Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google

Manne, Geoffrey A.; Wright, Joshua D.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1577556

Cited by 34 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Google has been allegedly manipulating its search results (Manne and Wright 2011;Cave and Williams 2011;Balto 2011;Van Loon 2012) with two aims: promoting its own-produced content; and demoting its competitors' content, especially in the case of vertical search engines.…”

Section: Manipulation Of Search Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At best, this is a set of empirical propositions whose truth needs to be tested (Manne and Wright 2011). Some scholars (Evans 2008b;Pavel 2009) consider that there is a self-reinforcing loop between the number of searchers and advertisers, and therefore conclude that the Google platform is best described as a two-sided market.…”

Section: Google's Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The higher the number of advertisers, the more intense the competition for advertising space, therefore prices are higher and the salience of an advertisement is lower (Manne and Wright, 2011). It may be stated that the higher the number of advertisers, the more accurate the match between advertisements and research queries.…”

Section: Google's Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, the same happen in the aircraft industry, which is the classic illustraion for learning economies: Boeing and Airbus make better aircrafts at lower costs because have made more aircrafts in the past. Economists would never say, and have never said so far, that aircraft buyers enjoy network externalities; analogously, economist should not say that Google searchers do (Manne and Wright, 2011).…”

Section: Google's Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the US, Google has been accused 36 to have "entered into exclusive syndication agreements with certain high-traffic online publishers, foreclosing access by competitors" (Manne and Wright, 2011). In our model, these are not exclusive distribution agreements for search services, but exclusive purchasing agreements for users' eyeballs, large websites, software producers and OEMs being the suppliers and Google the retailer.…”

Section: Exclusive Agreements For Traffic Acquisitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is the Google Platform a Two-Sided Market?

Luchetta

2012

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu Terms of use: Documents in IS THE GOOGLE PLATFORM A TWO-SIDED MARKET?Giacomo Luchetta * AbstractProbably not. Or, at least, it is a sui generis two-sided market. Unlike other platforms, such as operating systems, credit cards, or night clubs, where a single transaction is performed via the platform, two different transactions take place on Google. Users look for search results, while advertisers look for users' eyeballs. Whilst operating systems, credit cards, and night clubs would be meaningless if either of the two sides were missing, search engines (like TV or newspapers) can exist under different market configurations. Indeed, in search engines network externalities run only from the number of users to advertisers, and not the other way around. This thesis is supported by the analysis of the existing literature on two-sided markets and the applications carried out so far to the economics of search engines.According to this analysis, a new construction of the relevant market where Google operates is proposed. Google operates as a retailer of eyeballs, or users' attention. In the upstream market, on one side, it buys well-profiled eyeballs from large retailers, i.e. major websites, at a positive price (Traffic Acquisition Costs); on the other side, it buys eyeballs from single consumers in exchange of search services (inkind payment). Then, it sells well-profiled eyeballs to advertisers in the downstream market. Based on this market construction, the allegations against Google are analysed as alleged violations of competition law along this vertical chain.

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Section: Manipulation Of Search Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Google's Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Google's Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Google's Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Exclusive Agreements For Traffic Acquisitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is the Google Platform a Two-Sided Market?

Luchetta

2012

SSRN Journal

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An empirical investigation on search engine ad disclosure

Lewandowski

Kerkmann

Rümmele

et al. 2017

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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This representative study of German search engine users (N=1,000) focuses on the ability of users to distinguish between organic results and advertisements on Google results pages. We combine questions about Google's business with task-based studies in which users were asked to distinguish between ads and organic results in screenshots of results pages. We find that only a small percentage of users is able to reliably distinguish between ads and organic results, and that user knowledge of Google's business model is very limited. We conclude that ads are insufficiently labelled as such, and that many users may click on ads assuming that they are selecting organic results.

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Online Markets and Nonprice Competition

2022

Regulating Data Monopolies

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Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google

Cited by 34 publications

References 22 publications

Is the Google Platform a Two-Sided Market?

Is the Google Platform a Two-Sided Market?

An empirical investigation on search engine ad disclosure

Online Markets and Nonprice Competition

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