Anyone a Whistleblower?

[Trident 24]

So, having heard about google's unfair practices and the monopoly on the market they have held, i couldn't help but compare their behaviour to Autotraders, have very briefly looked into the European Complaints Commission and look what i found:

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/whistleblower/index.html

Seems to me there are a few dealers who feel held to ransom by AT and i for one wouldn't mind being a whistlblower!! it might be an idea to create a standard letter that anyone who is interested could email across to them, who's is the chap who wrote the 'open letter', maybe he could be the author of it??... something needs to be done, and google was obviously investigated on the back of someone somewhere saying they had a complaint!! small acorns grow into big trees and all that!!!

[Phil H 124]

Jim Reid, of Jim Reid vehicle sales is the man who wrote the letter, both him or Green Giant are good letter writers.

[trade vet 702]

I may be wrong,but because of Brexit,I don't think complaining to the EU will work.You would probably have to prove that AT impacts on competitors in other EU member states.Any comments...

[MattGM 12]

We are STILL an EU member state at this moment unless I'm mistaken?

[andymc1973 199]

over on twitter car dealers they're tried and got nowhere

[jimreidvehicle 255]

1 hour ago, andymc1973 said:

over on twitter car dealers they're tried and got nowhere

Andy, what exactly have we tried? 

[andymc1973 199]

was there not a letter written with regards to the sponsored adverts first?

[jimreidvehicle 255]

On ‎01‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 6:35 PM, andymc1973 said:

was there not a letter written with regards to the sponsored adverts first?

not to my knowledge?

[andymc1973 199]

If you have the time, pull up a sandbag. Below is my letter to the Advertising Standards Authority about the Autotrader Con, sent a few weeks ago, then their reply, and my reply to them, sent today. I have said before, I just wish we could somehow convince each other to take the time to complain in large numbers, until we are heard enough to form an effective defence. All power to Jim and the chaps here in their efforts to get us together as one loud voice. 

(If you would take the time to make the same complaint to them now while he's still reading my reply, the email address is: paulw@ASA.Org.UK )

 

To ASA:

 

www.autotrader.co.uk have in recent weeks changed the default result for a buyer's search, from ''price order, lowest first'', to ''Sponsored'' adverts first. However, they are deliberately showing those sponsored adverts in price order, deliberately misleading the public into thinking that nothing has changed. They receive more money of course from the sponsored adverts, so the DECEITFUL practice is PROFIT DRIVEN. If they showed the results in random price order then fine, a person would look to 'filter' the results to suit. But as it is, the filter facility is so small and not obvious, that no-one would notice it, and would assume the results are in a natural price order, and therefore not look for a price order filter. The buyer is being hugely disadvantaged, because for the sake of Autotrader's profit, he is not being shown the much cheaper cars that begin many many pages later at much lower prices, after all the sponsored adverts have been exhausted. When any sponsored advert is clicked upon, nowhere at all is it stated that the advert is a sponsored advert, and that cheaper and better value cars can be found by altering the default order of results, say to 'lowest priced first', for instance. Either the sponsored adverts should be VERY plainly shown to be such, and /or should be in completely random order, not in a confidence-tricking price order?

If they were shown in random, not price order, the viewer would 'filter' to suit his needs. It is DECEITFUL, PROFIT-DRIVEN, and totally and deliberately lacks TRANSPARENCY.

[Integroo 1]

Hi chaps.

 

I'm not a car dealer, and just lurk here out of interest, so apologies in advance if this is not allowed.

 

What I am is a European competition lawyer, i.e. the area of law relevant to the Google case you are discussing.

 

I thought I could maybe provide some insight.  The Google case is not fundamentally about treating consumers unfairly; it's about a breach of the competition law prohibition against abusing a dominant position.  The argument runs that Google is dominant in the market for Internet search, and should not be abusing their dominance in that market by favouring it's own services in a different but related market (the market for shopping comparison services) by placing Google Shopping first at the top of it's search results.

Unfortunately the whistleblowing line isn't directly relevant, as it relates to cartels i.e. anticompetitive agreements between competitors.

There are of course comparisons that can be drawn to AutoTrader.  The first question is are they dominant - normally one would consider below 40% market share unlikely to be dominant, above 70% likely to be dominant, in between possibly dominant depending on the structure of the market.  Instinctively I'd suggest that the market for dealer sales and private sales may be separate (very generally speaking the question would be whether a small but significant, say 5%, price increase by dealers would drive customers to private sales - if the answer is no, the markets are separate).  If they are separate, it may be considered dominant, though more investigation would be needed.  The question would then be are they abusing their dominance to the detriment of competition and ultimately to consumers by favouring sponsored adverts.  I'd say this could be argued either way, but there is an argument there.  

