It's a standard business practice to create "loss leaders" specifically to undermine a competitor's business, and then when they go under, go back to charging full, or excessive, prices. That's why legislation exists to prevent companies from abusing a dominant market position.
Perhaps the real difference here is that Google has been providing this free service for a long time, and others do continue to start up and attempt to compete by offering some sort of differentiator. Clearly this company decided they'd just claim Google was being unfair.
And according to the law - which you may regard as stupid, but that's not the point - Google is in the wrong. Consider what the marketplace could be like if every startup got crushed by Google providing a free equivalent until the startup founders and dies with no possibility or redress.
Or maybe we have that already, and the only hope of surviving is not to get noticed.
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Am I the only one scratching my head over this one? Fined for giving something away, really?
It's a standard business practice to create "loss leaders" specifically to undermine a competitor's business, and then when they go under, go back to charging full, or excessive, prices. That's why legislation exists to prevent companies from abusing a dominant market position.
Perhaps the real difference here is that Google has been providing this free service for a long time, and others do continue to start up and attempt to compete by offering some sort of differentiator. Clearly this company decided they'd just claim Google was being unfair.
And according to the law - which you may regard as stupid, but that's not the point - Google is in the wrong. Consider what the marketplace could be like if every startup got crushed by Google providing a free equivalent until the startup founders and dies with no possibility or redress.
Or maybe we have that already, and the only hope of surviving is not to get noticed.