Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 502 posts

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

#241

Post by blackflame7000 »

ohazi wrote: post #213
vondur wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Comcast, they need to be broken up, and Amazon could do with some scrutiny. But Apple, Boeing and United Airlines? The aren't monopolies by any definition.

> Comcast, they need to be broken up Breaking up a regional monopoly into smaller regional monopolies doesn't work (see baby Bells). What would be better is requiring the owners of any last mile infrastructure to lease said infrastructure to any other interested operator at cost. This worked with DSL, but the mandate ended when we moved on to other technologies like cable and fiber that had no such requirements. Inst…

Moot point, everything will be wireless in 10 years with 5G speeds and the expense of laying fiber.

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

#242

Post by ocdtrekkie »

xienze wrote: post #211
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft was specifically deemed a monopoly in desktop operating systems . That was OK. The problem was that they were trying to use that to "leverage" their way into dominance on the internet, by pushing (really quite aggressively) users to use Internet Explorer, and by pushing (even bribing) websites to include "IE-only" elements. "Try to make using Netscape a jarring experience" was the way they put it. It's that…

> The problem was that they were trying to use that to "leverage" their way into dominance on the internet, by pushing (really quite aggressively) users to use Internet Explorer Absolutely correct. By the way, have you visited Google with a non-Chrome browser? They’ll encourage you to use Chrome for “the best experience.” Seems very much like leveraging, never understood why people don’t make a bigger deal about this…

Most people use Chrome already so they don't see how aggressive Google popup spams anyone not using it. Meanwhile, Microsoft tries a subtle reminder about Edge, and there's a media ruckus about it for days.

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

#243

Post by thoraway1010 »

jb775 wrote: post #192
subsubzero wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> if Goog wasn't a majority "blue" company would he aggressively go after them Certainly can't help them. However, I think that's a moot point if everyone can agree they are the most troublesome company in the "land of large companies". It seems like every few months I see outrage on HN over "Google increased pricing for $X service, but there aren't really any other options" situations.

This is such a ridiculous statement.

Cable companies have taken billion in federal subsidies, lied about universal deployment and speeds, and unless there is local competition have taken customers to the cleaners, forced the purchase of bundled channel packages, charged rentals for modems they were not renting (I should know - I called in every month to have charge removed) etc.

I can think of a long list of other large / monopoly type companies that regular abuse consumers at far higher levels than google does.

Consumer spend on google is actually pretty small.

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

#244

Post by rayiner »

mullingitover wrote: post #240
rayiner wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dan-gainor-yes-google-censor... A study showed that Google News returned links to CNN vastly more often than links to Fox News, even though Fox News has triple the market share of CNN. See also censoring of YouTube videos: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-let-google-get-away-with-c... > How else to explain why Google has restricted more than half of our 15 videos that are…

Might be based on user preference influencing weighting for search results. I've know I've personally done all I can to block Fox News and other low quality sources from Google News.

Fox News is by a large margin the #1 cable news network. If search results were weighted based on user preferences you’d expect it to show up more, not less.

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

#245

Post by blackflame7000 »

karmakaze wrote: post #208
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 to get far off topic, but in what way is Apple a monopoly? What do they have a majority market share of, internet-connected watches?

Yes because frankly, I need something else to wear on my wrist for Saturday nights so more competition is needed /s

In reality, I agree that Apple doesn't really qualify as a monopoly. Same with United.

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

#246

Post by papeda »

mthoms wrote: post #230
papeda wrote: post #187

As some variant of millenial, I'm continually bemused by how many of my peers are on board with breaking up "big tech" and use "big tech" products multiple times every single day. If I bring up federal contracting, which is an industry of comparable size, and which is dominated by companies founded well over 50 years ago [1], and which is way more politically opaque, and whose funding they cannot as tax-paying US cit…

I'll take a stab at this. Perhaps it's because the internet (and surrounding technologies) are so much more foundational to society. Without information moving freely and fairly, we'll mostly never learn about any of the other big problems that need addressing (of which, the one you pointed out seems perfectly valid). Also, I think the average person feels more empowered with regards to shaping the future of the inte…

Thanks for the response.

The first point makes sense, but it's hard for me to square with breaking up companies. I don't think any of FAANG has played a real censorious role on the internet. I'm just as free to spin up a random webpage to espouse whatever as I was in 1999. People move around the web differently, but I can still send it to whomever I want. I could also see an argument that AMP and similar technologies hurt journalism, but I hardly ever see that claimed.

If it's a question of agency, to me it feels much better to "vote with my feet" and not patronize companies I dislike than to write my congressperson and receive a form response from some intern. You may be right that people just expect better from the internet than federal contracting.

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

#247

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

c1b wrote: post #111
shadowgovt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been a major gap between the American understanding of monopoly protection and the European one. In the European space, protection of smaller business' ability to compete is factored in. But the US space, in general, has not cared if smaller businesses can compete and tends to take a laissez-faire attitude towards business-on-business market pressures. It's the effect of the market on consumers that's paramo…

Funny how making books cheap is considered a failing.

You could have made the same argument about Standard Oil - until the competition were crushed and prices went up.

Which is why lower consumer prices aren't a valid defence against anti=trust. Nor is the argument that markets "naturally" lead to monopolies or (at best) oligopolies and cartels - even though empirically they do. So much so that setting out to create a monopoly is a bullet point on many unicorn-wannabe business plans.

The problem is abuse of power without oversight.

YouTube can screw over content creators with its insane system of copyright strikes. PayPal and Amazon can keep legitimately earned money on the pretext of non-existent ToC violations. Apple can decide to bar you from the App Store on a whim and clean-room your best green shoots ideas into its own products. Google can decide that you earned too much in ad revenue and shut you down just because it can.

People have lost businesses and livelihoods because of these practices. The monopoly position held by these companies makes them unassailable.

That's what antitrust protection is really about.

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

#248

Post by sidibe »

_-david-_ wrote: post #83
pb7 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Google or Amazon or Facebook a monopoly?

Google has an estimate 88% of the search market share in the US. (Its higher world wide if it matters.) Many people consider that to be getting into monopoly territory.

> Its higher world wide if it matters

That seems dubious when it's blocked for 20% of the world population.

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

#249

Post by aspenmayer »

dimator wrote: post #88
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.

How though? It's trivially simple to change the default search engine. Just because a product is dominant doesn't mean it got that way nefariously. I'm sure if you added up all the R&D over the years in search, especially considering the lead time in market, Google's numbers dwarf others (I don't have a citation on that, but it stands to reason). Parallels could be drawn with Amazon and AWS's dominance.

Why is nefarious intent necessary? The rules for monopoly and abuse of market power don’t presuppose such negative motivations, just negative market outcomes.

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

#250

Post by sangnoir »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #132
subsubzero wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But I wonder if Goog wasn't a majority "blue" company would he aggressively go after them. "Majority blue" is in a majority of their employees vote Democrat? That's just what happens when you're headquartered in California, in a metro area, with a workforce that skews younger. I don't think that Google is somehow pushing liberal objectives in a meaningful way.

Google also controls Youtube - an important political battleground. Conservatives have been overtly critical of "censorship" and critical of social media "deplatforming" of certain personalities (on the political right). Expect this consideration to be in the minds of YouTube & Google executives as they navigate this political minefield, intended or not.
Post reply on HN