Google Shutting Out Rivals, Claims Russian Search Engine Yandex 170
suraj.sun writes "Ilya Segalovich, co-founder of Russia's leading search engine, Yandex, has accused Google of abusing its dominance to shut out competitors in cyberspace. Responding to comments made to the Guardian by Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder, about threats to the open internet, Ilya Segalovich described the U.S. search giant's popular smartphone platform, Android, as a 'strange combination of openness and not openness,' and its Chrome web browser as anti-competitive. Segalovich said that Brin should explain Google's 'semi-open' approach to search competitors before accusing others of endangering the unfettered internet, and suggested Google was guilty of foul play with its Chrome browser, which picks the company's own search engine as default for users, rather than offering a choice between rivals including Yahoo, Bing and Yandex."
Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me (Score:5, Informative)
That's odd. On my machine I can open Chrome, go to Settings|Basics|Search and select from several search engines including Bing and Chrome will honor my selection. If the one you like isn't listed, you can add it yourself. Sure it starts out set to Google by default, it kind of has to be set to something, but that's hardly "shutting out the competition".
Re: (Score:2)
Yea sounds like recent claims by some other smaller browser makers made against IE.
MS had to add a selection of browser in their EU release of Windows I think, and they included the bigger named ones; IE, Chrome, FF, Safari, Opera, etc... But then a buncha smaller ones got made because they were also not included.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea sounds like recent claims by some other smaller browser makers made against IE.
Here's where you seem confused. They made claims against Microsoft, not IE. Microsoft has dominance in the desktop OS market and used that to promote IE instead of letting it live or die based upon it's own merits in a competitive marketplace. Google may be guilty of similar leveraging of their dominance in online search and search related advertisement, but not in bundling things into their browser (which has relatively small market share). Google can bundle anything they want with Chrome. It's when they b
Re: (Score:1)
Chrome is getting to a stage where its share of the market could be regarded as significant.
Re: (Score:1)
Uh yeah, if by that you mean `it's the most popular browser`, which it apparently is from time to time (ie people are paid to use IE but opt to use Chrome in their spare time because it's shit-loads better).
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome is getting to a stage where its share of the market could be regarded as significant.
Not in terms of either the economics or legality of antitrust action. Chrome is hovering around 25%. It isn't even the front runner, let alone dominating the market to the extent that it could be used to undermine competition. 70% is a guideline often used by regulators for when to start investigating potential antitrust issues.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now if Windows had disallowed or otherwise hindered users from installing another browser, THAT would be a different matter altogether!
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I could never understand why Microsoft got into trouble with IE.
Read an economics textbook. Antitrust and bundling are pretty common terms. Anything written in the last century should cover it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's about not understanding antitrust laws. It's about me not accepting the definition of antitrust in this particular case. Every side has more than one way of looking at it after all.
The idea that there are two, equally valid sides to anything is one of most idiotic inventions of modern entertainment news. Antitrust has a meaning and a distinct purpose. The economics are clear and well demonstrated. The laws are clear in their restrictions and follow logically from the economics. The application of the law to Microsoft's actions is clear. Your acceptance is not needed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If it was so scientific, there wouldn't be a long drawn out court case with many reversals and appeals. Instead, we should all settle antitrust disputes using a simple computer program right?
The lengthy nature of MS's prosecution had something to do with money, money donated to politicians who replaced the judges on the case with those those beholden to them. Money has always undermined the US legal system to a significant extent and there is a huge body of scientific evidence for that as well if you actually care to be informed.
Every side has more than one way of looking at it after all.
The idea that there are two, equally valid sides to anything is one of most idiotic inventions of modern entertainment news.
True, not all views are valid. That doesn't mean that there CAN'T be two views to an issue.
No, there can be many valid perspectives and opinions on topics. I never said otherwise. There is not, however, always two equally valid opinions on a topic. Often one
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sticking to you views despite the scientific evidence? Check
which scientific evidence is he apparently 'ignoring'?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me (Score:5, Informative)
I think it might not in Russia (some AC below posted a link to a bug report that said they disabled the first-run search selector screen for Russian builds). However, it should be noted this is not a monopolistic practice. Yandex has 62% share in Russia, while Google only has a 25% share, so they can't really be "shutting out" Yandex: Yandex is by far the biggest player already. You can argue about what Google should do, but not offering a selection screen is hardly illegal, because Google isn't even close to the majority player.
