The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September • Hacker News Board

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#161

Post by CPLX » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:47 PM UTC

halflings wrote: post #140

prakhar897 wrote: post #130

The Indian govt imposed restrictions that a payment provider in India can fulfill max 30% of the total volume of transactions in an year [1]. After that, they have to restrict themselves. This completely avoids monopoly and concentration risks. This can be done for search as well which makes sure at least 4 players stay in the market at all times. Why isn't US govt doing this? 1. https://www.indiatimes.com/worth/news…

> Why isn't US govt doing this? Why isn't the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, ... doing this? Because it's a pretty strong form of controlled economy that distorts the market. How would this work for search engines? Would you force people to use a different search engine than the one they want? (e.g. they type Google.com and end up redirected to Bing.com) ; or somehow just funnel revenue to other companies... then wh…

They would just have to divest portions of their product.

It’s painfully simple and we’ve done it a million times. Breaking up AT&T is probably the most obvious example.

They could split up the search and ads business and maps and Google local search and so on.

It would be fine. We’d be fine.

Also if you work at Google can you tell us if anyone has noticed that the supposedly “equal/superior service” has degraded so badly that it’s barely fucking usable a lot of the time?

Which is, of course, relevant.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#162

Post by skinkestek » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

halflings wrote: post #140

prakhar897 wrote: post #130

The Indian govt imposed restrictions that a payment provider in India can fulfill max 30% of the total volume of transactions in an year [1]. After that, they have to restrict themselves. This completely avoids monopoly and concentration risks. This can be done for search as well which makes sure at least 4 players stay in the market at all times. Why isn't US govt doing this? 1. https://www.indiatimes.com/worth/news…

> Why isn't US govt doing this? Why isn't the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, ... doing this? Because it's a pretty strong form of controlled economy that distorts the market. How would this work for search engines? Would you force people to use a different search engine than the one they want? (e.g. they type Google.com and end up redirected to Bing.com) ; or somehow just funnel revenue to other companies... then wh…

> Because it's a pretty strong form of controlled economy that distorts the market.

Would be trivial compared to how Google and Microsoft have distorted the markets over the years.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#163

Post by halflings » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:49 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #147

halflings wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why isn't US govt doing this? Why isn't the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, ... doing this? Because it's a pretty strong form of controlled economy that distorts the market. How would this work for search engines? Would you force people to use a different search engine than the one they want? (e.g. they type Google.com and end up redirected to Bing.com) ; or somehow just funnel revenue to other companies... then wh…

What would you propose instead?

Banning anti-competitive behavior (which is what antitrust laws are for in the first place). For instance: a company actively blocking competition (e.g. coffee machine manufacturers that make it impossible for people to buy pods from another brand).

Again, I am probably biased here, but I don't see much anti-competitive behaviour in the search engine space. If people have a clear superior alternative to Google, then by all means please share it here.

Even during the brief period where I used duckduckgo, I was constantly finding myself typing "!g" to get results from Google as they were just consistently more relevant.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#164

Post by gottorf » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #150

hgs3 wrote: post #96

Antitrust laws are too reactive. We need proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria. Ideally, the criteria would be aggressive enough to kill large corporations leaving behind only small to medium-sized businesses. The result would be markets with increased competition, more innovation, lower prices, more options for employment and self-employment, and the elimination of Big Co…

I feel like we ought to have progressive taxation on corporations: the larger you are, the more you get taxed. This would act as a general purpose biasing of the economy in favour of smaller companies and more competition.

What we have currently is the other way around, unfortunately: the larger you are, the more efficient it is for you to be "compliant" with various laws and regulations. The same way that a billionaire wouldn't mind paying half a million dollars to an accounting firm to optimize their taxes another 1-2%, whereas someone making $50k a year would just use the free version of TurboTax and maybe miss out on some deductions.

