Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

zyppy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 309 posts

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#71

Post by zeteo »

tytso wrote: post #25

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post. Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is…

Public relations has been around for a hundred years now. It shouldn't be news to anyone that large companies are careful with phrasing things and have full time employees devoted to the nuances of messaging.

And yes, when armies of lawyers are routinely descending on your internal communications then it sucks but PR-speak has to become the norm for all. Most people don't like it, but the consequences of not doing it are even worse.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#72

Post by dillondoyle »

laurent92 wrote: post #59
gumby wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also have a corporate email policy where mails get auto-deleted after 18 months Eric Schmidt’s retention policy was 72 hours .

How does he keep track of relationship history with someone? Commitments? Goals?

If true, my guess is that with such a huge power imbalance Schmidt isn't often waiting 72 hours for replies.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#73

Post by bqmjjx0kac »

amelius wrote: post #66
poof131 wrote: post #42

It amazes me that the consumer welfare standard has become so ingrained in legal antitrust. How is a company town, feudalism, or even slavery not the purest endgame of this logic? Own nothing and forever be indebted. “Wow, everything is free for most consumers, I guess we created a great world!” Can we move on to the total welfare standard, please. [1] [1] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements.…

That font ...

Times New Roman?

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#74

Post by simcop2387 »

smhost wrote: post #70
tytso wrote: post #25

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post. Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is…

What exactly is the logic here, that because IBM used to do the same thing Google is doing, and because IBM was not a monopoly, that we should be okay with Google behaving this way?

The logic is that this isn't a sign of google being a monopoly and that it has more implications than just being there to avoid anti-trust actions.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#75

Post by georgeecollins »

yakubin wrote: post #67
tytso wrote: post #25

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post. Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is…

> Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is going to tell their employees not to say, "our goal is to crush our competitors, dominate the market, and hear the lamentation of their women." Instead they will tell their employees to focus on making life better for their customers. The lawn mower would like to have a word with you: https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=2040 >

That is an amazing talk! Thank you for sharing.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#76

Post by regnull »

smhost wrote: post #70
tytso wrote: post #25

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post. Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is…

What exactly is the logic here, that because IBM used to do the same thing Google is doing, and because IBM was not a monopoly, that we should be okay with Google behaving this way?

Literally every other company does this. I'm not sure what is the story here - the lawyers are coaching the employees not to put anything that can be used against the company in writing? The author tried to make it about Google for whatever reason.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#77

Post by smhost »

simcop2387 wrote: post #74
smhost wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the logic here, that because IBM used to do the same thing Google is doing, and because IBM was not a monopoly, that we should be okay with Google behaving this way?

The logic is that this isn't a sign of google being a monopoly and that it has more implications than just being there to avoid anti-trust actions.

That doesn't follow. You can read it in the exact opposite direction, that every other company culture is already behaving as if it is a monopoly.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#78

Post by handoflixue »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #35
JoshTriplett wrote: post #7

Forget about "competition" and "who provides the service" for just a moment. (I'll return to them below.) I'm saying all of this as someone who doesn't use Google search . I would like to see more competition in search engines. But anyone seeking to work in that space needs to think about how users actually use search engines, and stop thinking in the conceptual model of "finding sites for the given search terms". "6…

I read a certain amount of entitlement in TFA too. Like "I deserve to have my site on the front page of Google, rather than its paid advertisers or its own pages". Why? This isn't a government-provided public service. It's a commercial product. Why should they direct traffic to your site for free? They, like everyone else, walk the line between providing an excellent product for customers and creating revenue for sha…

Worth noting that many times, the complaint is that the query is answered by an infobox... and the info in that box is provided by a website... and that website is the one complaining about a lack of clicks, because now people just use Google's scraped answers instead of actually visiting the site.

It seems valid to complain that Google is profiting off of a site while simultaneously harming that site's visibility.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#80

Post by dannyw »

delusional wrote: post #53
tytso wrote: post #25

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post. Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is…

I agree that others do the same, but the observation that vocabulary somewhat affects thought is still interesting. As an example, the sentence about "defensive rationale" didn't just reformulate the sentence, it completely changed the meaning. If people aren't allowed to talk about "crushing competition" they also can't think about it. If they can't think about it they also can't recognize it when it happens.

Trust me, every Google exec thinks hard about crushing competition. They just don't put it in writing.
Post reply on HN