Also, Segalovich claims that "If you download an application [on Android] it does not work if it's not Android marketplace." Which is wrong, at face value (I've sideloaded apps all the time), so either a) this is just FUD or b) he isn't conveying his point very well (actually, b is certain, I read what he is claiming and I still don't know what he is trying to say).
Re: (Score:2)
According to Russian laws it IS an illegal practice (the threshold for special treatment is 30% of the relevant mark, Google is close to it).
Besides, it's a rotten way to compete anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd consider it *possibly* malicious (a) if Google were holding 60+% of the market and Yandex 25% rather than the other way round, and (b) if you couldn't download/install 3 or 4 other major browsers on all major platforms in localised versions, and (c) if you couldn't change the search provider in Chrome at all.
My point is that his argument boils down to "ZOMG Google have 5/6 of the market share needed to trigger Russian anti-competitiveness laws" as though it's the same as having 6/6 of that amount, which
Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me (Score:4, Interesting)
The story he was referring to was not about the ability to change the search engine in general, but rather about the dialog [howtonew.com] that pops up when you first run Chrome on a given machine and asks you to select the initial default search engine (kinda like that browser ballot box that Microsoft had to add in Windows to satisfy EU).
Which is a nice thing - though not legally mandated in any way (but I bet it was a pre-emptive move by Google's legal department). Except that they then specifically disabled [chromium.org] it if current locale is Russian. Legal, of course, but kinda sleazy to do this kind of market differentiation.
All that said, the code seems to no longer be present in Chromium trunk [chromium.org].
Re: (Score:2)
When I do a "new" install of Chrome (without signing in to a Google account), it ASKS me what search engine to default to. I believe it was Google, Bing, and Yahoo earlier tonight.
Re: (Score:1)
Sure it starts out set to Google by default, it kind of has to be set to something, but that's hardly "shutting out the competition".
You're missing the point, google sycophant. Chrome should offer a choice during installation. Not doing so ensures an uneven playing field.
Re: (Score:2)
Because IE was bundled with MS, thus you effectively had to pay for it whether you used it or not. Google, however, can be used from any other browser without cost.
Re: (Score:3)
The bundling problem always had to do with Microsoft using a monopoly in one market (OS) to gain significant market share in another market (web browsers.) It had nothing to do with having to pay for unwanted bundles (at least in the US.) Otherwise, Microsoft might have needed to unbundle things like Notepad, Wordpad, Paint, etc. I sure know that I never would have wanted those, preferring WinVi and a real painting tool.
Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me (Score:5, Insightful)
The bundling problem always had to do with Microsoft using a monopoly in one market (OS) to gain significant market share in another market (web browsers.) It had nothing to do with having to pay for unwanted bundles (at least in the US.) Otherwise, Microsoft might have needed to unbundle things like Notepad, Wordpad, Paint, etc. I sure know that I never would have wanted those, preferring WinVi and a real painting tool.
So Google has turned Microsoft's game on it's head, they have gained a significant share in one market (Web Browsers) to sustain what is practically a monopoly in another (Internet Search). When I installed Chrome it did not pop up a window and offer me a choice of which search engine to use. How many people bother to click their way into the settings menu and pick a search engine other than Google whey they set up Chrome? I'd be surprised if they more than a small percentage. Chrome provides Google with a very powerful tool for gathering data on the browsing habits of millions of people that is rivaled only by those omnipresent Facebook buttons.
Posting anonymously to avoid being modded down by legions of Googlebots furiously lecturing me on how none of this is really anything to worry about because Google isn't evil and would never ever abuse it's position unlike Microsoft which is the spawn of Satan.
Re: (Score:1)
Well I had mod points (until I commented here) and would have voted up because its a sensible statement of a possible anti-trust action.
Microsoft may be the spawn of Satan, but there is no reason why Google cannot be persuaded to sell its soul and join the Dark Side.... :-)
Re: (Score:3)
When I installed Chrome it did not pop up a window and offer me a choice of which search engine to use. How many people bother to click their way into the settings menu and pick a search engine other than Google whey they set up Chrome?
