To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
1–10 of 319 posts
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#2I have worked in blockchain / cryptocurrency for years. Remember team - it's a "utility token", not a "security"! Words matter!
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#3Reminds me of Peter Thiel's observation that monopolies lie.[1] Also, IANAL but I can't imagine a memo/training that says not to use certain words because of "regulatory issues" is not itself evidence that Google knows of its own monopolistic status.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-...
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#4I feel like in this case, regulators should be able to re-substitute any of the "good" terms, with the "bad" terms when citing email evidence, since clearly, Google has now shown that phrases like "valuable to users" are synonyms in their parlance for "network effects".
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#5I'm now imagining Sundar walking around the Google offices with the buzzer from the Taboo game.
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#6We reached the big tech version of Orwell's Politics and the English Language... https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#7There is always going to be some gray line that, if crossed, gets you into antitrust territory, and Alphabet is incentivized to get as close to that line as possible without going over it. And it's large enough to invest considerable resources into figuring out just how close to the line it can get.
That's why language like this matters so much to Alphabet. When you're operating close to the line, even if you haven't gone over it, you don't want to give anybody any reason to suggest you're an inch further than you actually are.
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#8Google (okay, Alphabet) is the only big tech company that I can imagine would ultimately _benefit_ from an antitrust breakup.
Google keeps killing low-to-medium profitable smaller product lines and tools because it can't spin them off successfully. Google can't spin off tools successfully because their internal codebases are deeply reliant on assumptions about Google's infrastructure and Google internal libraries, etc. (for example: Google Reader could not be spun off because it assumed things about Google's infrastructure + libraries.) So Google arrives at this strange position where medium-yet-small profitable products can't be spun off or divested because of Google's secret sauce (their internal infrastructure). So Google kills successful products instead, because it isn't interested in scaling up an only _modestly_ successful product.
This is insane and a sign that something is deeply wrong in Google. Splitting Google up, forcing this infrastructure to become open, etc would be much healthier than perpetually killing small products to protect Google's secret sauce.
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#9I feel like in this case, regulators should be able to re-substitute any of the "good" terms, with the "bad" terms when citing email evidence, since clearly, Google has now shown that phrases like "valuable to users" are synonyms in their parlance for "network effects".
Not exactly. The key idea of the training is that rank-and-file SWEs don't realize that words have legal meanings separate from their colloquial meanings, and they can cause undue trouble for the company and for themselves with poor word-choice. It's more about "Don't say the product is 'dominating the market' when you don't have any idea what your product's percent share is in the market or, for that matter, how 'market' is defined, because if your email comes out in a subpoena it won't come out in the context that makes it clear you're talking out your ass."
Doug Melamed's comments in the article have the right idea:
""" “It’s not just trying to hide the truth, it’s really trying to avoid the use of inflammatory language,” said Melamed, a former acting assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division at the U.S. Department of Justice. “The use of the word ‘market’ could be very innocent, but it could be misleading and provocative to an antitrust enforcer. Antitrust enforcers really get exercised when they think someone dominates a market.” """
Re: To head off regulators, Google makes certain words taboo
#10Google knows exactly what the problem is even if it fights it.