Google Sued by YouTube Rival Over Search Rankings (wsj.com) 71
Video-sharing site Rumble accused Google in a lawsuit of abusing the power of its search engine and mobile operating system to boost its YouTube video service over rivals, the latest allegation of anticompetitive conduct against the Alphabet unit. From a report: Toronto-based Rumble, which has become popular among conservative pundits, on Monday filed an antitrust suit in federal court in California arguing that Google is "unfairly rigging its search algorithms" to place YouTube above Rumble in its search results. Rumble said Google's behavior cost it significant numbers of viewers and advertising dollars. The lawsuit also argues that Google's deals to pre-install a YouTube app on mobile devices running Google's Android operating system have unfairly deprived Rumble of viewers. "Google, through its search engine, was able to wrongfully divert massive traffic to YouTube, depriving Rumble of the additional traffic, users, uploads, brand awareness and revenue it would have otherwise received," the lawsuit states. "We will defend ourselves against these baseless claims," a Google spokeswoman said.
Not shocking. (Score:2, Insightful)
Given it is well known that google gives a search bonus to any content on youtube because they own it. IF it can be established that they have a large enough share of the search market to be considered a monopoly ( probably not hard) then they are acting illegally by using their monopoly to take over a vertical market.
That is basic anti-trust.
Re:Not shocking. (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats an interesting conspiracy theory that we know isn't true because Google Search has previously deranked other Google products when they've tried to manipulate results.
The reality is any time I, and most people do a video search they look through the links first for YouTube because it will be the best experience. That is a pretty strong signal to Google search about the results people want. YouTube is also going to dominate any version of page rank because its linked to far more frequently than anything else.
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So your theory is that nobody would sue unless they have a very good case. You are so precious! Did you see the recent election fraud cases? Did you see Devin Nunes suing his own cow (spoiler: not really his cow)? The people who used to whine about needless lawsuits have perfected "performative lawsuits" where the point is not to win, it's to make youself more popular with your followers.
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I think they wouldn't waste their time against a conglomerate with boatloads of money to pour into lawyers if they couldn't prove that google is giving preference to their own product in a way that can't be explained by organic effects like you describe.
Sorry, it doesn't work that way. I wish it did, but it doesn't.
Lawsuits with no hope of success are filed all the time. They are filed for other reasons, such as for generating publicity.
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The question becomes - if Google were to boost Rumble links, perhaps that's the best solution. Let Rumble have to deal with the sudden influx of new users it badly wants and having to pay for new infrastructure and tons more servers because they can't handle the traffic anymore.
I'm sure they'll be happy for the traffic that's not getting the any extra money but extra expenses, and being unable to stream the videos smoothly will go over well with people.
I mean, if they want traffic, let them have it.
Most of
I'm not buying it (Score:1)
Rumble doesn't seem to have a lot of content...it seems like a youtube in the early days. I think this is more about posturing, trying to convince all the conspiracy groups to move enmasse to Rumble. i.e. put a service on their radar that they might not have even heard of before.
One of their sister companies, Neroku has a channel on Youtube that actively encourages content creators to post videos on Rumble if they want them cross posted to their channel on Youtube.
Another of their properties, Rumble Viral
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hmm.. can't say if it is true now, I do know that my bother specialized in getting peoples page ranks up in Google so called Search Engine Optimization. He studied and talked to people who studied Googles algorithms and for a long time if you had a Youtube channel directly linked to your blog or web site you received a bump in 'relevancy' , not so if you simply hosted video.
( of coarse they change those things all the time. So , maybe they corrected it when people started, 'exploiting' it).
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According to Wikipedia, the courts don't require monopoly power for this kind of thing:
For at least three decades, the Supreme Court defined the required "economic power" to include just about any departure from perfect competition, going so far as to hold that possession of a copyright or even the existence of a tie itself gave rise to a presumption of economic power
See the full article [wikipedia.org]
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Here's the part of the Wikipedia article you forgot to quote:
A tying arrangement is defined as "an agreement by a party to sell one product but only on the condition that the buyer also purchases a different (or tied) product, or at least agrees he will not purchase the product from any other supplier."
Google ranking YouTube results ahead of competitors is not "tying". It may be legally actionable for other reasons, but it's not tying.
Personally, I think complaints about Google search results are going to have a hard time in US courts. Search results are an opinion, and Google has a first amendment right to express their opinion. It is fundamentally the job of all search engines to form an opinion about which links are more important than oth
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OK, you inspired me to go find the actual court filing.
Here it is [scribd.com]. They claim that Google violated part 1 and 2 of the Sherman act. So the specific accusation isn't tying.
