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United States vs. Google

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Re: United States vs. Google

#321

Post by fn_bb_sqr_pnts »

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #288
wwwdonohue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of agree, but part of me also thinks that if a company builds the world's best mobile OS and search engine and ad platform and video streaming service and internet browser and mapping service... well, good for them! They built the best products and it seems like it would ultimately be anti-consumer to do anything about it. It's different if a company like Google establishes its dominance via one great product…

They became world dictator fair and square!

^ this guy gets it! IBM PC dominance didn't mean much when OS became the thing. And Windows PC OS dominance didn't mean much when web became the thing. Search dominance (which is one way of interacting with the web) didn't mean much when social/eCommerce (other ways) became a thing. FB missed messaging (is messenger a thing?). What are we doing here? can we just focus on figuring out digital privacy and call it a day?

Re: United States vs. Google

#322

Post by autoexec »

fn_bb_sqr_pnts wrote: post #320
autoexec wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO the main problem is the existence of an institution that is (arguably) more powerful than any government in the world. Which is why the US government has been collecting all the data they can from google. It's a perfect means to perform mass surveillance on everyone and google has no power to refuse to hand that data over or even to tell anyone about it.

if we allow that this combination of market power (search + ads + channels of distribution like youtube, android) wld lead to mass surveillance, what prevents other companies from arising and abusing this power? Other countries would hv to go along. I don't think trading Google dominance outside the US for Baidu solves anything.

I guess if google went full evil they'd have enough blackmail material to take down just about anybody at this point including politicians. The backlash if they were caught would be huge, but honestly what would we do about it? Switch to Bing who is just hoping to get enough data on us to do the same (and leveraging data collected from our own PCs to do it)?

They only way I can think of to solve this would be to limit the amount of data that companies are allowed to collect, but can we expect the government to vote for that until google does start to abuse what they have on us? Right now they can take that data and benefit from it as well.

Re: United States vs. Google

#323

Post by smegger001 »

jabbanobodder wrote: post #82
dsabanin wrote: post #47

I think Google is the best search engine. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with them being the best search engine, top online ad platform and a developer of the top mobile OS, top video streaming service, top internet browser, top mapping/navigation service, among other things, at the SAME time. Their assets give them undue and unsupervised influence over a very big chunk of what's happening onli…

But you're not cornered in. You might think they have a large influence over what is happening online (and they do), but you as an individual have a choice if you want to use the services they provide. Also this large influence is additionally strengthened by the fact that no other company can offer services (above mentioned) that match the quality of the product Google is giving.

Exactly I didn't always use Google I switched to their products because it was better than the competition; I used to use Yahoo mail but it sucked, so I switched to Gmail. I used to use Ask.com but it gave inferior results to Google Search. I have tried Bing and it was inferior so I continue to use Google Search. I use Android because its more open then the competition iOS.

When Google is not the best I don't use it. I use Audible and Kindle not Google Play Books. I use a opensource pod catcher I like rather than what ever the google android podcast app is. I use Open/LibreOffice rather than Google Docs. I have Chrome installed, but can't remember the last time I opened it as I much prefer Firefox as my daily driver because its superior in the measures I care about extensions, customization, and privacy.

Google only has me a as a customer as long as they offer me better service, if they don't I go elsewhere easily.

Re: United States vs. Google

#324

Post by PrinceKropotkin »

> "Competition is only a click away"

I must be crazy! The competition (bing, duckduckgo) is exactly the same service down to the same shitty interface minus the autoscraped crap on the side. If there's competition it's not on the internet I have access to. Where's the search engine I actually transact to use? That's what real competition would look like.

Re: United States vs. Google

#325

Post by ajarmst »

I'm old enough to remember the 'Look and Feel' and Microsoft vs. Netscape suits. By the time the antitrust actions against Microsoft and the whole SCO/Linux fiasco worked their ways through the system, the judgements were largely irrelevant or moot (in the colloquial sense). I think an additional value of actions like this are to enter some of the issues that the modern information economy---which operate on scales at least an order of magnitude faster---into the legal record and provide basic arguments and interpretations that can afford the development of new law and precedent. Even bad or silly decisions (hello, 'right to be forgotten' and cookie warnings) provide a foundation for legal challenge and new laws (viz. Section 230, although that last has also been serving as an illustration of how ignorant (hi, Donald) or cynical (hi, Joe) legislators can be about the law.)

