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Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

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Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#61

Post by aaron-santos »

dantheman wrote: post #38
izacus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that this behaviour shows up in non-monopolistic markets as well. Apple does it. PayPal does it. Heck, our European banks have started doing it despite there being ample competition. What the competition did, is made sure EVERY competing entity does that because it's cheaper and costs were brought down with race to the bottom. I don't get where this bizarre belief that "moar free market" will solve issues. Let…

Freedom of association is important, and you shouldn't have to do business with people you don't want to.

I may be misunderstanding this. Does this mean "You [a business] shouldn't have to do business with people you don't want to"? If so, why should rights of people extend to businesses? People already have the freedom of association of employment that seems to cover this. ie: if someone doesn't want to associate with someone else as an employee of a business, they can simply not work at that business.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#62

Post by mclightning »

izacus wrote: post #37
ping_pong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct result of their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Because they have such a huge monopoly, they can afford to ignore customers and have a draconian approach to people, and can get away with it. If there were better competition, they wouldn't have been able to ignore their customers. Breaking them up will alleviate this by ensuring that each company needs to be able to survive on their…

Except that this behaviour shows up in non-monopolistic markets as well. Apple does it. PayPal does it. Heck, our European banks have started doing it despite there being ample competition. What the competition did, is made sure EVERY competing entity does that because it's cheaper and costs were brought down with race to the bottom. I don't get where this bizarre belief that "moar free market" will solve issues. Let…

You need to find the person whose KPI would be effected by you leaving as a customer.

Go find them on LinkedIn, message your experience and statement that you're leaving.

When corporations put up higher and higher walls around their official channels of communication, you either need to get louder or go around the wall.

I am working for a big e-commerce corp., we are made to read/go-through customer feedback occasionally. That is just to find a %1~ of potential conversion improvement we can make.

Companies do care about conversion/retention. Problem is only the communication between the customer and the right team of people inside.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#63

Post by gwright »

dantheman wrote: post #38
izacus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that this behaviour shows up in non-monopolistic markets as well. Apple does it. PayPal does it. Heck, our European banks have started doing it despite there being ample competition. What the competition did, is made sure EVERY competing entity does that because it's cheaper and costs were brought down with race to the bottom. I don't get where this bizarre belief that "moar free market" will solve issues. Let…

Freedom of association is important, and you shouldn't have to do business with people you don't want to.

Due process is also important. A balance is needed.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#64

Post by tengbretson »

gumby wrote: post #48
ping_pong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct result of their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Because they have such a huge monopoly, they can afford to ignore customers and have a draconian approach to people, and can get away with it. If there were better competition, they wouldn't have been able to ignore their customers. Breaking them up will alleviate this by ensuring that each company needs to be able to survive on their…

> ...their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Not denying their monopoly position, but how could Google meaningfully be broken up? It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue. Even pushing advertising down to 80% took a huge amount of effort. It's not like Standard Oil which was a vertically integrated trust of several points in…

Maybe we shouldn't be letting this gaggle of loss leaders distort the market in their respective verticals.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#65

Post by russian-hacker »

thera2 wrote: post #18
MarkusWandel wrote: post #5

Well, a public utility also doesn't have the right to do this: "You did something wrong, we won't tell you what it was, there's no chance of appeal, and you are now banned from receiving water service again, ever, for the rest of your life, no matter where you move. And don't try moving in with someone else who's still receiving service, because they'll get banned too."

Although I understand what you're saying, email and YouTube access is not the same as water. Depriving someone of water would be the same as depriving them of life, which is not true of email, YouTube, and whatever g-services.

There is only one Google/YouTube. Water is plentiful.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#66

Post by Grimm1 »

I don't want more utilities, I want more competition, failure, and new players to fill spaces where old players died. Crony protectionism, and lax acquisition constraints are why we have a lot of these companies at where they are.

When the seeming majority of exit plans for companies is an acquisition by a larger existing entity you have a problem. If our laws were better, people would be able to compete against because they wouldn't have a hand in a crazy amount of markets and able to easily fend off good newcomers without a good amount of resources being expended. I heavily disagree with making things like Google a utility when the reason they're where they are today is largely artificial. They are not a natural monopoly they just took advantage of a weak government and pulled up the ladder behind themselves.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#67

Post by entropicdrifter »

colordrops wrote: post #36
jolmg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google isn't the only provider of email addresses. In contrast, water utilities typically hold monopoly over their region. EDIT: Many people are replying with some variant that the problem is that Google can block the email account that people have tied to their financial and government services. But the same is true of any other email provider. If Google is somehow turned into a public utility, how does that sol…

It could be very difficult or impossible to access some accounts that use the email address for two factor authentication. And these are typically the most critical accounts.

I mean, that's really on the user for not setting up more than one 2FA method for their highly critical accounts

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#68

Post by tyingq »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #50
ping_pong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct result of their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Because they have such a huge monopoly, they can afford to ignore customers and have a draconian approach to people, and can get away with it. If there were better competition, they wouldn't have been able to ignore their customers. Breaking them up will alleviate this by ensuring that each company needs to be able to survive on their…

How is Google a monopoly? Serious question.

Senator Herb Kohl: But you do recognize that in the words that are used and antitrust kind of oversight, your market share constitutes monopoly, dominant -- special power dominant for a monopoly firm. You recognize you're in that area?

Eric Shmidt: I would agree, sir, that we’re in that area....I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of monopoly findings is this is a judicial process.

From: https://www.businessinsider.com/is-google-a-monopoly-were-in...

Also, the FTC's initial memo from 2012 that somebody higher up in the food chain quashed is pretty interesting: http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/

In short, dominant market share in web search. Though I think you could argue other things, like dominance in affordable smart phones. Android is effectively a monopoly for people that can't afford an iPhone.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#69

Post by colechristensen »

gumby wrote: post #48
ping_pong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct result of their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Because they have such a huge monopoly, they can afford to ignore customers and have a draconian approach to people, and can get away with it. If there were better competition, they wouldn't have been able to ignore their customers. Breaking them up will alleviate this by ensuring that each company needs to be able to survive on their…

> ...their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Not denying their monopoly position, but how could Google meaningfully be broken up? It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue. Even pushing advertising down to 80% took a huge amount of effort. It's not like Standard Oil which was a vertically integrated trust of several points in…

Maybe break ads up into two or three businesses then break the loss leaders up into a dozen different companies. You don't have to own the ad company to sell advertising, let them place ads from google or whomever else just like everybody else on the Internet, alternatively let them start leaning more on paid services instead of customer-as-product.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#70

Post by ketzo »

gumby wrote: post #48
ping_pong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct result of their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Because they have such a huge monopoly, they can afford to ignore customers and have a draconian approach to people, and can get away with it. If there were better competition, they wouldn't have been able to ignore their customers. Breaking them up will alleviate this by ensuring that each company needs to be able to survive on their…

> ...their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Not denying their monopoly position, but how could Google meaningfully be broken up? It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue. Even pushing advertising down to 80% took a huge amount of effort. It's not like Standard Oil which was a vertically integrated trust of several points in…

GSuite/Gmail, YouTube, Search, Android, Google Shopping, Google Maps -- all of these could become separate software companies. Not saying they would enjoy that, of course, but those are some of the divisions that immediately jump to mind.
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