenue from advertising fees & charges via a product that is free for users but those advertising costs cause the advertisers to raise the prices of their products, thereby leading to rising prices in multiple market sectors are consumers not then caused financial harm by the company's practices?
Harm is harm, whether indirect or direct.
I would guess that the advertising is more efficient with google and other search engines because it is targeted to consumers who are likely to be more interested in the product. So I doubt it is resulting in higher prices. If it does you may be correct, I don’t know. What I am suggesting is that if google has a monopoly it is on information valuable to advertisers and it gets this information from providing a combination of free and paid for services. Not only are consumers providing this information free of charge, but they don’t know the value of it because many, if not most don’t realize this is why they don’t charge for searches and the basic level of gmail.
I think we need a whole new regulatory environment to deal with social media and not only private sector abuse but government abuse of the information it aggregates. Personally, I think the government induced censorship is the more serious problem.
I do think that users should not just be forced to use their free services, but paid a fair share of the marketable value of our habits and private information, the tech/information. The industries have come up with the monetary value of all such information that they sell already.
It would go a long way in satisfying me if they would give ME an option for accepting monies or not having their intrusions such as they give would be competitors.
Are you suggesting consumers be paid for using Google? What I'm more concerned about with data collection is that users' privacy is being violated.
It is being violated, I agree but it is the source of their value to advertisers.
The government seems to not be seeing the angles here. Google is right that defaults don't matter much. They found that out when they dropped default payments to Firefox and people changed to Google anyway. Why then is Google still paying Apple... and not just a small default fee, but tens of billions a year? They are paying them to not start an Apple search engine business. Google is not afraid of Bing, very concerned about a potential Apple search engine. It will be interesting to see how Google argues that A) Defaults don't matter B) We are paying Apple $10b a year... for nothing.
Has anything come up yet about the interlock boards of directorships between Apple and Google?
Good work on this!