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0 pointsben_w2mo ago0 comments

> This is like let's make a new Google and "already implementing the sorting algorithm". While undoubtedly important, it does not actually advance you towards your goal.

Google, the search engine?

A search engine is just a sorting algorithm for the query over the data. This is what Page Rank is. Also, the Page Rank patent has expired.

What made Google Inc. (and later Alphabet) a big player in the world was the money from the adverts. Their excuse for the prices they charge for those adverts comes from their analytics. The analytics are worryingly invasive, hence GDPR and the consent popups.

> Kelkoo.co.uk

  Kelkoo is a European price comparison service founded in France in 1999.[1]

  In 2000 Kelkoo merged with Zoomit, Dondecomprar and Shopgenie. The company was bought by Yahoo! on 26 March, 2004.[2] and was subsequently sold by Yahoo to Jamplant, a British private equity firm, in 2008.

…

  Initial funding of $3 million was provided by Banexi Ventures and Innovacom

That's not even trying to be Google. Nor is it an example of the EU trying to force the creation of a new Google. Even if you can find EU funding despite evidence of this not being listed in the wiki page nor in, ahem, *Google's own* AI Overview, in that era a better question would be "was this the EU jumping on the dot.com bandwagon?"

You might be able to put it in a similar role as eBay or Amazon, but only if I could also categorise Kaufland's website that way. But not Google.

0 comments

spwa42mo ago

> That's not even trying to be Google.

That's my point. Not even remotely close, and 100x as scammy as Google. The EU commission claimed these companies were the European competition for Google (and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies)

ben_wOP2mo ago

> That's my point. Not even remotely close,

You said:

  Which is exactly what the EU did a few years back of course. Try to force the creation of a new Google. What did they come up with?

Except they were not the EU "Try[ing] to force the creation of" anything, nor were they "a new Google", meaning the only parts of that sentence you get to keep are the spaces.

Kelkoo did its thing before Google did shopping. Google is the mimic here.

Kelkoo *pre-dates* Google's shopping search system, by a few years (Google's one first launched as Froogle in Dec 2002).

> The EU commission claimed these companies were the European competition for Google (and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies)

1. When did the EU commission get money from Google, for any purpose or reason, including fines? Was it around fifteen years after Kelkoo was bought and sold by Yahoo!?

And therefore would have needed a time machine to be involved in the creation of Kelkoo?

2. The actual reality is that Kelkoo joined in a lawsuit against Google for monopoly abuse[a], claiming to have been damaged by Google manipulating search results to favour its own products.

Important: The US courts have also found Google guilty of antitrust violations[b].

If you try to insist that this case — which is the closest I can even find to your phrasing, you've not cited anything — can use any of the words "forcing", "creating", or the sentence "and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies", then you have to also apply this to the US courts.

It's incorrect to use those words and phrases to describe the US case against Google, it's incorrect to use those words and phrases to describe the EU case against Google.

[a] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/dec_docs/39...

[b] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/05/google-loses-antitrust-case-...

spwa42mo ago

The case was not brought by the EU, it was brought at the EU. These companies sued Google for antitrust violations, at the EU who immediately stole all the spotlight, but technically it was those companies, not the EU directly. So the EU put out press releases that these antitrust violations were why these companies had not become full-fledged search engines. Why we didn't have an EU search engine. That's why I stated that they claimed stuff like kelkoo could replace Google if only given the chance. That's what they did claim.

It was, and is, a completely absurd claim, that the goal was to have an EU search engine, that goal, of course, totally failed, and that it is very weird where the money went. You know, given the goal. Given what they supposedly wanted to achieve.

Well, perhaps I should really clarify. I'm sure that what happened to the money is totally legal, but that it is going to achieve exactly nothing for the stated goal, and just happens to go to the budget of the politicians involved. Totally unrelated, I must say, the Berlaymont building, where these people work, has a nice restaurant. Well, multiple. I especially love the foamed milk with imported praline on a stick with just a drop of ... I forgot. It's whiskey, basically, but some Belgian version. Oh and you want to recognize EU commissioners there? They're the little mean guys with 20 security guards around them, eating in a huge separate space in the back, because some of them are so popular they've been attacked by their own EU personnel. And you'd think that would be an excuse to use security guards as servants, but actually no, I was somewhat near one incident. They really were attacked by their own workers. Rumor is some security guards joined in the attack.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsben_w2mo ago0 comments

> This is like let's make a new Google and "already implementing the sorting algorithm". While undoubtedly important, it does not actually advance you towards your goal.

Google, the search engine?

A search engine is just a sorting algorithm for the query over the data. This is what Page Rank is. Also, the Page Rank patent has expired.

> Kelkoo.co.uk

  Kelkoo is a European price comparison service founded in France in 1999.[1]

  In 2000 Kelkoo merged with Zoomit, Dondecomprar and Shopgenie. The company was bought by Yahoo! on 26 March, 2004.[2] and was subsequently sold by Yahoo to Jamplant, a British private equity firm, in 2008.

…

  Initial funding of $3 million was provided by Banexi Ventures and Innovacom

You might be able to put it in a similar role as eBay or Amazon, but only if I could also categorise Kaufland's website that way. But not Google.

0 comments

spwa42mo ago

> That's not even trying to be Google.

ben_wOP2mo ago

> That's my point. Not even remotely close,

You said:

  Which is exactly what the EU did a few years back of course. Try to force the creation of a new Google. What did they come up with?