Conversely, how many people install Chrome and reasonably expect some other search engine to be the default? I mean, If you're downloading the Google Chrome web browser, it would seem kinda obvious to me that the default search engine would be Google.
The real question is; how many people would bother to change it even if it was a big pop-up window when you first ran the browser? I literally do not know anybody that does not solely use Google as their search engine. Of course that's not to say that those
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
The judge coulsn't have proved them wrong, much less "on the spot". There was originally no difference between IE and WE, IE was in and of itself, the Windows 95 UI, which is what made things like Active Desktop possible, the built-in help system was all IE-based. It's very much like how OS X and KDE integrate WebKit/Core and KHTML everywhere. Besides that, there the whole Active-X security nightmare, which couldn't have been a ywhere near as bad as it was, had IE not been so deeply integrated into the syst
Re: (Score:3)
I remember the time when IE dominated the web and it was not pretty. Most sites didn't bother testing compatibility with other browsers - when Firefox 1.0 was finally released, a lot of sites didn't work or display correctly. IE6 was synonymous with stagnation (a popup blocker appeared only in Windows XP SP2, 3 years after IE6 was released!). Most feature-rich or banking sites simply installed their own ActiveX controls or used flash because Javascript in IE was so poor.
Futhermore, IE versions for Mac and W
Re: (Score:1)
Javascript in IE... Poor?
The things that were being done with DHTML and xmlhttprequest, at least from a UI perspective, where just nuts, some with longer, less hate-restricted memories could argue that the current web 2'0 hooplah is only just beginning to catch up to IE6. There are still things I can't do now, that I could with IE4-6 (free-form, chromeless UI design, being one, right-to-left orientation being another, and all those fun things you could do by plugging right into DX)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know about you, but if you look real close about what Chrome is doing, even if you have that instant search feature turned off, the browser will redirect even full urls that you type down like www.something.com to google.com with some unique user id belonging to whatever cookie you have and then finally showing you the website. If that isn't a case to get paranoid I don't know what is.
Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me (Score:5, Informative)
When I installed Chrome it did not pop up a window and offer me a choice of which search engine to use.
You're either lying or blind, Mr. AC. I installed Chrome just now, and I was greeted with a search engine pop-up [dropbox.com]. If you miss that, you'll see it every time you right click on the URL bar [dropbox.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I get prompted as well when first using Chromium for which search engine I want to use. I believe the choices were Google, Bing, and Yahoo
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
He isn't blind. You've just stumbled across Google's underhandedness.
Chrome actually behaves differently based on different things, such as country. IN the US, Chrome prompts you to chose a search engine because they KNOW you'll choose Google. In Russia they don't do this.
Fuck the god damn popups. (Score:2)
I would FAR rather have my browser NOT bug me about trivial shit that I can adjust at any time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When has throwing something in a box that a user might not want been illegal? Nobody complains when a pair of cables is thrown in with a DVD player, when the user might have their own set of cables already.
Microsoft on the other hand got in trouble because they where leveraging their OS monopoly to take over web browsers. This meant that users had to put in extra effort if they wanted to use a competitors product.
Re: (Score:2)
Opera made a better browser, and had an uphill battle trying to get users to download it.
Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me (Score:5, Informative)
Because your machine does not come with Google Chrome. You had to go fetch it.
And when you install it for the first time it ASKS you which search engine you want.
From then on it shows what ever you selected, and the list of choices is wider than any other browser.
Re: (Score:2)
No kidding. This is not the same situation. Any way you look at it, getting Google to be the default search engine on a fresh Windows install takes more steps than Bing. In fact, it's a testament to how badly Microsoft is doing in the browser and search markets that it still can't get past distant second in search and people in increasing numbers are moving to Chrome.
In other words it's not because of Google's monopoly that its search has been so successful but because Microsoft's monopoly is failing.
Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me (Score:4, Informative)
Android did not use to come with Chrome. In fact, it is not even available unless you are using Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. Even then, you need to install it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome&hl=en [google.com]
Still WebKit, and still Google search (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Look the problem was not only that IE was included in Windows. One you could not remove IE. Two, IE had access to the underlying OS that was on purpose not allowed to be used in Netscape, thus, slowed it down on purpose. Three, Microsoft used its position with vendors to ensure that Netscape could never strike a deal with hardware vendors to include Netscape. Dell, HP, Gateway, IBM, and so on were all told that including Navigator would increase the license cost per machine. Finally, Microsoft used its
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome is a choice (Score:2)
Don't like what it does, don't install it.
