I have written about this before but am seeing some interesting headlines which I believe are related…
1) 2/22/16
Google Shuttering Comparison-Shopping Site for Auto Insurance, Credit Cards, Mortgages
http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-shuttering-comparison-shopping-site-for-auto-insurance-credit-cards-and-mortgages-1456194520?mod=djemalertTECH
Google Compare shutdown after one year is a setback to the Alphabet Inc. unit’s efforts to provide niche shopping services and financial-services tools. The quick reversal is a setback to the Alphabet unit’s efforts to use its enormous reach to provide consumers with niche shopping services and financial-services tools.
2) 2/23/16
“Google is sinking into an antitrust quagmire”
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/23/google-is-sinking-into-an-antitrust-quagmire-commentary.html
Google parent Alphabet is sinking further into an antitrust quagmire. The European Commission may beef up its anti-competitive complaint against Google, Bloomberg reported on Monday. U.S. authorities are probing the search giant, too. Proving abuses will be difficult, but the expanding scope means the company will have to expend more energy to pull itself out of the bog.
Google has long dominated web searches — it has almost two-thirds of the U.S. market, according to ComScore, and a higher percentage in many European markets. That has brought it regulatory scrutiny for years.
Demonstrating that the company has used its position abusively has been difficult. It’s easy to click on another search service and hard to prove Google is harming the public by injecting additional information into results. U.S. authorities dropped a probe in 2013 after the company promised to behave. Earlier this month, a London court found Google had not unfairly crushed a rival by putting its maps on top of search results.
