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Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

dispatch.com

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Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#701

Post by o8r3oFTZPE »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

What if Google did not develop flight search but acquired it by buying someone out. What if they did not develop image search but acquired it by buying someone out. What if they did not develop the good-looking timer but copied it from someone else.

If Google was 100% responsible for developing everything they offer to consumers, then perhaps there is an argument that Google is good for consumers. However the truth is that Google Search is what they developed, it became the only search engine that most people use, and being a gateway tot he web and having the ability to spy on the world's web use is an unfair advantage that virtually no one else has.

Anything that becomes popular Google can gobble it up. Consumers cannot get superior direct benefits from non-Google companies for long. Google will acquire any such companies sooner than later.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#702

Post by Mauricebranagh »

ganzuul wrote: post #678
count wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crucially, I went to Googles business first to look for things . In the olden days, if I went to AAA for travel advice, I'd get their partners and such recommended, not generic all-encompassing information. But I went to AAA for it . I don' see how this is any different. I can chose to go to not-google and Google then doesn't impact me. Does Walmart have to put anybody's stuff where they want in the aisles?

> Does Walmart have to put anybody's stuff where they want in the aisles? That could be an incredible boon to the ecoconomy. As a younger man I gave up on the idea of making simple consumer products on realizing that the large supermarket chains around here could dash my work on the rocks by just a middle manager arbitrarily saying 'no' to stocking what I had made. So yes, I think those companies should be forced to…

No you have to bribe them :-)

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#703

Post by Mauricebranagh »

chipsambos wrote: post #619
rgbrenner wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google could take over almost any business like this. That didn't happen to travel companies. Google added flights, but Booking Holdings (aka Priceline) continued to grow each year to 15B in revenue for 2019. (Huge drop for 2020 obviously.) If I type " weather" google will show me the weather, but which weather company has shutdown because of that? Google news is in the search results, but there are a lot of news com…

Some within the industry have been making noise that Google is quietly and slowly taking control of the whole trip funnel. Interesting read: https://www.cartrawler.com/ct/digital-disruption/googles-ste... I'd agree that providers are ceding too much control to Google for short-term wins, maybe without even realising the power they're handing over to Google. Google is quietly inserting themselves between the customer…

The hotel /travel industry is probably the worst complainant as those industry's do a lot of sketchy stuff.

As does the insurance industry ever wonder why the UK insurance industry went all in on cuddly mascots - one factor was googles clamp down on black hat techniques simples

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#704

Post by thebeardisred »

o8r3oFTZPE wrote: post #701
amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

What if Google did not develop flight search but acquired it by buying someone out. What if they did not develop image search but acquired it by buying someone out. What if they did not develop the good-looking timer but copied it from someone else. If Google was 100% responsible for developing everything they offer to consumers, then perhaps there is an argument that Google is good for consumers. However the truth i…

I'm not quite following if this is sarcastic or not. For example, Google did acquire flight search: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#705

Post by hellotomyrars »

I fail to see how it is possible to present a good faith argument about how Google is a public utility when the required infrastructure that Google is built on is not.

If ISPs aren’t a utility then Google can’t be. I also don’t think this is being pursued in good faith which is the sadder part.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#706

Post by ehsankia »

ehsankia wrote: post #577
amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

> When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin's skyline, before you see links to other image search sites. What's next, should they also show Bing and DuckDuckGo search results when you search for an arbitrary query too? The goal of Google isn't to link you to websites, it's to get you to your information as quickly as possible. Said information could be a website, just as it can be an image, a…

Their motto is making the world's information accessible, not making the world's website accessible.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#707

Post by muyuu »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #688
muyuu wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American but I find it worrisome that some of the largest companies in the US (and the world) are so "obviously" partisan and willing to exert their power in a partisan fashion, as people accept this reality uncritically - whether it's in favour of their allegiances or not. That's what a dangerously broken society looks like. The common folk should never be openly supportive of "robber baron"-style political…

