Anti-competitive behaviour doesn't need to mean other companies can't compete. It just means it makes it harder to compete, which this does. Having access to this data improves Google Meet, and evidently gives enough advantage to justify adding it to the browser. Other products don't have access to these APIs, so can't improve their products in the same way. Google has used their browser monopoly to give their other products an unfair advantage. That is anti-competitive behaviour, and is illegal.
"All they're doing is making their product better."
"Making your product better by privileging your own domains in the browser is the anti-competitive part."
"Come on, it's not like it's making their product better."
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This really isn't complicated. Is this making Google Meet better? I would quote:
> danielmarkbruce: "They are just trying to make their products better."
Okay. So then Google Meet would be a worse product if they didn't have privileged API access over other apps. So... this does make it harder for those other apps to compete, unless you think that the quality of a product is somehow irrelevant for competition.
Sure, Google Meet still isn't winning, but who knows where they'd be in the market if they didn't privilege themselves.
You're saying that their product would be worse if they didn't do this, but also that it somehow doesn't matter because they're not the best product. Which has a similar energy to me cutting a loop out of a marathon and saying, "Come on guys, I only came in third. It's not cheating unless I come in first, everybody knows that. As long as I don't come in first I'm allowed to take shortcuts. Give me my third place medal that I definitely earned fairly, why is everybody mad about this?"
> The point of products is to provide value to customers.
This is idealistic, the point of a product is to provide value to the company.
And competition is not a by-product that exists by accident, it is the mechanism through which we get companies who are building things for their benefit to incidentally provide benefits to consumers.
Products are competitions. From a business point of view, the point is to win. From a social point of view, yes, obviously we want products to provide value to consumers. But don't make the mistake of assuming that Google (or any other company) has the same goals as society. Every business wants to be a monopoly.
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> Misleading analogies don't illuminate.
Now, you may not like the analogy, but the general point here is exactly the same regardless of what analogy you use. I'll repeat:
> This really isn't complicated. Is this making Google Meet better? I would quote:
> > danielmarkbruce: "They are just trying to make their products better."
> Okay. So then Google Meet would be a worse product if they didn't have privileged API access over other apps. So... this does make it harder for those other apps to compete, unless you think that the quality of a product is somehow irrelevant for competition.
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You can not in one breath argue that this is good because it made Google Meet better, and in the next breath argue that it's fine because it didn't impact the market. Those two ideas contradict each other.
And the fact that Google is so inept at product design that it can't capture the entire market even when it unfairly advantages itself does not mean that it is not unfairly advantaging itself or that it isn't causing harm. The Internet as a platform is better for both consumers and businesses when it is a common platform, not one that privileges specific companies. The Internet (and the market overall) is harmed by breaches of market rules regardless of the final outcomes, because each breach emboldens companies to attempt even more lawless stunts and destroys trust in the market.
I mean, seriously, call it whatever analogy you want, it's still awfully silly to argue that Google cheating to give itself a leg up over competitors is fine... because even with the advantage Google still couldn't build a good enough conferencing app to capture the entire market. That does not let them off the hook for cheating.
"It doesn't matter what the market effect was, only that Google engineers meant well" is certainly an argument, but it both contradicts the question you originally asked (are customers better off), and also (to be blunt) is a really heckin bad argument.
I'm just kind of blown away by the rapid shift from "this helped consumers", to "actually, no, the effect was minimal", to "actually, it doesn't matter if anybody was harmed, the result is immaterial." :)
"Google should not use a near-monopoly position in the browser to privilege it's own sites and services" is a very simple standard, and this really is not a complex case.
It only becomes complicated if you start trying to rephrase a simple principle as: "Google shouldn't privilege their sites unless they mean well, and then the result is immaterial, but no wait actually I didn't mean immaterial, I meant minimal, and anyway it's not like Zoom isn't still popular so-"
Or... Google could also just not ship invisible extensions as part of Chromium's build process that privilege Google-owned services with extra API access in direct contradiction to the principles of an independent Internet. Because the effect of casually breaking that contract isn't minimal. It does actually matter that the web be a neutral platform. If businesses expect that Google can get away with privileging Google platforms in the core browser, that perception and allowance of interference degrades the entire Internet as a commercial platform - and of course emboldens Google to go even further in the future.
I... what? Today I learned that the Federal Trade Commission is a figment of my imagination.
I'm sorry, your argument has devolved to the point where you're now saying that Chrome privileging Google sites isn't anticompetitive behavior because antitrust isn't a natural law? I can't believe I have to say this, but that's not the standard that the FTC or courts use.
Google is literally being sued right now for, in part, using browsers (both its own and others through browser deals) to privilege it's own services. No, the FTC was not created for the purpose of the Internet, but that is not a thing that anyone said, and I very genuinely believe that you are smart enough to understand that I was talking about the provably false claim that a neutral Internet that doesn't exist to privilege Google is some fantasy that only tech nerds have rather than a repeated principle in multiple current antitrust efforts by multiple governments around the world, including the US.
That being said:
> You keep moving the goal posts.
