Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#371

Post by shrimpx » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

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…

IMO Facebook is the real modern evil. Google is exhibiting the woes of a company that's become too big for its own good; it controls too much. However it continues to provide very high value services, especially to businesses. Facebook on the other hand is converging toward pure evil. The little value it was providing to the world has turned fully negative, a succubus in everyone's life.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#372

Post by aiyodev » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

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…

Antitrust also covers government. If Google colluded to pass laws to prevent competition, they broke the law.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#373

Post by z3t4 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #314

xkgt wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they did all they could to kill Windows Phone (a viable alternative ecosystem at that time) by blocking access to Youtube[1] and providing sub-par experience for their other services. Now I fear Firefox has a similar sisyphean task at hand, trying to keep their browser usable on google services. And for many of the users, that is same as usability of the browser as a whole. [1] https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com…

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…

Apple and other hardware will not agree. But peope buy devices bacause of the apps. The reason symbian, meego, blackberry, windows et all died was because some of the popular apps where only available on Android and iPhone. Microsoft of course knew this but failed because they where unfriendly to developers. And are now desperately trying to bye goodwill in order to keep Windows on PC relevant.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#374

Post by snazz » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

feanaro wrote: post #325

mfer wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft != Windows. Windows isn't its own division anymore. There is a lot more to MS than Windows. Do we judge other companies as a whole based on one product or service they offer rather than looking at the whole? The "spyware and adware" is added by those who sell the computers (i.e. the hardware manufacturers) rather than by Microsoft. It's been a way for them to make money with the slimming of the profit margi…

> The "spyware and adware" is added by those who sell the computers (i.e. the hardware manufacturers) rather than by Microsoft. Hmm? What about the surveillance tech that was added in Windows 8 through a Windows Update that sends pretty much all your activity to Microsoft? Am I missing something about this?

They serve ads in the start menu and on the lock screen, including some fairly pushy ones (Edge! Edge! You must use Edge!). The telemetry is controversial but does not appear to be used in the same ways that Google uses all of their data. Plus, you can disable 99% of the telemetry.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#375

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #337

rayiner wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Antitrust doesn’t care about how you got market dominance. It cares about what you do with it. To use the browser example I used elsewhere: maybe Google’s dominance in search is because it’s indisputably the best. But that d…

> I can’t get a discount on cellular because I’m a FiOS customer https://www.verizonwireless.com/promos/verizon-fios-installa... > nor can I buy car insurance from my health insurance company. https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/health/individual-medica... and bundling deals: https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/multiline

I’ll add that FiOS has under 40% market share in its footprint, not nearly 90% like Google search.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#376

Post by orev » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #199

orev wrote: 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…

A neutral net is pretty meaningless if it’s just a handful of walled gardens you can access

You still have a choice about what sites you visit. Maybe FANG just provide a great value for people so they choose them more often. Most people don’t have a choice in what ISP they can use.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#377

Post by cycrutchfield » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #370

cycrutchfield wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And he did so in his capacity as a private citizen, not by exercising his influence at Google. By the way, we are quite far afield from the initial claim that Google employees wrote software for a particular political campaign.

> And he did so in his capacity as a private citizen, not by exercising his influence at Google. By the way, we are quite far afield from the initial claim that Google employees wrote software for a particular political campaign. Google has been providing free services to campaigns it wants to help for over a decade, in the open. This started when Schmidt was CEO. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118489524982572543 The…

Nothing in that article corroborates any of the claims mentioned by others above. I notice that the farther down in the thread this conversation goes, the more watered down the accusations of political meddling get. Next you’ll criticize Google for letting campaigns use Gmail or something.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#378

Post by mbell » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

fyoving wrote: post #69

justinph wrote: post #44

Dear Justice Department: Take a look at google AMP and how they use it to strong-arm publishers by linking it to search placement. You'll find some stuff.

People don't seem to understand how this stuff works in the US, Google has full editorial control over their search results protected by the first amendment and that right was affirmed in court time and time again: https://searchengineland.com/another-court-affirms-googles-f... If you don't like their free no lock in service go elsewhere, and that's why there is no sherman act case here, which is why if the DOJ actua…

I think this is a really simplistic view of how the first amendment applies to businesses. I think the key here is the definition of a 'public space' as what freedoms a business has changes when they provide a public space. It's a bit unclear what defines a public space in the digital world, I'd argue that physical presence isn't a requirement and the key aspects are accessibility and communication. i.e. If anyone can go there, and anyone can communicate there, it's a public space. _If_ this is true, then many sites are public spaces, certainly social media. Search is a bit more unclear since the communication aspect is questionable.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#379

Post by zo1 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #219

sdan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMP is just the start. I won't be surprised if we find out Google is promoting websites for using Google Analytics.

If Google we’re truly committed to building a search engine that is useful they would give the user control of ranking. I hope one day we see a search engine not driven by ad incentives....

They don't even have to be that "extreme" about it. Simple tools that would still allow them to "sell" ads but give the user more control.

E.g. Being able to "blacklist" certain domains from results.

Same thing applies to youtube. You can not permanently block/remove/disable channels from being present in the content results/feed.

I think that deep-down Google high-ups "know" that giving some of these "basic" usability features would essentially disable their control of the content that they push to you. E.g. imagine publicly-shared black-lists of bad domains and bad channels that one could subscribe to. Similar to the ad blockings lists that have generated a bit of a thriving ecosystem. I.e. smart people would eventually use this basic "building block" to build content-control that would be more decentralized/democratic and really personal.

Re: Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google

#380

Post by thayne » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

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…

> Can anyone really say that Google's practices are more anti-competitive than, say, the dominant players in broadband or health insurance or wireless telecom or household appliances?

No, but I'd love to see antitrust litigation against those monopolies/oligopolies too.