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Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

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Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#11

Post by ddalex »

0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #7
throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough…

>This has a stink to it. TBH so does using market cap to dismiss criticism of Google

But it's not dismissing criticism. It's acknowledging that other big companies that have pretty similar issues are not coming under fire for the said issues.

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#12

Post by 0xDEFC0DE »

ddalex wrote: post #11
0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This has a stink to it. TBH so does using market cap to dismiss criticism of Google

But it's not dismissing criticism. It's acknowledging that other big companies that have pretty similar issues are not coming under fire for the said issues.

Maybe they should talk about those issues and not bring up market cap because market cap really has nothing to do with any of this

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#13

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough…

> Why is there so much attention on Google?

Amazon declared tomorrow "Prime Day" and a lot of workers are striking today and/or tomorrow.

Throwing shade at Google would be a good way to keep technical people from paying attention to the plights of workers.

But it could also just be a coincidence.

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#14

Post by chvid »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough…

I don’t know. But one should not be naive about it. The political machines have massive resources, strong connection to media and have nailed information campaigns down to an art.

I noticed a similar thing about a year ago when Facebook was in the crosshairs.

Having said that. These companies are obvious monopolies prone to abuse their power.

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#15

Post by djsumdog »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #13
throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough…

> Why is there so much attention on Google? Amazon declared tomorrow "Prime Day" and a lot of workers are striking today and/or tomorrow. Throwing shade at Google would be a good way to keep technical people from paying attention to the plights of workers. But it could also just be a coincidence.

I was thinking they were all guilt of this within the first paragraph. You use to have to beware on eBay, but the Amazon marketplace is just as full with counterfeits and bad products that it's like the new Wal-Mart. Newegg and Reverb both do the marketplace thing too, but their volume seems to be low enough to be hit with unsavory shops.

I heard about the problem with Google and locksmiths and was very careful the one time I locked my keys in my car without a backup a few years ago. I refused any locksmith that didn't quote an absolute price and found a local one that only charged $60.

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#16

Post by forgottenpass »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough…

There is attention on all of them. And every time one of them gets bad press, someone is ready to point out that the current target is unfairly singled out from the others.

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#17

Post by ceejayoz »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough…

There's been a substantial amount of criticism for fraud on Amazon's ecommerce arm, here on HN and generally.

Microsoft's market cap is largely software/services, where fraud's largely going to impact Microsoft themselves. Bing Ads are likely peanuts compared to Google's offering.

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#18

Post by [deleted] »

0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #12
ddalex wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not dismissing criticism. It's acknowledging that other big companies that have pretty similar issues are not coming under fire for the said issues.

Maybe they should talk about those issues and not bring up market cap because market cap really has nothing to do with any of this

[deleted]

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#19

Post by KirinDave »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough…

There is a major boycott of Amazon this week after it came out they're directly competing for military contracts that Google declined to take [0].

It's almost certainly the case that Amazon is helping and urging people to post negative stories about other high profile competitors, Google included, right now. That's just how tech journalism works. Amazon is just much better at it than less successful attempts like the "scroogled" campaign.

This does not dismiss the bad things Google does. However, it does mean that it's a good week to remind people to boycott Amazon any way they can in addition to holding Google accountable.

[0]: Although that outcome was largely driven by collective action from employees and reports of some employee retaliation were public as a result of it.

Re: Google Legally Profits from Fraud on Its Platform

#20

Post by ocdtrekkie »

It's amazing how many scams and malware-serving websites are in Google Ads, and how aggressively Google refuses to address it. I've actually had Googlers (here on HN) go and report and have removed the malicious sites I reported, just to see them back a handful of hours later, without so much as rotating domain names out.

Google must be stripped of any profit from criminal activity on their platform. When a fraudulent site is removed, Google should be forced to give up all of the profits generated from it. Though I doubt Google would even make the Fortune 500 if it did.

Section 230 absolutely has to go for order and justice to prevail.

My go-to example for the particular type of predatory crimes Google knowingly and willfully enables happens whenever a senior citizen searches for "mapquest": https://www.google.com/search?q=mapquest

I actually took a call yesterday from someone who "couldn't get directions from MapQuest without installing something". And if you look at the search results, you'll see why: Ads that look like real search results that claim to be MapQuest push the real MapQuest below the scroll fold. And computer-illiterate individuals get taken advantage of, again and again and again. I've been pointing out this example for six or seven years, and the same domains that were operating then are still operating today, because Google simply makes too much money from them to care.

If you work for Google, this is where your paycheck is coming from, and if you use Google, this is the cost of your convenience.

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