Google is different than Bing. Google owns the smartphone OS market and the online advertisement market. People use Google technology all the time in Europe. As for Japan, there economy is likely falling due to a population slow down and lack of manufacturing.
Every tech company can be subpeoned by the US gov´t. Anywhere that gives you free email.. the Justice Dept can force any company to hand over emails, tweets, text messages...
In some ways this is true, but it is hard to fault a company for having a monopoly in an area that they created. It is like saying McDonald´s has an unfair monopoly over Big Macs. Google is literally the company that created search based advertising in search results, which is where they earn almost all their money. They never patented it, or even tried to disuade anyone else from using it. In fact, Bing and Yahoo have teamed up for a competing advertising network for the past few years. And some history.. before Google there were about 10 search engines that split market share. But as webmasters became more educated, it became easier and easier to cheat their results, which made search results horrible for users. Google became Google because they found a system ( using PageRank) to give good results for users when they searched for something.
It's alarming for Americans, too. I predict a Bell style corporate breakup, complete with the broken pieces reforming into a new corporation, just as the pieces of Bell did with AT&T. Google has its hand in a lot of pies, but then again much of what it gets into it doesn't yet monopolize. The worrying issue is that Google has the money to buy into a field (such as internet providing) and then pour amounts of money into it to get an incredible edge over the competition who could have little recourse but to join or die. I'm not sure if Google is getting into content providing, but what might get people in America really worried (or happy, depending on your camp) would be an aquisition of a company such as Netflix or Hulu. We need more competition against such companies that provide competition, but such an acquisition could destroy any chance of something being started up from scratch. Youtube was a good example of that. The only other notable video site I can think of that's arisen since would be Vine, but that site has an entirely different target audience and purpose.
The EU can do what they want. the bottom line is when it comes to search engine technology Google for now is the best. So worse case scenario for google, they decide to stop people from EU countries accessing their sites to get rid of the EU regulations. The people of EU will just start using VPNs to access google sites and the EU governments will have even less control over these things. That is pretty much what is happening in China.
Indeed. The more restrictive the laws get, the more people will work to get around them, and it just means governments spend taxpayer money combating something that may not even be a real issue outside of the pocketbooks of politicians and businessmen. The biggest threat Google is, is a threat to businesses that will not innovate and will not expand in ways to meet the growing needs of the market. Google is many things, even a scary giant, but they probably have one of the best outlooks on what the public wants and needs of any tech giant out there.
And why is that CarpeNemo? Because they have access to information, to our information. Everything we google and more goes directly to their databases so they know exactly what we need and start working on how to develop that.
No matter how many laws and rules Google are accused of breaking, the fact that people need to be aware of is that this is a company that is here to stay. It's not just a search engine that we're talking about don't forget, this is a company with a range of devices and businesses up and running. They've managed to integrate with most if the other big companies in the world. If people like it or not doesn't matter, Google will be around for a long time yet.
I'm not going to worry about Google too much. Google's size and reach in Europe will more likely allow it to survive there. Are there any real alternatives for the European market to consider? If it were China we're talking about, then there's a cause for concern. Until then, I'm fine with Google. If you read articles about it with regard to the recently concluded I/O conference, Google is attempting to create a complete ecosystem (much like Apple) - that's good news as it expands its reach within its consumers and potential market base. The other good news? Google will be focusing on developing regions and countries, not Europe. That market diversification will make sure it remains strong going forward.
I don't think EU powers will win their antitrust case charges against Google referring to a violation of the law. See if they can go after the US Tech giants, following the Microsoft prosecution case. Ms. Vestagar, the EU's competition commissioner seems to be bringing about skepticism with unfounded scrutiny to bring down Google. It will just die down. EU's popular bullying isn't going to make it through.