Minor dig at the generally very good article: complaining that something has become politicized in 2020 is almost quaint. Ya think?

Re: United States vs. Google

#326

Post by sharkjacobs »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #312
shliachtx wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they purchased their way into many of these. Their advertising business was built on a number of acquisitions (DoubleClick, AdMob) - strategic acquisitions, surely, and they improved on them since - but it is not as if they bult the business from the ground up. The same goes for video streaming (YouTube - after attempting to create their own), and mobile OS (Android). With Android in particular it can be argue…

> Except they purchased their way into many of these. They did. But youtube.com wasn't that big when they bought it. In fact by definition most of the things they bought (like maps.google.com) weren't big. The obvious corollary is Google is very good buy scaling something up while keeping it rock solid. And, they are. Examples of original things that did come out of Google are Kubernetes, the Site Reliability Enginee…

> youtube.com wasn't that big when they bought it

YouTube then wasn't then anything like it is now, but it was by far the largest video website of its type. I felt like they bought it because Google Video failed to compete with it.

Re: United States vs. Google

#327

Post by nmfisher »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #155
munk-a wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO democracy isn't working in the US since the political parties were whittled down to just two actors and they realized they can just fight over social issues and have nearly identical stances on economic issues. This is one of the reasons I've been advocating hard to keep IRV in my local district (Chittenden County VT) and why I'm so happy to see Democrats, Republicans and Progressives all competing in the electio…

The rhetoric of electoralism and the idea that votes for a third party are "thrown away" is intensely corrosive to representative democracy. I agree that ranked-preference voting looks like the best fix for our current hyper-stable two-party system, but it's going to be an incredible uphill battle to expand this style of voting.

Out of curiosity, what's the justification for opposing a preferential voting system in the USA? Is it simply a case of "it would hurt my guy's chance of winning"? Or is there more principled reasoning at play?

As an Australian, it makes perfect sense to me.

Re: United States vs. Google

#328

Post by m4rtink »

wwwdonohue wrote: post #75
dsabanin wrote: post #47

I think Google is the best search engine. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with them being the best search engine, top online ad platform and a developer of the top mobile OS, top video streaming service, top internet browser, top mapping/navigation service, among other things, at the SAME time. Their assets give them undue and unsupervised influence over a very big chunk of what's happening onli…

I sort of agree, but part of me also thinks that if a company builds the world's best mobile OS and search engine and ad platform and video streaming service and internet browser and mapping service... well, good for them! They built the best products and it seems like it would ultimately be anti-consumer to do anything about it. It's different if a company like Google establishes its dominance via one great product…

I dont think one can cal Android worlds best mobile OS - one that had most money dumped on it to make the abomination usable, sure. Most pushed by a cartel (Open Hedste Aliance) mobile OS - definitely. But definitely not the best.

Re: United States vs. Google

#329

Post by nearbuy »

dsabanin wrote: post #47

I think Google is the best search engine. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with them being the best search engine, top online ad platform and a developer of the top mobile OS, top video streaming service, top internet browser, top mapping/navigation service, among other things, at the SAME time. Their assets give them undue and unsupervised influence over a very big chunk of what's happening onli…

> This kind of power for a good reason has been historically reserved for elected governments, made accountable to the people.

I actually think that if the current government administration (or any administration really) had power over search, news and YouTube, it would be more abused than under Google.

Re: United States vs. Google

#330

Post by larl »

kd913 wrote: post #298
d1zzy wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say this as if the entire (or majority) of Android's success rests with what they initially purchased. In my opinion it has very little to do with that and a lot more to do with the billions of dollars invested into developing, extending the platform, creating and supporting APIs, establishing contracts with OEMs, developing apps, etc etc. Android wasn't some magic thing that anyone that purchased it would hav…

The whole way that Google handled Windows Mobile was anti competitive imho. They prevented Windows Phone users from being able to access Google Maps by checking User Agents. They didn't release a native Youtube app for Windows phone, and when Microsoft wanted to make one themselves they restricted them to HTML5 and non-native access. This penalized battery life on Windows Phone platforms for 2 very large and importan…

You realize that Amazon Fire is Android, right?
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