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Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

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Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#351

Post by MachineShedFred »

panarky wrote: post #197
threezero wrote: post #188

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…

Well, the unilateral smackdown they just put on ad blockers with their monopoly position browser when they happen to also be the largest internet advertiser does appear to be market manipulation and doing customer harm in my not-professional opinion. I am not a lawyer.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#352

Post by josteink »

panarky wrote: post #343
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every content site implements AMP for fear of losing Google traffic, not because customers wanted or demanded it.

Gonna have to ask for a cite on this one. Google search prefers sites that are fast. Amp makes sites fast. Non-Amp sites that are equally fast and relevant get equal search ranking. Is there any evidence whatsoever that Google ranks Amp sites higher because of Amp, instead of speed and relevance?

> Non-Amp sites that are equally fast and relevant get equal search ranking.

Nope. Amp ranks above everything else in a page-topping spinner.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#353

Post by 481092 »

481092 wrote: post #317
threezero wrote: post #188

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.

Is that wrong? Maybe we should do something about Fox and Breitbart's link to the current administration then.

So much for intellectual honesty on this site. New user and I thought this was something praised here. The hypocrisy of upvoting the parent because they're against information propagators being linked to an administration while ignoring the elephant in the room.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#354

Post by mycall »

burtonator wrote: post #349
nsomaru wrote: post #174

I was the biggest Google fan ever. I recommended all their products to everyone I know. Gone are those days. I now trust Microsoft (heh! M!cr0$0ft, anyone?) more than Google which is strange given I grew up rebelling against MS’s technical desktop hegemony. I wonder when Google decided “doing evil” was okay. I wonder how the SWE’s and other senior people in this thread feel about working for a company that many now c…

Agreed... Google has lost its mind. The removal of ad-block was the final straw for me. There's no rational explanation why that would be needed.

Removal of ad-block is just talk, not actually implemented and live yet, correct?

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#355

Post by _hl_ »

bduerst wrote: post #243
tantalor wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take a look at google AMP The argument here is its unfair to bias ranking towards a preferred format. In this case, something about excluding competitors, except AMP is completely open-source[1] so...? The counterargument is yes you can, because it's your pamphlet/newspaper/website and you're the editor, not the government. [1] https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml

Yeah, if AMP is antitrust then so is Facebook's Open Graph. Despite the hate for both on HN, neither format is targeting competitors or hurting consumers in this case.

I think the antitrust argument against AMP is a bit more subtle. The argument seems to be that Google is abusing it's market dominance to push sites into using AMP. This in turn prevents them from using third party trackers, while the pages will be served via Google caches when accessed from Google search. Hence Google gets to track the visitor, while third party tracking from other providers is prevented. I.e. Google is abusing it's power to thwart competition in the analytics and ad-tech business.

Of course as a consumer, I don't really care whether it's some random company or Google who gets to violate my privacy, and I especially couldn't care less about lack of innovation in the privacy violation business, so I think the antitrust angle here is pretty slim.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#356

Post by mycall »

pimterry wrote: post #301
prepend wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving countries is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible. The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries (coming in at least) [0]. This LinkedIn article citing BLS stats says the average person will have 12-15 jobs in their lifetime [1]. So I don’t think it’s very comparable to say “you can just change countries.” The vast majority of p…

> The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries Just to follow this tangent briefly - I'd be surprised if that first statement is true by most definitions (I'd almost say the opposite), and the implication that 14.4% of the population is therefore a high level certainly isn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... has…

Interesting how no one was born in Vatican City. Well, maybe Jesus was reborn there (har har).

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#357

Post by maxxxxx »

p0nce wrote: post #329
Zigurd wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft managed to kill Windows Phone by itself and take Nokia, and a more mature more viable smartphone OS, down with it. Windows phone was a "viable alternative" by the end, but in the beginning it was uncompetitive without any hindrances. Also recall that mobile carriers and OEMs were opposed to Android because it would further degrade their ability to create walled gardens. The carriers lost control of apps, no…

I've only met happy Windows Phone users

That makes it even worse. They had a great product and still managed to screw it up.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#358

Post by smhenderson »

malvosenior wrote: post #347
panarky wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "push" their browser Windows didn't get to 90% market share because consumers chose it. Windows achieved overwhelming dominance because Microsoft punished computer manufacturers if they sold any competing operating system. That's anti-competitive, and Google isn't doing anything like that. Then Microsoft used their illegally-obtained dominant position in operating systems to bundle their shitty browser, essentially…

> That's anti-competitive, and Google isn't doing anything like that. Just this week it was announced that Google will disable important features required to implement ad blockers. Google absolutely abuses their monopolies (browser, search, streaming video, possibly maps) at least as aggressively as MS ever did. Have you ever tried to watch YouTube on Firefox? That’s a deliberately hobbled experience if I’ve ever see…

I’m no fan of Google these days but I have no issues what so ever using YouTube on Firefox. I listen all day long at work from a Slackware laptop and at home on Windows, Slackware and OpenBSD. I don’t have streaming issues and can watch full screen HD, no problems at all.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#359

Post by EForEndeavour »

fiblye wrote: post #233
bencollier49 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being downvoted because your post is too nuanced.

I think it’s probably because perks offered to google employees are meaningless to 99% of people. The damage and potential damage google is doing to the public is far worse than the fat salaries they pay their employees. If Google and Facebook paid the same wages as any other other tech company, people wouldn’t be as eager to join them and throw their ethics out the window.

> If Google and Facebook paid the same wages as any other other tech company, people wouldn’t be as eager to join them and throw their ethics out the window.

On that note, if unethical business practices weren't so profitable, Google and Facebook wouldn't be able to offer higher wages than other tech companies.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#360

Post by endemic »

panarky wrote: post #342
hliyan wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> consumers overwhelmingly choosing a product By "product", I take it you mean their advertising services? Most of the other products are not paid for. In fact, critics are often fond of pointing out that the consumer is the product in this case. Whether this action is right or not, parallels can be drawn with the Microsoft investigation: Microsoft allegedly used its position within the desktop to "push" their browse…

> "push" their browser Windows didn't get to 90% market share because consumers chose it. Windows achieved overwhelming dominance because Microsoft punished computer manufacturers if they sold any competing operating system. That's anti-competitive, and Google isn't doing anything like that. Then Microsoft used their illegally-obtained dominant position in operating systems to bundle their shitty browser, essentially…

Google’s behavior RE: Android licensing is more similar to Microsoft/Windows than you might think, from what I understand.
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