Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility • Hacker News Board

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

#691

Post by shkkmo » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

onethought wrote: post #612

shkkmo wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they absolutely can. Like with any surveillance technology, there are things you can do to obfuscate your patterns, but that doesn't mean that a broad rollout of the technology won't have a negative privacy impact on most customers.

It’s not obfuscation, if you are concerned about privacy. You can completely hide your usage patterns with a battery or solar/wind generation. Are you honesty making the point that: knowing you used 5 units of power in 1 month (where someone has to walk onto your property and read a number, as is the case in most dumb metered scenarios) is less of a privacy concern than knowing you used .3 of unit of power in the las…

> knowing you used 5 units of power in 1 month (where someone has to walk onto your property and read a number, as is the case in most dumb metered scenarios) is less of a privacy concern than knowing you used .3 of unit of power in the last 15 minutes (without needing to walk onto your property).

Personally, I think so for most people. But that depends on how much privacy your property provides from pedestrians and where your meter is located.

However, that is orthogonal to the debate since there are other options. Some places allow self reporting and Automated Meter Reading can be done without a smart meter that reports live power usage.

I am unsure why you are so vested in arguing that nobody has a legitimate reason to be concerned about this. It is fine if it doesn't bother you, but it is really necessary to paint those with different concerns as irrational?

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

#692

Post by bumby » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #214

Why can't we all collectively show an attitude of humble gratitude to an organization that has done so much to advance our civilization and improve our quality of life?

Can you expound on your opinion about what Google has contributed?

Not that I don't think they have, but I can think of a lot of corporations that have contributed more to civilization and quality of life, yet we are okay regulating them. So I'm not sure that's the best barometer for this discussion.

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

#693

Post by torgian » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

unishark wrote: post #539

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.

You can make that decision in rural areas. It costs a lot of money to get wires run to a new house. You might use solar instead with a generator as backup. In many urban areas you may not even be allowed to opt out of utilities meanwhile. I once delayed paying for the water bill in a new house for a month till I moved in and needed, got a big late bill finally because the fees are mandatory for the house.

Almost like you don’t even own the house.

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

#694

Post by mattkrause » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #613

rgbrenner wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google could take over almost any business like this. That didn't happen to travel companies. Google added flights, but Booking Holdings (aka Priceline) continued to grow each year to 15B in revenue for 2019. (Huge drop for 2020 obviously.) If I type " weather" google will show me the weather, but which weather company has shutdown because of that? Google news is in the search results, but there are a lot of news com…

> If I type " weather" google will show me the weather, but which weather company has shutdown because of that? I have noticed recently that the Weather.com app has added huge advertisements at the top and has roughly doubled the number of ads within the page. It honestly feels like desperation to me and I’ve been wondering if something bad is happening to the company.

IBM bought them a few years ago.

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

#695

Post by ganzuul » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

count wrote: post #680

ganzuul wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does Walmart have to put anybody's stuff where they want in the aisles? That could be an incredible boon to the ecoconomy. As a younger man I gave up on the idea of making simple consumer products on realizing that the large supermarket chains around here could dash my work on the rocks by just a middle manager arbitrarily saying 'no' to stocking what I had made. So yes, I think those companies should be forced to…

Should you be forced to put my stuff in your house? These are private companies, where does that force end?

I don't like arguing with hyperboles like that. Please suggest something reasonable, which I even could agree to.

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

#696

Post by mattkrause » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #622

rgbrenner wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google could take over almost any business like this. That didn't happen to travel companies. Google added flights, but Booking Holdings (aka Priceline) continued to grow each year to 15B in revenue for 2019. (Huge drop for 2020 obviously.) If I type " weather" google will show me the weather, but which weather company has shutdown because of that? Google news is in the search results, but there are a lot of news com…

> If I type " weather" google will show me the weather, but which weather company has shutdown because of that? I don't know the answer to your (rethorical?) question but what I know is that weather sites and apps were once nice and useful and now are basically a placeholder for advertisement, sometimes even scammy one.

If you’re in the market for a replacement, I like yr.no. It’s a little more graphically polished than weather.gov, but no ads.

Although it is a joint project between the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, it has forecasts available for the whole world in English, Norwegian, and Danish.

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

#697

Post by robotdongs » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

ttt0 wrote: post #434

NationalPark wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was it specifically that got you banned?

It was just an old meme and it was in my native language so you wouldn't get, but the offensive part of it is simply 'bitch'. Not as a direct insult, but kinda like in "surprise, bitch". Another thing is that I got suspended for butting in to a conversation about homosexuality where someone was saying that homosexuality is natural, and I said something to the extent of "rape and murder is natural too" to point out th…

First off, a 30 day vacation from Facebook sounds wonderful, it'd be a great excuse to leave it all together.

Second, not that this was your intent, but that's such a poor example to use in pointing out the fallacy that I can see why someone might see it as "hateful", which is against the TOS, whether or not it should be is a separate discussion.

As a side-note, pointing out a logical fallacy doesn't invalidate someone's argument, ironically this is itself a fallacy.

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

#698

Post by whimsicalism » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #322

whimsicalism wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather be governed by a public actor with constraints than the arbitrary interference of a private actor. This is the core republican (as in the political philosophy: Discourses on Livy, Philip Pettit, etc.) insight. If you want a stable society, you cannot leave space for arbitrary private individuals to become domineering forces on the rest of society. It's literally textbook how civilizations will fall, ye…

Google is more effectively constrained than, say, the US federal government.

Google is effectively unconstrained, so hard to see how that could possibly be the case.

Sure, the government has more power, but it is also more constrained. There is no public control of Google, it is not a publicly sanctioned power.

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

#699

Post by hedora » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

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…

> There are only two clear, non-arbitrary rules: Search engines are only allowed to show a list of links, or search engines can show whatever they want.

Ohio is asking for a third option; common carrier status. Search and other monopoly infrastructure would be run at arms length from the rest of the business, and anyone could pay (the same as google) to integrate it into their own offerings.

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

#700

Post by bumby » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #190

aaron-santos wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You [a business] Businesses aren't people, they're legal fiction. The individuals who make these decisions do and should have the right to do business with whomever they want, based on any criteria they deem appropriate. This constitutes the distinction between the private and public sphere.

>should have the right to do business with whomever they want, based on any criteria they deem appropriate.

There's a subtle distinction where you may have layered your own individual beliefs onto this statement by using the word "should", rather than indicating what is actually the law. While you may feel they "should" have that right based on your own feelings and personal morality, there are specific laws that say they do not. In many jurisdictions within the U.S., for example, businesses generally do not have the right to refuse business to a person based on that person being part of a protected class.