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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

#321

Post by v7p1Qbt1im »

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…

Who stands to gain when Google is weakened? Conspiracy time. Maybe there was a concerted efforts by media conglomerates and other tech firms (Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Tencent, etc.) to bombard Google with bad PR for the last 5 years.

Oracle is fighting to stay relevant. Tencent/Baidu will dominate AI if Google gets nerfed. Microsoft and Amazon will take over all of western tech once Google/FB is out of the way.

/tinfoil

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#322

Post by rmrfrmrf »

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…

Every content site implements AMP for fear of losing Google traffic, not because customers wanted or demanded it.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#323

Post by endorphone »

Zigurd wrote: post #314
xkgt wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they did all they could to kill Windows Phone (a viable alternative ecosystem at that time) by blocking access to Youtube[1] and providing sub-par experience for their other services. Now I fear Firefox has a similar sisyphean task at hand, trying to keep their browser usable on google services. And for many of the users, that is same as usability of the browser as a whole. [1] https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com…

Microsoft managed to kill Windows Phone by itself and take Nokia, and a more mature more viable smartphone OS, down with it. Windows phone was a "viable alternative" by the end, but in the beginning it was uncompetitive without any hindrances. Also recall that mobile carriers and OEMs were opposed to Android because it would further degrade their ability to create walled gardens. The carriers lost control of apps, no…

Also recall that mobile carriers and OEMs were opposed to Android

I agree with the other claims (about Microsoft killing Windows Phone through their own actions and choices), however this one is a bit weird. Apple gave essentially no ground to carriers, which was a huge change. Which is why carriers all embraced Android, at a time when it was horribly uncompetitive, because it returned control to them, letting them preload any nonsense they wanted, making it undeletable, etc.

Apple updates come through Apple alone. If you have a Samsung phone on a carrier, they still matriculate through your carrier.

Add that of the 30% cut that the Play Store takes for apps and games, historically one half of that went to the carriers (it was always very nebulous, but again was one of the reasons carriers pushed Android when it was not good).

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#324

Post by xnyan »

rayiner wrote: post #55
shereadsthenews wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When will Apple stop sending me desktop notifications about switching to Safari?

Apple doesn’t have 90% market share in anything.

Except profit. Seriously, they earn 87% of the total profit of the entire smartphone market.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#325

Post by feanaro »

mfer wrote: post #319
jetzzz wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I now trust Microsoft more than Google What's so good about Microsoft? They filled their OS with spyware and adware and they seem to be incompetent as a tech company - remember their recent Windows update that deleted user data even though early testers have reported the issue.

Microsoft != Windows. Windows isn't its own division anymore. There is a lot more to MS than Windows. Do we judge other companies as a whole based on one product or service they offer rather than looking at the whole? The "spyware and adware" is added by those who sell the computers (i.e. the hardware manufacturers) rather than by Microsoft. It's been a way for them to make money with the slimming of the profit margi…

> The "spyware and adware" is added by those who sell the computers (i.e. the hardware manufacturers) rather than by Microsoft.

Hmm? What about the surveillance tech that was added in Windows 8 through a Windows Update that sends pretty much all your activity to Microsoft? Am I missing something about this?

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#326

Post by flyer428 »

googthrwy_ wrote: post #198
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 i…

If it wasn't for ad revenue, do you think you would be able to work on these things that people like and are supposed improvements to people's lives? That there would be funding for such work?

Your position is arguably worse than selling out: Others do the dirty work – 'Ads or various "evil" things' – so you can do the nice stuff and claim a clean conscience.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#327

Post by feanaro »

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…

Not only the US is affected by Google's actions and ISPs are not evil everywhere. This is why Google is the more important issue from the perspective of the rest of the world. This is a transnational issue.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#328

Post by kartikeye »

GeekyBear wrote: post #59

The career officials at the FTC recommended antitrust action against Google back in 2012, but the political appointees shut them down. >When the Federal Trade Commission neared a momentous decision on whether to charge Google with violating antitrust laws in January 2013, the White House was watching closely. New emails uncovered by the Campaign for Accountability, a public interest watchdog organization, show that a…

What is needed are RICO statues not antitrust law. They are clearly engaged in racketeering and cartelization. They follow people around the web and log all user activity to 1e100.net. How can you compete when they illegally eavesdrop on your users ?

Google is the Gambino family of tech, we also have Luchesi and Genovese in the so called FAANG group. They even control the Internet standard groups. Time for inept to be restored to the people.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#329

Post by p0nce »

Zigurd wrote: post #314
xkgt wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they did all they could to kill Windows Phone (a viable alternative ecosystem at that time) by blocking access to Youtube[1] and providing sub-par experience for their other services. Now I fear Firefox has a similar sisyphean task at hand, trying to keep their browser usable on google services. And for many of the users, that is same as usability of the browser as a whole. [1] https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com…

Microsoft managed to kill Windows Phone by itself and take Nokia, and a more mature more viable smartphone OS, down with it. Windows phone was a "viable alternative" by the end, but in the beginning it was uncompetitive without any hindrances. Also recall that mobile carriers and OEMs were opposed to Android because it would further degrade their ability to create walled gardens. The carriers lost control of apps, no…

I've only met happy Windows Phone users

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#330

Post by p0nce »

googthrwy_ wrote: post #198
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 i…

Your work is funded by ads. Ads are effectively making life worse.
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