Tag: Monopoly Abuse

@foxjust: Uber Decides It’s Getting Tired of Competition

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How big was it, Travis?

In its home market, the U.S., Uber certainly is well ahead of chief rival Lyft, in fundraising as well as market share. Its advantage is especially big among business travelers, who value its presence in more cities — for them, the network effects are at least partially national. But business travelers are a small minority among those who use ride-hailing apps, and Lyft has claimed major market-share gains in a few big cities where it has concentrated its efforts recently.

Lyft has been able to do that in large part thanks to $1 billion in new cash it got this year from General Motors and other investors. It has also been part of a nascent global anti-Uber alliance with Didi, which invested $100 million in Lyft last year. With Uber and Didi’s CEOs sitting on each other’s boards, as Monday’s deal calls for, it’s hard to see Didi staying involved with that effort. Also, Uber’s stake in Didi will make it an indirect part owner of Lyft, at least for a while. It’s all very incestuous.

It also seems to bespeak a less directly competitive future.

Read the post on Bloomberg

Christopher Williams: Google faces record-breaking fine for web search monopoly abuse

It’s been a textbook example of how not to handle a European antitrust investigation when you know you’re guilty.  In the years-long will-they-or-won’t-they antitrust investigation game that spanned two competition ministers, in the end it will be the sheer hubris that got Google and got them good.  But then it’s what happens when the loser tries to run out the clock with no points on the board.

Google faces a record-breaking fine for monopoly abuse within weeks, as officials in Brussels put the finishing touches to a seven-year investigation of company’s dominant search engine.

It is understood that the European Commission is aiming to hit Google with a fine in the region of €3bn, a figure that would easily surpass its toughest anti-trust punishment to date, a €1.1bn fine levied on the microchip giant Intel.

Sources close to the situation said officials aimed to make an announcement before the summer break and could make their move as early as next month, although cautioned that Google’s bill for crushing competition online had not been finalised.

The maximum possible is around €6.6bn, or a tenth of Google’s total annual sales.

It will mark a watershed moment in Silicon Valley’s competition battle with Brussels.

And then maybe we can move on to YouTube.

Read about it in The Telegraph