European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

Post by ckelvin » Thu, Nov 27, 2014, 3:38 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #46

pasta_2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intention was never to break them up. MEPs calling for it is just to show the EU Commission that they have the political support to take the gloves off. If you actually want to know the justification for the EU doing this you should read this paper by Ben Edelman. http://www.benedelman.org/publications/google-tying-2014-10-... He's consulted for various Google competitors but he's also a professor at Harvard Busi…

If by "consulted", you mean that Ben has been paid to come up with papers exactly like this for various anti-google lobbies, many many times over the past 10 years, then yes, he has "consulted". Ben has literally no legal training in antitrust law that i'm aware of, so his opining on it is somewhat interesting. (I edited this comment because Ben does have a JD from Harvard law that I forgot about, so he does have leg…

Post by davidw » Thu, Nov 27, 2014, 3:41 PM UTC

cbeach wrote: post #29

_wmd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can happen due to 1) significant numbers of users flagging the link, 2) the admins demoting it, or 3) it attracting too many comments too quickly ("controversiality"). It seems likely 1 and 3 happened here, but due to a lack of transparency it's always impossible to rule out 2.

It may be "controversial," but it is also big news and very HN-worthy. Disappointing to see that HN's algorithms are so trigger-happy

Post by praptak » Thu, Nov 27, 2014, 3:45 PM UTC

Elrac wrote: post #28

praptak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe is not the same as its government, just as the US is not the same as the US government. Btw, European Parliament is also not the same as Europe government. It has much weaker influence on things than a typical parliament of a country.

Exactly. There's a lot less cohesion and a lot less centralized power. Some European governments ship politicians off to Euro-government just to get them out of the way. Perhaps not quite justly, the Euro Parliament is sometimes considered a retirement institution for incompetent politicians.

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Nov 27, 2014, 3:49 PM UTC

Elrac wrote: post #5

As someone living in Europe, I think they don't realize that, in a way, Google is bigger than the European Parliament. The citizens of Europe barely take the European Parliament seriously, and there's not much reason for Google to. I happen to be a fan of Duck Duck Go. But I think Google can do without Europe more easily than Europe can do without Google. There's no need to go to extremes, either. Just like Microsoft…

Post by tptacek » Thu, Nov 27, 2014, 3:50 PM UTC

wfjackson wrote: post #56

ckelvin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work for Google? If you do, ny the same metric, shouldn't we discount all your numerous posts defending Google and attacking their competitors?

According to this post, they do. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8620539 It would be nice to have that in a disclaimer in the posts discussing Google or in the HN profile page though.