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An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

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Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#71

Post by btilly »

rashkov wrote: post #47
smoldesu wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that would perhaps open more eyes and hurt Google more than a fine of so many zeroes. Because that definitely worked with Microsoft, right? I don't think most Americans could tell you what Netscape is, let alone why Microsoft was sued or why it should have been humiliating.

As per the article, the significance is that Microsoft did not use its platform dominance to crush an upstart google

I understood it very differently at the time.

Microsoft felt that it had won the browser wars so thoroughly that they dismantled most of their IE team and took their eyes off the ball. Nobody else could make a competitive browser, and therefore nobody could add browser features that would undermine the importance of Windows for applications. They didn't realize that they already had added the key feature for the Outlook team.

The first real use of XMLHttpRequest was Gmail in 2004. Most people just thought of it as a cute trick. It wasn't until Google Maps and the coining of the term AJAX that people thought differently. Microsoft, of course, had already been hit with the 2004 EU decree, and kept its eyes off the ball. By the time Microsoft paid attention, everyone was using it, Firefox was competitive with IE, Safari wasn't too far behind, and Google was already working on Chrome. But by then it was too late. Microsoft didn't have the IE team, and had been shocked at the EU penalties.

Therefore I give the credit for Microsoft not crushing Google to the EU antitrust, and not the USA antitrust. Which really did have no teeth. As can be seen by their efforts to anticompetitively promote Windows Media Player.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#72

Post by btilly »

fourthark wrote: post #67
btilly wrote: post #21

The article massively overstates the impact of the 1998 Microsift trial. What Microsoft got was a slap on the wrist that they considered just a cost of doing business. Netscape died, and Microsoft's behavior remained the same. Microsoft didn't blink until acround 2008 when the EU cases finally fined them enough that they blinked. See, for example, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-eu/eu-fines-mic... .

It was the exposure of Microsoft's business practices to daylight that had the greatest effect, IMO.

If that had a great effect, why did they continue violating antitrust law in the ways documented in the EU?

It wasn't like their antitrust history started with browsers. Their business practices were on display before - for instance look at the 1994 consent decree that they signed. Or did you think that Netscape was their first antitrust case?

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#73

Post by AlbertCory »

roadbuster wrote: post #26
tester756 wrote: post #4

How is this even allowed? Should the judge and overseeing team be punished?

> How is this even allowed? Nixon v. Warner Communications (1978) If a company feels the need to reveal their trade secrets in court to make their case, but ultimately wants to maintain protection over the trade secret itself, what option would you provide them? Obama's signature of the Defend Trade Secrets Act in 2016 is also a recent indicator the executive branch has no interest in the breach of trade secrets. It…

> what option would you provide them?

this happens every day in business trials. The judge has to show judgment (see what I did there?) about what is really a trade secret. Both sides get to present their arguments.

In this case, Mehta has showed rotten judgment.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#74

Post by hubco »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #44
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To beat China and their unacceptable values we must become china PS: this was Sarcasm people

In practice, what happens is that these values are slowly made more acceptable. "Think of the children" to make privacy violation more acceptable; "They are terrorists" to make human rights violations more acceptable; "Drain the swamp" or "The election was stolen" to make insurrection more acceptable; "Protect our women" to make transphobia more acceptable. That kinda thing. It's happening everywhere.

> In practice, what happens is that these values are slowly made more acceptable.

> "Protect our women" to make transphobia more acceptable.

This is itself a reaction to unacceptable values being imposed, namely that a subset of men should be allowed to disregard women's boundaries and consent with impunity.

The pushback is because so many women are standing up and saying no, we don't accept this incursion on our rights and dignity.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#75

Post by btilly »

AlbertCory wrote: post #70
smoldesu wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that would perhaps open more eyes and hurt Google more than a fine of so many zeroes. Because that definitely worked with Microsoft, right? I don't think most Americans could tell you what Netscape is, let alone why Microsoft was sued or why it should have been humiliating.

> Because that definitely worked with Microsoft, right? Right. Gary Reback, the lawyer for Netscape back then, has said that Google's very existence depends on the Microsoft trial. As for Americans' ignorance: irrelevant. They can't tell you what Watergate was, either.

I disagreed with him back then as well. In the public comment on the Netscape settlement, I was one of the responses against it that the DoJ added to the trial.

Here was the position that I had then. Microsoft's documented behavior on previous antitrust cases meant that this settlement would not deter future abuse. And I laid out specifically why that decree would not work.

I stand by that opinion now.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#76

Post by sangnoir »

taeric wrote: post #57
saynay wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly speaking, it is over the companies monopoly in search. Google also lives in other markets where there is competition, so this may be about those markets not search.

A common antitrust concern is about leveraging a monopoly in one area to gain oversized advantage in another.

