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Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

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Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#191

Post by HillaryBriss »

fyoving wrote: post #69
justinph wrote: post #44

Dear Justice Department: Take a look at google AMP and how they use it to strong-arm publishers by linking it to search placement. You'll find some stuff.

People don't seem to understand how this stuff works in the US, Google has full editorial control over their search results protected by the first amendment and that right was affirmed in court time and time again: https://searchengineland.com/another-court-affirms-googles-f... If you don't like their free no lock in service go elsewhere, and that's why there is no sherman act case here, which is why if the DOJ actua…

Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren (not exactly a conservative Trump supporter) seems to think that antitrust regulators do indeed have a legitimate role to play:

Warren would appoint regulators who would reverse some of the biggest tech mergers that have taken place in recent years. That would mean the reversal of Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and Zappos, Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, and Google’s acquisition of Waze, Nest, and DoubleClick.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/8/18256192/el...

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#192

Post by dmix »

soup10 wrote: post #155
benologist wrote: post #53

In the last ~year Google has admitted to accidentally-but-knowingly stealing $75 million from Adwords customers, and settled a case they had fought four years for $11 million to avoid revealing what happens to a banned Adsense account's unpaid revenue. There is likely several hundred million dollars of fraud just in these two 'edge cases' they ignored handling for decades, so it's definitely time for someone to dig d…

lets not forget their latest and greatest of releasing chrome for free until it saturated the market and became a monopoly then maliciously making changes to reduce the effectiveness of adblockers like ublock origin

[citation needed]

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#193

Post by studentrob »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #184
studentrob wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, ISP monopolies are a bigger antitrust issue. People are overwhelmingly pro net-neutrality They will take this action against Google, and meanwhile, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts will continue to take in an average of $100 per customer per month. This is, quite nakedly, Comcast influencing action against Google for trying to compete in broadband. It is convenient that Comcast owns NBC while lobbying governme…

IDK. Maybe this is not totally relevant, and maybe it's not a valid counterpoint, but I find it interesting that the market capitalizations of AT&T, Comcast and Charter Communications combined are roughly $200 billion less than Alphabet alone.

You make a good point. Antitrust actions should be a function of both behavior and size. IMO, actions of ISPs have been more nefarious than FANG,

https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/expla...

https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2019/02/13/isps-are-violating-t...

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#194

Post by cycrutchfield »

mjevans wrote: post #183
cycrutchfield wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They built his campaign software while working for Google? Are you sure about that?

I think you're jumping to a conclusion with that phrasing. It's very likely they happened to also volunteer (or maybe be hired by) the campaign WHILE also happening to be employed by Google.

And Google would allow their employees to build IP for a particular political campaign? That is, they would waive their rights to the IP produced by their employees for the specific benefit of a particular candidate? That seems unlikely.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#195

Post by SomeOldThrow »

dmix wrote: post #192
soup10 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lets not forget their latest and greatest of releasing chrome for free until it saturated the market and became a monopoly then maliciously making changes to reduce the effectiveness of adblockers like ublock origin

[citation needed]

Err, is there another reason for chrome to exist? Google is no philanthropist.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#196

Post by nitwit005 »

el_programmador wrote: post #93
rayiner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any antitrust theory against Google would be pretty abstract given that they don’t charge for either search or Chrome. But the pop up trying to get you to switch to Chrome when you go to Google search is pretty much what you’d put in a textbook to illustrate leveraging a monopoly in one sector to gain market share in another. It’s extremely concrete and intuitive. That doesn’t mean it makes the case, of course. But i…

On that note, even Internet Explorer (IE) was bundled freely, Microsoft never charged a dime for it. Why was anti-trust pursued against Microsoft then? Honestly, I see no difference between that scenario and this. If anything, Google has been a lot more guilty than for just monopolizing on a browser here.

Microsoft specifically targeted Netscape, and there was documentation that that was the goal in the form of emails and the like.

Chrome wasn't seemingly to target anyone. Google generally makes more money if people use the internet more, so spending to make browsers better has some obvious benefits.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#197

Post by panarky »

threezero wrote: post #188
GeekyBear wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is that the revolving door between Google and our government was spinning pretty quickly during that period. >The Campaign for Accountability (CFA) this week launched the first two of its Google Transparency Projects. One of the projects – a visualisation of the revolving door between Google, the White House and US government agencies – is so dense, the website suggests viewing it on a desktop display. As we…

Notice that no Googlers have a good response to this or the Eric Schmidt / Hillary Clinton connection. Google’s ties to the Obama administration were deep.

Which raises deep suspicions about the political motivations of this "investigation".

Anti-trust is about companies using their market power to exclude rivals, raise prices, and hurt consumers. It's not about consumers overwhelmingly choosing a product because they like it more.

Can anyone really say that Google's practices are more anti-competitive than, say, the dominant players in broadband or health insurance or wireless telecom or household appliances?

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#198

Post by googthrwy_ »

nsomaru wrote: post #174

I was the biggest Google fan ever. I recommended all their products to everyone I know. Gone are those days. I now trust Microsoft (heh! M!cr0$0ft, anyone?) more than Google which is strange given I grew up rebelling against MS’s technical desktop hegemony. I wonder when Google decided “doing evil” was okay. I wonder how the SWE’s and other senior people in this thread feel about working for a company that many now c…

I wonder how the SWE’s and other senior people in this thread feel about working for a company that many now consider scum. All their excuses and retorts can honestly take a hike: It is my honest opinion that if you still work for Google you’re selling us all out.

Googler here, I understand why you may think Google is evil now and I'm not going to say they are a perfect company. But I think you should consider that it is a large company working on many different products. Not everyone is working on Ads or various "evil" things. Many of us work on things that people like and improve our lives.

If parts of the company is doing bad things, it doesn't make all of us sell outs in my opinion. Just like how every American that pays taxes isn't a sell out for all the bad things the US might do.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#199

Post by SomeOldThrow »

orev wrote: post #82

Look, I get it — the issues with Google, Facebook, Amazon. But I can’t help but think about how AT&T and other ISPs banded together to claim they shouldn’t be regulated because they are Internet companies just like FANG during the Net Neutrality discussions. When I see just how bad ISPs are acting, in lack of competition, price gouging, content ownership, data monitoring, it really seems they were successful in shift…

A neutral net is pretty meaningless if it’s just a handful of walled gardens you can access

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#200

Post by losingthefight »

dmix wrote: post #192
soup10 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lets not forget their latest and greatest of releasing chrome for free until it saturated the market and became a monopoly then maliciously making changes to reduce the effectiveness of adblockers like ublock origin

[citation needed]

Really? I mean, pick one of a hundred. They are deprecating APIs that would block the interception and are ignoring community pushback.

But since you asked...

https://bgr.com/2019/05/31/google-chrome-update-ad-blockers-...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evy53j/google-struggles-t...

https://9to5google.com/2019/05/29/chrome-ad-blocking-enterpr...

But I mean, that was a 2 second search. Citations are indeed hard to come by...

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