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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

#231

Post by biophysboy »

sixothree wrote: post #66
biophysboy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes perfect sense that govs control names within their jurisdiction - I am eyerolling at both the name change and the reaction. I am curious though - is it convention to leave the data as is, or is it illegal to modify it? Regardless, itll just be changed back in 2 years; as long as I can type "lake ontario" and get directed to Lake Ontario, I do not care at all what the gov database calls it currently.

I wouldn't exactly describe one person as "the government".

I mean ... currently I would? The environment will be different soon

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#233

Post by eigen »

Arainach wrote: post #153
rectoverso wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PE companies do it all the time.

PE companies do it with very little regard for if any of the pieces are viable and survive after the fact, so their model isn't one I'd suggest following.

its not unheard of for large public companies to do spinoff. a few examples that seem to have worked out fairly well

Phillip Morris / Altria / Kraft / Mondelez

HP / HPE / Agilent / Keysight

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#234

Post by biophysboy »

watwut wrote: post #69
biophysboy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes perfect sense that govs control names within their jurisdiction - I am eyerolling at both the name change and the reaction. I am curious though - is it convention to leave the data as is, or is it illegal to modify it? Regardless, itll just be changed back in 2 years; as long as I can type "lake ontario" and get directed to Lake Ontario, I do not care at all what the gov database calls it currently.

> I am eyerolling at both the name change and the reaction. Why do you expect meek reaction in a rename like this? What is eye rolling over reacting to this particular rename?

Well, because I expect this to last for two years. Nobody likes it except for birthday boy and his sycophants. All of the signs around Lake Ontario still say the name; same goes for the people that live by it.

Google should override it but I don’t expect them to, because theyre selfish and suck. Only thing to do is win elections.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#235

Post by insane_dreamer »

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.

large corporations spin off divisions into separate companies all the time

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#236

Post by condiment »

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…

This point of view has more to do with your information diet than it does with reality. Companies un-merge and spin out all the time, for many reasons. Mergers and acquisitions are more interesting because they are often associated with a growth story. We like success.

Aswath Damodaran, who teaches corporate finance at NYU Stern, has a bunch of great talks and content about this where he discusses how companies should act their age. When older companies that are no longer paying dividends are moving into a divestiture phase, they restructure and split up. What we are seeing with some of these big tech companies is that they are transitioning from an exciting growth story into an extractive dividend story in a way that's becoming harmful to consumers. That's why we're talking about breaking them up, and thats the line their management will have to walk if they want to maximize the value of the firm to shareholders through the decline.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#237

Post by newtwentysix »

crowcroft wrote: post #209

They lost in court, and were found to be a Monopoly. The solution is they tell the court, "sorry we will stop abusing our behaviour now", and then it's just all good?

all the "donations" are working, hence this. same with the meta case too.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#238

Post by andsoitis »

edg5000 wrote: post #229
andsoitis wrote: post #219

> its ad tech business now there's the euphemism of the day. Alphabet derives 75% of their revenue from Ads. It is their business.

The article seems to distingish ads from ad tech, stating ads bring in a lot of revenue, but ad tech not. Kinda confused about what the difference is.

I agree it doesn't make sense. How are they supposed to make money from ads without ad tech? They're intimately intertwined.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#239

Post by roosterIllusi0n »

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…

We stopped this in the 1950s with a 90% federal income tax bracket. CEOs could not make more thab the equivalent of 5mil a year in 2026 dollars.

No CEO wanted to merge when it would turn two 5mil a year jobs into one 5mil a year job. Cutting taxes on the rich enabled profiteering by CEOs.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#240

Post by LastTrain »

hammock wrote: post #144
siliconc0w wrote: post #135

We should just progressively tax monopolies. Companies will break themselves up to compete, no decade long DOJ case needed.

You may be surprised to learn that the US corporate tax (yes, that one, the main one we already have and everyone pays) was originally introduced in 1909 specifically as an antitrust measure, to clip the wings of US Steel and Standard Oil. Of course the best laid taxes always get abused or turn into something else entirely.

There is a reference to this in For Whom the Bell Tolls:

“ Robert Jordan, wiping out the stew bowl with bread, explained how the income tax and inheritance tax worked. 'But the big estates remain. Also, there are taxes on the land,' he said.

'But surely the big proprietors and the rich will make a revolution against such taxes. Such taxes appear to me to be revolutionary. They will revolt against the government when they see that they are threatened, exactly as the fascists have done here,' Primitivo said.”

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