Can anything curb the dominance of the internet's big guns?
by Cory Doctorow from Technology | The Guardian on (#7JY5)
E-commerce has been built to favour the tech giants. Only new regulations that recognise the plight of spunky startups and SMEs can help weaken their grip
The European anti-trust action against Google uses a silly rubric to get at a serious underlying problem.
The nominal issue is that Google preferentially directed comparison shoppers to its own e-commerce sites even when they weren't the cheapest option. This would be sleazy if true. What's certainly true is that Google's shopping site has always sucked, is barely used, and is the least worrisome competition question raised by Google's online dominance. Busting Google for sleazy e-commerce search results is like taking down Al Capone for tax-evasion.
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