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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

#361

Post by int_19h »

nemothekid wrote: post #305
aspenmayer wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> The rules for monopoly and abuse of market power don’t presuppose such negative motivations, just negative market outcomes. Yes they do. The reason MS got put on the chopping block was because they began telling vendors that they would charge them more if they bundled Netscape or Java. Intel got slapped with a similar suite when they began telling vendors that they would charge more for their chips if they sold any…

These rules have changed before, and they can change again. Look up the history of anti-trust and the major shift that happened after judge Bork authored his paper. There's a popular argument that things went downhill from there, and we should reverse that decision. Since it was all about how the courts interpret legislation, this change can be reverted in the same way it was originally carried out.

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

#362

Post by dodobirdlord »

barrkel wrote: post #114
dantheman wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because the government going after private organizations with vague mandates is a clear way to avoid corruption. /S This is a continuation of politics trying to skim money off of tech and funnel it to thier favored constituents - it's straight up corruption.

Democracy is about setting the rules for society, including how to reallocate some fraction of private resources according to a popular mandate. This doesn't mean its corruption. You need more qualification to call it that. (Not saying that the Trump admin isn't corrupt. I'm rather saying that your statement is too broad, and it fits almost all generally accepted democratic governance.)

It’s possible to be corrupt with a democratic mandate. Levying taxes is one thing, sending the justice department after companies because they are out of favor with the current administration is obviously another.

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

#363

Post by int_19h »

tomohawk wrote: post #159
triceratops wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The telcos are private, but they can't drop your connection if they don't like what you are talking about With net neutrality gone, an ISP absolutely could do that.

Can you cite even a single case where an ISP has cut off an organization's account because of the organization's politics? Even if you could, does that make it right that big tech companies are censoring people and organizations for their views?

It's okay for them to do it, so long as they're not in a position of market dominance. At that point, it should be treated as abuse of said position.

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

#364

Post by dodobirdlord »

abduhl wrote: post #109
setpatchaddress wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. The filibuster is allowed to exist because of a mutual consensus to reserve it for contentious issues, and not to simply filibuster 100% of the time. Republicans broke the disarmament agreement by filibustering (essentially) the entire appointment process, so the Democrats re-armed. It just goes to show how important norms and not breaking them are to the functioning of society. If you insist on living by the letter of the law in contravention of the spirit, expect the law to change.

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

#365

Post by akersten »

riazrizvi wrote: post #337
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…

No, no, no. Amazon disrupted the grip that publishing houses had on publishing, they have democratized writing. Publishers and bookstores had restricted markets that were dictated by a few big publishing houses. Amazon disrupted that, which has lead to far more books being written. Books that have been self-published. How on earth is that considered a failing? Bookstores are no longer viable, because Amazon has obvia…

> Amazon's problem is in the use of data metrics on its giant store to create products that compete with its partners. The Amazon Essentials line is anticompetitive IMO, because as the operator of such a large platform, Amazon has a responsibility to the US economy.

Curious on your thoughts about Kroger/Great Value/Archer Farms (Target) brand items? At least Amazon marks them clearly as house-brand, Archer Farms is practically camouflaged at Target among the brand names, and it's placed pretty prominently too.

Personally I think it's hard to draw a distinction between the two cases - either they're both fine or they're both not. My line would be closer to: if Amazon noticed a certain thing was selling really well, created their own version of that thing, and then de-listed the original thing from their store, that seems like the point at which it becomes anti-competitive to me.

Store brands are an age-old practice so it's interesting to revisit them in the context of mega-corps like Amazon. Although WalMart+Great Value is probably a similar scale.

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

#366

Post by [deleted] »

reading-at-work wrote: post #283
rayiner wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecoms aren’t intentionally granted regional monopolies. It’s illegal under the Cable Act of 1992.

