Google's Next EU Showdown; Oracle's Moat Adds Capabilities

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Spirit Of Competition

This summer, the EU is is expected to rule against Google in the most important of three antitrust cases levelled at the US tech giant by Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s top antitrust regulator, Reuters reports. Its aim is to stop Google’s practice of prohibiting smartphone vendors from promoting competitors to Google Search and Maps. The decision will likely include a multibillion-dollar fine and Google will have to change its licensing agreements. Still, even a big regulatory win against Google would show “just how difficult it is, even for a committed trust-buster like Vestager, to dent the power of the US giants,” Reuters says. A fine that would close most companies can be brushed off by Google with cash on hand, and even with more promotional opportunities for competitors its market position will remain intact. “The Android case has taken too long, and … Google has in large measure achieved the elimination of competition it sought,” says FairSearch antitrust lawyer Thomas Vinje. More.

Buy And Build

Oracle’s Moat launched some new capabilities on Thursday. The first is an MRC accreditation for detecting sophisticated invalid traffic on desktop and mobile web. Additionally, Moat’s reporting will improve detection of hidden ads, hijacked sessions (when a user is forcibly redirected to another site or app download page) and domain spoofing. The new functionality is enabled by two other recent Oracle Data Cloud acquisitions: Zenedge, a cloud security software provider, and the online infrastructure service Dyn. Read the release.

A Tale Of Two Marketplaces

Walmart and its Jet ecommerce subsidiary haven’t made significant inroads into the third-party seller marketplace. Most Amazon sellers also sell on eBay and on their own sites, but fewer than 10% sell on Walmart or Jet, Retail Dive reports. The company seems to be taking a split approach, trimming third-party sellers from Jet while cultivating them on Walmart.com. “The cost to acquire a new customer on a nationwide basis is cheaper with the Walmart brand, so we’ve been investing more in Walmart.com on a national basis and reducing marketing investment in Jet, except in certain urban markets,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told analysts last month. More.

DOJ to come

But Wait, There’s More!