Shares of Google parent Alphabet are in the red on Wednesday morning as European Union antitrust regulators unveiled a record €4.3 billion ($5 billion) fine against the tech giant for allegedly anti-competitive practices related to Google's Android operating system. The wide-ranging probes into Alphabet have been a primary focus of Margrethe Vestager, the bloc's famously aggressive competition commissioner, since she was first appointed to the role in 2014.
Wednesday's fine follows a then-record 2.4 billion euro ($2.8 billion) levied by Vestager last year over allegations that Google's search feature unfairly benefited its comparative-shopping service.
Of course, the size of the latest fine is certainly notable, and begs the question: Is the bloc using these fines to retaliate against the US tech industry and President Trump for his refusal to grant a permanent exemption to the EU from the US's tariffs on aluminum and steel imports? Like China, which is also employing similar "stealth" retaliatory measures, the bloc also has a massive trade surplus of roughly $150 billion with the US.
Others have speculated that the hefty fines and intense scrutiny are a result of resentments in the EU over the global dominance of the US tech industry. Bloomberg broke the story, and also pointed out that the expected fine is roughly equivalent to the annual contribution to the EU's budget made by the Netherlands.
The decision will bring the running total of fines levied against Alphabet to €6.7 billion, and could soon be followed by fines related to Google's online advertising contracts - the last of the three anti-trust probes against the company.
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Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
March 14, 2018
Bitcoin Sinks As Google Moves To Ban All Crypto, ICO Ads In June
Mimiccing its biggest rival for ad dollars - Facebook - Google will ban online advertisements promoting cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings, and "other speculative financial instruments" starting in June.
Some aggressive businesses found a loophole: purposely misspelling words like "bitcoin" in their ads. A Google spokeswoman said the company’s policies will try to anticipate workarounds like this.
The reaction was immediate across the crypto space but for now is somewhat subdued...
Alphabet’s Google said the new policy will become effective in June across ads bought on its search and display-advertising network, as well as its YouTube unit.
But, as The Wall Street Journal reports, the policy also will restrict ads for nontraditional methods of wagering on the future movements of stock prices and foreign-exchange, such as binary options and financial spread-betting, Google said.
Google said last year it removed more than 130 million ads that were used by hackers to mine for cryptocurrency. That is a very small percentage of the ads run on Google’s ad network.
The company’s director of sustainable ads, Scott Spencer, declined to comment on how much potential ad revenue the company would be turning away by enacting the new policy, saying the decision was made to prevent consumer harm.
Read the entire article
Some aggressive businesses found a loophole: purposely misspelling words like "bitcoin" in their ads. A Google spokeswoman said the company’s policies will try to anticipate workarounds like this.
The reaction was immediate across the crypto space but for now is somewhat subdued...
Alphabet’s Google said the new policy will become effective in June across ads bought on its search and display-advertising network, as well as its YouTube unit.
But, as The Wall Street Journal reports, the policy also will restrict ads for nontraditional methods of wagering on the future movements of stock prices and foreign-exchange, such as binary options and financial spread-betting, Google said.
Google said last year it removed more than 130 million ads that were used by hackers to mine for cryptocurrency. That is a very small percentage of the ads run on Google’s ad network.
The company’s director of sustainable ads, Scott Spencer, declined to comment on how much potential ad revenue the company would be turning away by enacting the new policy, saying the decision was made to prevent consumer harm.
Read the entire article
June 19, 2017
With New Patent, Amazon Will Collect As Much Customer Data As Google
A day after Amazon announced it would jump head-long into the bricks-and-mortar grocery business by agreeing to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.4 billion, reports from earlier this week about a new patent issued to the company are starting to make more sense. The patent, which was first reported by the Verge, is for wireless technology that can effectively block customers in Whole Food’s retail locations from “showrooming." "Showrooming" is the practice of using retail locations to test out products before buying them online - a practice that Amazon, by making it easy to comparison shop on a smartphone, helped pioneer.
In its report, the Verge focuses on how the technology will help the company solve a problem that Amazon itself helped create – a problem that has plagued virtually every other traditional retailer.
"Systems and methods for controlling online shopping within a physical store or retailer location are provided. A wireless network connection may be provided to a consumer device at a retailer location on behalf of a retailer, and content requested by the consumer device via the wireless network connection may be identified. Based upon an evaluation of the identified content, a determination may be made that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with a competitor of the retailer or an item offered for sale by the retailer. At least one control action may then be directed based upon the determination.”
But the technology described in the patent also raises serious concerns about the company’s plans for vastly expanding its capacity to collect and store customers' data. As MarketWatch’s Theresa Poletti reports, with this added capability, Amazon may soon be gathering as much data on its consumers now as Alphabet’s Google Inc.
Read the entire article
In its report, the Verge focuses on how the technology will help the company solve a problem that Amazon itself helped create – a problem that has plagued virtually every other traditional retailer.
"Systems and methods for controlling online shopping within a physical store or retailer location are provided. A wireless network connection may be provided to a consumer device at a retailer location on behalf of a retailer, and content requested by the consumer device via the wireless network connection may be identified. Based upon an evaluation of the identified content, a determination may be made that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with a competitor of the retailer or an item offered for sale by the retailer. At least one control action may then be directed based upon the determination.”
But the technology described in the patent also raises serious concerns about the company’s plans for vastly expanding its capacity to collect and store customers' data. As MarketWatch’s Theresa Poletti reports, with this added capability, Amazon may soon be gathering as much data on its consumers now as Alphabet’s Google Inc.
Read the entire article
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