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FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#611

Post by remarkEon »

mushufasa wrote: post #584
remarkEon wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is the right solution. Just add a link to the page numbers at the top of the thread. It's unintrusive, and still follows the minimalist design tenants of this website.

or put previous/next links in a line at the start of the comments, instead of just 'more' all the way at the bottom. i wonder if they're constrained because their staff can't maintain the codebase well in the nonstandard arc language, and pg obviously has retired

Didn’t realize this was all running on arc. Ironically this will become a pipeline problem.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#612

Post by rapnie »

arilotter wrote: post #295
vladmk wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the accidental straw-man is actually your reply. People give Facebook their access willingly and they know what information they input into Facebook. Should Facebook have all the info your bank has for instance? Or auto mechanic, your realtor? This is a slippery slope of logic of shared data for all leads to.

> People give Facebook their access willingly and they know what information they input into Facebook. I don't think this is true. Facebook tracks your activity all over the web on thousands of third-party sites and builds a unique profile to identify you, without regard for you having an account. You can't opt out of this if you don't have a Facebook account. Some of these "social graph" features will do things like…

Indeed. Also people do not sufficiently realize how much more can be deducted about the nature of a social relationship other than a mere "Person A knows Person B", if you combine it with the PII you have of both users (and even more if you consider the network in its entirety).

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#613

Post by teekert »

edumucelli wrote: post #606
hombre_fatal wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone knows that the UX is bad. The work just has to be done, and it's not particularly critical. If I know anything about software, it's been in HN's issue tracker for years.

This UX may be bad, but the current hackish solution of a parent comment being posted with link to the other pages is the worst.

Compared to most websites I visit during the day, HN is a breath of fresh air.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#614

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jart wrote: post #605
hombre_fatal wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone knows that the UX is bad. The work just has to be done, and it's not particularly critical. If I know anything about software, it's been in HN's issue tracker for years.

Considering how awful the unilateral design changes to Facebook and Reddit have been, I for one sincerely hope that Hacker News never changes. Its UX is perfect.

It doesn't have to change the UI much to fix the pagination visibility issue.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#615

Post by spoonjim »

I strongly believe that this is a result of Mark Zuckerberg just being strongly disliked, for reasons that seem entirely focused on his person ("Zuckerbot") and not his company's actions. I think the reason you see this coming down on Facebook and not Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. is just this intense anti-charisma that he has.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#616

Post by throwaway9d0291 »

saddlerustle wrote: post #222
ghufran_syed wrote: post #155

I feel like instead of pushing for the companies to separate, congress should pass laws mandating [adversarial interoperability]( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera... ). Then the data (including the social graph) really would belong to the users, and facebook would have to compete with multiple other “social network clients” that would rapidly emerge. Facebook would lose some monopoly profi…

There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting. Unencumbered API access to the social graph is exactly what led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and promising to restrict API access was part of Facebook's settlement with the FTC.

> There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting.

If the API is open and there's forced interoperability, the client device can call the service's API directly with the user's own credentials. No need for a third-party middleman, so no need to give a third-party access to the data.

It can work the same way IM applications like Pidgin work: one app, multiple accounts.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#617

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #353
gamblor956 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart paid for the products on their shelves. Amazon does not pay for most of the products you can buy on Amazon. The difference, in case it's not clear: Walmart is the manufacturers' primary customer, so it's irrelevant from their point of view what products Walmart chooses to sell in its stores. The third-party sellers are the manufacturer's customers. The manufacturers still get paid either way. But we're not co…

Walmart pays for some products on their shelves. Companies pay for product placement: Sometimes, it is a mix - deeply reduced prices for a holiday display, for example. Soft drinks are often serviced by the local distributor, and they pay only for what is sold: If wal-mart is anything like the pharmacy I worked at, magazines and greeting cards are similar (only pay for what is sold, credited for the rest, and a rep p…

I'm so very, very sick of the target pregnancy story. Like, we have absolutely no idea how many people the model thought were pregnant, vs the number that actually were.

Based on my knowledge of market-basket analysis, this might work, but we really don't know anything except a just-so story about target and someone's daughter.

This is really, really not a good example of analysing receipts leading to better things.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#618

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

quickresponse wrote: post #601
skewart wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would breaking up Facebook into three companies fix this though? Suppose Instagram is a separate company and a new competitor starts getting popular. Why wouldn’t Instagram still just copy the competitor’s features? It’s hard to compete with Instagram because everyone is already on Instagram, not because everyone is also on Facebook. (A lot of IG users don’t use FB much, and vice versa.) A freestanding Instagram…

Because if FB were split in three it would signal a definitive shift towards antitrust regulators actively applying the law. In that reality, all move-the-needle mergers would be subject to antitrust regulations that should have (but weren't really) applied to FB's previous acquisitions thus constraining IG's freedom to copy and crush.

I think the only real failure of anti-trust regulation was in the EU. They definitely should not have allowed the Whatsapp acquisition to go ahead.

I'm not sure on what grounds the US regulators would have blocked the Whatsapp acquisition, as it basically had no competition implications in the US.

The Instagram one is harder. Sure, it was a better version fo Facebook done right for mobile, but it only had 10mn users when acquired.

I'm not convinced that IG would have been successful if it hadn't been bought by Facebook. For an example of how things can go wrong, look at Snapchat vs Instagram.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#619

Post by riknox »

SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #457
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop using their free service and block their Javascript. Don't use apps built with their login framework.

The problem is facebook is wiping out the alternatives. In Australia there is a decent buy/sell site called Gumtree but its ultimately doomed as facebook marketplace uses its massive pre exsting userbase to wipe it out. Facebook either buys or crushes all competition which doesn't have billions of dollars to push back.

Not sure of the future of Gumtree in Australia, but they also have a large tech company behind them (at least until next year). eBay Classifieds Group

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#620

Post by dr_zoidberg »

mrkurt wrote: post #275
s3r3nity wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my doubts, simply because the markets would be significantly disrupted if the government can retroactively “unapprove” a merger over a decade (or longer) after the fact - AFTER the government previously approved it. You’re better off trying to right the wrongs through litigation that sets a better market environment.

It's not any different than splitting a company up into parts. Historically, that hasn't disrupted the markets as much as it's made sharedholders more money ... because the multiple, smaller entities are more valuable than the whole.

The situation reminds me of when Google bought Motorola[0], and then the Android phone manufacturers pushed for them to sell it again. Which eventually happened. Main difference here would be that it's the government pushing now, instead of (indirect?) competitors (which also happen to be customers).

[0] Good old times, I still have a Moto G3 from back then that works like a charm, except it can't "speak" to the 4G technology that got deployed in the country where I live.

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