Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#221

Post by googthrwy_ » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:01 AM UTC

nsomaru wrote: post #201

googthrwy_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

As far as I understand, the penalty for not paying taxes is incarceration or heavy fines. The penalty for not working for Google is effectively having to find work somewhere else. Not exactly oranges to oranges. I appreciate that you may be working on things that improve people’s lives. How is that work funded? What would happen to those projects when they are deemed not profitable enough or endanger the evil stuff?…

I agree its not a perfect analogy but you could argue that you can go live somewhere else too.

And yes, a lot of the work is funded by the "evil stuff" but Google is trying to expand their enterprise offerings and their hardware business is growing as well. I expect those to be profitable one day if not already.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#222

Post by cycrutchfield » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #203

cycrutchfield wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eric Schmidt literally went out of his way to organize the Clinton IT infrastructure on ridiculously good terms. https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-... The idea that he utilized Google resources to do the same for Obama while he had more direct influence over Google isn't a crazy idea.

And he did so in his capacity as a private citizen, not by exercising his influence at Google. By the way, we are quite far afield from the initial claim that Google employees wrote software for a particular political campaign.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#223

Post by SlowRobotAhead » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

HillaryBriss wrote: post #191

fyoving wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

Downvotes be damned, but I honestly can’t tell if this is satire.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#224

Post by pgeorgi » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #194

mjevans wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google has various programs under which employees can release code without having to care too much about the broad copyright assumptions in their contracts.

The two most popular are https://opensource.google.com/docs/releasing/ (which is for open source code, with (C) Google, because with open source you mostly don't have to care much about that line) and https://opensource.google.com/docs/iarc/ (author retains copyright, no open source requirement or association with Google at all).

IARC should be quite suitable for projects on "contentious" topics like politics or religion: Google generally stays clear of these topics (so there won't be a conflict of interest in building something like that, as Google just isn't active in that market), and the company won't have to deal with being associated with one team (versus all the others) through some side hustle they can barely control.

(Disclosure: working at Google, but far from the licensing folks. I found them reasonable to argue with, though.)

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#225

Post by netwanderer3 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:06 AM UTC

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #218

netwanderer3 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Many people fail to grasp that in the grand scheme of things, this is unlikely to change anything. Google has always been at the center of the tech industry. Some of its services are not only important to the public and vital for the U.S. economy, but also very critical to national security as well. Rest assured that efforts will be spent to ensure Google will continue to remain at this position in the forese…

>Google has always been at the center of the tech industry. Are you showing your age?

You must be fun at parties.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#226

Post by defen » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:08 AM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #149

dpoochieni wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW: Before the preceding comment apologizes and distracts from the real issue, the WH involving itself in the issue is very different from the prosecutor meetings described by the previous comment.

Given that this amazingly nameless "white house advisor"and title is clear spin for their narrative in the same way the "top competition counsel" thing is (and proven wrong by totally trivial fact checking), do you have evidence or anything to back up that this was not a standard meeting?

I have no opinion on the nature of the meeting but the White House Advisor is named directly in the article and they include screen shots of the emails.

This is the advisor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._David_Edelman

It's not like he was Secretary of State but he also wasn't just an intern.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#227

Post by Fins » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:09 AM UTC

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 when Google decided “doing evil” was okay

The moment they incorporated, at the latest. Really. When people go to such lengths to tell you "we're not evil, honest!" -- you should know where it's going.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#228

Post by mmmeff » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:09 AM UTC

panarky wrote: post #197

threezero wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We’re not talking about telecoms. We all know they’re a corrupt monopoly. Nice strawman.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#229

Post by GeekyBear » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:12 AM UTC

panarky wrote: post #197

threezero wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Antitrust action was recommended by the career antitrust officials at the FTC, not the politicians.

It was the political appointees (from both parties) who shut their recommendation that the FTC begin an antitrust action down.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#230

Post by cycrutchfield » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:14 AM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #224

cycrutchfield wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google has various programs under which employees can release code without having to care too much about the broad copyright assumptions in their contracts. The two most popular are https://opensource.google.com/docs/releasing/ (which is for open source code, with (C) Google, because with open source you mostly don't have to care much about that line) and https://opensource.google.com/docs/iarc/ (author retains copyr…

I would find it surprising that Google would be OK with that, particularly because it could be construed as them contributing to some campaign. An employee writing a check to the campaign? That’s perfectly fine, Google has no say over that. An employee producing IP for a campaign? Well, Google does technically have a say over that and would have to waive their right of ownership of said IP...