The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility • Hacker News Board

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#91

Post by tempsy » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

patmorgan23 wrote: post #89

tempsy wrote: post #18

I would argue Visa and Mastercard and payment processing at large as the top priority by far. It's crazy that we've given up control as a society of the only mechanisms for electronic payments in an increasingly cashless world to unregulated private entities who continue to jack up fees as often as they can get away with. Makes everything 3-5% more expensive. Ridiculous.

ACH and Wire transfers exist. Also the Fed is developing a new instant payments system that will be launched in a few years.

yes i know that. are we going to back to the days where I pay for my groceries by writing a check?

you can’t possibly be arguing that ACH and wire transfers make sense for everyday purchases.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#92

Post by ball_of_lint » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

beders wrote: post #15

Google is a private corporation that runs various free services, i.e. you are the product. You agreed to their terms and services. If you don't like that, you can use a competitor. As long as there's an open internet infrastructure, there's no anti-competitive behavior. Everyone can be a google competitor of one of its services. Case in point, DuckDuckGo etc. If you want to regulate something, start with the ISPs and…

I agree that the US should regulate its ISPs and restore net neutrality, and that that's a more pressing issue than google.

However, Google has had a number of practices in the past that were anti-competitive. So much so that the EU fined them 1.5 Billion last year[0]. Anti-trust law is not so simple as "Is there any competition?".

In my personal opinion, Google has ongoing anti-competitive practices, but IANAL and I am far from an expert.

[0] https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1108324107446300672...

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#93

Post by ISL » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

s3r3nity wrote: post #61

sjroot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG, Yahoo, Bing, are all valid alternatives. Why does Google get screwed after the enormous investment they made (with time and money) to index pages on the internet?

> Why does Google get screwed after the enormous investment they made (with time and money) to index pages on the internet? If that was _all_ they did for the past 20 years to get to where they are today, there wouldn't be any problem. The issue is when you leverage this market gain to punish competitors and expand into spaces at below cost (read: negative profits) to wipe out competitors and gain footholds. See exam…

If one views Google's market as information-organization, then Google has never left its market niche.

Amazon absolutely uses its "flywheels" to dominate other markets. UPS and FedEx are presently facing a competitor with a trillion-dollar market cap, several cash-machine businesses, a decade-scale investing strategy, and a "your margin is my opportunity" focus. Through tenacity and bankroll, Amazon can enter and compete in new markets in ways few existing market participants can oppose.

Indeed, I suspect that Amazon has begun to corner the market on long-term investors, too. Why risk investing in a smaller company that intends to duplicate Amazon's strategy when one could, instead, invest in the original zero-margin-so-we-can-take-over-the-world behemoth with a track-record of success?

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#94

Post by shadowgovt » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

machello13 wrote: post #90

shadowgovt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is 100% nothing stopping the Federal government from offering a full-faith-and-credit-backed "America electronic transaction system" for electronic transactions, with those fees handled by taxes. But much as there's nothing stopping the Federal government from greatly simplifying the burden and toil of tax season by issuing 90% of Americans a pre-filled-out "This is what you owe; sign this and return it or disp…

It's extremely naive to think that only Republicans are responsible for that.

They are not, alone, responsible for it, but it is still a fundamental difference in the parties; some Democrats are pro-big-business, but only one party has public-private partnership as a party plank.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#95

Post by chrisco255 » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #51

tempsy wrote: post #18

I would argue Visa and Mastercard and payment processing at large as the top priority by far. It's crazy that we've given up control as a society of the only mechanisms for electronic payments in an increasingly cashless world to unregulated private entities who continue to jack up fees as often as they can get away with. Makes everything 3-5% more expensive. Ridiculous.

There is 100% nothing stopping the Federal government from offering a full-faith-and-credit-backed "America electronic transaction system" for electronic transactions, with those fees handled by taxes. But much as there's nothing stopping the Federal government from greatly simplifying the burden and toil of tax season by issuing 90% of Americans a pre-filled-out "This is what you owe; sign this and return it or disp…

Right, the same government that couldn't get a healthcare website going is supposed to also power every single transaction from internal infrastructure. There are hidden costs that are much higher than 3% to giving the government full control over every transaction in society. It's a single point of failure with no redundancy or decentralization, a large attack vector, and a human rights nightmare. As a general rule, private institutions all too often do outperform public institutions. I'm pretty sure Space X has bipartisan support, for example.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#96

