> Not saying google isn't a monopoly, it classically is
Most people I've seen equate monopoly with "95% of people use", which really isn't a monopoly. As far as I'm aware, dominating a market is not the sole criteria of a monopoly (although I am aware it is a sign of successful one, correlation/causation).
For someone who doesn't follow this kind of thing, can anyone point to concrete examples of "no other company does this" monopoly or "actively stifling competition" anti-trust practices taken by google without just scoffing and saying its obvious?
It's a monopoly (or monopsony) if it's prohibitively difficult to function in the market if you refuse to do business with them (or, more commonly unless a regulator is currently assessing monopoly status, they refuse to do business with you).
For example, Google doesn't have a monopoly on search; I can use DuckDuckGo just fine (although patent trolling complicates this a bit). Google does, however, have a monopoly on search traffic; if Google delists your site, it has effectively disappeared from 90+% of peoples' (mis-)conception of the internet[1]. A government the purports to support a free market must[0] regulate the latter case.
0: in the sense that not doing so directly communicates that they do not in fact support a free market
1: and this could be true to a lesser degree even if it had only, say, 45% market share
Edit: there might also be regulations that should apply to de-facto infrastructure like search engines regardless of monopoly status, but those are, by specification, not based on monopoly status.
> Google does, however, have a monopoly on search traffic; if Google delists your site, it has effectively disappeared from 90+% of peoples' (mis-)conception of the internet[1]. A government the purports to support a free market must[0] regulate the latter case.
As much people talk about Google's monopoly, I've not seen anyone bring up this point, which is what I was talking about in my previous comment. And I would absolutely agree with you that this could represent an issue of abuse of your position in the market. Would the next step be to prove this abuse occurs? For instance, if I google "maps" I'll get google's maps first, for sure. But I'll also get apple's maps, bing's maps, open map, and mapquest on the first page.
Most people I've seen equate monopoly with "95% of people use", which really isn't a monopoly. As far as I'm aware, dominating a market is not the sole criteria of a monopoly (although I am aware it is a sign of successful one, correlation/causation).
For someone who doesn't follow this kind of thing, can anyone point to concrete examples of "no other company does this" monopoly or "actively stifling competition" anti-trust practices taken by google without just scoffing and saying its obvious?
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