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Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

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Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#221

Post by tboyd47 »

qtplatypus wrote: post #218
tboyd47 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It already happened, but the fix is simple and remains possible at any time: repeal the CDA.

That would kill almost every internet company. For example if the CDA was repealed then this site would go away almost overnight.

There were internet companies before the CDA came along. I don't consider actively moderated, special interest forums like this one to be dependent on the CDA for survival. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and any company with a business model that precludes active content moderation would be threatened. Those are exactly the companies that everyone complains about.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#222

Post by acituan »

dwild wrote: post #220
acituan wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do have exclusive access and control over the source of data that bring you that effectiveness though And what data would that be? All search engines crawl the same web.

What data? We are talking about ads. It's not the crawling data which help in targeting, it's what people click on, it's what people read, it's what people do. Being the search engine, if I search Asus computer, do you think it's the fact that there's Asus computer in the crawled content that will be used for targeting, or the fact that I searched Asus computer? When I click on the first link that say "Asus computer…

You realize that search engine itself drives massive traffic right? Even with the dumbest adds, that is billions of eyeballs concentrated on one page multiple times a day. That already makes a very steep barrier of entry.

> You are really mistaken if you believe they are for the good of customer

You are responding to a bunch of strawman arguments I never made. All those data you mention is plausibly increasing their targeting and revenue, but claiming that it is the biggest differentiating factor is a stretch and I don't think is likely. Facebook has more ground truth demographic data that Google has to infer or outsource for their billions of users, yet they weren't able to dominate competition solely on that basis.

> If you want to compete with them, you'll need to beat Android, beat Chrome, beat their search engine, beat EVERYTHING that make Google what they are. Not saying it's not possible, but the cost of it make it nearly impossible.

No, if you want to compete with them, you just need to have a damn good product that billions of people use multiple times a day. Turns out search engines are a pretty good fit for that. You can have a platform that can profile users to their genes, you still need raw the engagement numbers to make money out of it. At the end of the day it is accumulation of commissions for bits and bobs sold over internet ads.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#223

Post by qtplatypus »

tboyd47 wrote: post #221
qtplatypus wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would kill almost every internet company. For example if the CDA was repealed then this site would go away almost overnight.

There were internet companies before the CDA came along. I don't consider actively moderated, special interest forums like this one to be dependent on the CDA for survival. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and any company with a business model that precludes active content moderation would be threatened. Those are exactly the companies that everyone complains about.

Before the CDA came around there was real fear that Internet forums getting sued for libel as a publisher. This was before the internet was a mainstream thing. Any comment on HN could be libel and ycombinator would risk being sued over it.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#224

Post by tboyd47 »

qtplatypus wrote: post #223
tboyd47 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were internet companies before the CDA came along. I don't consider actively moderated, special interest forums like this one to be dependent on the CDA for survival. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and any company with a business model that precludes active content moderation would be threatened. Those are exactly the companies that everyone complains about.

Before the CDA came around there was real fear that Internet forums getting sued for libel as a publisher. This was before the internet was a mainstream thing. Any comment on HN could be libel and ycombinator would risk being sued over it.

Right, but we really don't know if that fear was justified or not. The CDA came very early on and created a legal shield around these companies that prevented these problems from reaching the court system. We don't know how courts would have dealt with forums like HN, nor do we know how forum moderators would have operated in that legal environment.

There's something slightly disturbing about the idea that a group of businesses who feel threatened by the public can rely on Congressional diktat to protect them from the law.

Speaking in 2020, I think we can say that giving all internet companies blanket immunity to lawsuits from the public was clearly not a good decision. Everything people complain about today on the internet, from censorship, surveillance, addictive design, and centralized control, is being implemented by companies that would never exist without the CDA.

With all the bitching and moaning people do about large internet companies, it's not a fair assumption that the internet we have now is the only internet possible or even the best internet possible. Sure, HN may not exist without the CDA. But we don't know that for sure, and it's shortsighted to limit our thinking to just one website or subculture of society.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#225

Post by dwild »

acituan wrote: post #222
dwild wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What data? We are talking about ads. It's not the crawling data which help in targeting, it's what people click on, it's what people read, it's what people do. Being the search engine, if I search Asus computer, do you think it's the fact that there's Asus computer in the crawled content that will be used for targeting, or the fact that I searched Asus computer? When I click on the first link that say "Asus computer…

You realize that search engine itself drives massive traffic right? Even with the dumbest adds, that is billions of eyeballs concentrated on one page multiple times a day. That already makes a very steep barrier of entry. > You are really mistaken if you believe they are for the good of customer You are responding to a bunch of strawman arguments I never made. All those data you mention is plausibly increasing their…

> No, if you want to compete with them, you just need to have a damn good product that billions of people use multiple times a day.