Chrome DOES offer a choce (Score:3)
When first installed, it lets you select between Yahoo, Google and Bing (so basically between Google and Bing, because Yahoo uses Bing for search).
Re: (Score:2)
Once installed, you can also hit the Manage Search Engines button in settings and us any of dozens. (Some of which just offload back to Google, but that's their issue).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. But not in Russia, which is what this story is about. Source: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=81578
Hello, Ilya McFly !!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
There is a choice screen when you install Chrome.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a choice screen when you install Chrome.
I just installed Chrome with a user account created specially for the occasion. I didn't see that choice screen. All I got was a nag screen asking me to make Chrome the default browser for this user, but at least Chrome gave me the option of saying 'no'. If you click your way into the Chrome settings menu Google does offer a very basic "Manage Search Engines..." wizard that comes with four pre-installed search engines, Google, Bing, Yahoo and a local engine that specializes in my native language. You can al
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome collects search engines in "Manage Search Engines...". All you have to do is manually open a search engine and do one search, Chrome will then add it to the list.
Re: (Score:2)
Many comments here say that Chrome already offers such a screen; if it's so, then I think they're already OK.
It does. Does IE offer a choice of search engines the first time you run it?
Re: (Score:2)
It does.
That depends [chromium.org].
(that code is gone in more recent releases, but it's been there for several months)
Does IE offer a choice of search engines the first time you run it?
It does [photobucket.com], but it's not straightforward - it basically asks you if you want to use Bing or "something else", and it will only show the selector if you pick the latter.
Re: (Score:2)
It does.
That depends [chromium.org].
(that code is gone in more recent releases, but it's been there for several months)
Very interesting. There's no explanation in the commit that added it, nor the commit review, nor the commit or review when it was removed. It was removed just a few days after someone posted a complaint on the review of the commit that added it.
Does IE offer a choice of search engines the first time you run it?
It does [photobucket.com], but it's not straightforward - it basically asks you if you want to use Bing or "something else", and it will only show the selector if you pick the latter.
I'm impressed they went that far. It's still a far cry from Chrome's three big buttons, making it look like changing the search engine is some obscure customization that only the knowledgeable or the adventurous should try, but better than I expected.
Re: (Score:2)
It was removed just a few days after someone posted a complaint on the review of the commit that added it.
It was still there [chromium.org] in October 2011 (search for "ru"), just moved around a bit. Next revision from that is the one that removed it. So it was there from May till October.
I'm impressed they went that far. It's still a far cry from Chrome's three big buttons, making it look like changing the search engine is some obscure customization that only the knowledgeable or the adventurous should try, but better than I expected.
You'd be surprised at how efficient several billion dollars in fines [wikipedia.org] is at making companies behave better. No-one wants to be that next guy whom they can point at saying "he's the one that made the decision that cost us that".
Re: (Score:2)
It was removed just a few days after someone posted a complaint on the review of the commit that added it.
It was still there [chromium.org] in October 2011 (search for "ru"), just moved around a bit. Next revision from that is the one that removed it. So it was there from May till October.
October is when the complaint was posted on the review, and a few days later it was removed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Is that yo Ilya? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
What is the worst part?
Re: (Score:2)
This man *is* a loser, period. (Score:4, Insightful)
The gentleman Ilya Segalovich must be a very interesting individual.
I have a solution for him:
I think the time is ripe for him to unleash the Yandex browser to the world, why not?
Good luck my man!
Re: (Score:3)
I think the time is ripe for him to unleash the Yandex browser to the world, why not?
They do just that [yandex.ru] (and some [yandex.ru] more [opera.com]).
But doesn't seem to be helping much [yandex.ru].
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong order (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm quite sure that most people who use Google Chrome do so after finding out about it because they use Google as a search engine.
So its basically the other way around.
Moreoever, you can change the default search engine, so WOW, issue solved!
