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

#271

Post by badRNG » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

JAlexoid wrote: post #228

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…

Google isn't top of the list - because it's way easier for a user to stop using, than MC and Visa networks. I would argue for an EU type approach and instead of regulating Google or payment networks - force demonopolization and opening up markets to more competition. If you wish I can even share the priority list in my mind, for what sectors require addressing before Google: 1. Actual local monopolies 2. Local educat…

Monopolization of any industry isn't high up there on the priority list of issues we should address by far.

Climate change, election interference, and COVID-19 are far more pressing issues than monopolization.

However the fact that these other bigger issues exist doesn't mean we shouldn't care about or take action on the lesser. If one brings up how we should address issue 'x' and are met with "but what about issue 'y'?" it does give the impression of deflection or of whataboutism.

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

#272

Post by tgb » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

auganov wrote: post #201

tgb wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, to be clear, are you saying that someone should make such a proposal or are you saying that advocating for this change requires there to be a proposal? Because I'd be in favor of the former but I think the latter disrupts conversation and is unreasonable. The way you wrote your post sounded strongly like "I have a knock-down argument against any advocates until they have legislation written up." Which would be an…

Well, I'm merely saying that a lack of proposals indicates a lack of workable solutions. By proposal I don't mean an actual bill ready to be passed, just a high level overview that does talk about the implementation. Obviously doesn't need to be a sound legal document. I think it's perfectly fine and important for people to speak out against perceived injustices committed by tech companies. But yes I do also think th…

The most common proposals I've seen are to break Google into multiple companies, particularly with search being separate. This seems adequately specific. (Though obviously different from the public-utility plan in this article.) Is that not specific enough for you? This seems vastly simpler than GPDR in scope and with much more relevant precedent to draw from.

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

#273

Post by tehjoker » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

badRNG wrote: post #271

JAlexoid wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google isn't top of the list - because it's way easier for a user to stop using, than MC and Visa networks. I would argue for an EU type approach and instead of regulating Google or payment networks - force demonopolization and opening up markets to more competition. If you wish I can even share the priority list in my mind, for what sectors require addressing before Google: 1. Actual local monopolies 2. Local educat…

Monopolization of any industry isn't high up there on the priority list of issues we should address by far . Climate change, election interference, and COVID-19 are far more pressing issues than monopolization. However the fact that these other bigger issues exist doesn't mean we shouldn't care about or take action on the lesser. If one brings up how we should address issue 'x' and are met with "but what about issue…

Those issues are all interrelated. We can't solve them because of corporate domination of the political system and the buying off of the American intelligensia.

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

#274

Post by hevelvarik » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

Supermancho wrote: post #241

jariel wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It’s not a tactic without intent

And if you hold that something can be a tactic without intent, then anything and everything is a tactic to bring about its related reaction.

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

#275

Post by chki » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

jldugger wrote: post #268

amelius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that your competitors can use your name as keyword, and become the top result for your company name ...

Only if people actually click on competitor ads. I imagine it's pretty rare anyone searches for ebay and clicks on amazon ads instead. So you're uniquely situated to outbid the competition with absurdly low CPC because click through rate is dramatically higher. And sure, it's not fun handing over money to defend your brand. I could see an argument be made that you want the competitors to outbid you because the costs…

I get 30% discounts on delivered pizza by googling the name of the competing brand in my area. It's an extremely effective strategy, at least in my case.

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

#276

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

wz1000 wrote: post #229

jeffbee wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are currently zero governments and only about 4 commercial entities possessing a datacenter large enough to do the job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center > designed to store data estimated to be on the order of exabytes or larger While google says: > The Google Search index contains hundreds of billions of webpages and is well over 100,000,000 gigabytes in size https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/crawling-indexi... Seems like the government already has the expertise and equipment required to handle data at Google…

Having disk space is only a small part of being able to make use of something like a search index. Arguably the least difficult part.

One of your suggestions was

> That's why the stipulation that other entities be allowed to mirror the index - they can optimize the index for their own purposes and rankings on their own hardware.

And the point is that there's nobody who can do this outside of Google, Microsoft (who also does), Facebook, and Amazon.

Not to mention the problems of actually getting the data. You're at the scale of data where trucks of disks are faster data transfer than cables unless you have direct fiber backbone connections.

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

#277

Post by theplague42 » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

badRNG wrote: post #271

JAlexoid wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google isn't top of the list - because it's way easier for a user to stop using, than MC and Visa networks. I would argue for an EU type approach and instead of regulating Google or payment networks - force demonopolization and opening up markets to more competition. If you wish I can even share the priority list in my mind, for what sectors require addressing before Google: 1. Actual local monopolies 2. Local educat…

Monopolization of any industry isn't high up there on the priority list of issues we should address by far . Climate change, election interference, and COVID-19 are far more pressing issues than monopolization. However the fact that these other bigger issues exist doesn't mean we shouldn't care about or take action on the lesser. If one brings up how we should address issue 'x' and are met with "but what about issue…

So when Facebook has a monopoly on social media and allows misinformation to spread about _those exact three topics_, what would you suggest we do about it?

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

#278

Post by jldugger » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

chki wrote: post #275

jldugger wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if people actually click on competitor ads. I imagine it's pretty rare anyone searches for ebay and clicks on amazon ads instead. So you're uniquely situated to outbid the competition with absurdly low CPC because click through rate is dramatically higher. And sure, it's not fun handing over money to defend your brand. I could see an argument be made that you want the competitors to outbid you because the costs…

I get 30% discounts on delivered pizza by googling the name of the competing brand in my area. It's an extremely effective strategy, at least in my case.

Weird; I just tried googling pizza hut and got zero ads, let alone 30 percent discount coupons.

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

#279

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #261

jeffbee wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way that people underestimate the scale and complexity of Google's indexing always makes me chuckle. I'm especially fond of the idea that other parties will just wantonly copy it, like for research purposes or something. Also I'm sorry to inform you that the way the index shards are produced, arranged in memory/on disk, and the manner in which they are queried and ranked are inextricably linked. You can't make a…

Are you arguing that it's somehow impossible or technically unreasonable for a startup search engine to piggyback off google's search index in a similar way to how duckduckgo piggybacks off bing's search index? And that the very idea that this could be made possible through law makes you chuckle?

Bing doesn't make its search index public. It has a query api, where you can provide a search query and get Bing's results on a per-query basis.

The closest comparison to what this person wants is Common Crawl, which is minuscule compared to the big players, and is a 100TB gzipped download that gets updated monthly.

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

#280

Post by elicash » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #253

Rapzid wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With about 70% of their revenue from the US Government in 2018? Those defense companies might as well be an extension of the government with the added "benefit" that it allows individuals to get wealthy off them. Edit: Further to that and the comment pointing out where GPS was researched and developed, the Air Force still operates GPS block III and contracted these services out to Lockheed. So yeah, ultimately any su…

That's kind of the point though; would this whole arrangement work any better if it was all directly under the DoD hierarchy? Vs. private contractors like this? I was not intending to be snarky in the original comment. I've lived in a system where a lot more of the economy was under the government in the org chart and it was not magically better than the American system.

I'm not sure what point you're making. Yes, the government uses private contractors, but they'd use contractors for this transaction system, too.