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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

#511

Post by wait_a_minute »

bumby wrote: post #134
pcmoney wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have multiple choices for water, dig a well, buy it from the local grocery store. Same for sewage because self composting toilets exist. Also electricity isn't a utility just use a stationary bike as a generator or buy solar panels... Just because you have multiple choices doesn't mean something is/isn't a utility. Its pretty arbitrary. They also aren't talking about Google products (most of which are completely…

To a certain extent, utilities differ in that they are regulated monopolies protected by the government. Any competing water company, for example, can’t just start running water mains without government approval. In exchange for that protection, the existing water utility incurs additional regulations, like needing approvals to raise rates and bring required to provide services to areas where it may not be profitable…

In general by government protection we just mean that they are receiving property protection from police and from local governmental offices for like water quality inspections, park maintenance, general public services like the post office, etc, right? not that the government decides anything of note for the utility/company of people who are doing their best to run things based on merit and performance and team cohesion and actual delivery of objectives? not any political shit? I ask because I'm truly afraid at what people are starting to think when they talk about government's role, at least from my age or younger and I'm probably on the younger side on this forum so I want to know what the more experienced people here think about this kind of thing.

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

#512

Post by crazygringo »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #504
adrr wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you Google shoes to find shoes,some workout shorts or any consumer product line? Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. What do you Google from a consumer perspective?

> Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. I can't believe this is a serious comment. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars would say otherwise. I search for consumer products on Google all the time.

It's definitely hyperbole to say "irrelevant", but I think the overarching point is right.

When I'm looking to buy something, I'll usually start my search on Amazon or Pinterest or Walmart or eBay or Etsy. Google is definitely a search of last resort.

Everyone's behavior is different, but while Google may "own" search for knowledge, it absolutely does not "own" search for consumer products.

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

#513

Post by throwaway888abc »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Goog...

The scope (of showing nice timer by google on 'timer' search) is much broader spanning many verticals

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

#514

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #481
amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

Apparently, Google Flight Search is not even close to the best alternative.1 https://www.frommers.com/slideshows/848046-the-10-best-and-w... This is interesting because I always thought Matrix from ITA Software, a company Google acquired in 2010, was quite useful. Wonder if links to Skiplagged get subjugated in Google SERPs. If Google thinks it can replace other websites by providing better alternatives, that's great…

I’ve used a number of those others, and at least via my personal scoring system, google flights is still by far the number one. Your link prioritizes very different things than I do, for example one of its top scoring sites has as a con that you can’t filter out 10+ hour layovers).

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

#515

Post by actuator »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #504
adrr wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you Google shoes to find shoes,some workout shorts or any consumer product line? Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. What do you Google from a consumer perspective?

> Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. I can't believe this is a serious comment. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars would say otherwise. I search for consumer products on Google all the time.

I think they are right. Even personally with the Google/DDG split I use, I almost never search for products on them. I go to Amazon or any other retailer. If I don't know what to buy and I need reviews outside of Amazon then I might search for it on Google/Youtube or browse some specific site like WireCutter.

For me and for people I know, even the general search is now more and more served by new search engine platforms like Alexa/Siri which are the only search engines on products like Echo and have a monopoly.

With vertical search platforms coming up, looking at just a general search engine is the old way. Search is no longer just the traditional old style search engines from 90s. Alexa/Siri haven't been monetised yet, but you can see the dominance of Amazon in product search space by their rapidly growing ad revenue.

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

#516

Post by unishark »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

> On the other hand, google could take over almost any business like this.

I have never worked with a technology company that would in danger of being taken over in this way. The examples you list are all free information you can find on the internet, which is precisely google's business. To run afoul of monopoly laws they need to do things like build their own restaurants and route searches to them rather than the other local restaurants the user was looking for. I assume they are doing this in some cases. But the last thing I want is to do a search and find the result list giving a bunch of new pages of lists, with yet more ads of course, to sift through next.

Software engineers are enjoying a nice run, where one can make lots of money applying basic software skills anyone can learn, grabbing free info anyone can get, and utilizing libraries everyone gets with their computer/phone OS but has not been provided access to by their hardware vendor. Hopefully technology will keep changing so fast the run will last forever (as long as you keep hopping to the newest bleeding edge). But this seems like borrowed time to me, access to free info and your own computer's clock or whatever is a commodity anyone can provide, whether it's someone earlier in the chain selling the hardware, or just millions of hungry programmers in developing countries.

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

#517

Post by shkkmo »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #481
amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

Apparently, Google Flight Search is not even close to the best alternative.1 https://www.frommers.com/slideshows/848046-the-10-best-and-w... This is interesting because I always thought Matrix from ITA Software, a company Google acquired in 2010, was quite useful. Wonder if links to Skiplagged get subjugated in Google SERPs. If Google thinks it can replace other websites by providing better alternatives, that's great…

Google flight search does just as good as Skiplagged for the routes I tend to fly and the UI makes it easier to find the cheapest dates.

If I am doing complicated international stuff I will check multiple locations for prices but for my simple domestic routes the ease and speed of google flights makes it the best option.

Edit: That said, I don't use google as my default search engine as I switched all my devices to DDG a long time ago.

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

#518

Post by andyana »

Manuel_D wrote: post #490
russian-hacker wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is forcing you to use an electrical company. You could always power your house with a bicycle generator. Therefore, electrical companies shouldn't be regulated as public utilities.

Yes, you have to use the municipal electricity. You cannot lay your own power lines, it's illegal. And in most urban areas, you can't run your own generator for emissions restrictions. You also can't power your home with a bicycle. Even champion bicyclists output 50-100 watts. Using Bing, DuckDuckGo, or other Google alternatives are incomparably easier than not using utilities like electricity and plumbing. I struggl…

You might want to rethink your bike claim; it is certainly possible.

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

#519

Post by brokencode »

sumedh wrote: post #497
anders_p wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely missed the point of the comment. Google is stealing ideas and products, that they know are viable through the metrics they gather from the search data. Then they implement those products and embed them ABOVE the search results. Effectively killing off the competitors, who invented and build the original products. HOW are developers free to avoid Google killing off their businesses like that?

> Google is stealing ideas and products, that they know are viable through the metrics they gather from the search data. Doesnt Walmart and Amazon do that as well, looking at the data and then making their own in house products?

Yes, and maybe they should be regulated too. They enjoy dominant positions in the market and blatantly rip off successful products down to the color and bottle shape.

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

#520

Post by minsc__and__boo »

suifbwish wrote: post #172
bananabreakfast wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it does. It undercuts their entire argument by making it look much more like a political stunt than any kind of serious action.

Actually that is what is known as a red herring argument. Bringing up something unrelated saying that the original argument is invalidated because the same reasoning wasn’t applied to it is a common informal fallacy. Most legal documents have something related to severability which states that even if one part of the document is found to be unreasonable/illegal/illogical, it does not invalidate the rest of the docume…

That's not what a red herring is.

They're calling out the logical inconsistency of the claims being made, and in turn questioning the genuineness of the speaker's motive.

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