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US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

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Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#441

Post by robertlagrant »

dmonitor wrote: post #416
someluccc wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This illustrates why breaking up google is a good idea given their egregious charges (free) for things people used to/still spend money on, such as: - An office software suite - Global maps and GPS, City Guides - Video entertainment - Mobile and Desktop OS - Web Browsers Also, pay no mind to their competitors in all of those markets AND in their core business of search, being feeble multi-trillion and multi-billion g…

My concern is that breaking up Google without breaking up Microsoft will basically just be giving MS a huge advantage in the multitude of categories in which they compete with each other, so we'll be left in an even worse situation than before.

Yeah. Google is far less locked in than Microsoft. Gaming across Windows and Xbox vs Sony/Nintendo. Office is used by almost every org in the world. Azure locked in via clickops IT staff always wanting to pick it; you have to make a big case to use GCP or AWS in a lot of companies vs "just" using Azure.

Google's search advantage could be taken away with another website that's better. There's no installed base or corporate lockin to contend with. Same with email. Same with maps. While Google uses data from each of these services to better target ads at you, the services are not very tied into each other, and you could easily grab one of those services away from Google if you just provided a better standalone service.

To me, that's not a good case for breaking up Google.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#442

Post by johannes1234321 »

internet101010 wrote: post #346
stego-tech wrote: post #188

Loving the discourse in the comments here. Speaking as someone who grew up alongside Google in a sense, I fall on the side of the "break it up" camp. It was novel at the time to have a single company so nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need - G Suite, YouTube, Search, Maps, Advertising, Books, Reader, etc - but in hindsight, we gave too much power to too unaccountable an entity, who in turn u…

I have always thought the reason they became alphabet was because of the expectation that they would eventually get broken up and wanted a company for each letter.

Wasn't that for the founders being able to focus on the moonshots and pay there while making Pichain CEO of Google, so they don't have to deal with that day to day? (Which then was ridiculed relatively short after when they made Pichai CEO of all Alphabet ... or was that just him passing the probation period?

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#444

Post by JumpCrisscross »

WalterBright wrote: post #375
sirspacey wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What MSFT learned from that was to open offices in Washington DC, lobby and sell to the federal gov. Hard to find the sense in this action.

Before the anti-trust action against Microsoft, Microsoft did not lobby nor donate to politicians. After Bill Gates rode on a golf cart with Bill Clinton, he realized the need to pay the expected tribute to the politicians.

While the DoJ is an executive department, it is notoriously independent. Google is one of the biggest lobbyists in D.C. Trying to predict anti-trust actions by lobbying activity is naïve to the point of being counter-productive: it can be better, in many cases, to fly under the radar. (Exhibit A: Andreessen Horowitz.)

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#445

Post by mirchiseth »

Not directly related to antitrust but rather national industrial policy - there is a really good article on "Industrial policy without National Champions"[1] where the author also touches upon antitrust - worth a read.

"During that event, Cardiff Garcia did a fascinating interview with Paul Krugman, at the end of which Joe Wiesenthal asked a critical question. The United States, under Joe Biden, is embarking on an aggressive program of industrial policy even as it pursues increasingly vigorous antitrust enforcement. Aren't there tensions between these goals? Responding to an antitrust investigation of NVIDIA, Dylan Matthews similarly asked, "Here you have a tremendously successful national champion in a strategically critical industry. Is that exactly what you want[?]"

[1] https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/09/27/industrial-polic...

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#446

Post by hzia »

stego-tech wrote: post #188

Loving the discourse in the comments here. Speaking as someone who grew up alongside Google in a sense, I fall on the side of the "break it up" camp. It was novel at the time to have a single company so nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need - G Suite, YouTube, Search, Maps, Advertising, Books, Reader, etc - but in hindsight, we gave too much power to too unaccountable an entity, who in turn u…

I think most people do not understand that Google funnels a lot of their profits to make Chrome and Android into OSS.

Youtube may be the only viable company that can come out of Google. Rest will either have to charge a lot of money or die.

And we will be left with an even more profitable ad giant, that sends back all profits to it's share holders.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#447

Post by utopcell »

internet101010 wrote: post #346
stego-tech wrote: post #188

Loving the discourse in the comments here. Speaking as someone who grew up alongside Google in a sense, I fall on the side of the "break it up" camp. It was novel at the time to have a single company so nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need - G Suite, YouTube, Search, Maps, Advertising, Books, Reader, etc - but in hindsight, we gave too much power to too unaccountable an entity, who in turn u…

I have always thought the reason they became alphabet was because of the expectation that they would eventually get broken up and wanted a company for each letter.

Off-Topic:

I always thought they missed out on a great opportunity to name the umbrella company AlephBet instead of AlphaBet ([1]), perhaps with a tag-line that reads: "stop thinking in constants" (to contrast Googol being equal to 10^100).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#448

Post by idle_zealot »

pawelmurias wrote: post #415
ssklash wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of being a massive ad company whose raison d'etre is to collect as much personal information about you as possible (with limited or no consent) to enable other people to try to convince you to buy stuff even remotely a net positive for the world?

I would prefer to see ads for things that I want rather then see ads for stuff I couldn't care less about. If I get convinced to buy useful things it's a win/win.

If you and enough others find such fine-tuned recommendations helpful then they would continue to exist without intrusive advertising. There are entire magazines full of ads that people pay for.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#449

Post by pembrook »

nox101 wrote: post #397
pembrook wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we’re just arguing semantics. No, you can’t buy user data on 1 specific person (then again, there’s many examples of people buying ads on a persons name to catch them googling themselves), but you can buy user data on small groups of people.

No you can't. It's not semantics. It's reality. You can't buy data on people or groups of people from google any more than you can buy data on people from NBC, ABC, CBS. From TV stations you can buy ads during specific programs. That's it. From Google you can buy ads. You can not buy data. Data is something you can do something with on your own, analyse it, etc. Google does not give you data.

I don’t think you understand how Google ads work. Here’s a super common example:

- I sell red bowling shoes

- I pay Google for access to anyone searching for ‘red bowling shoes’

- Once they land on my site I know who came via the Google ad (via the URL params)

- A certain percentage converts, and I get their personal info and payment info

I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with that chain of events! It’s a win-win for both buyer and seller.

However, to argue that no data was sold is disingenuous at best. Google is the monopoly broker of the intent data on every buyer in the world.

Why should I let Google profit off of my thoughts/interests? Why shouldn’t I be making the money that the bowling shoe manufacturer paid to access my thoughts/interests?

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#450

Post by deaddodo »

bloppe wrote: post #406
hightrix wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need... Advertising Sorry for the snark, but no one anywhere needs advertising. Advertising in it's current form is a plague on humanity.

I started a small business selling candles during the pandemic. It's crazy how quickly you change your opinion about advertisements once you start needing to advertise your own business. All of the sudden, they're this amazing benefit for society. Advertisements can be good (when the business is good and genuinely wants you to know about good new product), and they can be bad (when the business if bad / misleading /…

People rarely have issues with advertising in general. They want to know about the special edition Coke, new bikes/guitars/phones/etc, local small businesses, whatever.

What people don't like is the current advertising business, which is intrusive, a blackhole of privacy concerns, rarely useful, and full of abusive companies (clickbait sites, for instance) that exist on the back of scummy behavior that hurts the advertiser (costing them money) and annoys/infuriates the consumer.

They don't like having an ad-free 7usd Netflix/Amazon/etc account that is now 12usd with ads, or 22usd without ads and the same privileges.

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