Yes, but that doesn't give the DOJ a free ride to use an antitrust trial in one area to punish a company in other more competitive areas by revealing trade secrets. That is extrajudicial, and not far off from a dirty cop harassing an innocent party "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride". The trial itself should not be a punishment under a half-decent justice system.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#77

Post by joshuamorton »

denton-scratch wrote: post #59
roadbuster wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this even allowed? Nixon v. Warner Communications (1978) If a company feels the need to reveal their trade secrets in court to make their case, but ultimately wants to maintain protection over the trade secret itself, what option would you provide them? Obama's signature of the Defend Trade Secrets Act in 2016 is also a recent indicator the executive branch has no interest in the breach of trade secrets. It…

> what option would you provide them? I would offer them this choice: 1. Present your evidence in public, and let it be tested by the court; 2. Keep your trade secrets secret, and find some other line of defence. Secret courts are not compatible with public justice. The UK's Family Court Division is a notorious example, and UK jurists are (slowly) coming to acknowledge that secrecy in matters of children, divorce and…

And when someone (a competitor) turns around and starts (frivolously) suing every company claiming that their supposed "trade secrets" are illegal activities?

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#78

Post by AlbertCory »

btilly wrote: post #75
AlbertCory wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that definitely worked with Microsoft, right? Right. Gary Reback, the lawyer for Netscape back then, has said that Google's very existence depends on the Microsoft trial. As for Americans' ignorance: irrelevant. They can't tell you what Watergate was, either.

I disagreed with him back then as well. In the public comment on the Netscape settlement, I was one of the responses against it that the DoJ added to the trial. Here was the position that I had then. Microsoft's documented behavior on previous antitrust cases meant that this settlement would not deter future abuse. And I laid out specifically why that decree would not work. I stand by that opinion now.

OK. His statement (and yours) rely on counterfactuals: what would MS have done had they not been sued? There is no way to resolve that. Arguing would be tedious.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#79

Post by smoldesu »

AlbertCory wrote: post #78
btilly wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagreed with him back then as well. In the public comment on the Netscape settlement, I was one of the responses against it that the DoJ added to the trial. Here was the position that I had then. Microsoft's documented behavior on previous antitrust cases meant that this settlement would not deter future abuse. And I laid out specifically why that decree would not work. I stand by that opinion now.

OK. His statement (and yours) rely on counterfactuals: what would MS have done had they not been sued? There is no way to resolve that. Arguing would be tedious.

I mean, in the world where they did get sued, IE existed and was annoying for the better part of a decade and then succeeded by two more first-party Microsoft browsers. It was right to sue Microsoft, but it also evidently did not fix the state of browser hegemony. The precedent was weak, and arguably more harmful than leaving it up for further deliberation. You can feel the impact on pretty much any FAANG software platform.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#80

Post by NickC25 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #64
NickC25 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a company feels the need to reveal their trade secrets in court to make their case, but ultimately wants to maintain protection over the trade secret itself, what option would you provide them? I wouldn't give them any options, as they are on trial for a reason. Corporate America can't have its cake and eat it too. Google is a multi-trillion dollar publicly traded corporation, they have significant cultural, pol…

> I wouldn't give them any options, as they are on trial for a reason > They are in court due to abuse of one (or more?) of those powers. "If he weren't a drug dealer, why did the cops arrest him?" Even the corporations have a right to a fair trial. Innocent-until-proven-guilty applies to them too.

>"If he weren't a drug dealer, why did the cops arrest him?"

Because he's been caught several times using drugs out in the open, has been caught numerous times selling drugs, and his linkedin profile says he's an "alternative medicine distributor" and formerly a "streets pharmacist". If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has ducklings, and swims in the water, it's clearly a moose, or a t-rex, right?

Let's be crystal clear here. Google has most likely broken a number of antitrust laws. That is why they are on trial. Google has faced antitrust suits previously.

>Even the corporations have a right to a fair trial.

You're making my point for me, so thanks. Everyone is entitled to a fair, public trial decided upon by a jury of their peers. A corporation trying their damnedest to pretend that they aren't on trial and aren't in legal crosshairs, while also saying "oh no you can't disclose any evidence it's all trade secrets and will cause harm to our corporation and our shareholders" Yeah, no. They have the right to a fair and public trial. That's it. If they didn't want to have to tell the world about what they are doing, they could have pursued a whole bunch of avenues to prevent disclosure of it WAY before it got to this point.

Alternatively, they could have just not gone and done the actions that caused the government to bring the lawsuit. It's not like shareholders got together and said "Hey Google, you MUST do actions X, Y, and Z, even though we know they will trigger an antitrust suit that you most likely will lose, or else we will fire your whole board". That didn't happen either.

EDIT: Should also disclose that within the last 6 months, I held Google stock and LEAP options. I no longer hold positions in Google, although I still am a paid user of multiple of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Workspace for Business, and Youtube TV.

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