Monopoly has become more difficult to capture.
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Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook all deny that there is a monopolistic behavior, just like most monopolists. The past. In the past, their public relations pressures were often not the same, but now they are facing the same catastrophe.
Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook are experiencing antitrust investigations in the US Congress, and each company’s core business has been inquired. According to the style of questioning that Congress has always “played straight”, the problems faced by the four companies are quite sharp.
Apple was asked about the iOS system that was always criticized. Google was asked about the way to advertise. Amazon was asked about the competition between self-operated goods and third-party products. Facebook was asked how to handle private data. In short, it is basically the simple question that the public wants to understand most in the past few years.
Now, the four companies have answered most of these questions and refused to acknowledge the existence of monopolistic behavior. Discussions on how to determine monopoly and how to deal with monopoly companies have become a hot topic for Americans.
The 2020 election is just around the corner, and the suppression of technology companies has become one of the best political slogans for candidates. This spring, the fanatical “anti-monopoly fighter” Elizabeth Warren said she would split Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple when she was elected. With the launch of the anti-monopoly investigation in Congress, the too radical and illusory practice of “splitting big companies” was once again moved to the table.
The last new antitrust law in the United States has passed 69 years, the last split 25 years, and the last big lawsuit 21 years. As Warren said, the government has barely exercised its power since the late 1970s. However, the monopoly has not disappeared, but the main body has changed from the oil companies and communication companies of the year to the technology companies, and these companies are more sensitive to supervision and more concealed of the monopolistic behavior.
Apple: Closure makes sense
The Congress’s question for Apple is that its entire ecosystem is closed. Users cannot delete the default app pre-installed on the iPhone, nor can they specify a third-party browser as their default selection. Developers who want to reach hundreds of millions of users who use the iPhone must follow Apple’s rules.
Kyle Andeer, Apple’s vice president of legal affairs, responded that the company’s actions are in the best interest of the user and there is no anti-competitive behavior.
Kyle Andeer claims that the default app is an important part of the iPhone, and replacing either one can damage or severely damage iPhone functionality. So for security reasons, native apps like SMS, phone, contacts, etc. cannot be replaced with third-party products. Apple not only chose to do this before, “it will obviously not change our position and rules in the future.”
Apple also offers a list of third-party apps that compete with its business to prove that the company doesn’t hinder competition—because users can get them through Apple’s App Store, Google Maps competing for Apple Maps.
When asked how much Apple spent on the map service, Andeer replied “billions of dollars.”
But actually Google Maps is not really a good case. The Steve Jobs iPhone did set Google Maps as the default app, but in 2012 Apple replaced the default Google Maps with Apple Maps to push their own map apps. As a result, Apple CEO Tim Cook had to openly apologize because the gap between the two products was too large.
In the past few years, Apple has been hoping to re-apply its own map, and Google Maps No more back the location of this default app. In other words, Apple didn’t want to eat this market, but tried to eat but caught it.
Also, “Safari is so hard to use” is already a commonplace topic, but Apple insists on making it the default and non-uninstallable browser on every iPhone and MacBook.
“Safari is one of Apple’s most recognized applications for the iOS core user experience with industry-leading security and privacy protection,” Andeer wrote in a response to Congress. He used the same reason to explain why Apple forced browsers that competed with Safari (such as Google Chrome and Firefox) to use the WebKit framework to power their browsers when developing iOS products.
It’s worth mentioning that Safari is also a good product for Apple to generate revenue, but the money is not earned from advertisers or users, but earned from Google.
This year, Google once again paid Apple billions of dollars to make it the default search engine for the Safari browser on iPhones and Macs. Court documents show that Google paid $1 billion to Apple in 2014, and then increased year after year. In 2018, this figure was $9.5 billion.
Do you do this monopoly? Apple doesn’t think so, but Google’s ideas may be different.
Google: I don’t have control over the advertising market
In fact, Google is similar in some ways to Apple’s thinking, such as the Android operating system, which requires mobile phone and tablet manufacturers to pre-install the Google Play app store and Gmail, Google Maps and Chrome web browsers. The “Google Family Bar” app makes competitors out of the way.
Last year, Google was given a record $5 billion in fines for the EU. Although Google CEO Sanda Pichai expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict, but he was unable to reverse the global government’s sense of vigilance against technology companies. Even in my hometown.
In November, the 50 US attorneys generals who investigated Google’s monopolistic behavior were prepared to expand the investigation beyond the company’s advertising business, including search and Android.
Before this, the survey focused on Google’s cash cow, the advertising business. The main question of Congress about this business is, does Google control the advertising market? Do you prioritize your own products on the search results page?
Google wrote in a reply to Congress that the company does not agree that it controls too many search and digital advertising markets. Regarding the idea of giving priority to displaying its own services, Google responded that the “most” clicks of users after Google search went to non-Google sites, although YouTube is a Google product, but its The weight is not bigger than the competition.
