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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

#341

Post by InvertedRhodium »

labcomputer wrote: post #277
Arch-TK wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of rational reasons for not wanting a smart meter. Don't let the irrational people detract from the fact that there are many real problems with smart meters. Especially lots of privacy issues. In the UK, I report my own meter readings and the electrical company probably only really ever goes out once every few years when tenancies change. So I actually don't see what money it saves them asides from t…

Sure, but those not-irrational reasons are locale-specific. I've never heard of someone self-reporting the meter reading here in the US. The meter still keeps a local log of how much energy was used, so worrying about being framed for using too much energy still feels a bit irrational to me. OTOH, smart meters allow the utility to charge TOU rates, which helps even out the load on the grid. It benefits the utility, o…

I just don't want the timing of my electricity consumption to end up being used as evidence against me for growing cannabis. Feels pretty rational from my perspective.

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

#342

Post by ipaddr »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #176
caslon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google-avoider checking in! It's actually really easy to avoid it. DuckDuckGo's search quality is better, Firefox is deteriorating daily but still looks and feels better than Chrome does, email should really be avoided but there are dozens of really good email services, and their ad service doesn't need a replacement for obvious reasons (just block it).

What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting? Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures? I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account.

If you need a google work account I guess choices need to be made. It is rare that hr wouldn't have another option available for the interview. But many employers use it.

Newborn's pictures could be obtained another way if you were a close relatives or friends. If you are not close enough then the desire to see them decreases anyways.

You always have the choice of creating a new google profile and disreguarding it later.

Many have

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

#343

Post by LambdaComplex »

ashneo76 wrote: post #300
Arch-TK wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of rational reasons for not wanting a smart meter. Don't let the irrational people detract from the fact that there are many real problems with smart meters. Especially lots of privacy issues. In the UK, I report my own meter readings and the electrical company probably only really ever goes out once every few years when tenancies change. So I actually don't see what money it saves them asides from t…

I don't trust private companies doing anything "smart". I say this as an electronics and software engineer. Companies doing have our best interests in mind. Want to refute that claim? Show me the source code then

And, even if they do show you "the source code," how can you be sure it's the code that's actually running on the device?

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

#344

Post by throwawaysea »

This is exactly what needs to happen, and not just because Google is steering people towards their own products preferentially. All the big technology companies are providing services that are fundamentally necessary to live and operate in our modern society. Their ability to act outside the laws that constrain public agencies or other regulated private organizations is simply not acceptable. I am specifically thinking of their role in information exchange - whether that is books sold on Amazon, results shown on Google search, social media accounts/posts on Facebook, or other examples.

These companies are simply too big and powerful to be allowed to continue operating as unregulated private companies. They are more than just another random company, given that they have billions of users and control the public square as it exists today. The fact that they have massive network effects with billions of users limits their exposure to competition - for example, it's not possible to make a viable competitor to YouTube given that Google has an existing platform with a large number of content creators, advertisers, and users. The same network means that Google's decisions (to ban content, demonetize content, lock user accounts, etc.) are as impactful as a government agency or any other utility making such a decision, because there isn't a good alternative. And in many ways, the tech companies are more powerful than governments because they have more users than most nations have citizens.

In comparison, a power utility can't just arbitrarily turn off your electricity because they disagree with your speech or political position. The water company can't withhold service without explanation. Virtually all laws that companies have to abide by constitute "regulation". There's nothing stopping us from tweaking how companies like Google are treated.

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

#345

Post by sidibe »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #124
obnauticus wrote: post #19

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

Comcast lobbyists bribe better. Allegedly.

I think Google can bribe just as well. The difference is politicians feel like Google and its business model are more actively disliked because the media is very focused on it, particularly the more left-leaning and right-leaning media. I think outside of hacker news and politics bubbles, people actually still have a positive view about Google's services though

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

#346

Post by sparrc »

adrr wrote: post #95

But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. I don’t have any choice for water, electricity, sewer, on any other public utility. I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products and are using DuckDuckGo, Firefox, ProtonMail, Vimeo. There are many choices.

I don't use google products much anymore, but the transition takes a long time, especially getting off of gmail.

I'm also not sure it would even be possible to transition if you don't have access to your google account anymore. You would just be literally completely shut out of many of your online accounts.

And for watching online videos there really isn't any viable alternative to youtube.

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

#347

Post by ndesaulniers »

justbored123 wrote: post #320

This is simply g*rbage.I wish all my utilities were as cheap and amazing as google. Why don't we go the other way and make a law demanding that? - Google services are free. If they are a utility they should charge you like any utility, go ask Texans and Californians about their recent power bills. - There is an endless amount of comparable alternatives to Google, here you have 17 https://www.searchenginejournal.com/a…

> go ask Texans and Californians about their recent power bills.

FWIW here in Santa Clara we have not-for-profit municipal power that costs less than half the surrounding area for residential service: https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/svp-and-community/about-s...

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

#348

Post by XorNot »

justanotherguy0 wrote: post #323
supernova87a wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then isn't this an argument that tech companies are not utilities because the things they supply don't "just work" and have no nuance to them? Electricity and water "just work" because you deliver it, you're done. You have no obligations aside from not failing to deliver it, and not exploiting your monopoly market. Tech companies are not utilities because they're not just something you buy like a commodity and have a…

Bullshit. Delivering power and water are incredibly complex. Water has to be sourced from God knows where, you have to do planning on building reservoirs. You have to manage run off (hey, your horses can't keep shitting near that stream!). You have to treat the water and manage it's acidity. You have to keep mains running. If a leak springs and the system goes under pressure, the whole supply can become contaminated!…

Nothing gives away a software engineer with no experience then when they look at physical infrastructure and declare "that's easy to do".

This is the profession where getting an SOE imaged machine in a new employees hands on their first day is considered a big achievement.

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

#349

Post by einpoklum »

Good on them - even if they may be totally hypocritical in doing that. Search should be a public utility. Perhaps even an international public utility.

Google's statement that "Google Search is designed to provide people with the most relevant and helpful results" is untrue. Google Search is designed to benefit Google (or rather Alphabet) Corporation. That involves providing relevant and helpful results - to some extent, but it also involves promoting results Google favors and demoting or filtering out results it disfavors. For example, political content which Google does or does not approve of, respectively:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-...

this includes explicit conscious censorship of specific news and commentary websites (such as the World Socialist Website, AlterNet, etc. and sites on the political right as well, IIANM).

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

#350

Post by WolfRazu »

Arch-TK wrote: post #330
softveda wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia, in the state of Victoria all meters are smart meter for few years now. They are also growing in number in other states. There has been no hacking incident. in fact it makes peoples life easier by allowing them to track energy usage at every 15 mins interval with historical data using an app from the utility company. This data cannot be sold either. In fact under the Govt. Open API scheme very shortly yo…

So sounds like Australian smart meter companies are better at security than British ones. The energy usage tracking can be done without smart meters, in this country electricity companies (and lots of private companies) offered induction clamp based electrical usage logging devices. These may not have been quite as accurate as onboard measuring but this could have easily been solved with some kind of serial protocol…

I'd like to point out that ever since SMETS2 new (and some firmware updated) smart meters are compatible in the UK, although I do acknowledge they didn't used to be.
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