An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion • Hacker News Board

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#211

Post by cletus » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

aj3 wrote: post #209

cletus wrote: post #185

This is pretty damning stuff. Here's the question I have: there are a ton of quotes in here from employees. In what context were these statements made? In depositions? I would guess not. I'd guess they were made in emails, Google docs and presentations that were a result of discovery (or a whistleblower I guess). If so, I really want to find these people and ask them "what were you thinking?" Any big company has requ…

I'm not the company I work for. If they're doing unethical stuff, fuck them. Never understood, why others are so keen to protect employer given company will throw under the bus any of us in a blink of an eye.

Tell that to James Robert Liang [1].

This isn't about protecting the company. It's about protecting yourself. You're opening yourself to be a witness in a suit (nobody wants that), thrown to the wolves by the company (who will attempt to portray you as a rogue actor) or criminal prosecution.

Now if the company is doing something unethical and it's why you're leaving, then sure write that down as long as you're not admitting personal culpability of any sort.

Likewise, if you feel like you're being set up to take the fall for something, a paper trail can help you.

But otherwise, if you're in an ethical grey area and decide you want to continue to earn an income to, you know, live then there are such things as "inside thoughts".

[1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/volkswagen-engineer-sentenced...

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#212

Post by thedailymail » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:32 PM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #21

bob1029 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did they keep all the mass of data, the tickets, the user stories and pitch decks from being spilled online and get publicly dressed down? Legal agreements and extremely valuable employment contracts, most likely. My understanding is that some (most?) of the developers out there today are in it for the money. If someone promised you enough income to retire by age 31, and all you had to do was keep your mouth sh…

"Don't be evil"

"Don't get caught."

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#213

Post by scarmig » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #149

heavyset_go wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google from 12 to 16 years ago was found guilty[1] in an antitrust suit of colluding with other industry leaders to keep tech employee compensation artificially low. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Wasn't that the beginning of the end of FAANG's reputation? Having your company put billions into the bank every year because they "don't know what to do with it" while you're not even a millionaire is disheartening. I mean, if they were still paying us all handsomely like stock brokers then I bet popular opinion would be on their side.

If you work for Google as a SWE for a decade and aren't well over a million in net assets, you're doing something wrong.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#214

Post by gdsdfe » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

Nothing will happen ... These tech giants have been misbehaving for years nobody is doing nothing

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#215

Post by fullshark » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

tjpnz wrote: post #117

rambambram wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given that they're not a glorified advertising company They're still an advertising company, just on a level people are less aware of. And they might not 'advertise' the usual products.

>And they might not 'advertise' the usual products. Based on my recent viewing history (mostly old Star Trek, first season of Blacklist and the Inspiration Four documentary) I'm struggling to see what those might be.

Well they advertise their own shows to keep you subscribed, and they also have product placement. I remember Lagavulin scotch showing up in the TV show Lost in Space for example, an incredibly out of place product placement.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#216

Post by aj3 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #211

aj3 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the company I work for. If they're doing unethical stuff, fuck them. Never understood, why others are so keen to protect employer given company will throw under the bus any of us in a blink of an eye.

Tell that to James Robert Liang [1]. This isn't about protecting the company. It's about protecting yourself. You're opening yourself to be a witness in a suit (nobody wants that), thrown to the wolves by the company (who will attempt to portray you as a rogue actor) or criminal prosecution. Now if the company is doing something unethical and it's why you're leaving, then sure write that down as long as you're not ad…

Pardon my French, but you're either a coward or bootlicker. There won't be any criminal prosecution for raising legitimate issues internally & putting those in writing, no matter what company lawyers tell you.

And if the most privileged and job-secure people on the planet can't take the risk of undermining their FAANG overlords for the sake of humanity, who will?

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#217

Post by tfehring » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #147

falcor84 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite get why capitalism would reward sociopathy more than any other system in history

To a Capitalist, the only possible deal is a profitable one. However, to be profitable, the arangement between participants has to be unfair. It is only through an unfair exchange of goods and services is a profit produced. So it imperative the other parties believe they are getting a fair deal, otherwise they would not participate. So, it is unmentioned while required that the Capitalist control the information of t…

Unfair in the sense that the buyer pays more than the cost of goods sold, but trade often increases utility for both parties anyway. People happily pay $1,000/year for homeowners insurance even though the expected losses and expenses are only $970 or whatever, because they don’t want to be on the hook for a new home if theirs burns down, and they’re generally better off for doing so. And they may buy it from for-profit insurers, even though those for-profit insurers are in direct competition with mutuals (basically co-ops) and there’s full price transparency, because despite the capitalist making an expected profit of $30 or whatever the stock insurer provides a better price or service.

There’s absolutely no requirement that a capitalist (either the same one that stands to profit or a different one) control the flow of information in order to profit, lots of (probably most) capital funds the production of highly competitive and price-transparent goods, and all public stock companies disclose their expenses publicly. Even Google and Facebook provide clear prices to their customers, the issue with surveillance companies in particular is that their users aren’t the customers, but that’s totally orthogonal to the conflict you’re describing.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#218

Post by p49k » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #208

p49k wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? Because Google requires it. Google is the only major ad network that requires that you use their own ad serving product (GAM) in order to have full access to their inventory. So your options are to use GAM and have Google inventory plus those of all other companies, or use any other ad server and have access to inventory of all companies except Google. The latter is essentially financial suicide since Google c…

It seems you are looking at it from the perspective of an advertiser? Why would it be financial suicide to only advertise on non-google inventory? Isn't that like saying advertising only on certain media and not on other media (say only newspapers but not billboards) is suicide? I am sure there are companies out there who never advertised on Google property but did not die?

No, I’m discussing from the point of view of the publisher.

It’s financial suicide to lose 50% or more of your revenue because you don’t want to use GAM to manage your ad inventory.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#219

Post by smoldesu » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

rStar wrote: post #3

if we had a functioning government, and if all the rich republicans in california weren’t pretending to be democrats, we wouldn’t have this problem.

We have a functioning government, it just so happens to hate us and let companies accrue trillions of dollars without social recompense.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#220

Post by mrweasel » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

flyinglizard wrote: post #140

mrweasel wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue can be made easily enough, profit is harder. The latest number I saw online suggest that GCP lose more than one billion dollar per year. Edit: losing $1.2B on a revenue of just under $4B. That only work because ads are paying for the construction of datacenter and infrastructur.

How are the services provided to Alphabet subsidiaries taken into account? I’d bet that the cloud bill for YouTube alone would exceed GCP revenue numbers. In other words, if GCP is spun out, and Google services keep using it (with realistic pricing) it’s going to have a revenue far exceeding $4bn.

How many Google service actually run on GCP?