Analysis Of The Google Antitrust Case

2862 Words6 Pages

Google has become indispensable to people’s interactions online. As a result of its behemoth online presence the online giant faces issues from the European officials pertaining to the breach of privacy that the European Commission threatens. The 400 billion dollar firm is indicted with not just loading links that already publish personal information of people but also process this information and compile it (Whitney, 2014). The company is said to have tussled a four year long investigation with the European regulators concerning how its stores and disseminates data. This essay throws light on the Google antitrust case in parallel to understanding the various mechanisms that work behind the case. The essay closely examines how globalisation …show more content…

Yelp and Trip Advisor launched a joint complaint against Google stating that it began to promote its own products over the others and tried to squeeze them out of the market. Google’s other rivals include Microsoft, travel website Expedia, etc (Robinson and Barker, 2014). The engineers of Google had to design and refine their search results in such a way that the results instead of trafficking and diverting the online users to go to the rival websites would now suggest the rival websites and products as well as its own favourable products. This is only an attempt to protect them against the “US Hegemony” The commission investigated into the Google antitrust case for five years with Google attempting to arrive at agreements, but all the three propositions being rejected. The parliament cannot enforce the commission to act on the judgements but only oblige them to do so. This being the condition, the only radical solution they could come up with was to unbundle the services of the search engine. Unbundling Google’s search engine and commercial services would presumably mean forcing a split in Google’s business between a division that provides the input (the search query results needed to give visibility to business services) and a division that supplies specific products (news, etc)(Mariniello, 2014). It also decided to levy a tax on Google for …show more content…

They fear the US hegemony in the field of technology can make them digital colonies. Major giants like Facebook and Google record and process a lot of personal information. They are used by approximately 90% of the Europeans while 68% of Americans. (Garside, 2014). This is a prime reason why the European parliament is afraid of the “US Hegemony”. Hegemony could b explained as the predominance of one state over the other in spheres like military, technology, political or economic strength (Wikipedia, 2015). The world superpower (USA) is not only the powerful in terms of military but also technologically. It is the birthplace of the Silicon Valley where giants like Facebook and Google are located. These companies do not charge the end users for using their service, but in change ask for their private data. This could b through Facebook profiles or Google maps that know the location of your house. The European parliament fears that these companies may colonise other countries make them their digital colonies. The personal data colossal that these companies have is not just stored but processed too. Thus the fear of this information being used against the world stands valid enough. Thus the privacy laws are proactive in nature but seem to be harsh from Google’s perspective. To understand the physiology of the state as a player that participates in the politics of the state, it can be understood

Open Document