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Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

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Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#101

Post by mrkramer »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #82
akersten wrote: post #23

I will continue to believe that this is another tentacle of William Barr's political harassment of Google and tech in general until he leads the same crusade against other 'monopolies' of the same degree like Comcast, Apple, Boeing, Amazon, United Airlines, etc.

Google has done a lot of harm to websites strictly to force people to advertise. I cannot "prove" it but, I, and god knows how many sites know it to be true. They went from sending people to the best match to keeping them in Google's circle. (Matt Cutts, you were the enabler. Your money and reputation is tainted)

Matt Cutts Google's infamous SEO boss, you know he was only doing his job and trying to rank literally millions of websites on the internet. Ranking algorithms are black box btw no way somebody will completely understand them any time soon.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#102

Post by xoxoy »

mrkramer wrote: post #77
xoxoy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter how a monopoly came to be a monopoly?

Yea it matters. If monopoly was achieved through market competition then fine, if it was achieved through destroying other companies then it is illegal and unfair. But once dominant market position is achieved company still needs to behave properly and not stifle competition.

Gotcha. I would be surprised if the gov couldn’t find some incriminating emails though of executives talking about how to kill Bing when MSFT looked like it was gunning to be a search competitor.

We will see though.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#103

Post by _-david-_ »

jaydz wrote: post #86
xoxoy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The antitrust lawsuit is focused on Google’s dominance of search. The specific question is whether Google has a monopoly on search. I think the case is pretty strong that it does.

Why is it dominant? Is Google is preventing competition from entering the market or is it because Google offers the superior product? Good luck with that in court.

Just because they don't stop their competition from entering the market would not change whether or not something is a monopoly. They have 88% of the US search market share which is often consider to be in the monopoly territory.

Of course it may not be prudent to go after a company that isn't doing any malicious against its competitors.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#104

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ghastmaster wrote: post #8
noad wrote: post #3

Amazon and Facebook should be next. Break them all up with extreme prejudice and put strict new anti-trust laws around acquisitions in place for the future. We're going to do this and open technology back up to innovation and progress, or just watch the tech giants continue to grow in power and abusiveness year after year while new startups continue to decline.

Ever wonder why innovation takes place? Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation? Economic incentives for innovation and disruption are greater when a monopolistic entity is over charging for it's good or service. If they are not over charging then there is not as great an incentive to innovate or disrupt. If the latter is the case, why bust a monopoly that is providing a fair service?

> Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation?

Railroads still are. If you mean transport in general, it's because the government build a huge number of roads, waterways, and airports.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#105

Post by laluser »

adventured wrote: post #27
pb7 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Break them up into what?

If you were going to bother, you'd split Amazon and AWS. Amazon becomes mostly a retail company again. Without the AWS subsidy margins, they'll be down to retail margins and the ad business (with ads, it's plenty). They can perhaps keep the gadgets, splitting every major aspect apart might be going too far. AWS is a $400 to $600 billion market cap company right now if it were trading on its own, based on its operatin…

I think the sum of the parts would end up being worth more than the single entity. Which would make Uncle Jeff worth even more. Not that I care.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#106

Post by bgorman »

subsubzero wrote: post #66
akersten wrote: post #23

I will continue to believe that this is another tentacle of William Barr's political harassment of Google and tech in general until he leads the same crusade against other 'monopolies' of the same degree like Comcast, Apple, Boeing, Amazon, United Airlines, etc.

Not saying google isn't a monopoly, it classically is, same with facebook. But I wonder if Goog wasn't a majority "blue" company would he aggressively go after them. The problem is there are so many oligarchy's controlling industries. Chips, well its a two or three company game(intel, amd, ARM). Lets look at airlines, well its united, delta, american etc. Communications(cell phones), ATT, Verizon, Sprint/Tmobile. Ame…

The government intentionally created the Airline oligopoly by banning foreign airlines from operating domestic flights in the US, and further by allowing United, American and Delta to form joint-ventures with foreign airlines to control prices/schedules between continents.

Is Google really a monopoly? Many people use Outlook, iPhones, Apple Maps, AWS, Bing, HERE maps etc...

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#107

Post by cmurf »

tyre wrote: post #62
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it is, it could set a precedent that makes it easier for a future, less corrupt administration. I don't know if the good necessarily outweighs the bad, but maybe it does.

This. Precedent is tricky. Democrats removing the filibuster for judges came back to haunt them. There was a recent (last few weeks) SCOTUS decision that came out with numerous opinions by different coalitions. You could tell that they were all maneuvering around this idea of precedent. Liberal justices who ended up on either side (majority or minority) were couching their votes as upholding a prior precedent, even w…

Democrats didn't remove the filibuster for SCOTUS judges, Republicans did that (McConnell). Democrats (Reid) removed the filibuster from federal judges, because Republicans were refusing to seat Obama nominees, and over 100 vacancies had piled up.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#108

Post by gordon_freeman »

one thing I always have a hard time understanding. What if a tech giant is considered a Monopoly but it makes my - as a consumer - life easier? I mean having flights tool readily available near Google Search which helps me quickly find a cheap flight without upselling me with hotels and car rentals etc on aggregators like Expedia is something I love and makes my experience better.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#109

Post by abduhl »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #74
tyre wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Precedent is tricky. Democrats removing the filibuster for judges came back to haunt them. There was a recent (last few weeks) SCOTUS decision that came out with numerous opinions by different coalitions. You could tell that they were all maneuvering around this idea of precedent. Liberal justices who ended up on either side (majority or minority) were couching their votes as upholding a prior precedent, even w…

I don't buy that. The Republicans would have killed the filibuster when they were next in power. This was simple acknowledgement by Democrats of the changing nature of the Republican party.

"We struck first because the other side was going to strike first if we didn't!"

Who knew that first-mover advantage existed in politics? Or perhaps this is better seen as a example of mutually assured destruction playing out in real life?

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#110

Post by shadowgovt »

iateanapple wrote: post #92
akersten wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, your choices for flying somewhere are what - Delta or United? Some small regional carriers? What about for internet service - just a single ISP in most areas. Sometimes a monopoly by law, where no one else can lay fiber and they're free to charge as much as they want. Your choices for searching something on the internet, hosting a video, doing email, etc. are innumerable. So you'll have to qualify what you me…

> I mean, your choices for flying somewhere are what - Delta or United? Both delta and united are operating very high capital cost businesses on thin margins. What can we gain by trust busting them? > What about for internet service - just a single ISP in most areas. ISPs can be dealt with effectively at the local level - and they are not as invasive or as politically powerful as the tech giants. I’ve never had my se…

> I’ve never had my searches for coronavirus related content restricted in any way by my ISP for example.

Your ISP isn't a search engine. It's also regulated more like a utility, unlike Google. If your ISP started black-holing IP addresses for reason of the content they carried, there would be Congressional action (if the FCC didn't get there first).

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