Also the only reason I ever heard of Yandex was because I saw their scraper on my website. I had never heard about it before. I guess Google is doing a GREAT job choking them.
Re: (Score:2)
You wouldn't know about Yandex unless you're in Russia - they're a locally dominant service, much like Baidu is for China, but they focus primarily on serving that market. So all that talk should really be taken in the context of Russian market alone, not global market.
Re: (Score:3)
"Also the only reason I ever heard of Yandex was because I saw their scraper on my website. I had never heard about it before. I guess Google is doing a GREAT job choking them."
Yandex is the most popular search engine in the xUSSR. It understands Russian (also Ukrainian and Belorussian) languages much better than Google. Besides, Yandex directly competes with Google Maps, Google Mail and other services in Russia. And quite successfully, in fact.
For English-speaking people Yandex is not really useful (its ho
Re: (Score:2)
You're probably american.
Yandex is a good backup for the ever-increasing list of topics which "america" fears and feels it must "censor" in order to maintain the red-white-and-blue wall.
Incorrect. I'm Maltese.
Also are you suggesting that a russian website is less prone to censorship? What an interesting role reversal.
Google Chrome asks you to choose a search engine. (Score:1)
Google Chrome has always asked me to choose a search engine for as long as i can remember. Maybe they should include more search engines, but it does not default to Google Search.
http://techhamlet.com/2010/09/google-know-about-the-other-search-engines/ [techhamlet.com]
Re:Google Chrome asks you to choose a search engin (Score:4, Informative)
That's because Google have restricted the ability to select your search engine in Chrome specifically if you have a Russian locale [google.com].
Re: (Score:3)
Note that this code is no longer present in the trunk (unless they moved it elsewhere)?
Most people use the default search setting (Score:3)
Google pays Apple $100 million a year to be the default search engine on the iPhone. Google pays Mozilla $125 million a year to be the default search engine on Firefox. Most Bing traffic comes from the default setting in Internet Explorer. Few people actually change their default search engine setting.
This has some strong implications for the search industry. First, most users don't care which search engine they're using. Second, search has negative value - search engines are an ad medium that has to pay to be seen.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Curious, does Google pay the mobile carriers to keep the Android default search option as Google? Would be counter-intuitive, to me at least, as the phone integrates so perfectly with Google services.
no, they just strong arm them with access to early android builds and the ability to put google market& other google licensed wares on them.
oh and there was this one android maker putting bing on their phones and now google is completing the process of buying them.
integrates perfectly? the other services integrate just as well and that layer in which they do integrate isn't really core layer and why the fuck would it be..
Re: (Score:3)
search has negative value
Your argument generalizes to the idea that any product for which the seller pays for shelf space has negative value. This occurs pretty much anywhere that distributor intermediaries have sufficient market power to abuse it, specifically where customers choose the distributor intermediary based on more considerations than solely which third party service (e.g. search engine) they offer.
Kindly troll elsewhere.
Google and Chrome are not open! (Score:2, Funny)
I demand they set the default search engine to my new project, ButtSearch, immediately!
Doesn't Chrome let you choose after installation? (Score:1)
How about... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There's an issue here, and it's one Microsoft faced as well. It doesn't matter that Yandex would make a browser just like Google does if Google is abusing its dominance in one market to take over another. Microsoft abused its OS monopoly to take over the browser market, which was a violation of competition law.
If Google's browser is dominant in Russia, and at the same time "forces" people to use Google's search engine in Russia, that could well be an example of anti-competitive practices.
Yandex ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Admittedly it may be someone posing as their spider, I blocked them anyway just to be on the safe side.
Yandex may have flipped their evil bit. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It's pure paranoia to think that a web (HTTP) crawler is doing something malicious by looking for open HTTP servers. That is like saying that a SMTP crawler looking for open mail relays to add to a blacklist is doing something malicious by scanning networks looking for open SMTP servers.
Well, yah. But:
And, yes, we also react to any other form of external vulnerability analysis, including TCP/25 scanning. It's funny. There is an endless number of hackers willing to find our vulnerabilities, but they almos
Blocking Yandex (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:On a Mac, Chrome lets you choose a search provi (Score:4, Informative)
It does that on all platforms on first run. But there was a time when it did not do that [chromium.org] if you had LANG="ru".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)