Should Google still be allowed to crown the king in the digital market?
Google Search is continually evolving into a full-service provider that directly selects and presents the information you are looking for. At first glance, this seems to benefit consumers. However, it can also have a negative impact on competition because it gives Google the power to judge the success (or failure) of other websites by avoiding consumer choice. This led to antitrust investigations and proceedings in Germany. To search for the weather at your current location, simply go to google.com and enter the search term weather. Google will do the rest. Not only will you see a number of websites linked to your search terms, but youll also see a direct weather graph of your location, such as temperature, precipitation, and wind, at the top of the results. For the next day. This is what Google calls the Knowledge Panel and shows how Google Search has moved from a simple search engine to a full-service provider (the development well described here). This is very useful for users who dont even have to click elsewhere to find the information. At the same time, it is beneficial for Google for users to stay longer in Google, which can monetize additional attention and time through advertising. However, other website operators may not find it interesting. The more information users find directly on Google, the less likely they are to visit other websites. Fewer visitors means less advertising revenue. In Germany, the evolution of Google raises antitrust concerns. First, the media company that operates the website that posted health-related information is provided by Google and the German Ministry of Health website, and Google and Germany over the information box that contains the health-related information displayed in Google search. We have filed a private lawsuit against the Ministry of Health. Reduce the number of visitors to other health websites. Next, the German competition authority (Bundeskartellamt) has begun investigating the Google News Showcase. This is a new Google service that displays news selected by Google in a so-called story panel, somewhat similar to the Knowledge panel. In both cases, it helps explain the new theory of harm that proposes to crown the crown. When Google directly displays information obtained from other sources, it determines the success or failure of websites that provide this information, thereby avoiding consumers as competitive arbitrators. Google and the German Ministry of Health: Ideal symbiosis for Google  If Google wants to include the information directly in the search results, it needs to get the information from somewhere. In Germany, the Federal Ministry of Health has been found to be the perfect partner for this. The ministry operates a national health portal (gesund.bund.de) to inform the public about health-related information. It provides, among other things, information about illness, nutrition, care, or patient rights. This website is state-owned and funded. Therefore, unlike privately run websites that offer similar services, national health portals do not rely on advertising revenue. This will be Googles perfect partner. By retrieving information from the health portal and displaying it directly in search results, users can stay longer at Google (because it never happened before) without blocking advertising revenue from national health portals. This is exactly what Google did in November 2020. In collaboration with the German Secretary of Health, we have created an information box that prominently displays health-related information obtained directly from the national health portal on the search results page. Subsequent search results for health-related information are as follows. (Source: LG Mnchen I, 10 Judgment. February 2021 37 O 15721/20)  In this example, the search term was Migrne (migraine). On the right is an information box with a link to the National Health Portal. On the left, youll see the first organic search results, followed by some paid results. In this case it is netdoktor.de. This is an advertising-funded website that provides health-related information very similar to gesund.bund.de. The website operator has decided to challenge the information box in court after seeing a sharp drop in user traffic. Two separate proceedings in a court in Munich, one against Google and one against the ministry, demanded that cooperation be terminated, especially for antitrust reasons. The court upheld this allegation in a ruling from February this year (more on this here). The cooperation between Google and the Ministry of Health has been found to constitute an anti-competitive agreement. The court alleged that it relied on Google to give health portal operators access to the service. You can generate enough user traffic to run your business only if it is highly visible in Google Search. As shown in the photo above, the info box will take over the major real estate on the search results page. In fact, the plaintiffs website was the only organic search result displayed on the first page of results, but was only found at the end. The information box has two effects. First, users often dont need to visit non-Google websites if they can find what theyre looking for in the info box. Second, users who want to search further should have a prominent link to the National Health Portal in the information box rather than accessing the offer (websites such as netdoktor.de) that appears in organic search results. It is more likely to be used. ). In both cases, the Private Health Portal has less user traffic to monetize. Second, Google will allow users to stay longer, collect more data, and sell more targeted (and therefore more valuable) ads. Google and the ministry argued for efficiency defenses, claiming that consumers actually benefited from the information box. And it configured an improvement in the quality of Googles search results. In addition, they claimed that public health education had increased. This did not convince the courts that Google expressed concern about the transition from a (pure) search engine to becoming a content provider. The court ruled that the qualitative improvement of Googles service itself was insufficient to improve efficiency to justify its actions, as it did not show any improvement in overall welfare. Here, the court emphasized Googles role as a gatekeeper in the upstream market, the low economic risks of the parties, and the potential negative impact on multiple media and opinions. In the long run, it is a concern that we cannot leave an alternative medicine information provider on the Internet. By using tools like news showcases, Google can avoid consumers as mediators of the competitive process, thereby crowning the king.  Bundesk artellamts survey on Google News Showcase  On June 4, Bundeskartellamt announced that it has begun a survey of Google on the recently launched Google News Showcase. In this study, authorities are bending their muscles under new tools that enable special procedures for companies that are most important to competition between markets. Bundeskartellamt is also investigating Facebook, Amazon and Apple under this tool. Google News Showcase is a new service recently rolled out in several countries around the world that allows you to select news from a particular publisher and display it in the so-called story panel. Google pays for being able to show their content to these publishers. This service was initially available only in the Google News app, but can now be found in Google News on your desktop. Interestingly, through Showcase, users can usually read articles with paywalls as well. The showcase (Germany) looks like this:  Bundeskartellamt is concerned that integrating Google News Showcase into Googles popular search capabilities could be a self-priority or obstacle to services offered by competing third parties. Theory of Harm: Crown the King  You may be wondering what the theory of harm in the above two cases is. On the one hand, information boxes and news showcases clearly steal traffic from other websites. Still, this seems to benefit consumers. After all, its easy for users to directly find great selections of health information and news articles (usually even paywalls). Moreover, the self-priority idea suggested by the Bundeskartellamt seems quite distant. Unlike Google Shopping, where Google had a shopping search engine for directly competing products with features similar to offers from price comparison sites like idealo and shopping.com, Google is news (or health). It does not directly conflict with the website. The underlying theory of harm that applies to both of the above cases is that with tools like the news showcase, Google can avoid consumers as mediators of the competitive process and thereby crown the king. I suggest that you can do it. Ideally, it is the consumer who decides which offers will succeed in the market through consumer behavior. If Google can unilaterally decide which offer to prioritize, this element of competition will be eliminated. Can you do it?). Therefore, Google can choose one (in the case of a health information box) or multiple (in the case of a news showcase) winner to be prominently displayed and leave all other competitors in the rain. You can effectively reduce competition between other website providers. This allows the winner to take over the affected market, which is determined by Googles unchecked discretion. In the context of news, this is especially harmful as it can distort multiple opinions. This theory of harm reflects a broader understanding of competition law and protects the competitive process and consumer choice as a key component of it. This view is not uncommon in Europe, and even more so in Germany. The German Federal Supreme Court recently highlighted this aspect of competition law in a well-known Facebook proceeding. Google needs to carefully design new features to avoid creating a market where winners dominate, and to maintain the ability of consumers to choose from different offers. In the context of news showcases, only giving non-discriminatory access to all publishers, including small, lesser-known companies and new entrants, seems to be compatible with (European) competition law. 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