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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

#491

Post by motoxpro »

arghwhat wrote: post #159
mm263 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it still baffles me how bad the alternatives still are Kagi

After having been a paid subscriber for a number of months, I have to say that it still wasn't cutting it. I still ended up falling back to google all the time. Plus, https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

After reading that and and seeing the comments here, I don't think I will ever take people on HN seriously who say they want privacy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314

After reading the founders thoughts, if they were any sort of sizable company they would immediately have a GDPR violation. "emails and any info you give to use voluntarily (search prefs) is not PII and as such you can't have your data back." :0

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

#492

Post by whaaaaat »

sensanaty wrote: post #487

I'm fully onboard, but only if it's not only Google being broken up here. M$, Apple, Meta (!!!!!!!!) and all the other big tech companies all need to be nuked from orbit. I'm worried that what's actually going to happen is Google getting broken up and M$ just swooping in to feast on the carcass, leaving us in an even shittier position. Out of all the evils coming from the FAANG world, M$ and Meta are by far the worst…

You can just type MS. I understand that it was cool to use M$ in the 90s, but like, all the tech giants are bad at this point and M$ looks silly.

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

#493

Post by IX-103 »

T-Winsnes wrote: post #462
hzia wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you underestimate the value of controlling the platform that you base all your revenue from. Chrome controls the internet and android has a huge market share on mobile. The latest changes to chrome that breaks plugins like ublock origin allows them to keep maximising their advertising revenue. I think these two being open source is a major reason why they have been so successfully adopted. It isn’t direct rev…

People keep bringing up Manifest v3 like it's some evil plot to show people ads. Nevermind that Chrome already ships with its own adblocker which blocks bad ads.

The fact is that with the Spectre mitigations added to Chrome, the performance of networking with manifest v2 was bad. Having to keep sending every network request through 3 different processes just in case there is a plugin (uses by the minority of users) that wants to filter the requests before they are made.

Of course, blocking resource fetches like that could have easily been detected by any server that cares about it, and the interaction with service workers was...weird.

With manifest v3 you can still block ads. You can remove them from the DOM, you can make them invisible, you can replace them. You just can't programmatically decide which resources to filter - only a declarative model for resource filtering is supported.

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

#494

Post by timeon »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #374
throwaway48476 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark has separate gdp numbers that don't include novo nordisk because they care about the real economy, not just number go up.

Developing and selling medicine to solve the number one health problem in the world (in addition to medicines for other health problems) is not real economy?

It is more about putting all eggs into one basket.

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

#495

Post by hzia »

threeseed wrote: post #465
ineedasername wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Android Play Store alone generates about $100B/year for Google. I saw $40B as what Google has spent over the years on Android. That seems like a viable business.

At least according to this, Google generated ~$47B/year. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/google-play-statistics/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/444476/google-play-annua...

That’s revenue not profits. Majority goes to app devs.

Profits are all that matter

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

#496

Post by sensanaty »

Arainach wrote: post #15
ClassyJacket wrote: post #6

They biggest web advertising company definitely shouldn't control the world's most popular browser. Just like we all knew they would, they're blocking ad blockers, and this problem will only get worse. Tell your friends to use Firefox, people.

It's fascinating how "preventing web extensions from having full access to everything on every site you visit when there is a repeated history of extensions being bought by companies that turn them into spyware data miners" gets turned into "blocking ad blockers".

I trust gorhill and UBO infinitely more than any corporation, especially since it's all free and completely open source.

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

#497

Post by AceFromOttawa »

bsimpson wrote: post #328

It's gonna be wild if they make paying to be default search illegal, and then Google gets to keep all the money it pays out while still being the default (because nothing else is worth using).

This seems like it would have side effect punishments to companies like Apple, Samsung, Firefox etc.

Sorry guys, but because Google made itself into a monopoly you can no longer sell default positions on your platform (Which is essentially a company buying an ad placement).

I'm really curious what the Judge decides the remedy is for this issue. Anyone have any possible remedies in mind that doesn't completely tank some of these other guys revenues?

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

#498

Post by hzia »

T-Winsnes wrote: post #462
hzia wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you underestimate the value of controlling the platform that you base all your revenue from. Chrome controls the internet and android has a huge market share on mobile. The latest changes to chrome that breaks plugins like ublock origin allows them to keep maximising their advertising revenue. I think these two being open source is a major reason why they have been so successfully adopted. It isn’t direct rev…

I think you are drastically overestimating the revenue gain from ad blockers

But I agree that default search with being Google must have heavily blocked competition.

Comparing how much they pay Mozilla and Apple to maintain search, it would be reasonable to estimate Chrome’s implementation to save them $1b a year

But I highly doubt they make any back given > 1k people work on it

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

#499

Post by tonymet »

There’s strong competition in all of Google’s major business lines, and within 5 years they will likely lose top status.

Search engine marketing (search ads) are quickly declining, losing ground to Amazon.

YouTube Video ads have tons of competition from all other streaming providers.

Web search is a dying product, as time spent has moved to streaming video, social video and social media.

Once again FTC and Antitrust are 10+ years behind, just like they were with Microsoft. By the time any action was taken against Microsoft, antitrust concerns resolved themselves.

Meanwhile FTC is spending hundreds of millions on a case, and Google has to spend a similar amount. Consumers will lose out on both ends: higher subscription prices, higher ads prices , higher taxes.

What happened to the constitution?

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