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Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

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Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#261

Post by roenxi »

belorn wrote: post #257
slownews45 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the complaints against apple have focused on things they do that at least too me seem helpful and a positive part of my experience with apple. I feel MUCH more comfortable spending money via apple then I do almost anywhere else. Software on the web - endless issues buying / refunding / renewing. And if I don't like apple (which only has like 15% market share) I can switch to any number of android phones. It's jus…

If apple allowed other stores on their phones you could still buy exclusively from apple. All your applications to could have a "verified by apple" sticker. Nothing prevents apple from providing the exact same experience and still have a setting in the phone that allow third party markets from installing their applications. It would be just like the app store in windows.

> Nothing prevents...

Nothing prevents you working 10 minutes a day on something I want you to do - and yet I suspect you will not.

Apple has proven to be the most competent organisation on the planet, in the 50 odd year history of mobile phones, at getting consumers what they want. Suggesting that they should run things some other way needs some much stronger arguments and is going to be highly debatable.

To get to this point they've taken on all the major tech giants, the mobile phone industry, the telecoms and various foundational web technologies (including Flash, happily) and out-competed anyone in the business of making profits. At every step of the way they proved to be much better at anticipating what was a good idea than everyone. Much more serious voices were made to look foolish than the backseat drivers.

If you don't want what Apple is selling, buy something else.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#262

Post by durnygbur »

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?

Americans will fuell all sides of the conflict to reap the financial and political profits, disregarding human lives including unaware civilians. With their official army, intelligence agencies, corporations, and many other entities we have no clue about.

The fascinating part of the deal of IBM with Nazi Germany is that it boils down to _tracking_of_individuals_. Their personal profile, location, capabilities, health status.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#263

Post by BiteCode_dev »

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…

Your comment shows that it works, exactly like the article says it does.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#264

Post by BiteCode_dev »

ma2rten wrote: post #243
makeitdouble wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accusing interpretations of being "uncharitable" feels really odd when we're talking about communication training material. It's not some Slack thread taken out of context, we're reading quotes from reviewed and crafted material. Also I don't see how changing "Cut off competitors' access to target" to "Integrate target with Google" matches your idealistic view of "focus on our product; competition is good and okay".…

I think you are reading something into it that is not necessarily there. The slides give examples of things that are appropriate to say and are not appropriate to say. It doesn't necessarily mean that one thing has to changed into the other.

Just like the 1984 party so the article is spot on.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#265

Post by sokoloff »

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…

In what way did they wreck search? If I’m going to a new city, I usually start on Google flights and find it okay to good.

If I need more, I’ll go to a specific carrier’s site or to Matrix, but I’m usually using Google to get the overview picture (and it seems to work well).

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#266

Post by marcus_holmes »

shadowgovt wrote: post #50
marcus_holmes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a certain amount of entitlement in TFA too. Like "I deserve to have my site on the front page of Google, rather than its paid advertisers or its own pages". Why? This isn't a government-provided public service. It's a commercial product. Why should they direct traffic to your site for free? They, like everyone else, walk the line between providing an excellent product for customers and creating revenue for sha…

The entitlement may be sourced to the fact that the author is an SEO company. As a sidebar... SEO companies would love to see Google knocked out of its current market position. Google has gotten very good at relying on signal that SEO companies can't control. They would much prefer a more gamable engine take Google's position from it.

We've seen this play out with the browser wars, though - different standards mean that each target needs a different approach. You'd end up having to create a different site with different content organisation for each search engine and then serve the right site to the right crawler.

It might be more gamable, but the competition isn't the search engine, or normal people posting normal non-gamed content, but other SEO teams. If everyone can game it, then it's a race to the bottom to see who can game it most/best and that's not a good place for anyone else.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#267

Post by oblio »

roenxi wrote: post #261
belorn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If apple allowed other stores on their phones you could still buy exclusively from apple. All your applications to could have a "verified by apple" sticker. Nothing prevents apple from providing the exact same experience and still have a setting in the phone that allow third party markets from installing their applications. It would be just like the app store in windows.

> Nothing prevents... Nothing prevents you working 10 minutes a day on something I want you to do - and yet I suspect you will not. Apple has proven to be the most competent organisation on the planet, in the 50 odd year history of mobile phones, at getting consumers what they want. Suggesting that they should run things some other way needs some much stronger arguments and is going to be highly debatable. To get to…

Buy what? There's only Apple and Google and they collude to dominate the market.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#268

Post by playpause »

ekianjo wrote: post #133

Thats not Googlespeak. Thats legal protection. Whenever a company is open to investigation you can bet emails will be searched and if something suggesting something borderline illegal is written there it can be used against you. A lot of companiea give such trainings to their employees.

Unclear how any of this means it’s not Googlespeak.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#269

Post by graderjs »

It's interesting this language creates a reality where only Google exists. Apart from the legal and 'anti-trust' aspects, I'm sure this is useful for creating a sense of manifest destiny, where Google is the only service that people see. I'm sure that is eventually inevitable, that search becomes like an intelligent agent and there is a single company that provides it. Other people see a future based on individuals granting different AIs permission to mine their personal data in return for personalized services...which would also be an interesting future.

But I think we are definitely headed for a single-massive company providing all intelligent search at least for a time. It just seems like that will be the best way to get the best version of that product, until we actually know what that product really is.

That AI search company may not be Google, and if not that would be a fascinating story to see how such a player emerged as underdog to become the dominant search provider in a Google-dominated world. Exciting times!

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#270

Post by endominus »

lelanthran wrote: post #253
endominus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I wouldn't get my hopes up. The number of times I've seen people, even here, equate legality and morality is frightening. I have literally never seen anyone here argue that "murder and genocide isn't morally wrong if it is legally right". Are you sure you aren't equivocating "I don't support $FOO political position" with "I support murder and genocide"? Because I have seen a number of people argue that some aspect…

No, I wasn't even thinking of political positions. I'm not trying to dog-whistle around red-tribe/blue-tribe signaling, I actually mean what I said. I was in a comment thread some time ago about the ethics of self-driving cars. Another user believed that they should base the decisions of who to save on the cultural mores, history, and laws of the region where they are sold. On the one hand, it's hard to see a business doing otherwise. On the other, that's exactly how we get Zyklon B and legal slavery in the third world.

I was discussing the trolley problem with a lawyer a few years ago, and her conclusion to the dilemma, no joke, was literally "It depends if I would be legally culpable in the country I'm in." Which is a very legalistic, and utterly amoral answer.

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