61–70 of 229 posts
make targeted advertising opt in. Make the opt in scary like how android enables the installation of apk's from unknown sources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any system in which network effects and winner-takes-all exist result in centralization and monopoly. I don't think you could design the Internet differently to avoid this.
Ban indirect monetization of private data if it is not an opt-in feature separated from the rest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fb is also a problem, so relying on them isn't going to solve anything. A cartel or oligopoly is not a better situation than a monopoly. For there to be a healthy market, it needs to be possible for small business to compete. If that's not possible in a market, then it needs to be regulated like a public utility.
> If that's not possible in a market, then it needs to be regulated like a public utility. What I don't understand here is does this not just hand Google the monopoly but now with government protection? Because they're already in place, so who's gonna offer this public utility? We see similar situations with, e.g. cellular carriers in the states, where wherever you live, you only get not-even-a-handful of choices. An…
but back to the original idea of it being a utility: Ads are imo user hostile and harmful to a society. They do work, which make them invaluable in capitalism... But they're effectively mass manipulation. I don't think we will ever be rid of them, but a world in which this is considered a utility is extremely dark imo
Controversial opinion here but I support monopolies. Compare the innovation that came out of Bell Labs when Bell had a monopoly vs. the stagnation that exists with the current telecom oligpoly. Most tech companies are natural monopolies so they're never going to exist on a purely competitive market, so it's a choice between oligpoly and monopoly, in which case the latter is far better for funding research.
I think this is a good point that doesn't get discussed enough. Was Bell bad for the consumer? Yes, probably. Was the benefit of the increase in innovation a net benefit for society when compared to deadweight loss incurred by monopoly pricing? I don't know. There is almost no way to answer this question in a rigorous manner, and yet it's extremely important for policy. The only thing I can think of is experiment ove…
Google has often used data acquired through their market position to start subsidiaries to unfairly compete with their ad customers.
The reason it’s unfair is because Google has not just the ad data but the web search data, this often results in a Google ad customer going from #1 google Organic search result for key terms, to #2 to Google’s competing subsidiary.
Worse from going from #1 to #2 to a google product, the natural instinct to save the business is to increase ad spend to be sure you are still the #1 ad to our place the google at the top of organic search, of course ad spend goes right into the pocket of your new competitors core business anyway, and in many instances googles subsidiary will start bidding for your same keywords so they literally can’t lose competing with your business rather the have basically acquired an off form of rent seeking equity or they kill your business and become the market incumbent.
Of course the kicker are those instances a google subsidiary gets a custom tool at the top of google results (such as Flights) above both organic and ads.
Same senators who thought Google made iPhones? Not defending Google but I am saying that most of those senators are not the holders of truth when it comes to technology.
That's not what happened. The question was asking why a child saw a family member in an ad while playing a game. The Congressman just held up an iPhone while asking but it had nothing to do with the hardware. Of course there are numerous factors that may have contributed to the ad (and maybe Google wasn't involved) but they went with the smartass answer and the media ran with that narrative instead. It's not the grea…
The UK recently evaluated the online ad market and found that Google and Facebook commanded 70% of all online ad spend in the country [0]. Their large pool of advertisers also helps them command a higher return per search compared to other platforms, allowing them to outbid its peers to become the default search choice on devices, e.g. Apple products. Their lack of privacy sensitive policy also helps their ad targeti…
Fb could disrupt google because it had the impressions first, so that is the dimension to think about. Adspend and advertiser pool is a by product. Disclaimer: current fb, ex google employee.
What so many people fail to realize about these issues vis-a-vis Google, it’s not so much the issues of Google having a monopoly or not on the ad market...in either case google is a dominant market incumbent that uses its position (in this case web traffic, data and online ad platform) to unfairly compete and stifle competition. Google has often used data acquired through their market position to start subsidiaries t…
What so many people fail to realize about these issues vis-a-vis Google, it’s not so much the issues of Google having a monopoly or not on the ad market...in either case google is a dominant market incumbent that uses its position (in this case web traffic, data and online ad platform) to unfairly compete and stifle competition. Google has often used data acquired through their market position to start subsidiaries t…
When random person X complains about, say, Google having a monopoly, there are two possibilities:
- Person X means something along "Google has a dominant market position and abuses its power", slightly abusing the meaning of "monopoly".
- Person X means Google is literally a monopoly, that it is not possible to get online ads otherwise and does not know that firms such as Facebook exist.
Somehow a lot of people choose to believe interpretation #2 is true, and spend a lot of time debating whether this or that company is a "monopoly" as if it is somehow more important than the substantive issues.