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Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#131

Post by muricula »

Longlius wrote: post #73
matthewdgreen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What investment? Google already develops Android, they already developed the “untying” feature for Russia. What’s left? Turkish Localization? I find it hard to believe that even a 50% mobile search share in Turkey won’t pay those incremental costs. I find it much more believable that this is a simple pressure play.

Ongoing support for the Turkish market. Technical support staff who can speak Turkish, documentation in the Turkish language, and a team of developers to handle Turkish-specific i18n bugs. None of these are 'incremental' costs.

They already have all of that. Android and Google search are localized to Turkish.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#132

Post by bryanrasmussen »

pdonis wrote: post #125
lucb1e wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't force a shop owner to sell his products to you if he doesn't want to. The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. If you live in a country with a similar principle, do you know how this works with someone refusing to do business with you? If they sell to your peer, wouldn't they have to have a reason for not selling to you (i.e. to…

> The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. Is that supposed to apply to the Dutch government? Or to everyone? Constitutions normally say what the government can and can't do; they don't normally directly tell ordinary citizens what they can and can't do.

Are you sure what is normative for Constitutions? I suppose in this case normally just means in most cases.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#133

Post by petre »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #32
owlninja wrote: post #5

Perhaps I am not understanding the implications, but is Google supposed to be forced to make its phones available in Turkey?

Google is perfectly capable of untying their search from Android via a software update, because that’s the remedy they already developed and use in Russia. Turkey is asking them to turn on the same capability. Google is saying they could but that they won’t, because Turkey isn’t a big enough country to make them. And yes, if Google is breaking US and international anti-trust laws, “forcing” people to do things is gen…

Maybe Turkey can do other things in retaliation such as: ban Google from operating in Turkey until they comply, block Google, join the Eurasian Economic Union and sign an agreement with Russia and the other members, forcing Google treat all EAEU members equally or get out of those markets.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#134

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Longlius wrote: post #73
matthewdgreen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What investment? Google already develops Android, they already developed the “untying” feature for Russia. What’s left? Turkish Localization? I find it hard to believe that even a 50% mobile search share in Turkey won’t pay those incremental costs. I find it much more believable that this is a simple pressure play.

Ongoing support for the Turkish market. Technical support staff who can speak Turkish, documentation in the Turkish language, and a team of developers to handle Turkish-specific i18n bugs. None of these are 'incremental' costs.

wait - technical support staff? From Google?

Anyway, less facetiously, while some Turkish-specific i18n bugs will need special focus I suppose most of them will not need anything more than a the normal developer team gives them. For example when I was developing a solution that also needed to be available in Greenlandic there were some bugs related to the language, but I did not actually need to speak the language to be able to solve the bugs. I doubt they will really need a team of developers just to solve the Turkish language bugs.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#135

Post by Aperocky »

lucb1e wrote: post #119
netwanderer3 wrote: post #118

On paper, this is not really wrong. You can't force a shop owner to sell his products to you if he doesn't want to. Similarly, I just don't have the rights in forcing you to sell your house to me. I'm sure services like Netflix or Disney Plus are probably still not available in some countries. If you visit their website from those places, you would likely get a service denial message. It's within Google's rights to o…

> You can't force a shop owner to sell his products to you if he doesn't want to. The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. If you live in a country with a similar principle, do you know how this works with someone refusing to do business with you? If they sell to your peer, wouldn't they have to have a reason for not selling to you (i.e. to…

Right, if they sell to Dutch, they must not discriminate which Dutch.

You can’t force a foreign company to sell on Dutch soil _at all_ if they don’t want in, period.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#136

Post by pdonis »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #132
pdonis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. Is that supposed to apply to the Dutch government? Or to everyone? Constitutions normally say what the government can and can't do; they don't normally directly tell ordinary citizens what they can and can't do.

Are you sure what is normative for Constitutions? I suppose in this case normally just means in most cases.

I'm not making any claim about what is "normative" in the sense of being somehow "legal" vs. "not legal" for Constitutions. I'm just curious what the actual application of the Dutch Constitution is.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#137

Post by labawi »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #132
pdonis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. Is that supposed to apply to the Dutch government? Or to everyone? Constitutions normally say what the government can and can't do; they don't normally directly tell ordinary citizens what they can and can't do.

Are you sure what is normative for Constitutions? I suppose in this case normally just means in most cases.

Not sure if even most. Just checked our constitution. While in most articles it doesn't order or forbid people to do specific things, there are dozens of rules and rights, which apply to .. I guess anyone in scope, many of which seem quite pointless if they only applied to the government.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#138

Post by nebulous1 »

qtplatypus wrote: post #33

I’ve just read the Reuters story that is linked. The Turkish government said that they were not legally permitted to sell phones with the current contract; so Google stopped selling an illegal product until they could resolve the issue. If Google kept selling the phones without resolving the issue then they would be subject to fines. How is complying with local laws a Dangerous Foreign Policy act?

Well, it says Google were informed of this in 2018, and that the hammer didn't come down until late 2019. I think it's fair to say that Google intend to stop dealing with Turkey rather than comply with the local law, they're not temporarily pulling their products while they "resolve the issue".

Whether or not you see this as merely a company pulling out of a market where they don't like the regulations or a Dangerous Foreign Policy is another question. I assume that the author sees is as the latter due to Google's immense size and power.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#139

Post by pdonis »

labawi wrote: post #137
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure what is normative for Constitutions? I suppose in this case normally just means in most cases.

Not sure if even most. Just checked our constitution. While in most articles it doesn't order or forbid people to do specific things, there are dozens of rules and rights, which apply to .. I guess anyone in scope, many of which seem quite pointless if they only applied to the government.

> there are dozens of rules and rights

The US Constitution has a Bill of Rights, which applies to everyone in the sense that everyone has those rights, but which only applies to the government in the sense that the government is the one the Constitution says can't violate those rights. For example, the 1st Amendment says the government can't infringe freedom of speech. It does not say that everyone is guaranteed the same platform to speak from, nor does it require particular private entities to provide a speaking platform to anyone who asks for it.

Saying "people have to be treated equally in equal cases" sounds like the same kind of thing: if the US Constitution had such a provision, I would expect it to work the same as the 1st Amendment, i.e., requiring the government to treat people equally in equal cases, not requiring private entities to do so. But the Dutch Constitution might work differently, which is why I asked.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#140

Post by bradj »

I don't see how this is a controversy. Turkey made a legal judgement, and Google decided the cost of compliance was too high so instead of thwarting the law and risk legal liability they retreated from the country.

The threat of Monopoly by Google in Turkey is gone - so congrats? You shouldn't force a company to provide you the opportunity to by their product (outside of certain circumstances regarding protected classes in the US).

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