WorldMaker's answer to this comment is great. I would TL;DR it by saying that while there are always multiple phone companies to choose from, there is usually only one cable or fiber internet company, which is what matters. In every state I've ever lived, for example, Comcast is the only company that provides acceptable internet speeds. DSL and satellite providers don't even come close enough to count as competition.…

[deleted]

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

#367

Post by rayiner »

WorldMaker wrote: post #254
rayiner wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecoms aren’t intentionally granted regional monopolies. It’s illegal under the Cable Act of 1992.

The distinction is on which meaning of "monopoly" and "monopoly with respect to what". Yes, no telecom should be the only telecom in a region, but each telecom is granted an exclusivity (monopoly) on a particular utility line: cable companies are given (in most regions) exclusive rights to a region's originally TV focused fiber and coax cables and phone companies are given (in most regions) exclusive rights to a regi…

> Yes, no telecom should be the only telecom in a region, but each telecom is granted an exclusivity (monopoly) on a particular utility line: cable companies are given (in most regions) exclusive rights to a region's originally TV focused fiber and coax cables and phone companies are given (in most regions) exclusive rights to a region's originally phone-focused fiber and coax cables.

That's a weird way of phrasing it. Cable companies own their lines because they paid to build them. But they haven't been "intentionally granted monopolies" as you claimed above, because another provider could come in and build lines and provide service. (Power companies, by contrast, generally do have a monopoly in that sense.)

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

#368

Post by jeffbee »

falcolas wrote: post #272
dimator wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some truth to this. For many years, Google allows users the ability to wholesale export all of their data (perhaps as a defense for this moment in time). If the consumer market wanted an alternative, wouldn't there be competing companies by now that would ingest all that data and give you matching mail, docs, video, etc, services? On the advertising front, Google is no longer the only game in town, so by defi…

> On the advertising front, Google is no longer the only game in town, so by definition not a monopoly. Who are their competitors (I've not heard of one that isn't directly tied to a platform (a'la facebook))? How is the market segmented between Google and their competitors? If google had, as an example, 80% of the market share, it could still legitimately be considered to be a monopoly, even if it had 1000 competito…

For one thing, Internet advertising is still not a majority of all ad spending. Google is estimated to control about 1/3rd of the online market, Facebook about 1/4.

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

#369

Post by ocdtrekkie »

papeda wrote: post #346
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google/Amazon/Facebook have each served to stagnate tech, not push it forward. If you read their headlines, sure, you'll believe they're doing groundbreaking things. But in reality, these behemoths have killed thousands of innovative startups to protect their cash cows. The uncommitted experiments they run, meanwhile, never amount to anything useful for the world. There were better social networks than Facebook, but…

> Healthcare has to do business with Google. Defense has to do business with Google. Can you elaborate on this? Neither industry seems to rely on ads or SEO or app stores.

You'd be surprised what you can find on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lmaeronaut...

Obviously healthcare providers market to consumers, medicines are marketed to consumers even when they're supposed to be prescribed by doctors, and of course, marketing healthcare wares to doctors is a pretty big deal.

But ask yourself how healthcare companies and defense contractors market themselves, find new talent, even lobby. (Targeting advertising can literally shove ads just in the face of people in federal government buildings.)

Google has the eyes of well over 80% of the global population. Which means if you want to talk to... pretty much any group of people, you likely have to do it through Google.

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

#370

Post by cavisne »

Its interesting that Google is the first target here. From my anecdotal experience the last decade has been.

Content discovery: Google Reader -> (Twitter, Facebook, Apple Podcasts) Chat: Google Talk/Hangouts -> (Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Imessage, Facetime, Zoom) Product Search: Google -> Amazon Video: Youtube -> (Youtube, Prime Video, Apple TV, Netflix, Tiktok)

A lot of these examples are big tech -> big tech but still if anything it seems like the rest of the FANG that have grown their businesses.

Obviously any lawsuit doesnt need to win over consumers, but personally I could care less who owns what in adtech.

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