You're right, and I apologize. We weren't discussing whether or not antitrust was a natural right. That's off-topic, and that's on me. We started this out discussing, in your words:
> Anti competitive behavior is generally perceived to be about doing things that put the company in question in a better position without improving the product.
Which I hope at this point we've established is just straight-up wong, that's just not an accurate evaluation of antitrust. Then of course you went on to say there was no effect, and that if there was an effect it didn't matter because "result = immaterial" (which is also absurd, even the most conservative, limited perspective on antitrust in the government does not say that the results of a company action aren't relevant to antitrust). And then you went on to imply that having a neutral platform on the web isn't something anyone should expect anyway, which... yeah, okay, absurdities aside you're correct that now we're starting to get off topic.
The on-topic response to this as far as I can tell is: I don't think you understand what antitrust is, how it works, or why we have it, and everything you're saying here is absurd.
But it's very easy to get caught up in minute rhetorical debates: part of what's been wild about this conversation has been watching you make even more indefensible claims that you never had to make, just to avoid the appearance of one contradiction. And it's worth resisting that impulse, taking a step back from this and looking at the original questions: was anyone harmed? Is this anticompetitive behavior?
You say no, but you also say that no one should have any expectation of an Internet that exists independently of a single company's monopoly hold over its standards and APIs. So you're not really in a position to know if anyone was harmed because where competition on the Internet is concerned, you appear to reject an entire category of commonly understood harm.
So just taking a step back and looking at these ideas: are people overreacting over Google? Does this cause harm? Was the purpose of this to make people's lives better, or was it to privilege Google's services over competitors? If you believe absurd things about antitrust, competition, corporate intentions, and the Internet itself -- it doesn't really mean much when you say that Google's intentions are good and everyone is over-concerned.
If you tell people not to be concerned about the loss of a neutral, independent Internet, and it turns out you don't believe in a neutral, independent Internet, then... surprise, people aren't going to listen to you.
Materiality matters, in practice. This is a tiny thing.
The result of the action matters, in practice. Meet is an also ran.
The intent/motivation matters, in practice. They were trying to do the right thing, improve their product.
Using a dominant positing in one market to promote/dominate in another market via distribution is where regulators tend to push cases. And, people tend to (rightly, mostly) get upset. Improving the product via another product? Find me a list of cases.
Have you considered some people actually deal with anti trust on a day to day?
On whether platform APIs (like those in a web-browser) can be anti-competitive:
> Apple has used one or both mechanisms (control of app distribution or control of APIs) to suppress the following technologies...
[...]
On the need for neutral API access as a tool to increase competition:
> Messaging apps that work equally well across all smartphones can
improve competition among smartphones [...]. Apple makes
third-party messaging apps on the iPhone worse generally and relative to Apple
Messages, Apple’s own messaging app, by prohibiting third-party apps from sending
or receiving carrier-based messages...
[...]
On the suppression of APIs for third-party services:
> By suppressing key functions of third-party smartwatches —including the ability to respond to notifications and messages and to maintain consistent
connections with the iPhone—Apple has denied users access to high performing
smartwatches with preferred styling, better user interfaces and services, or better
batteries, and it has harmed smartwatch developers by decreasing their ability to
innovate and sell products.
[...]
On the use of privacy as an excuse restrict 3rd-party APIs that are not restricted for 1st-party services:
> In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple’s financial and business interests.
[...]
If you need it stated even more clearly:
> Apple selectively designates APIs as public or private to benefit Apple, limiting the
functionality developers can offer to iPhone users even when the same functionality is available
in Apple’s own apps, or even select third-party apps.
This is directly analogous to what Google is doing here. Shipping a by-default extension which takes advantage of a distribution channel (Chrome's list of default extensions) that is not available to 3rd-party developers. That extension grants Google access to a private API that benefits Google while limiting the functionality that third party sites can offer their users, and I quote: "even when the same functionality is available in [Google]'s own apps."
You do not know what you are talking about.
> Have you considered some people actually deal with anti trust on a day to day?
You're saying it's not a big deal while also saying it improves the product. The debug panel is apparent, but we don't know what else the API's data is used for. Maybe Meet uses it to improve performance too.
The goal or motivation is irrelevant; what they actually did and its potential effects are what matters.
I'm not sure why you seem to be having so much trouble with this concept. Google's majority-market-share browser gave their browser-based videoconferencing product a privilege and advantage that other browser-based videoconferencing products did not get.
That's it. You don't need to dig into their motivations or their intentions. It doesn't matter if it even "worked" or not; it is completely immaterial that Google is so incompetent that it can't even win when it has given itself the tools to play dirty.
Motivation is a basic concept in the legal world which goes a long way to deciding criminal cases, has an impact on civil cases and will certainly influence whether the DOJ brings a case and what the result is. It's also a basic concept used by humans.
Saying it is irrelevant shows a complete lack of understanding of the legal and regulatory environment in which businesses operate.
If so, the API has to be available to competitors. Maybe this is why Meet is in-browser while all the other ones work better in apps. Despite this, Meet still hasn't won because it's just not very good.
