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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

#601

Post by kelnos »

pembrook wrote: post #449
nox101 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't really see how you're coming to the conclusion that chain of events constitutes the sale of user data. Google has sold ad placement, not user data.

When a TV station sells ad time to a company, and then someone sees the ad, comes into the store, and says "hey, I saw your TV ad while watching Law & Order", we don't say that the TV station has sold data to the merchant.

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

#602

Post by hrjo »

agent281 wrote: post #517
krackers wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if Google dies then we'll have more diverse browser and mobile ecosystem? Where exactly is the downside?

Google funds Chrome. Other browsers use Chrome as a base. The majority of Firefox's funding is from Google. They will suffer as well. MS would need to step back up with browsers and you would also have Safari left over. I think it would be a major shock to the browser ecosystem.

[dead]

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

#603

Post by danielheath »

hzia wrote: post #446
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.

I have always viewed android as a hedge against another player (eg apple) controlling advertising on mobile and undermining their dominance of the sector.

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

#604

Post by jmb99 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #436
makeitdouble wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to see how a smaller, more focused company would be able to justify that type of R&D. Typically that's solved with R&D happening in academia or semi-public space. How much this happens depends on the opportunities to do it in private companies, so entities like Google paying big salaries for R&D probably means we don't see what alternatives they would be if they stopped doing so.

> Typically that's solved with R&D happening in academia or semi-public space. It was, but not any more. The crazy capital investments often come from private companies as well. And that's not a problem. They're spending their money rather than your money.

> They're spending their money rather than your money.

Ok, and from whom did their money come? They didn’t magic it into existence.

Google spending money that came from advertisers who got it from people buying their products isn’t much different than a research team spending public money, just with fewer middle men and a (generally) lower negative impact on society.

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

#605

Post by kelnos »

idle_zealot wrote: post #565
foolfoolz wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

big breakups don’t make sense in a globalized economy because it empowers foreign companies. i don’t think MS, Apple, amazon, fb would be the only benefactors. i think we entered the age of “too big to fail” about 10 years ago. breaking up very big companies like google is now a national security risk

If you truly believe that tech monopolists are critical to national security then the only safe option would be to nationalize them. Incidentally, that would also remove the profit motive for bad behavior, solving one of the largest problems with allowing a monopoly to exist. But apparently that would be anti-free. Because nothing says Free Country like letting a handful of the most rich and powerful people on the pl…

Fully agree.

And for the people who think nationalizing businesses leads to socialist/communist hell, at the very least, if you've decided that a business is critical to national security, it should be funded at least in part by the government (with the government having a real, if not controlling, stake in it), and heavily, heavily regulated.

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

#606

Post by jmb99 »

maccard wrote: post #400
svara wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of playing devil's advocate here, but well run companies with near monopolies have on many occasions provided massive benefits that would not have been possible at smaller scale. Think of Bell Labs. Google has a number of Bell Labs style projects ongoing that massively benefit scientific research. Transformers, AlphaFold, etc. It's hard to see how a smaller, more focused company would be able to justify that typ…

> That said, I do see an issue where some of the smartest people get sucked up by big tech. Instead of working on fundamental advances in image processing they end up working on beauty filters for Instagram. That can't be right. Can't you say the same thing if you go back 80 years and talk about the smartest minds in the world instead of working on energy for the masses they're working on the atomic bomb?

Kind of... but the atomic bomb required progressing multiple fields substantially and resulted in some very important technological improvements that are genuinely good (the most stable non-carbon power generation).

What is the possible societal-positive outcome of another social media filter? Or improved ad targeting algorithm? Or more attention-grabbing social media feed?

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

#607

Post by JumpCrisscross »

elzbardico wrote: post #510
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cisco reputedly avoided an anti-trust action by wining and dining DoJ lawyers Source? (They settled with Multiven.) > isn't it a bit naive to think it doesn't No, it's naïve to think that level of influence can be bought. Not an uncommon mistake. Bankman-Fried made it, and it's increasingly looking like Bytedance did too. But D.C. is a town obsessed with power over money. People regularly toss aside lobbyists and t…

Well, you don't simply walk into a Patek Phillipe store and ask to see the watches. Enzo Ferrari refused to sell ferraris for people he didn't think were deserving of having a ferrari. Corruption on the highest levels is very similar. Not everyone is on the buyers club.

> Corruption on the highest levels is very similar. Not everyone is on the buyers club

This is unfalsifiable. To the extent electeds can be bought or lobbied, it's on the fringes--they didn't know about crypto and now they do and have a mildly favourable view towards it instead of not giving a shit. Certainly not around something involving the DoJ.

The naïve view is electeds in America can be bought and sold like a Patek Philippe. You can just buy one of those, for the simple reason that there exists a secondary market. Power, on the other hand, is perishable. Go back to Bankman-Fried's downfall and note how many people thought he had banked favours with his cash. (I sometimes think he thought he bought favours with his cash.) That isn't how D.C. works. It isn't how power centre works. Power is personal and perishable, and that makes it unique in comparison with the things we usually trade money for.

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

#608

Post by amy-petrik-214 »

agent281 wrote: post #517
krackers wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if Google dies then we'll have more diverse browser and mobile ecosystem? Where exactly is the downside?

Google funds Chrome. Other browsers use Chrome as a base. The majority of Firefox's funding is from Google. They will suffer as well. MS would need to step back up with browsers and you would also have Safari left over. I think it would be a major shock to the browser ecosystem.

Google makes like 30 billion dollar PROFIT per year, and they pay firefox 0.5 billion per year.

Now it seems to me that 0.5 billion is the "cost of not technically being a monopoly" when they are indeed a monopoly, and it's a net win if they're pulling say 10 billion synergistic monopolistic profit from not being broken up into baby googles as a monopoly trust buster case.

I would say this is capitalism in a pure form, the kind the communists rail against, the kind where a monopoly crushes out all the benefits to the people, government corruption, etc. True "for the people" style capitalism would mean two browsers truly competing, ideally more than two (duopolies are monopolies by another name and poison our society broadly). One browser as part of an american zaibatsu, with the zaibatsu punting a little money to save face and claim competition exists - by propping up the competition financially - is absolutely a disgusting thing. To say "oh no, the thing they're propping up will no longer be propped up" is also disgusting and capitalistically twisted.

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

#609

Post by kelnos »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #395
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…

Breaking up AT&T lead to innovation. GDP? Have people forgotten that a vibrant 'Free Market' requires breaking up monopolies? When did supporting a 'Free Market' turn into, "don't touch our giant corps".

I won't argue that AT&T's breakup wasn't a good thing and the right move, but unfortunately a lot of that breakup has been undone: today telephony is controlled by a small oligopoly in the US. Better than a single monopoly, I suppose, but still not great.

The Baby Bells started their re-merge back in the 90s. In 2000, when Verizon was formed, it was a combination of Bell Atlantic (New Jersey Bell + Bell Company of PA + Diamond State + C&P), NYNEX, and GTE. (I watched this all in real-time, as my father worked for Ma Bell -> New Jersey Bell -> Verizon for more or less his entire adult life.) I'm sure similar things happened in the rest of the country with other Baby Bells, though I don't know the history very well.

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

#610

Post by filloutform »

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…

Monopoly law is based on whether or not consumers are harmed. Consumers want free and cheap and quality, Google gives that thanks to economy of scale. Break up Google and consumers will pay more for the same services. until another company steps up and does the same thing Google does. this could be Baidu or Yandex. Yandex has their own version of drive, maps, Gmail, search etc etc.
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