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Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

wsj.com

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Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#361

Post by scarface74 »

panarky wrote: post #342
hliyan wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> consumers overwhelmingly choosing a product By "product", I take it you mean their advertising services? Most of the other products are not paid for. In fact, critics are often fond of pointing out that the consumer is the product in this case. Whether this action is right or not, parallels can be drawn with the Microsoft investigation: Microsoft allegedly used its position within the desktop to "push" their browse…

> "push" their browser Windows didn't get to 90% market share because consumers chose it. Windows achieved overwhelming dominance because Microsoft punished computer manufacturers if they sold any competing operating system. That's anti-competitive, and Google isn't doing anything like that. Then Microsoft used their illegally-obtained dominant position in operating systems to bundle their shitty browser, essentially…

Windows didn't get to 90% market share because consumers chose it. Windows achieved overwhelming dominance because Microsoft punished computer manufacturers if they sold any competing operating system. That's anti-competitive, and Google isn't doing anything like that.

Google was doing exactly this until it was forced to into a consent decree with the EU. Manufacturers couldn’t sell Google licensed Android phones and sell non Google Android variants.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#362

Post by KirinDave »

anticensor wrote: post #345
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if Alphabet is forced to spin off YouTube in to a seperate entity?

Such a split will never happen. Rather, YouTube will be torn down.

I'm fairly sure everyone would fight tooth and nail to do this.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#363

Post by malvosenior »

smhenderson wrote: post #358
malvosenior wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's anti-competitive, and Google isn't doing anything like that. Just this week it was announced that Google will disable important features required to implement ad blockers. Google absolutely abuses their monopolies (browser, search, streaming video, possibly maps) at least as aggressively as MS ever did. Have you ever tried to watch YouTube on Firefox? That’s a deliberately hobbled experience if I’ve ever see…

I’m no fan of Google these days but I have no issues what so ever using YouTube on Firefox. I listen all day long at work from a Slackware laptop and at home on Windows, Slackware and OpenBSD. I don’t have streaming issues and can watch full screen HD, no problems at all.

I don’t think this is the typical experience particularly on Linux. Do you not experience tearing? Excessive page load times? Even on Chromium, getting good YouTube performance on Linux requires tweaks.

Completely off topic at this point but I’m curious what video card you have and if you’re on X or Wayland.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#364

Post by HillaryBriss »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #223
HillaryBriss wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

lol. well, truthfully, i was trying to make a serious statement.

i figured mentioning a proponent of big tech breakup with valid legal credentials and a different political axe to grind might be useful evidence in deciding whether the antitrust case had any merit.

(i believe the Vox article is trying to be serious as well.)

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#365

Post by tozeur »

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.

I wish it was common knowledge that large and influential companies and the government have VERY strong ties. It’s how the entire upper echelon of the world works, for better or for worse.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#366

Post by monocasa »

bduerst wrote: post #240
monocasa wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Board members are not company employees, and Eric Schmidt is not a Google engineer as GP claimed. This is a stretch even by conspiracist standards.

Schmidt was the CEO of Google during the first Obama campaign in 2008, and during most of the ramp up to the 2012 campaign.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#367

Post by klipt »

roenxi wrote: post #279
panarky wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It does look like their is a strong partisan element here - but that isn't a bad thing in this instance. I think this is an interesting tangent to take. From a health-of-the-system perspective it really should be intolerable that a few large closed-garden platforms control the flow of information. Information monocultures are a threat to everyone, even if one partisan group feels more threatened than the other at any…

On the other hand forcing media to give 50% of time/space to "both sides" leads to silly situations like 50% of media saying vaccines do cause autism, dinosaur fossils were planted by the devil, net neutrality is bad, etc.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#368

Post by tozeur »

DannyBee wrote: post #172
alayne wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think you might have a conflict of interest here?

No, actually. I've been quite clear on my position on this many times on HN (it's just another fun form of bias people try to use to not have to engage in real discussion on the merits, and convince themselves their position is right), and i'm being totally consistent with that. Do you have anything substantive to add to the conversation? Do you want to disagree with anything I said? In practice, my comment comes mor…

Very fascinating, thanks. Do you have any reading resources I could peruse about these kinds of topics? I read The Power Broker and thought it was an amazing insight into the nuances of politics and media.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#369

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #340
throwawayjava wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t get a discount on cellular because I’m a FiOS customer https://www.verizonwireless.com/promos/verizon-fios-installa... > nor can I buy car insurance from my health insurance company. https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/health/individual-medica... and bundling deals: https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/multiline

Huh. The Verizon deal must be new. Not sure if that’s a good idea. The State Farm thing is a “marketing alliance” with Blue Cross. I don’t think State Farm sells health insurance.

They do not. It's just a co-marketing partnership.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#370

Post by monocasa »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #222
monocasa wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Google has been providing free services to campaigns it wants to help for over a decade, in the open. This started when Schmidt was CEO.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118489524982572543

The Obama campaign was the first to really realize the importance of IT infrastructure, _and_ their whole shtick (more or less neoliberalism with a friendly face) aligns really well with Google's political goals.

I'm not really sure why you seem to think that this is some conspiracy theory, when everyone involved is openly talking about it.

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