That would essentially create one massively profitable business (ads) and one very unprofitable business (everything else). There might be exceptions, like cloud computing, but most of Google is not self-sustaining without its ad business.
Doesn’t seam feasible for the survival of the rest of Google.
It wouldn’t be a post-Google world, it would be a world of “baby Googles” all trying to find a path to profitability, most likely by invading your privacy even more or doing other unsavory things. Google’s bad for privacy, but if broken up into a long tail of tiny businesses, it could actually be much worse.
The far, far more likely outcome if they can’t sustain a profit is that they’d be acquired.
Take for example Google Photos. I find it very unlikely that Google is making money off of it. What revenue they do have comes from storage, which is subsidized by the scale of the rest of the company.
On its own, though, Google Photos has a lot of data: who you were with, what products are in your home, where you were when you took those photos. Right now, Google doesn’t do anything to monetize the content of those images; it would be too much reputational damage and they already know enough about you from other signals.
But what if Google Photos were a stand-alone business? What if they were acquired by Epsilon or Oracle America? There are companies that are way worse on privacy than Google. They would have no qualms at all about taking your entire photo archive and adding to the profiles they sell.
Google doesn’t need to control the entire value-chain of the as market like it does now to be sustainable. Right now they are basically the ticketmaster of online ads.
Google the advertising business would have no trouble on its own. But the advertising business and cloud computing business are their only meaningfully profitable businesses.
Google Arts & Culture, Google Photos, Google Duo, Google Voice, etc would likely need to figure out business models, and those business models may not be what you’d want.
If you read the article, the problem is not that Google has an advertisement business but that they control the entire chain. In particular they focusing on the Google AdX (Ad Exchange) which is only one of the components of their ad business, but it’s the one that gives them an unfair advantage, because it gives them full control over both the buying and selling sides of the ads business.
That’s one complaint. And breaking them up would be fine (probably). But regulators are also eyeing breaking Google and its other businesses up. Android has long caught the eye of regulators in Europe.
(Less so in America where it has a minority of the market…)
That would essentially create one massively profitable business (ads) and one very unprofitable business (everything else). There might be exceptions, like cloud computing, but most of Google is not self-sustaining without its ad business.
Doesn’t seam feasible for the survival of the rest of Google.
Good, the internet and android are an ad infested data mining hell scape. I’d love to see a post google tech world.
It wouldn’t be a post-Google world, it would be a world of “baby Googles” all trying to find a path to profitability, most likely by invading your privacy even more or doing other unsavory things. Google’s bad for privacy, but if broken up into a long tail of tiny businesses, it could actually be much worse.
Keyword could. Monopolies do know one any good. See Twitter and Reddit. I would rather roll the dice, then stick with Monopolies
Those businesses would quickly die and be outcompeted, as competition mostly doesn’t exist now in those spaces because of Google.
We’d all be better if the internet was not owned by an ad company.
The far, far more likely outcome if they can’t sustain a profit is that they’d be acquired.
Take for example Google Photos. I find it very unlikely that Google is making money off of it. What revenue they do have comes from storage, which is subsidized by the scale of the rest of the company.
On its own, though, Google Photos has a lot of data: who you were with, what products are in your home, where you were when you took those photos. Right now, Google doesn’t do anything to monetize the content of those images; it would be too much reputational damage and they already know enough about you from other signals.
But what if Google Photos were a stand-alone business? What if they were acquired by Epsilon or Oracle America? There are companies that are way worse on privacy than Google. They would have no qualms at all about taking your entire photo archive and adding to the profiles they sell.
And the same authority that would have broke up Google has to approve the acquisition. They most likely wouldn’t.
That’s not something that they can do under EU law.
Why not? It wouldn’t create a monopoly.
And EU law applies only with regard to Europeans. And European companies.
That AND in there is an OR. It definitely applies to American companies selling to EU customers.
And well to be honest, it’s not the EU’s fault other countries are not enacting reasonable privacy or market regulations.
Google is big enough to have a nexus in Europe. I wouldn’t assume that for its long tail of products.
Either way, Americans, Canadians, etc could be concerned with their privacy issues.
Google doesn’t need to control the entire value-chain of the as market like it does now to be sustainable. Right now they are basically the ticketmaster of online ads.
Google the advertising business would have no trouble on its own. But the advertising business and cloud computing business are their only meaningfully profitable businesses.
Google Arts & Culture, Google Photos, Google Duo, Google Voice, etc would likely need to figure out business models, and those business models may not be what you’d want.
If you read the article, the problem is not that Google has an advertisement business but that they control the entire chain. In particular they focusing on the Google AdX (Ad Exchange) which is only one of the components of their ad business, but it’s the one that gives them an unfair advantage, because it gives them full control over both the buying and selling sides of the ads business.
That’s one complaint. And breaking them up would be fine (probably). But regulators are also eyeing breaking Google and its other businesses up. Android has long caught the eye of regulators in Europe.
(Less so in America where it has a minority of the market…)