Note that violating the Sherman act doesn't require being a monopoly either, it only requires anti-competitive behavior. Basically whatever you do to to prevent free competition is illegal. If Google purposely put its own products ahead of other products in order to bring traffic to their site, is that anticompetitive behavior?
I looked at
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Basically whatever you do to to prevent free competition is illegal.
A literal reading of the Sherman Antitrust Act can lead one to that conclusion, however the courts have interpreted the act more narrowly. Antitrust is complicated. I see a lot of lawsuits filed that claim antitrust violations, but see very few succeeding on that basis. I think Ruble has a steep hill to climb here.
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I think it's more an issue of their ranking favoring more popular sites (basically the more people use something, the more they assume it's relevant, because people are using it). This is essentially their innovation in search (using popularity on the web as a whole as a huge part of relevance of a result).
They don't need to boost YouTube, YouTube is big enough to be at the top anyway.
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So because millions of people use a site to look up cat videos google assumes it is the best place to see vidoes about under water welding?
I'm sure it is a LOT more complex then that. I suppose one interesting thing about such a law suit is that especially if youtube does receive a bump for 'whatever' reason , that the reason is 'legitimate' ? Especially without exposing the algorithm.
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It's definitely more elaborate than just popularity, but YouTube is so popular that it's probably really hard to overcome that.
Unless a lot of people are linking to your video/site, how is Google to know you're the better resource?
It becomes circular though, more people to YouTube because YouTube is higher in results, more videos on YouTube because YouTube is where people find videos etc. etc.
I'm sure if Google could find a better way to give results (and they try, page rank is far less than it used to be (
Now watch folks fall all over themselves (Score:3, Insightful)
To geeksplain why Microsoft's behavior was beyond the pale in the 90s, but this is totally different (because they like Google's politics).
We wouldn't have the competitive marketplace in software and hardware today if it weren't for antitrust threat scaring Bill Gates into giving Apple an emergency cash infusion and promising to keep up with Microsoft Office. Similarly, the reason Microsoft tolerates Linux licenses now is the threat of the iron fist of the federal government, not the free market; there was a market for BeOS on Dell hardware and Microsoft killed it with fire through anticompetitive behavior.
If it weren't for Google, YouTube would be either bankrupt or behaving very differently. For example, they would very zealously guard their revenue-generating content producers from political campaigns because the alternative is bankruptcy.
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The antitrust case in the 1990s came down to bundling a web browser with the operating system. By the time it was resolved having an OS without a browser was more of a hindrance than anything.
Not even remotely true (Score:3)
I don't know whether this is ignorance or malice, but I'll assume ignorance for now.
The antitrust trial had multiple fronts, not just the browser. Multiple issues were considered:
1. The impact on Netscape of not just bundling, but deep integration, of the browser into the OS.
2. The impact on Java desktop adoption by Microsoft adopting it and then going to an embrace and extend strategy against the rules of their l
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Funny how wikipedia mentions nothing that you speak of.
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It wasn't really resolved the incoming Republican President basically killed it because he didn't approve of anti-trust laws , the DOJ was told to accept whatever MS was offering and get it over with. Had it been a Democrat elected that year they likely would have broken Microsoft up.
We on the left aren't doing that (Score:2)
As an example the apartment complexes within a 50 mile radius of me got bought out by a single conglomerate (save a few slums) and my rent, coincidently, went up $300 a month this year. Also hospitals have been bought out left and right by Bain Capital style venture capitalists and they've slashed staffing and care quality for a quick buck. Then ther
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well, I'm neither left nor right but I'd like to see it used a WHOLE lot. Actually what I'd love to see is a re-write of the way articles of incorporation are used , such that a business could not 'diversify' , they either sink or swim with a single product type or market and a corporation should be able to own only 1 brand and not own other corporations. ( maybe not perfectly baked but something like that would cause there to much more even competition and spread the wealth out better , while still leavi
Clever...to mix lies with facts like that. (Score:3)
To geeksplain why Microsoft's behavior was beyond the pale in the 90s, but this is totally different (because they like Google's politics).
We wouldn't have the competitive marketplace in software and hardware today if it weren't for antitrust threat scaring Bill Gates into giving Apple an emergency cash infusion and promising to keep up with Microsoft Office. Similarly, the reason Microsoft tolerates Linux licenses now is the threat of the iron fist of the federal government, not the free market; there was a market for BeOS on Dell hardware and Microsoft killed it with fire through anticompetitive behavior.
If it weren't for Google, YouTube would be either bankrupt or behaving very differently. For example, they would very zealously guard their revenue-generating content producers from political campaigns because the alternative is bankruptcy.