This (among other things) contributes to the trend of increasing consolidation in virtually every industry in America.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#165

Post by waithuh » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

growingentropy wrote: post #67

waithuh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that Apple doesnt do that?

https://fossbytes.com/apple-data-collection-explained/ "Now that we’ve established that Apple collects and uses your data to serve ads, does it sell your data too? Turns out the answer is No, Apple doesn’t sell your data to third-party advertisers. The Cupertino giant possesses the exclusive rights of showing you ads on the App Store and other apps."

ah, yeah i kind of consider that as data selling anyways. Not outright selling, you are right there. Selling in bulk would be dumb for these companies when they have ad networks in place, though. Its like the DRM for ads.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#166

Post by LorenzoGood » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

constantcrying wrote: post #40

LorenzoGood wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has over 75% of 18-24 year olds with their phone in their pocket.

But how is this the result of Apple engaging in anti-competitive practices? 75% of people choosing your product can not be grounds to breakup a company and the fact that it looks different for other age groups is just further evidence that Apple is engaging in fair competition.

Not adopting RCS, and insisting on using iMessage. I don't think this should cause antitrust litigation, but it is problematic.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#167

Post by halflings » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #160

halflings wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the remaining traffic would be all expenses, no profit? Doesn't sound like capitalism anymore then, more of a public service.

Imagine a government creating a search engine as a public service. ... Oh wait, that's actually a great idea and I want to see that happen.

Sure, then advocate for your government to build a public search engine.

Why do you need to penalize private institutions if users prefer to use them over a government service?

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#168

Post by GeekyBear » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:51 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #151

GeekyBear wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blocking iMessage on non Apple devices iMessage has always worked with any device that supports SMS. Google, on the other hand, actively blocked Windows Phone from having access to Youtube. Even when Microsoft paid to write a Youtube app themselves, Google blocked it. Google did the same thing and blocked Youtube on Amazon's Echo Show.

Why the whataboutism? They both have flaws. By iMessage blocking, you surely knew that I didn't mean just interoperability via SMS. If Apple adopted RCS or some other such standard, Android users and iPhone users could talk without having a degraded experience on either side. Apple executives literally admitted that not expanding iMessage ensured that people would continue to buy iPhones: > app.)...In the absence of…

> By iMessage blocking, you surely knew that I didn't mean just interoperability via SMS

It's not blocking at all, when you explicitly support interoperation.

The only example that can obviously be called "blocking" is when Google used it's internet video monopoly as a weapon against Microsoft's competing smart phone platform.

Refusing to allow anyone to produce a Youtube app for Windows Phone isn't even in the same zip code as Google not writing a Youtube app themselves.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#169

Post by esperent » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:51 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #146

prakhar897 wrote: post #130

The Indian govt imposed restrictions that a payment provider in India can fulfill max 30% of the total volume of transactions in an year [1]. After that, they have to restrict themselves. This completely avoids monopoly and concentration risks. This can be done for search as well which makes sure at least 4 players stay in the market at all times. Why isn't US govt doing this? 1. https://www.indiatimes.com/worth/news…

> Why isn't US govt doing this? Because it would be incredibly unpopular, for one. Can you imagine being in the middle of some work, Googling a term, only to be hit with "Sorry, we're over the government limit and can't fulfill your search" Hacker News and Stack Overflow would be full of people trading tips about using VPNs to evade the limits. People don't actually like having the government restrict them from using…

I get that already every time I try to search Google in incognito and once every day or two for normal searches. Except it's "prove you're a human by completing these robotic tasks".

You're right, I hate it and always switch to a different search engine instead. So, that's the goal here right?

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#170

Post by skinkestek » Sun, Aug 06, 2023, 8:52 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #136

hgs3 wrote: post #96

Antitrust laws are too reactive. We need proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria. Ideally, the criteria would be aggressive enough to kill large corporations leaving behind only small to medium-sized businesses. The result would be markets with increased competition, more innovation, lower prices, more options for employment and self-employment, and the elimination of Big Co…

> and the elimination of Big Corp's big money political influence. And companies like Google have more than just "big money political influence". YouTube banned discussions on legitimate discussion of Covid and politics in the past few years, for instance.

As someone who has taken my vaccines and are anti anti-vax: I think this is true and it hurt us.