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> Google has, on multiple occasions, utilised its search engine to prop up or otherwise give an advantage to its own products over that of third parties.

Not in search rankings it hasn't. There is zero, zilch, nada, nothing wrong with google.com showing ads for other google stuff but not 3rd parties, same with the spaces around the search results.

And your "obvious" example is anything but. Google+ does not rank highly, and afaik never has. A search for "Wil Wheaton" turns up lots of results including his twitter and tumblr profile, but his G+ profile (which is fairly active) is no where to be seen on the entire first page.

I posted this on Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5671759&cid=47875989

In fact, thinking about this particular antitrust case, I think a tutorial regarding the layout of Google search result pages might be a good idea as a settlement.

There are plenty of cases where Google puts their product right under your search, then the results. So they are effectively taking the first search rank for themselves. You can call it whatever you want, but putting your item right above the top item is really just making your item the top item. Search "stock yahoo" and the first thing right under your search is a Google Finance summary and a link to Google Finance. Then comes the real first result, which is Yahoo Finance. If Google didn't insert their product right under your search, Yahoo would be the top result and receive an immense traffic boost.

No, Google puts the ANSWER first if it has it, otherwise a list of links that might have the answer.

Google Finance does not rank higher than Yahoo Finance in your example. The stock onebox that appears (which, you'll note, Bing also does) has a list of links to Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, and MSN Money. Bing only links to MSN Money fwiw, so Google is "more fair" than the competition here anyway.

And if you do a search for what's obviously a stock ticker, like AAPL, you'll actually see Google goes "Onebox with answer + links to google finance, yahoo, and MSN money followed by finance.yahoo.com search result", whereas Bing is "MSN money onebox followed by a link to google finance"

So clearly Google Finance's high position is justified regardless, as other search engines put that result first.

Why would google not promote its own services first and foremost? Why would they not use their market dominance to squash competition? That's how capitalism works. To not use their position to further advance their products would be ignorant.

Pretty sure you're trolling, but just in case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

Sure, antitrust laws exist, but you don't handicap yourself before you're even breaking the law. And if you are breaking the law, then it is the justice system's job to stop you and that is who we ought to be upset with.

What law is Google breaking here exactly?

> Why would google not promote its own services first and foremost?

Same reason why it was wrong for Microsoft to put Internet Explorer and later Windows Media Player in Windows: It is anti-competitive for a monopoly to utilise its market position to gain an edge into other market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_compe...

> further advance their products would be ignorant

I think you meant "foolish." The word "Ignorant" doesn't work in that context.

Ignorant:

1) lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated 2) lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about something in particular

More "foolish" or "misguided" in that context.

That's a misunderstanding of the Microsoft situation. The antitrust issue in that case was tying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)

With the notable exception of Google+ (which has now been relaxed), signing up for one google service did not force you into any other google service or product. You can access any google property on IE or other browsers. There is no anti-competitive compulsion in the way that Microsoft forces IE upon windows customers.

Semantics aside, my point is why would you not attempt to gain every bit of leverage that you can. There are no indications here that google is breaking any antitrust laws.

I would think the most obvious example is Chrome. Most of the google related sites I visit are telling me to change to Chrome, if I use translate to translate a text it'll load a small text before anything else "try a browser that translates automatically"

yeah that annoying popup they had whenever you went to the google homepage from firefox.

>While Google doesn't, as far as I know, "fix" search rankings to give themselves an edge

They certainly have done that in the past. Marissa Mayer admitted it in this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT1UFZSbcxE#t=44m50s

>When we rolled out Google Finance, we did put the Google link first. It seems only fair, right? We do all the work for the search page and all these other things, so we do put it first. That’s actually been a policy, then, because of Finance we implemented it in other places. So for Google Maps, again, it’s the first link.

If you start 10 seconds earlier, you'll see that she's not talking about ordering the "search results", but about the extra information added to some searches. Stock quotes, maps, calculator and stuff.

Are you seriously arguing that information shown on the results page after you ask Google to perform a search, in response to the specific search term you use, is not 'search results'? Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess…

It's not search results in the way people normally talk about them; and it certainly has nothing to do with the search rank system.

No she didn't. See, that's the problem with quoting out of context, i.e., what Rupert Murdoch is best at...

Yes but honestly, Google's level of corruption is tolerable. Frankly, it is expected. No organization of Google's size can completely avoid the idea that "what is good for us == good for customers". I'm pretty sure its justified with the idea of "If people are using Google Search, they probably want to use Google Product X related to their search as well."

It is very ironic that News Corp is the one accusing Google of abusing its position. News Corp not only is the poster child for abuse of its position...it has had actively criminal subsidiaries. Its agents have allegedly engaged in illegal activity for 15+ years (some of which they have definitely been caught on). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hackin...

On my site, I promote my stuff. I own it, I'm allowed. So should google. It's not a hard argument, they aren't common carrier.

I'm not sure if Google is "corrupt" or not, but I've been reading Thiel's new book and he makes a strong and simple case for Google being a monopoly (and this maybe being OK).

This just in: would-be monopolist things monopolies are just fine.

If you are wondering why they are a problem, you might read "The Jungle", or any history of the era of the big industrial trusts. Or you could read "When Wizards Stay Up Late", a history of the Internet's invention. AT&T, the communications monopoly at the time, was a big barrier to the development and growth of the Internet. And, from their perspective, rightly so: they made a zillion dollars from charging for voice calls, something everybody now expects to be free.

Playing Devil's advocate, AT&T may have been a barrier to the development of the Internet, but they also owned and funded Bell Labs, whose research (quoting Wikipedia) "are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the charge-coupled device (CCD), information theory, the UNIX operating system, the C programming language, S programming language and the C++ programming language" for which "seven Nobel Prizes have been awarded".

In any case, AT&T was a legal monopoly, not a market player with less than 70% of market share like Google (according to comScore). The lessons are not necessarily directly applicable.

Whoa, first off, I'm responding to the use of "corrupt" instead of the more accurate "Monopoly". Second, while I don't personally agree with Thiel he raises an interesting point about monopolies - primarily that freedom from commodity competition allows them time to innovate (a la Google). His point is that there are three kinds of monopolies (unethical, govt sanctioned, innovative) and that the innovative kind may not be so bad - kind of like a benign dictator.