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Their business apps division is probably a billion dollar business.

Their cloud generates a couple of billions in profit each year.

Besides that, I don't think giving away anything for free justifies any activity. If we're trying to compare to Microsoft, remember that Internet Explorer was free, and modern day Microsoft literally owns Github.

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whoknowsidont 6 days ago | parent [-]

Revenue is not really a consideration when talking about _illegal_ monopolies. That is an incorrect way to view this. It's about anti-competitive practices. That's what the laws are about (and the reason for their existence).

Google is not anti-competitive. At no point am I forced or even "guided" into doing business with Google, at any stage, in any department. There are 8 billion other ad-networks out there, and there are plenty of mail providers to choose from, and plenty of search providers to choose from, and plenty of cloud providers to choose from. If you're on gmail (even business), or Google Cloud, or Adsense, there really isn't much stopping you from switching to something else. There's no real lock-in.

You cannot say the same with Microsoft. A lot of businesses are so dependent on MS's offerings they might as well just be glorified subsidiaries. You don't really have an Excel drop in, or an AD drop in, or a messaging app drop in that comes with all the other services. Google doesn't hand out Cloud credits with the express purpose of roping more of your business infrastructure under one company.

Internet Explorer was not free. You needed Windows. And if you had Windows you HAD IE, regardless of whether you wanted it or not, or even tried to remove it.

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CPLX 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Google is not anti-competitive.

While you're welcome to this opinion you might want to address the fact that Google has recently lost THREE separate trials, each of which individually and separately produced a verdict that they are, in fact, in violation of laws against unfair competition.

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whoknowsidont 6 days ago | parent [-]

You mean the three trials which are definitely not politically motivated, right?

	▲	CPLX 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Considering the cases were prosecuted in collaboration across both the Biden and Trump administrations, and decided by longstanding federal judges, then, no, these are not accurately characterized as politically motivated except insofar as all government actions have a nexus to politics by definition.
	▲	5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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ndiddy 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would highly recommend reading the decision. The two markets defined were publisher ad servers (i.e. Google's DoubleClick for Publishers) and ad exchanges (i.e. Google's AdX). Google behaved anticompetitively in both of these markets.

DoubleClick for Publishers placed restrictions on how publishers could work with non-Google ad exchanges and tilted things in favor of Google's exchange. Third-party exchanges weren't given information about the specific impression before bidding and an advertiser bid submitted on AdX could win even if there was a higher bid submitted on a third-party exchange. DFP also banned publishers from setting higher price floors for AdX than for third-party exchanges, but allowed setting higher price floors for third-party exchanges than for AdX.

In response to Google's unfair ad auctions, publishers eventually started using "header bidding", a technique for getting real-time competitive bidding from multiple ad exchanges. However, Google still controlled the largest ad-buying platform, DV360. DV360 was the top buyer on every third-party ad exchange in addition to AdX. Google modified DV360 to automatically lower bids submitted to third-party ad exchanges such that they were always below an advertiser's maximum budget. When the publisher ad server received the bid, it would use it as the floor price to solicit more bids on AdX. DV360 would then bid the publisher's maximum budget via AdX, taking the win away from the third-party exchange.

The decision also goes into why ad networks are not a substitute for the combination of publisher ad servers and ad exchanges: "Although ad networks are another tool for connecting advertisers to publishers, the sophisticated publishers who receive the majority of open-web display advertising revenue do not view ad networks as substitutes for ad exchanges because ad networks offer very limited control and are unable to place bids from disparate demand sources in competition with each other." The government never claims that Google has monopoly power in the publisher-facing ad network market (i.e. AdSense).

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bdcravens 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Internet Explorer was not free. You needed Windows. And if you had Windows you HAD IE, regardless of whether you wanted it or not, or even tried to remove it.

Can you use Gmail, Google Drive, Chrome sync etc and opt out of allowing Google to use any of your data for advertising services?

	▲	whoknowsidont 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I can in fact, go to a different mail provider, use a different file hosting and sharing service, and use different browsers with different sync technologies. All of that I can do _for free_ with little to no hassle. This was not the case with IE. You are not doing a fair comparison here, and it's bordering on dishonest.