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

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

rankscience.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 399 posts

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

#241

Post by Supermancho »

jariel wrote: post #210
jancsika wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a beautiful implementation of a tactic to shift a conversation. OP starts with a seemingly related pivot to the topic of how to prioritize the regulation of a company like Google with the regulation of other companies. Such a conversation would obviously involve at least few points about why Google ought not top the list. (And hopefully many points given OP says Google is "by far" not top priority.) I was cer…

"This is a beautiful implementation of a tactic to shift a conversation." It's just a comment, not a 'tactic'.

Turns out, things can be viewed differently from different contexts. It's both a comment AND a tactic.

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

#242

Post by qshqwudhoquc »

jakeva wrote: post #62
t0mmyb0y wrote: post #27

Oh god. If google were regulated like a utility...we would be stuck with them instead of letting them go away by themselves. And yes, one day google will fail and bring a bunch of companies with them.

I've heard this before but I'm not convinced. Not every big company fails and goes away. Not every company is Yahoo.

This doesn't seem like an argument you can make since A) modern capitalist companies have only been around for 400 or so years B) 'big' companies since then have not lasted more than 200 years at the very high end.

There is literally not enough data to make the point you are trying to make. All evidence available, which isn't much, shows big companies are destined to fail if they keep expanding.

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

#243

Post by CPLX »

scarface74 wrote: post #233
CPLX wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome was launched in 2008. The key events in the Microsoft antitrust case happened between 1992 and 2002.

And look at IEs market share until 2008.... https://www.jitbit.com/news/3304-browser-market-shares-1993-...

I mean, I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's that controversial to point out that facing serious consequences from the US DOJ put a serious check on the actions of Microsoft and held them back from employing their embrace, extend, extinguish model on the web.

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

#244

Post by Supermancho »

MattGaiser wrote: post #39
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.

Or all the impacts down the line. If they decided to basically seize Google, they would be telling investors that long term investment doesn’t work as the government will come along and ruin it. Watch as companies like Google rapidly stop any innovation spending and become high dividend stocks built only to pump out cash.

> If they decided to basically seize Google, they would be telling investors that long term investment doesn’t work

That's a confused deduction. "long term investment is a bad bet" (or whatever you were trying to say by "doesn't work") is not a sensible deduction. Long term investment has already worked and continues to work across the world.

The takeaway would be assess a risk factor to the US companies under discussion of regulation, at worst.

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

#245

Post by dumbfoundded »

scarface74 wrote: post #213
dumbfoundded wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google clearly meets the definition of a monopoly. It comes down to 3 things: Market power, Exclusionary Conduct, and Business Justification (1). Microsoft was charged as a monopoly but you could always just use linux. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that Google is harming the consumer by using their dominate market power in search to push their own, worse products. (1) https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competitio…

How did that work out? 20 years later MS still has the same share of PC operating systems and approximately the same share of the office productivity space.

It seems to have worked well. I doubt you're using Internet Explorer to respond to me.

The antitrust case was about bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. It was called the Browser Wars and related to preventing Netscape from competing. The result is pretty obvious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

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

#246

Post by JAlexoid »

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…

I used to run a company in Lithuania and now am a simple employee in US.

It took me about 10 minutes for monthly tax filings and 30 minutes for the annual tax filing for my company and 4 employees. I did not have an accountant - I didn't need one.

It is a nightmare filing taxes in US, even paying $300 to Intuit. It takes about a week of my time... for something that is supposed to be automated. I also never manage to get the tax calculated correctly in advance, because no consumer facing tax company will bother with you before you get your annual statement(W2). I have a very variable income - RSU's and other optional income... so I get hit by underpayment fee from IRS.... and don't get me started on the fact that every state has their own tax authority...

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

#247

Post by pydry »

MattGaiser wrote: post #39
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.

Or all the impacts down the line. If they decided to basically seize Google, they would be telling investors that long term investment doesn’t work as the government will come along and ruin it. Watch as companies like Google rapidly stop any innovation spending and become high dividend stocks built only to pump out cash.

The government doesn't need to seize google. They can vertically deintegrate it. Google the index could sell its services to google the search engine the same way bing the index sells itself to duckduckgo the search engine.

Or the same way that standard oil's railroads were forced to provide the same prices to everybody.

Then, google the index could be forced to not provide preferential pricing to google the search engine. This would not stop innovation it would enable innovation as google the search engine wouldn't have an unfair advantage through vertical integration. A cottage industry of search engines that piggyback off the google index could sprout up.

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

#248

Post by three_seagrass »

rmacqueen wrote: post #153
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…

> Case in point, DuckDuckGo etc You're missing the point. The anti-competitive behaviour isn't harmful against other search engines - it's against companies in the other domains where Google can leverage its nigh total search engine dominance to push its other products, e.g. Google Flights and Google Shopping. How is a flight booking service supposed to fairly compete with Google Flights when Google owns the top of t…

Despite the EU ruling, Google Shopping is essentially search ads with pictures. And despite being in search results, retail companies have more platforms than ever before to sell through, such as Amazon, Ebay, Instagram/Facebook, and others.

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

#249

Post by JAlexoid »

shadowgovt wrote: post #86
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is a good thing. Private tax accountants are a huge political lobby in the US, so it's a non-starter here. The US barely got off the ground a free option for public e-filing, and we managed to botch it up by handing it to a private company to implement , which promptly turned around and made it absolutely as impossible to access as they were allowed to by law.

US - the cronyism dream.

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

#250

Post by cycomanic »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #196
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…

> 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 dispute it with your own filing, All of Scandinavia does this. Has been doing it for ages. Most people need do nothing at all. And it works really well even if you do have to make some amendments (income in a foreign country for instance that the tax authorities can't…

It's also one of the reason why the tax office is one of the most popular government agencies in Sweden. It just works.
Post reply on HN