Privacy

32165 readers

133 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

863

Google illegally maintains monopoly over internet search, judge rules (apnews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by gytrash@feddit.uk to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

108 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies..."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 105 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is based on older evidence but the exclusive deal Google just signed with reddit makes it pretty clear the monopoly is planned and ongoing.

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 30 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The funny thing is that this probably screws Reddit more than anyone. Obviously fuck 'em but funny either way.

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It depends on the conditions of the agreement and how much they are being paid. Google's worldwide market share is above 91% so reddit isn't actually losing out on much site traffic by going exclusive.

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sure, but if the argument is that Google is paying to be a monopoly then they're going to have to stop payment.

Google allegedly paid $60 million for access to Reddit for AI purposes. Reddit then disallowed access to all other providers, unless they can promise they won't use the data for AI purposes.

Technically Reddit is the one disallowing access, but if the argument is that Google is paying for special access I don't see why I wouldn't extend to AI.

Reddit now needs to either argue their data is some special intellectual property worth $60 million or is at a price point more accessible and it sure as shit won't be $60 million.

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Reddit then disallowed access to all other providers, unless they can promise they won’t use the data for AI purposes.

That's what they said publicly, but even search providers like Mojeek that have no AI capabilities appear to require some sort of "commercial agreement" to allow reddit scraping moving forward. It seems to me that Google was attempting to further distance itself from the competition with the agreement and that reddit went along with it because, in some way, it makes financial sense for reddit too.

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

That's what I find so interesting about this result.

For example Apple is paid ~$20 billion, or arguably charges that amount, to be the default search engine. That's REAL money when compared to the Reddit deal.