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An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

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Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#111

Post by petsfed »

btilly wrote: post #102
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it had a huge effect on changing the practices of their potential consumers. I'm aware that Microsoft and Google still have massive marketshare, but there's no way of knowing what the world would look like if that lawsuit hadn't happened. They technically lost in the legal court, but internally may have been congratulating themselves because the penalty was so small. But they lost in the court of public opini…

In what court of public opinion did they lose? Among people who were interested in open source 20 years ago? Sure! But who else doesn't like them? The general public of people our age thinks good things about Microsoft. Even my siblings find my dislike of Microsoft bizarre. The only thing about Microsoft that most people my age ever hated was Clippy. And even Clippy is now generally liked. And developers under 35 see…

Amongst e.g. PC game nerds who really started playing in the late 90s, there was always a sort of low-level antipathy directed towards Microsoft. It's non-specific, and its certainly not actionable, but there was always a little bit of bitterness that "oh, here's a new update to windows, how many of my games will it break?" Couple that with "I have to buy a copy of windows when I buy a new motherboard?!".

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#112

Post by summerlight »

The title seems to be a bit misleading. I was anticipating a legal analysis of the case, but the actual title "How to Hide a $2 Trillion Antitrust Trial" seems to be more focused on complaints about its lack of transparency. Yeah, lots of things are hidden behind the curtain but we still have lots of useful materials for analysis?

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#113

Post by no_wizard »

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... .

I remember this.

This started a wave of lobbying and PR campaigns from industry groups that lasted until ~2013 or so stating that the EU was going to use its leverage its power to "issue fines to extract the wealth of American tech companies because there aren't enough European ones". Worded more eloquently (though I can't recall exactly how, I think they may have said something about the "EU Technology Tax" or something as an allusion to this), but never the less, its what they were conveying

This was targeted at gaining sympathy for the US government to intervene with the EU to make it more friendly for American tech companies, and more specifically, big ones.

I wish I could find the webpage ads I saw around this. It was not a good look.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#114

Post by edgyquant »

btilly wrote: post #86
AlbertCory wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you really wanted to not go there, you shouldn't have characterized my argument in a false way. And when your mistake was pointed out, you should have acknowledged the point. Go ahead. Avoid the tedium of responding. It will avoid me the unpleasantness of further dishonest evasion on your part. Meanwhile the facts remain these. From 1990 through 2011, Microsoft was continually being sued by or under consent decree…

They did not falsely characterize your argument. They are correct that it hinges on knowing the future when no one could do.

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#115

Post by no_wizard »

btilly wrote: post #102
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it had a huge effect on changing the practices of their potential consumers. I'm aware that Microsoft and Google still have massive marketshare, but there's no way of knowing what the world would look like if that lawsuit hadn't happened. They technically lost in the legal court, but internally may have been congratulating themselves because the penalty was so small. But they lost in the court of public opini…

In what court of public opinion did they lose? Among people who were interested in open source 20 years ago? Sure! But who else doesn't like them? The general public of people our age thinks good things about Microsoft. Even my siblings find my dislike of Microsoft bizarre. The only thing about Microsoft that most people my age ever hated was Clippy. And even Clippy is now generally liked. And developers under 35 see…

Things like "M$" and "Micro$oft" (and many other ways Microsoft was lampooned that I can't recall) where common when I was in highschool (~2008). Not with everyone, but any of the tech literate kids (not even say, the kids who made games in their spare time) were aware of these things, which by that time, gaming was getting to be more mainstream, and there was more exposure to these "in" jokes to a different crowd. They seemed to persist well passed the sell by date, as it were.

They definitely took a huge hit in public opinion. I'm from a middle of nowhere town, its not tech adjacent or focused, and these were common online forums where we interacted at the time (and by some extension the broader public ones).

Even teachers would poke fun at Microsoft from time to time, as I recall

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#117

Post by no_wizard »

btilly wrote: post #71
rashkov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Outl…

Funny enough, XMLHttpRequest[0] was conceived because Microsoft needed to build out a web client for Exchange[1], which was a precursor to Gmail in many ways. In absolute terms, Gmail had more users and showcased the possibilities of web apps more broadly, however Outlook for the web in 2001-2004 was pretty sophisticated for its time

[0]: Though it was called ActiveXObject for a time

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20090130092236/http://www.alexho...

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#118

Post by taeric »

jsnell wrote: post #95
denton-scratch wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What's under discussion at the moment isn't Google's defense, which AFAIK hasn't yet started, right? It's the evidence and testimony being presented by the plaintiffs. They can get access to trade secrets as part of discovery, and are incentivized to make as much of it public as possible. There's just no downside to it for them.

Aren't there already procedures in place to challenge particular evidence over concerns like this?

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#119

Post by passwordoops »

summerlight wrote: post #112

The title seems to be a bit misleading. I was anticipating a legal analysis of the case, but the actual title "How to Hide a $2 Trillion Antitrust Trial" seems to be more focused on complaints about its lack of transparency. Yeah, lots of things are hidden behind the curtain but we still have lots of useful materials for analysis?

That was the title when I posted, but it looks like it was changed. Not sure why, because as you mention the focus is more on the lack of transparency

Re: An analysis of the Google antitrust trial

#120

Post by shadowgovt »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #108
shadowgovt wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Innocent until proven guilty does not apply in civil trials.

Even still, you can't use "They wouldn't be in this court if they hadn't done something wrong" as part of the evidence for the 'preponderance of evidence' standard.
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