Post by pb7 » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #42

adoxyz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in an area where Comcast has a monopoly, or a pretty strong implied monopoly you pretty much have to do business with them. Most places in the US have at most two ISPs, one that offers reasonable speeds and the other for compliance that offers piss-poor speeds, but hey it's offered so all is well. You're never forced to use Google. Google has a huge Internet footprint, but you can absolutely use the Inter…

Incorrect: Nearly all business ventures must use Google. If you do not, you do not exist. Doesn't matter if you're a website or a restaurant. No Google presence, no business. Go run ads for your startup on Bing and see where that gets you. Also, try to be a user on the Internet without using reCAPTCHA... In increasingly more school districts you have to either give Google your kids' data and a Chromebook account or y…

If you have one ISP and they decide to refuse you service for any reason, you don't get Google or any other website. You're putting the cart before the horse.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#97

Post by mikepurvis » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #65

shadowgovt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is 100% nothing stopping the Federal government from offering a full-faith-and-credit-backed "America electronic transaction system" for electronic transactions, with those fees handled by taxes. But much as there's nothing stopping the Federal government from greatly simplifying the burden and toil of tax season by issuing 90% of Americans a pre-filled-out "This is what you owe; sign this and return it or disp…

FWIW the Canadian tax system is heading in this direction. With electronic filing programs most things get pre-filled now with data from Canada Revenue Agency based on the information they've received from your employer, your bank, your trading institutions, etc. Then it's more a matter of going through and verifying information and adding in any missing information (for example sale info from my stock units held in…

Canadian here— there's definitely been a movement in recent years away from deductions in favour of direct payments throughout the year. Thinking especially of the child benefit and the carbon tax rebate, and the elimination of boutique credits like one that used to apply to the purchase of public transit passes (https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canad...).

I get that politicians like the psychology of people receiving a cheque or direct deposit vs a tax deduction ("it was my money all along"), but I think it is genuinely a positive step in terms of helping people at the low end of the economy who don't have the means to save receipts or jump through whatever other hoops are necessary to nickel and dime the government at tax time.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#98

Post by swalsh » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

I really wish google had public data for something like average page number or something similar for a search term. We have data for what people are searching for, but its hard to determine how successful people are in finding what they're looking for. If you're searching for a niche, it would be great to know what people want but can't find.

I suspect google already has this data, but it's too valuable for them to share.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#99

Post by s3r3nity » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

beders wrote: post #79

s3r3nity wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does Google get screwed after the enormous investment they made (with time and money) to index pages on the internet? If that was _all_ they did for the past 20 years to get to where they are today, there wouldn't be any problem. The issue is when you leverage this market gain to punish competitors and expand into spaces at below cost (read: negative profits) to wipe out competitors and gain footholds. See exam…

It's not regulations we need, it is better education. Especially skeptical thinking. No one would expect Google to not suppress search results that harms its business. It is called capitalism. And internet citizens should know that and actively make use of competing offers. It's like going to a Honda car dealer and expecting to get offered the best deal on a Toyota.

>It's not regulations we need, it is better education. Especially skeptical thinking.

As someone who is pretty much exclusively against regulation - I agree with you. However regulation to ensure competitive markets is totally appropriate for government responsibility.

>No one would expect Google to not suppress search results that harms its business. It is called capitalism.

This is fine if Google were some upstart or new entry to the market. Example: Bing has done this for years with promoting its own products / services like Office 365 in search results. The issue comes when you own a _massive_ share of the market, then in the eyes of the law it becomes anticompetitive.

> It's like going to a Honda car dealer and expecting to get offered the best deal on a Toyota.

Not quite an apt comparison, as the car market is very competitive, and Honda / Toyota only have ~7-10% market share within the US, respectively. So in your example, YES it would be dumb to assume that. However if Honda had 95% market share and therefore could undercut any price Toyota offered by taking negative profits in the short-term, then it would absolutely be problematic.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#100

Post by CPLX » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

auganov wrote: post #29

I love how few actual proposal there are out there as to what the government should actually do. That is - not just "regulate" or "break them up". I'm talking specifics. Once you start making concrete proposals it becomes increasingly obvious just how hard it is to come up with something that won't make everything worse.

The proposal of what to do is for the Justice Department to sue them for antitrust violations and for the courts to break up the divisions of the company that engage in unlawful anticompetitive behavior.

Not only is it plausible we saw it done with Microsoft, and the result was an explosion of entrepreneurship and innovation in the relevant markets, which were software and internet services.