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Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

nytimes.com

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Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#181

Post by armedgorilla »

godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #146

The United States government is fractured and can't get its act together. No one has a credible plan to solve this. Electing your preferred president doesn't solve a broken Senate and other structural problems. The presidency is likely to keep bouncing between parties that care as much (if not more) about undoing the previous four years as they do sketching out a coherent plan for the future four. How is wielding thi…

A theory behind busting trusts is that monopolies stifle innovation, and thus growth, in the long term. When it comes to "competing with China" (which, to be naive, I'm not sure the meaning of), many nationally competing firms will have a better result for future consumers than if there were a single "national champion."

Here is an hour long video where Lina Khan makes this point to the Council on Foreign Relations much more cogently than I can: https://www.youtube.com/live/L_QaZk5iJOA?is=rk192CuSIBHLemsi

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#182

Post by otterley »

vlovich123 wrote: post #120
xahrepap wrote: post #113

Slightly tangential thought: My belief is: legislation needs to either make it just as hard to merge two companies as it is to unmerge them, or make it just as easy to unmerge two companies as it is to merge them. It's insane to me that for how often companies merge and cause competition issues, we effectively never see the opposite happen. I know there's a ceremonial approval for merging two companies (at least in t…

You're basically advocating for unscrambling the omelet to be easier. Should be obvious why it's harder to unmix than it is to mix.

That’s one half. The other, more interesting half, recognizes that unscrambling the egg is difficult, so we must take more precautions before scrambling it in the first place.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#183

Post by computably »

Arainach wrote: post #174
saghm wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think it's impossible to pass legislation that makes something that's currently easy hard without making the reverse any harder as well?

Yes, because the difficulties in separating integrated pieces have nothing to do with a merger. What makes splitting a company out difficult isn't (directly) a financial or paperwork burden - it's that tightly integrated systems are very difficult to untangle. There is nothing analagous that could be introduced in the merger process. You could add a mandatory delay, but that's not making it "as hard", it's just makin…

The law could make mergers executed provisionally for up to X years, with a binding plan to "unmerge" that must be updated every Y months. The FTC already half-does this with post-merge divestiture requirements.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#184

Post by otterley »

Arainach wrote: post #116
xahrepap wrote: post #113

Slightly tangential thought: My belief is: legislation needs to either make it just as hard to merge two companies as it is to unmerge them, or make it just as easy to unmerge two companies as it is to merge them. It's insane to me that for how often companies merge and cause competition issues, we effectively never see the opposite happen. I know there's a ceremonial approval for merging two companies (at least in t…

> or make it just as easy to unmerge two companies as it is to merge them. [Disclaimer: I work at Google, all words my own and not representative of anyone, etc.] There's no such thing. Let's stick to software since it's what HN knows best, but it's a universal truth. Merging two companies: you take the two sides and they keep running. You probably need some extra accounting work to make sure the mandatory reports fr…

> There's no such thing.

Spinning off companies happens all the time.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#185

Post by ryandrake »

vlovich123 wrote: post #120
xahrepap wrote: post #113

Slightly tangential thought: My belief is: legislation needs to either make it just as hard to merge two companies as it is to unmerge them, or make it just as easy to unmerge two companies as it is to merge them. It's insane to me that for how often companies merge and cause competition issues, we effectively never see the opposite happen. I know there's a ceremonial approval for merging two companies (at least in t…

You're basically advocating for unscrambling the omelet to be easier. Should be obvious why it's harder to unmix than it is to mix.

You can bet that if the board of directors could show that unscrambling the omelet would result in greater shareholder value produced, it would suddenly be really easy to do...

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#186

Post by dylan604 »

hammock wrote: post #140
rigrassm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a large majority of the issues you brought up with splitting can be addressed by legislation. Off the top of my head, something along the lines of having a mandatory period of time where the company being acquired must be kept separate enough that the merger can be dissolved in a timely manner should it be deemed necessary. How long that window should be would be up for debate but personally I'd argue the w…

What can’t be solved with legislation?

crime

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#187

Post by dylan604 »

xp84 wrote: post #137
Drunk_Engineer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is a business no one cares about, then why has Google been fighting this?

The money is nbd, but it's much more important to Google (same as it would be for any of the other tech giants) to keep a certain streak going - 42 years now and counting since the government forced a large or important company to do anything even resembling breaking up. A loss here would serve as precedent (either legally, or at minimum in people's emotions) that you CAN force a divestiture. If Google can be forced…

Microsoft got pretty close to getting broken up in 2000, but settled in time to avoid the split

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#188

Post by teaearlgraycold »

ryandrake wrote: post #185
vlovich123 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basically advocating for unscrambling the omelet to be easier. Should be obvious why it's harder to unmix than it is to mix.

You can bet that if the board of directors could show that unscrambling the omelet would result in greater shareholder value produced, it would suddenly be really easy to do...

On a technical level it would still be a nightmare. But yes it would actually get done.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#190

Post by DarmokTanagra »

strictnein wrote: post #57
vasco wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What conspiracy mate? It's not so deep, I was curious if what he said was a lie due to the downvotes and found nice evidence for it. You don't find it convincing it's your choice, but the dude didn't pull it out of his ass.

The conspiracy that Google is protected on high because people have rotated between two giant employers. If you think it is "nice evidence", how many people should have moved between those two employers? And you made the claim that the rate likely drastically increased over the past 10 years. Based on what, exactly?

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