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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

#81

Post by ketzo »

jeffbee wrote: post #45
bilbo0s wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

especially given that they don't seem to be concerned about having internet service providers declared public utilities. Which is why it will obviously fail at actually doing anything useful. However, the intended purpose may not be so much to do anything useful, as it is to score some points for incumbent politicians. In that, it could succeed brilliantly. It's actually a very smart move if you consider the politica…

Name even one way in which Google resembles a public utility. When I build a house, do I have to pay $25k to get my Google pipes hooked up? Seriously where are the parallels?

It's a service with which essentially every person living in present-day America needs to interact on a day-to-day basis. And yes, they need to. I think it is hugely disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

We can talk all day about how DuckDuckGo and ProtonMail exist. But for a huge, huge majority of people, Google simply is the internet.

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

#82

Post by fn-mote »

obnauticus wrote: post #19

So why aren’t we doing the same thing to Comcast again?

Yes, shaking my head here. If they don't have the willpower to manage Comcast, market cap ~$250B, how in the world will they be able to do anything with Google, worth ~$1600B?

I wish so much they would care about something they could actually change.

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

#83

Post by alxlaz »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #77
ericmay wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even just divesting YouTube would be a start.

YouTube is hardly profitable. They would barely be able to afford their own infrastructure under their current revenue. They would immediately be acquired by a competitor or declare bankruptcy.

Well, tough luck. Not all business plans are destined for success.

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

#84

Post by bananabreakfast »

tyingq wrote: post #68
bmmayer1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Google would argue that web search is not their market. They are in the business of online advertising in which they most definitely do not have dominant market share.

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

#85

Post by lottin »

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.

Google is not a monopoly, but it has enough market power to be a reason for concern.

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

#86

Post by bendergarcia »

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…

I think it could be done depending on how you slice it. For example you could definitely put YouTube as its own separate entity YouTube and google play together, as an entertainment company. Gmail plus drive and calendar as a productivivity company, web search as it’s own company. One thing that could make this easy would be to remove the google identity as a single company for SSO into all types of services. Then all the other companies could have sign in with FB Microsoft LinkedIn etc. google maps could be a standalone company. Nest/google home could easily be its own company. Especially if they spin off google identity as a separate product. Oh and google shopping could be it’s own company. Lastly all these things could still feed into google search results using APIs from all those services. I think we could benefit from a break up.

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

#87

Post by tyingq »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #84
tyingq wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Google would argue that web search is not their market. They are in the business of online advertising in which they most definitely do not have dominant market share.

I can't say for sure whether they have a monopoly, but it's interesting that Eric Schmidt can't either.

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

#88

Post by russian-hacker »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #77
ericmay wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even just divesting YouTube would be a start.

YouTube is hardly profitable. They would barely be able to afford their own infrastructure under their current revenue. They would immediately be acquired by a competitor or declare bankruptcy.

Good. This’ll even the playing field for competitors. It’ll be a net win for humanity.

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

#89

Post by epigen »

Buttons840 wrote: post #34

> the lawsuit seeks a legal declaration that Google is a "common carrier," like phone, gas and electric companies, which must provide its services to anyone willing to pay its fee. How can something on the internet be a common carrier when the internet itself is not a common carrier?

> How can something on the internet be a common carrier when the internet itself is not a common carrier?

Because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it shouldn't happen.

Maybe Google is the last straw that leads to proper governance of utilities in the public's interest.

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

#90

Post by yeetman21 »

aetherson wrote: post #78
bmmayer1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Google a monopoly? Serious question.

Google controls the vast majority of the web search market. More than 90%. What exactly a monopoly constitutes is something that people can disagree about, but "has 90% market share" is not by any means a crazy definition of a monopoly.

Google doesnt make money of web searches, it makes money off ads, which it competes with fb and others for
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