EU waves antitrust claims in Google's face, snarls 'You want some?' EU antitrust regulators have accused Google of preventing rivals from competing in online advertising and search, deepening its existing probe into anti-competition allegations against the ad-flinger. The antitrust charges are the latest effort to clamp down on the advertising biz, following existing investigations claiming …
Back when I was a PFY I occasionally clicked on a comparison site by accident. They were so irritating that I took the trouble to learn their names so I could scroll past them to the sites that actually sold things. There were articles on the internet like price comparison that only covered the shops in the mall where the comparison booth was located with no warning that the rest of the world was excluded from the results. There were rumours that it was really expensive to be listed as the cheapest insurer on a comparison site, and some insurers advertised that they were not listed on such sites.
It is quite possible that Google noticed my aversion to comparison sites and does not include them in my results. It is very likely that I was not the only one ignoring such sites, and their page rankings fell for everyone else's results too. Over a decade has passed. I do not see comparison sites in search results and out of habbit I would not click on one if I recognised it. After all this time have comparison sites cleaned up their act to the point where the cheapest seller on the list will actually deliver, does not have hidden extra charges and is actually provides the same product cheaper than I am likely to find elsewhere if I spend an hour or two checking individual retailers?
Comparison sites are the modern digital equivalent of plague pits.
Can I please have something powerful enough to banish them for ever? I have never found anyone on a comparison site who was even stocking things that are remotely related to what I was seeking.
Yes, they are utter dren.
I recently renewed my car insurance by the good ol' fashioned way of ringing companies up and haranging them. Final cost, £209 with the Coop.
I just this minute ran through "CompareTheMarket.com", with the exact same details as I have on my policy. The result: cheapest was Esure at [gulp] £291 (nearly 50% more! 'Ow much!?!?)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Coop was nowhere to be seen in the list.
Is it really to protect fair competition or to try and cash in another multi-million Euro worth fine? I think it's the latter to be honest, because although I tend to agree that Google is quite intrusive and a bit oppressive it's also fair to say that this has been going on for years now.
So why the sudden interest and fine threats? Could it have anything to do with the Brexit and the recent news about Italian banks which need a massive financial boost from Europe in order to survive?
If only there was a way to choose what websites you want to visit, I don't know like a universal resource locator bar, you know a text field at the top of the browser, I could type something like www.anothersearchenginewithacatchyname.com and not use google.
Aaaah a man can dream...
But in case I can not, the t**ts in Brussels will look for us and purge evil google from the interwebs.
A sure way to get transported to a nut house in the early 90's was to predict that within 15 years, there would be a company worth billions and billions by just giving away everything for free to end users. A company driving innovation all over the board, uprooting the whole " you have to pay before you get anything " principle. The latter way of doing business basically kills off innovation, since it keeps companies in a cage together with its cash cow which is always so easy to milk.
Companies like Microsoft found out too late, and are struggling to stay relevant in a world which does not pay them $100,- anymore in order to have internet access. Google made that happen.
And now maybe Google has a de-facto monopoly, but not because we have to, but because we want to. This whole case against google seems like a battle of companies against end-users. End users love google, companies want to cut down spending on ads, and started lobbying in the EU, probably with support of MS, which thinks litigation is a good alternative for innovation and products that end users actually like to use.
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