Google’s advertising business is indeed facing challenges, as evidenced by the earnings report. Because of competition from Amazon, Facebook, etc., Google’s advertising revenue growth continues to slow down, while Amazon’s advertising business, although low start, but the growth rate is very fast. Research firm Jumpshot found that 54% of people looking for a certain product would search directly with Amazon.
In 2019, Google also fined 1.49 billion euros (about $1.7 billion) for exclusive contracts in agreements with advertisers. These contracts were signed in 2006. Although Google stopped this practice when the European Union filed a complaint against this issue in 2016, it is still difficult to escape.
Amazon: I have not treated third-party sellers unfairly
The e-commerce giant Amazon, like Google and Apple, denied most of the questions raised by Congress.
The Congress raised the issue that third-party sellers on the Amazon platform are concerned that Amazon will use their sales data to help Amazon’s proprietary branded merchandise and then compete with third-party sellers’ merchandise.
Amazon responded that using public and aggregated sales data to discover demand for goods is a standard practice in the retail industry. Its integrated consumer data comes from open data and first-party (ie Amazon’s own retail business) sales information, and the integrated user data is provided to the company’s retail and private-brand merchandise teams, while individual sellers’ data Not used to improve Amazon’s business.
Although there are a few examples of Amazon’s proprietary brands that seem to publicly replicate the popular products of third-party sellers, Amazon can still explain that it is only guided by the integration of data.
In 2016, Amazon’s own brand, AmazonBasics, introduced a laptop stand that looks very similar to a third-party seller on the platform, but at half the price. Recently, a shoe brand called Allbirds found a series of imitations on the platform, but the brand has never actually been sold on Amazon. Amazon seems to have noticed a large number of users searching for the brand’s products, realizing the gap in the market, and then starting to fill the gap with a very similar shoe.
In addition, some merchants have questioned that Amazon will give priority to the use of “Fulfillment by Amazon” products, while crowding out products that do not use Amazon’s logistics services, intended to force third-party sellers to use its services. Congress also conveyed this issue to Amazon.
Amazon responded that its shopping search ranking algorithm mainly considers the availability, price and frequency of purchases of the product, and has nothing to do with the other, and does not consider whether the merchant uses “Amazon distribution” or even whether the product belongs to Amazon. There are brands.
Congress also asked Amazon whether Amazon would punish third-party sellers on other platforms (such as eBay) for less than the price on Amazon. How to punish?
Amazon has returned to nothing. But there is evidence that it may be there.
This year, Forbes article said, some sellers revealed that Amazon requires them to provide the lowest price on the Amazon platform, if they do not, they can not pay for advertising, nor will they be used by the platform. Recommended for consumers, the click conversion rate is even more declining.
This treatment is a punishment for the seller, but according to Amazon’s response, it does not seem to think so.
Facebook: I have not maliciously suppressed competitors
After several vicious information breaches, it seems that Zuckerberg’s presence will be related to privacy data. However, because the subject of this round of investigation in Congress is anti-monopoly, several issues raised by Facebook are centered around its relationship with competitors.
Facebook defended the policy of restricting the use of its platform by some third-party application developers, insisting that they never linked data access to advertising spending.
But some evidence is not conducive to Facebook’s defense. Last year, Damian Collins, Chairman of the UK Digital Media and Sports Committee Disclosed a series of Facebook internal emails, which showed that Zuckerberg described the possibility of charging data access fees in more than one time. In an e-mail written by Facebook Partner Director Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, he made the assumption that it is only allowed to spend 2 times a year on Facebook mobile.Companies with advertising fees above $50,000 access Facebook user data.
Zuckerberg then responded that the discussion was discussed and that Facebook did not really charge developers.
In response to Congress, Facebook acknowledged that it removed certain third-party applications that it thought copied its core features, such as Twitter’s Vine, from its developer platform.
But when asked to cause Facebook to block the “exact” of applications such as Phhhoto, MessageMe, Voxer and Stackla, Facebook only vaguely replied that the company “limited applications that violated its policies” did not disclose more More information.
In January 2013, users were allowed to take multiple short video clips, and Vine, which produced a 6-second video, was blocked by Facebook on the day of the launch. At the beginning, when new users sign up for Vine, they can choose to follow their Facebook friends, but soon the API interface is closed.
Damian Collins’ public documents show that this is the shielding behavior Zuckerberg himself has instructed. Moreover, less than a few months after Vine’s API interface was closed, Instagram released its own short video production capabilities. The New York Times said that many people believe that this blockade of Facebook has caused Vine to gradually fall behind.
Facebook has responded, “This practice is common across the technology industry, and different platforms have different limits. YouTube, Twitter, Snap, and Apple are all like this.”
As stated at the beginning of the article, the monopolistic behavior of giant companies is becoming more confusing, and the conclusions have become more difficult. Connected Magazine commented that Internet companies The business prefers to be centralized, just as the value of a social network to a user depends on whether his friends are also using it. But a larger network is not the same as a better network. Companies that master the vast majority of users will gradually lose the incentive to optimize their products, while other competitors are completely out of the starting line, and ultimately all the benefits. Will flow into the pocket of the monopolist.
In particular, technology companies with financial resources can build larger networks through acquisitions.