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Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

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Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#161

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

tytso wrote: post #25

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post. Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is…

Here's Adam Curtis' brief history of Google's relationship to "the customer" (false label: advertisers are the customers, not search engine users)

1998 Idealism. "I think I want to make the world a better place."

https://youtu.be/55jSx4pRZqI?t=1789s

2000 Disaster and desperation. VCs tell SB what Google must do.

https://youtu.be/55jSx4pRZqI?t=2249s

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#162

Post by imglorp »

srswtf123 wrote: post #153
kens wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly I think some historical background is necessary here. Nowadays IBM isn't a monopoly but during the 20th century, IBM was more or less a monopoly. IBM's antitrust problems go back to their 1936 consent decree and 1956 consent decree. IBM was subject to a huge antitrust case that went on from 1969 to 1982 as well as many other antitrust lawsuits. The first point is that…

Okay, but we can agree that IBM powered the holocaust, and that those tattoos on survivor’s arms represented the punch cards for IBM systems, right? Because really, when there’s a profit to be made, American companies are there to fill a “need”, right?

That's horrifying. I was not aware. The horror is hundreds of IBM employees were directly involved in extermination activities; literally maintaining tabulation machines on prem, as it were, in the camps.

I hope every HN reader has the awareness and moral strength to resist, where the corporations are unable, the next time such à job comes.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/52879

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#163

Post by AlexCoventry »

yongjik wrote: post #112
titzer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have a corporate email policy where mails get auto-deleted after 18 months, unless you apply labels or are on a litigation hold (which would make such policy completely illegal). The email policy has no other purpose than to limit legal exposure. There is no legitimate business reason for that policy. In fact, it actively harms institutional memory and is frankly Orwellian, IMHO.

> The email policy has no other purpose than to limit legal exposure. > There is no legitimate business reason for that policy. So the policy is about limiting the chance of potentially very expensive lawsuits, and has no legitimate business reason? Choose one. I wish people stopped overusing "Orwellian": the term is so overused that you could use it next to "agile" and I wouldn't notice.

"Orwellian" seems like a good fit for memory-holing people's communications.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#164

Post by cornel_io »

titzer wrote: post #32
skybrian wrote: post #8

This is about being careful what you put in writing, because the discovery process for lawsuits will find your carelessly written email and opposing lawyers will take it out of context, and do you want to end up in court years later explaining what you meant? Google has so many employees that they need training to limit the damage from random chatter and speculation. It’s more cumbersome to have to talk about some th…

They also have a corporate email policy where mails get auto-deleted after 18 months, unless you apply labels or are on a litigation hold (which would make such policy completely illegal). The email policy has no other purpose than to limit legal exposure. There is no legitimate business reason for that policy. In fact, it actively harms institutional memory and is frankly Orwellian, IMHO.

Almost every US corporation with a competent legal department has such a policy, and at a lot of them the period is way shorter than 18 months. I've suffered through 30 day policies before, and it's dumb and not fun at all, but Google is hardly being creative on this point.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#165

Post by webmaven »

roenxi wrote: post #146
kens wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly I think some historical background is necessary here. Nowadays IBM isn't a monopoly but during the 20th century, IBM was more or less a monopoly. IBM's antitrust problems go back to their 1936 consent decree and 1956 consent decree. IBM was subject to a huge antitrust case that went on from 1969 to 1982 as well as many other antitrust lawsuits. The first point is that…

> antitrust law is pretty much incoherent and illogical Most things antitrust are incoherent and illogical. The unofficial plan seems to be literally to find market leaders who are offering substantially better products than the competition and then attack them for unspecified and likely immeasurable gains. Whether or not we've seen benefits from past antitrust actions, I don't believe measurements and observations o…

Monopolies aren't necesarily bad in-and-of-themselves. The trouble starts when a monopoly in one market is used to gain an advantage in another.

So, having a monopoly in the search engine market isn't necessarily a problem (especially given the low switching costs you noted), but leveraging that monopoly to compete with non-search-engine companies by essentially choking off their search engine traffic is a BIG problem.

The exact means used that results in said choking-off may or may not matter (this is where the incoherence pops up), but the fact is that the conduct of any company with a monopoly (including entirely legitimate and legal ones) MUST face additional scrutiny for how it affects other markets.

When it was just starting out, Google was proud of how quickly users left Google search results by clicking a link. AFAICT, that didn't change until sometime well after AdWords was introduced (in fact, how quickly users left was an AdWords selling point and increased competition for the top ad slots), but at some point, Google started cannibalizing their SERP traffic in various ways. It was going to bite them in the ass sooner or later.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#166

Post by _2d30 »

ehsankia wrote: post #96
_2d30 wrote: post #79

It's hilarious to me that someone thinks this is about controlling thought and not a defensive legal maneuver.

It's also absurd to me how the answer to "how can folks with whom I generally respect have reached such a significant gap in thinking?" is basically "they must be brainwashed by their Communicating Safely training"... That's such terrible way of dismissing someone who has a different opinion than you.

Totally. This whole thing is just wild to me.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#167

Post by jollybean »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #161
tytso wrote: post #25

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post. Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is…

Here's Adam Curtis' brief history of Google's relationship to "the customer" (false label: advertisers are the customers, not search engine users) 1998 Idealism. "I think I want to make the world a better place." https://youtu.be/55jSx4pRZqI?t=1789s 2000 Disaster and desperation. VCs tell SB what Google must do. https://youtu.be/55jSx4pRZqI?t=2249s

Neither having a child out of wedlock or even with someone on staff, and, quoting Conan the Barbarian have anything to do with anything really.

Sergei Brin pushed the company to invest in his wife's company, had an affair with a subordinate, and probably quotes some other funny things along the way, it might say 'something' but I'm not sure if it speaks to 'competence'.

I'm not sure if this attack on the character of the companies, while maybe somewhat relevant, really speaks to the 'legal posture' of the companies.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#168

Post by jollybean »

ekianjo wrote: post #134
bogwog wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does *market share* not become a KPI? At what point does market share become so irrelevant, that you stop tracking it altogether in your entire multibillion-dollar megacorp, and make your employees stop talking about it? Answer: When you become a monopoly (or are on your way there), and need to hide from regulators. That's the point where the market becomes irrelevant, so tracking market share is nothin…

if you create a product thats unique or defines a category you start by having a market share of 100 percent. Market share does not define monopolies. What defines monopolies is the absence of alternatives. Like you know, the postal service to send letters. funnily nobody talks about those.

The economic definition of monopoly is 'price setter' as opposed to 'price taker'. The government actually defines that as 'market power'. But in order for it to be something 'anti trust' etc. then it's more complicated.

Sherman Act, Section 2 [1] - definitely worth a read.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#169

Post by srswtf123 »

kortilla wrote: post #160
srswtf123 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but we can agree that IBM powered the holocaust, and that those tattoos on survivor’s arms represented the punch cards for IBM systems, right? Because really, when there’s a profit to be made, American companies are there to fill a “need”, right?

What point are you trying to make?

Every corporation has secrets they’d like to hide. No one is beyond reproach.

I don’t think anyone is disputing that — but every thing Google is doing is the result of fallible humans acting in pursuit of profit.

It doesn’t matter who or when. What matters is that people put aside their ethics in pursuit of profits. I think that needs to end.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#170

Post by randomperson_24 »

It is also not just Google. Google atleast curates the content, but has anyone used MSN or Edge (that comes with Windows)?

It has all news stories copied word to word from other news websites. Its worse than AMP. The publication name is not mentioned till the end of the page.

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