Someone 'splain this ....

[Bro. Curtis]

Google Slapped With $2.7 Billion EU Fine Over Search Results

 

[Squire Robertsson]

You hit the pay wall. It's expanded on further down:

At the heart of the case is what the EU believes is Google’s outsize control over traffic, both to its own and competing comparison-shopping websites. Merchants typically pay a small fee—either to Google or to its competitors—each time a user clicks through a search to the merchant’s site. Type in “gas grill” on google.com, and the first thing that appears is a set of ads—which merchants pay Google for—with links directly to the merchants’ sites.

A user will also see results showing product pages from competing price-comparison websites. The EU says they routinely appear much lower, giving Google an unfair advantage. Google argues users prefer links that shuttle them directly to the site where they can buy the product, instead of going through another search website, like a comparison-shopping website.​

 

[rsr]

The EU has much more restrictive anti-competition rules than the U.S.

Microsoft has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for EU findings that it improperly bundled its media player and browser with the operating system instead of giving customers choices.

 

[Bro. Curtis]

But a capitalist would have no problem with it.

 

[Baptist Believer]

But a capitalist would have no problem with it.

Capitalists DO have issues with it, at least some of them.

 

[Bro. Curtis]

And that's what I need explained. Why shouldn't google be able to direct traffic anywhere they please ?

 

[Bro. Curtis]

And why is Apple not under the same scrutiny for making their ITunes and media players only available on their product ?

 

[Gold Dragon]

And that's what I need explained. Why shouldn't google be able to direct traffic anywhere they please ?

Capitalists generally don't like monopolies that prevent a free market from determining the price of products. What Google is doing is acting like a monopoly.