Great post, you nicely weaved facts within your agenda, but you're misleading people. First of all, for most, this is the first they've heard of the Google/YouTube threat, so MS was beyond the pale because everyone understood what the case meant, not because of the politics. As people learn more, they will form opinions. But you can't spring a new case on someone as say that because they aren't outraged on first read, it's because of political bias. Also, politics is a red herring. the antitrust probe
Then your Googlefu sucks (Score:2)
Go here [justice.gov] and search for BeOS.
You will find 16 references to it in official court filings, including a reference to NetPositive.
The existence of BeOS was used as a red herring to prove they had competition. Be also responded by showing that NetPositive's inclu
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In this case crying ignorant Naz1s, to dumb to figure out how to add "site:rumble.com" to the search phrase.
Yeah, I'm livid about that! (Score:2)
Google is "unfairly rigging its search algorithms"
It's true: if it wasn't for Google's unfair monopolistic advantage, we'd all get to enjoy those fantastic Vimeo, Dailymotion and Rumble videos. Especially Dailymotion: I can't get enough of AutoPlayNext that I can never turn off!
Damn you Google!
Wait, what? (Score:1, Troll)
Re: Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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In related news the turd floating in the swimming pool doesn’t understand why its so unpopular.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
There's a couple of problems here (Score:3)
Second, well, we just had a violent coup attempt. Do some googling. Start with the 2 guys who came with zip ties. Ex military. Hell I think
The fact that 2 guys with zip ties (Score:2)
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Regardless of your politics, "popular amongst X" is just another way of saying not generally popular, and therefore not surprising that the search rankings are low.
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May be cheaper to advertise yourself. (Score:2)
Reputation Ranking (Score:2)
It might be a self-fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways, but sites with a great reputation rank higher in search results. Which then helps them keep that reputation through a bit of circular logic.
A newcomer has to be very good to break the relevance barrier. And they're probably not that good if I've never heard of them.
Who? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Honestly, I've never heard of Rumble,
Quick check shows Sean Hannity is one of the most popular channels on it....not surprised since he's a big fan of Q and all that utter nonsense.
The far right and fruit loops are getting desperate
Re: Who? (Score:2)
Re: Who? (Score:2)
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...Google will argue that they prioritise balanced and popular content, Rumble appears to be neither
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Explain what isn't free and open about this? As far as anyone can tell, the search rankings are based on popularity (among other items). Rumble is still there, just not as high as they think they should be. They're not being blocked or restricted in any fashion. Anyone can get to them.
That's pretty much the definition of free and open internet.
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Honestly, I've never heard of Rumble,
Of course not. You only look at the first page of a google search, and the article just told you that they slide Rumble down to the bottom.
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I did a few quick searches, since I don't see examples in the summary.
1) Rumble, it (obviously) puts rumble first
2) video sites, which is a bunch of listicles, some about YouTube alternatives on the first screen
3) Hannity, (I saw someone say his channel was popular there), there's a videos call out that links to Facebook twice and YouTube once, when I click it about 1/5th the links are YouTube, none are Rumble. None of the proper links are to YouTube. "The Wrap" is the most linked site in that list.
Not sure
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That's exactly the point.
Clever advertising tactic (Score:2)
I'd never heard of Rumble before now (and my life was better then).
Simple fix ... Google divests itself YouTube. (Score:2)
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There's an easier answer, just have all the neo-cons post exclusively to Rumble, then anyone searching their videos won't see any YouTube links. The rational and the sane won't end up accidentally clicking on a QAnon video either. Win/Win.
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Win for society, yes. Less of a win for the crazy-cons (note that neo-cons were at least 50% rational, but most of them devolved into the current crazy-cons during the birth-certificate scams). The problem is that crazy-cons are mostly male, so they don't have enough of a breeding population to survive. I feel like, in an act of ecological preservation, we should turn Rumble into a dating app so that future generations can enjoy this completely insane animal in their natural environment.
Microsoft and Internet Explorer (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s very amusing (Score:3)
hearing people who spent the last thirty years making sure every aspect of our communications infrastructure was under corporate control suddenly getting mad that corporations can control their communication.
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But it's "popular among conservative pundits", so it must be highly significant, right?
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Right-wingers (Score:1)
Right-wingers are "flocking" to Rumble, it appears.
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If right-wingers are flocking to it, and right-wingers hate Google, then why does this lawsuit even exist? I suspect that the real problem is that right-wingers are flocking like the parrot in the Monty Python skit.
Google? (Score:1)
People are still using that spyware?
Google Lies (Score:1)
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They directly steal from Adwords / Adsense publishers and users.
What does that even mean?
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Government, interfere with the free market? (Score:2)
It's as "conservatives" are saying regulations are a good thing!
Amp (Score:1)