Well, what is "obvious" is under dispute too. It is not "obvious" to me that for instance Google is particularly partisan. Most big companies donate to both USA parties in large quantities, because they know they need to buy the politicians whoever is in power. I haven't looked it up, but I assume Google is similar in it's lobbying. The largest companies are almost always mostly looking out for their own profits, and…

what is unprecedented is that a faction of the populace openly support the barons because they think they're doing their bidding

it's a very dangerous game

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#708

Post by antifa »

ksec wrote: post #583
fraserharris wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research in Motion thought the Blackberry keyboard was their killer feature for business professionals. They were wrong. The iPhone killed Blackberry, not Android.

I tend to think it was Blackberry killed Blackberry, not Android or iPhone. Not willing to change and adapt is the recipe for disaster in tech industry. I am not aware of any other industry that moves as fast and at such scale where the whole industry shift.

I remember back in the day, I saw what android was about to do to the market, the writing was on the wall for palm and blackberry. My only thought was that it would be nice if blackberry rebased itself as a business+security focused flavor of Android devices. Sad to say, I've almost never seen a blackberry since.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#709

Post by giantrobot »

ksec wrote: post #583
fraserharris wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research in Motion thought the Blackberry keyboard was their killer feature for business professionals. They were wrong. The iPhone killed Blackberry, not Android.

I tend to think it was Blackberry killed Blackberry, not Android or iPhone. Not willing to change and adapt is the recipe for disaster in tech industry. I am not aware of any other industry that moves as fast and at such scale where the whole industry shift.

RIM definitely killed RIM. The sad result of decades of computer/phone market reports using "market share" leads to people misunderstanding "installed base". As the iPhone and Android took off BlackBerry's market share dropped. As in their share of the total smartphone market sales per quarter dropped. Their unit sales (at first) didn't drop much. The installed base of Blackberries also didn't drop (at first).

Android and iPhone initially ate into the unit sales of feature phones. RIM had pathetic consumer offerings. I replaced a Pearl (8100) with the first iPhone with iOS 1.0. For all the issues that combination had it was a far far better phone than my BlackBerry.

RIM didn't understand the consumer phone market at all, and frankly neither did other smartphone vendors outside Apple and Google. RIM assumed their Enterprise moat (Exchange integration, BES, etc) and a fucking hardware keyboard was enough to halt R&D and just sit on their hands. Meanwhile Apple and Google added Exchange support to their existing (ok but not great) POP/IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV support, good app stores for third party software, and maintained their vastly superior web browsing capabilities. Their software keyboards also improved significantly with just better keypress accuracy and better predictive type.

So Apple and Google killed feature phones and then got the features people wanted/needed for Enterprise sales. They were already good enough for a majority of "business" uses since a lot of SMB users of Palms, WinMo, and BlackBerries used zero "Enterprise" features. They needed e-mail and SMS which feature phones didn't support and iPhone and Android had from the outset.

So Apple and Google crossed RIM's moat and RIM had nothing to offer as competition. Everything about BlackBerries was firmly fixed in 2005. This was 2010/11 and iPhones and Androids were the state of the art. Instead of trying to meaningfully compete RIM doubled down on the 2005 phones.

No one should feel any pity for them. Their management seemed trapped in some sort of "we'll just MBA our way out of this" fantasy land.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#710

Post by asddubs »

jpitz wrote: post #674
asddubs wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because it's remotely updateable, and an analogue meter cannot measure apparent power (when the power returns to the grid the wheel would spin in the other direction)

Remote updating doesn't provide apparent power measurement, a power measurement chip does - this does require an upgraded meter, yes, but does not necessitate a smart one, although the economics of upgrading a fleet of meters probably dictates that they be smart meters for other reasons.

yes, but my point is that being remotely updateable means you can switch over to charging for apparent power remotely (which smart meters can already measure)
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