 

I'd suggest if you wanted to tackle this, writing to the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK would be the best bet (though no harm in copying it to the European Commission), stating that you think there are competition concerns in this market that should be investigated by the CMA.  They may open a market study.  However the concerns expressed should not be the impact on dealers - it should be the negative impact on consumers (higher prices primarily through poorer competition  between rival dealers). 

 

Hopefully insightful and hopefully allowed.  Happy to answer any questions anonymously - this is not legal advice, just some friendly insights.

[trade vet 702]

11 hours ago, Integroo said:

Hi chaps.

 

I'm not a car dealer, and just lurk here out of interest, so apologies in advance if this is not allowed.

 

What I am is a European competition lawyer, i.e. the area of law relevant to the Google case you are discussing.

 

I thought I could maybe provide some insight.  The Google case is not fundamentally about treating consumers unfairly; it's about a breach of the competition law prohibition against abusing a dominant position.  The argument runs that Google is dominant in the market for Internet search, and should not be abusing their dominance in that market by favouring it's own services in a different but related market (the market for shopping comparison services) by placing Google Shopping first at the top of it's search results.

Unfortunately the whistleblowing line isn't directly relevant, as it relates to cartels i.e. anticompetitive agreements between competitors.

There are of course comparisons that can be drawn to AutoTrader.  The first question is are they dominant - normally one would consider below 40% market share unlikely to be dominant, above 70% likely to be dominant, in between possibly dominant depending on the structure of the market.  Instinctively I'd suggest that the market for dealer sales and private sales may be separate (very generally speaking the question would be whether a small but significant, say 5%, price increase by dealers would drive customers to private sales - if the answer is no, the markets are separate).  If they are separate, it may be considered dominant, though more investigation would be needed.  The question would then be are they abusing their dominance to the detriment of competition and ultimately to consumers by favouring sponsored adverts.  I'd say this could be argued either way, but there is an argument there.  

 

I'd suggest if you wanted to tackle this, writing to the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK would be the best bet (though no harm in copying it to the European Commission), stating that you think there are competition concerns in this market that should be investigated by the CMA.  They may open a market study.  However the concerns expressed should not be the impact on dealers - it should be the negative impact on consumers (higher prices primarily through poorer competition  between rival dealers). 

 

Hopefully insightful and hopefully allowed.  Happy to answer any questions anonymously - this is not legal advice, just some friendly insights.

Thank you very much Integroo.There we are guys,that must be about £1500 worth of legal oppinion.

[Trident 24]

Hi chaps.

 

I'm not a car dealer, and just lurk here out of interest, so apologies in advance if this is not allowed.

 

What I am is a European competition lawyer, i.e. the area of law relevant to the Google case you are discussing.

 

I thought I could maybe provide some insight.  The Google case is not fundamentally about treating consumers unfairly; it's about a breach of the competition law prohibition against abusing a dominant position.  The argument runs that Google is dominant in the market for Internet search, and should not be abusing their dominance in that market by favouring it's own services in a different but related market (the market for shopping comparison services) by placing Google Shopping first at the top of it's search results.

Unfortunately the whistleblowing line isn't directly relevant, as it relates to cartels i.e. anticompetitive agreements between competitors.

There are of course comparisons that can be drawn to AutoTrader.  The first question is are they dominant - normally one would consider below 40% market share unlikely to be dominant, above 70% likely to be dominant, in between possibly dominant depending on the structure of the market.  Instinctively I'd suggest that the market for dealer sales and private sales may be separate (very generally speaking the question would be whether a small but significant, say 5%, price increase by dealers would drive customers to private sales - if the answer is no, the markets are separate).  If they are separate, it may be considered dominant, though more investigation would be needed.  The question would then be are they abusing their dominance to the detriment of competition and ultimately to consumers by favouring sponsored adverts.  I'd say this could be argued either way, but there is an argument there.  

 

I'd suggest if you wanted to tackle this, writing to the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK would be the best bet (though no harm in copying it to the European Commission), stating that you think there are competition concerns in this market that should be investigated by the CMA.  They may open a market study.  However the concerns expressed should not be the impact on dealers - it should be the negative impact on consumers (higher prices primarily through poorer competition  between rival dealers). 

 

Hopefully insightful and hopefully allowed.  Happy to answer any questions anonymously - this is not legal advice, just some friendly insights.

 

Wow, thank you very much integroo, very interesting, never heard of the competitions and markets authority, sounds exactly the right avenue to pursue...