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Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

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271–280 of 440 posts

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#271
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing hardball is itself not an antitrust violation. Doing it to maintain monopoly power is. (Under section 2 of the Sherman Act.)

Google is not a monopoly in terms of consumer choice (we can choose any one of mostly identical search engines), but it is in terms of market share ala internet explorer. It is in a perfect situation to leverage this to force arbitrary policies that mostly benefit it, like amp.

Google has monopoly power [0] even though consumers can choose to use other search providers. They just don’t.

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#272
post #139
post #82

Look, I get it — the issues with Google, Facebook, Amazon. But I can’t help but think about how AT&T and other ISPs banded together to claim they shouldn’t be regulated because they are Internet companies just like FANG during the Net Neutrality discussions. When I see just how bad ISPs are acting, in lack of competition, price gouging, content ownership, data monitoring, it really seems they were successful in shift…

I think more importantly, ISPs made a (in my opinion, bullshit) free market argument that resonated with conservatives. At the same time, FANG made themselves an enemy of conservatives. Conservatives are now in power.

What would be different today had NN passed?

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#273
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you post a screenshot of this popup? Never seen it in years of Firefox use and lots of Google searching. Maybe one of my plugins blocks it.

Here's a screenshot from Edge. https://i.imgur.com/iwymopx.png Sometimes it's in a new top bar on the page but cannot remember if that's only on Gmail.

This is all the more frustrating because there’s no way to have google remember “no thanks.”

Every time I see that pop up, I think “does it block pop ups like this?”

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, is there another reason for chrome to exist? Google is no philanthropist.

Yes, because before Chrome existed most people used IE which is very slow to create or adopt new web standards and is full of bugs. That makes developing complex websites really difficult. What company do we know that makes some the most complex web sites out there and would really benefit if the web had... I dunno WebGL so they could make a smooth mapping site, maybe with a 3D mode. Or a new version of HTTP so their…

So, to be clear, you are saying they were being altruistic and purely motivated by the desire to push forward web standards, and that this is entirely unrelated to the business they run?

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#275
post #45

I don't see how after the FTC came up empty the DOJ would fare any better as arguable the sherman act is a much tougher route, and the competition landscape has changed to google's detriment (amazon ads, facebook, etc). Anyway the article is quite scarce and the source is the WSJ so they might be trying to amplify some stuff or even advocate for it.

The FTC backed off because the administration at the time (2012-2013) were friendly with Google.

Source is probably controversial, but I'm interested in refutations: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#276
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not how the sausage is made that matters. The sausage is making ppl sick. I have no doubt you in your siloed Dev team know very little about what exactly is happening with your final products. We outside of your bubble are growing tired of your superiors growth at ANY cost company policies. Take heed bro. Time is getting kind of short. The surveillance economy is gonna bust. I'm gonna help break it- Any way I ca…

Please don't post like this here.

Can you be more clear about the specifics?

I don't like the general tone, but agree with the sentiment, and it seems tough to share without addressing the user personally, but was that it?

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not a monopoly in terms of consumer choice (we can choose any one of mostly identical search engines), but it is in terms of market share ala internet explorer. It is in a perfect situation to leverage this to force arbitrary policies that mostly benefit it, like amp.

Google has monopoly power [0] even though consumers can choose to use other search providers. They just don’t. [0] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

[deleted]

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of us work on things that people like and improve our lives. Like what? Services that support the ads monetization, lock in users and strengthen control over the ecosystem?

Search is just one big example. If you say search hasn't improved humanity then you're a delusional troll.

It has at some point. Today? Not so much.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that no Googlers have a good response to this or the Eric Schmidt / Hillary Clinton connection. Google’s ties to the Obama administration were deep.

Which raises deep suspicions about the political motivations of this "investigation". Anti-trust is about companies using their market power to exclude rivals, raise prices, and hurt consumers. It's not about consumers overwhelmingly choosing a product because they like it more. Can anyone really say that Google's practices are more anti-competitive than, say, the dominant players in broadband or health insurance or…

It does look like their is a strong partisan element here - but that isn't a bad thing in this instance. I think this is an interesting tangent to take.

From a health-of-the-system perspective it really should be intolerable that a few large closed-garden platforms control the flow of information. Information monocultures are a threat to everyone, even if one partisan group feels more threatened than the other at any one time.

I happily take the market-efficiency position on most debates, but the risk of Google being anything but neutral is worrying. They appear to have a political bias in their employee base and are under pressure to make judgements about fact v. fiction (might even be an inherent requirement of choosing a sort order for search results) - that is a position somewhat similar to a conventional media organisation.

I support the concept of media being a special case where the risk of an information monoculture outweighs the damage of being inefficient. Laws that basically make it impossible for one media source to control a market are fine. I'd like to see internet search designated as a market where there legally can't be one dominant player, and details get sorted out as best can be done.

Maybe that is already how the market is, I don't know. There are many alternatives not controlled by Google. But something even stronger than antitrust seems appropriate as a matter of law, even if we don't apply it today. I can't see how a platform like Google can be neutral given the ongoing partisan extremes that have developed in American politics and Google's connections to the Democrats.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#280
Google key competitive edge is illegal eavesdropping on third party websites. Thus it is engaged in racketeering and cartel activity. If you replace restaurants with tech, pasta, sausages, sauce with apps, store, api you have Google as Gambino family of big tech.
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