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Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

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Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#181

Post by alliao »

rnhmjoj wrote: post #179
hlau wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really surprised to hear that you’re not getting the relevance out of Google. Are most of your searches in a specific domain that’s somehow not covered properly by Google? And is there a search engine that does a better job for you? I’ve tried using services like DDG and find myself falling back to Google more often than not.

I almost never get useful results out of a web search, nowadays, unless the query is very specific (like looking up a website I forgot the domain of). This is not particular to google search, which in fact I don't use anymore. Trying to find information given only fuzzy details almost never produce relevant links; anything remotely commercial, like trying to find a product reviews, film to watch, a store nearby, etc.…

YES! I still remember the earlier days of Google, when it was not only returning results, the results were a delight to click through. I genuinely felt happy using it. Infoseek was good in a way that it let you search within searched results, so you could filter down. Alta Vista was definitely larger, but Google was pure magic. Not only relevant but digs up interesting and rewarding well researched information sitting around in a little corner of a web.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#183

Post by rpmisms »

lugged wrote: post #154
gugagore wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but it seems that it would succeed in requiring an additional layer of argumentation that “area” is code for “market”. My rough sense is that nothing is trivial in cases like this, but how difficult would it be to argue this?

Las I checked judges don't love it when you try to be clever or cute.

"Your honor, my case is kawaii. The defense rests."

In all seriousness, a clever argument can be very good, as long as it's also solid. Not mutually exclusive.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#184

Post by deathanatos »

This is such an uncharitable interpretation of the training materials. The material there is not saying "if you want to speak about things that raise antitrust concerns, use this coded language", it's saying "don't do these things, and just focus on building a good product".

Like, the thing here that really boggles my mind: if the training materials had said literally the exact opposite of what they do: "crush the competition, find ways to prevent competitors from competing fairly with us" etc. — someone like the author would write an article vilifying them. (And rightly so.) So the company instead says "focus on our product; competition is good and okay" and … they're vilified for it. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

By this article's twisted logic, any company focused on their product is just engaging in newspeak for thinly veiled anti-competitive behavior. Or is it just if Google does it?

(It kills me to argue this, since I think normally these threads/articles spawn good debate about the size and scope of FAANG. But… this one is ridiculous.)

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#185

Post by endominus »

imglorp wrote: post #162
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?

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

I wouldn't get my hopes up. The number of times I've seen people, even here, equate legality and morality is frightening.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#186

Post by imhelpingu »

deathanatos wrote: post #184

This is such an uncharitable interpretation of the training materials. The material there is not saying "if you want to speak about things that raise antitrust concerns, use this coded language", it's saying "don't do these things, and just focus on building a good product". Like, the thing here that really boggles my mind: if the training materials had said literally the exact opposite of what they do: "crush the co…

I would encourage readers to compare this disingenuous top comment with the other disingenuous top comment.

edit: And those of you trying to suppress that comparison with downmods can cry more.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#187

Post by roenxi »

tibbetts wrote: post #148
roenxi wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Once upon a time US regulators recognized that limited competition and market dominance can be a problem all by themselves, for their chilling effect on innovation. Unfortunately under Reagan the DOJ changed their policy and started arguing that concrete consumer harm has to be demonstrated for a business to be subject to antitrust. That’s a much higher bar. Imagine trying to build the modern internet under a telco m…

Helpfully this is exactly the sort of argument I'm complaining about. The basic form is "the regulators did this", its "hard to show concrete harm" but therefore "we should go after any company that is dominant in any market".

If we skip to the handwave, what is and how solid is the evidence that the regulator's actions were sensible? Targeting the most competent company for harassment is, on the face of it, a bad strategy.

> Imagine trying to build the modern internet under a telco monopoly

"Before the 1996 Act was passed, the largest four ILECs owned less than half of all the lines in the country while, five years later, the largest four local telephone companies owned about 85% of all the lines in the country." [0]

Yeah, that'd be really hard. But the major problem is poor regulation creating monopolies/incentives for them. The correct approach is to go for the root cause - competition stifling regulation - rather than setting up monopolies and then ineffectually trying to fight them in courts.

"Antitrust" is a distraction from the actual problem - bad regulation and incentives. And if the coversation revolved around actual attempts at showing evidence the antitrust stuff is hard to sustain. The examples are trivial. People on HN were whinging about Google removing an alert box in Chrome the other week.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#188

Post by srswtf123 »

imglorp wrote: post #162
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?

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

I wonder how much has been spent over the years suppressing this?

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#189

Post by moeris »

imhelpingu wrote: post #186
deathanatos wrote: post #184

This is such an uncharitable interpretation of the training materials. The material there is not saying "if you want to speak about things that raise antitrust concerns, use this coded language", it's saying "don't do these things, and just focus on building a good product". Like, the thing here that really boggles my mind: if the training materials had said literally the exact opposite of what they do: "crush the co…

I would encourage readers to compare this disingenuous top comment with the other disingenuous top comment. edit: And those of you trying to suppress that comparison with downmods can cry more.

Am I supposed to come away thinking they're both reasonable interpretations which accurately critique the main argument in this article? Because that's what I came away with.

(At the moment, the other to comment is about how focusing on positive goals is a good business strategy, not just light-stepping on legal egg shells.)

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#190

Post by imhelpingu »

moeris wrote: post #189
imhelpingu wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would encourage readers to compare this disingenuous top comment with the other disingenuous top comment. edit: And those of you trying to suppress that comparison with downmods can cry more.

Am I supposed to come away thinking they're both reasonable interpretations which accurately critique the main argument in this article? Because that's what I came away with. (At the moment, the other to comment is about how focusing on positive goals is a good business strategy, not just light-stepping on legal egg shells.)

I pasted the current top comment for you since you seem to be having trouble finding it or reading it:

>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 going to tell their employees not to say, "our goal is to crush our competitors, dominate the market, and hear the lamentation of their women." Instead they will tell their employees to focus on making life better for their customers. It's a much healthier way for product managers to focus, and what you might do if the goal is "crush/dominate the competition" is not the same than if the goal is delight the customer. So it's not just a messaging strategy to prevent embarassing e-mails from coming out at trial; it's a business strategy, too.

Hope this helps.

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