* using billions of people clicks to infer what the best results for every single search query

If crawling was enough, we wouldn't be all here arguing that Google is too big. It's not the tentative that are missing.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#226

Post by qtplatypus »

tboyd47 wrote: post #224
qtplatypus wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the CDA came around there was real fear that Internet forums getting sued for libel as a publisher. This was before the internet was a mainstream thing. Any comment on HN could be libel and ycombinator would risk being sued over it.

Right, but we really don't know if that fear was justified or not. The CDA came very early on and created a legal shield around these companies that prevented these problems from reaching the court system. We don't know how courts would have dealt with forums like HN, nor do we know how forum moderators would have operated in that legal environment. There's something slightly disturbing about the idea that a group of…

Given both Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. and Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. we know that courts would have held moderated environments as publishers.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#227

Post by tboyd47 »

qtplatypus wrote: post #226
tboyd47 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but we really don't know if that fear was justified or not. The CDA came very early on and created a legal shield around these companies that prevented these problems from reaching the court system. We don't know how courts would have dealt with forums like HN, nor do we know how forum moderators would have operated in that legal environment. There's something slightly disturbing about the idea that a group of…

Given both Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. and Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. we know that courts would have held moderated environments as publishers.

Do you think moderators could have adapted to the situation, by pre-filtering content instead of after the fact?

Also, weren't those cases about certain types of content (defamatory or libelous claims)? Don't you think AI technology could be developed to help moderators detect that type of content?

You haven't addressed my most important point: isn't there something wrong with the expectation that businesses feeling threatened by the public they serve can run to Congress for protection?

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#228

Post by qtplatypus »

tboyd47 wrote: post #227
qtplatypus wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given both Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. and Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. we know that courts would have held moderated environments as publishers.

Do you think moderators could have adapted to the situation, by pre-filtering content instead of after the fact? Also, weren't those cases about certain types of content (defamatory or libelous claims)? Don't you think AI technology could be developed to help moderators detect that type of content? You haven't addressed my most important point: isn't there something wrong with the expectation that businesses feeling…

I don't think pre-filtering vs post filtering effects the decision. Basically the pre-CDA law was "If you apply any form of content based moderation then you are a publisher and therefor you can be sued for the libel people have posted". I was active in the anti-spam community at this point in time and one of the large concerns at that time was to build spam detection methods that where not content based in order to avoid the danger of losing the common-carrier status.

You said "Also, weren't those cases about certain types of content (defamatory or libelous claims)? Don't you think AI technology could be developed to help moderators detect that type of content?"

I do not think that you could build AI technology that would be able to do that. In US law (IANAL this is not legal advice) one of the things that separate libel from non libel is the truth of the statement. We are no where near the sophistication of AI to be able to determine the truth of statements. For example how would an AI be able to permit "Jeffrey Epstein is a child molester" but block the same statement made about another person?

Then you said "isn't there something wrong with the expectation that businesses feeling threatened by the public they serve can run to Congress for protection?"

I am of the view that one of the roles of a government is to provide a way when the rights and privileges of different groups come into conflict to resolve those conflicts. In a democratic republic the political process is entirely the correct place for businesses and other stakeholders to establish that balance.

I think that it is the correct balance that the actual author of the content should be the one who is held responsible for the content that they produce.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#229

Post by qtplatypus »

boogies wrote: post #215
wodenokoto wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claimed “objectively” better translator is DeepL. You need to read like 8 paragraphs deep to get to that and there is no real explanation as to why it is objectively better - just a link to an article where some journalists apparently thought it was better. https://www.deepl.com/en/translator

The bottom of the page you linked shows ten articles, six of which praise DeepL as better than the competition and four which praise it without comparison. The least positive is probably Wired ’s: “WIRED's quick test shows that DeepL's results are indeed in no way inferior to those of the high-ranking competitors and, in many cases, even surpass them. The translated texts often read much more fluently; where Google T…

I experimented with testing with this line of Japanese.

フクロネコの仲間の中でもっともふ地いことで知られています

DeepL: It is known to be the most ground-breaking of all the bovine cats

Google: Known for being the most remote of all quolls

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