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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

#731

Post by d3VwsX »

edg5000 wrote: post #579
baby_souffle wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you sure? Google has a search and location data, Google email is on one side if not both of most email chains, receipts, etc. Absolutely not discounting all of that; there are some pretty strong parallels between the data you can infer on a person based on their gmail graph versus their fb messenger graph, for example. Meta has a lot more "self-revealed-preference" data, though. Which of $thesePosts did you eng…

WhatsApp is huge in the EU, we don't really text much here; I'm guessing you are from the US. Meta has full access to that.

Depends on what part of EU you are in. From older HN threads I learned that in some countries people still pay for sending text messages, so I guess that makes it more likely that some app can become popular there.

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

#732

Post by anon291 »

mulmen wrote: post #345
anon291 wrote: post #206

I wish that instead of wasting time on antitrust cases, that the government would just directly fund competition by incentivizing it. I.e, the first company to reach x% browser market share will receive $x million (billion?) in prize money or, the first company to build an LLM-based search engine with x% market share will receive $n million Or structure as a direct investment or heavy tax breaks. Always better to inc…

How does cementing early leaders benefit consumers? This seems like the opposite of what the government should be doing to incentivize competition and innovation.

Doesn't cement early leaders at all, since, the moment you win the prize, there's another one immediately offered for the guy to beat you.

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

#733

Post by Ajedi32 »

cogman10 wrote: post #84
Arainach wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Because there were other ways to handle the ad blocker situation. For example, allowing the users to grant access to an extension. The hard protocol ban is heavy handed.

If the only options are "full access to everything" or "no access at all" then users are going to pick the former every time, because there's no alternative. And worse, they'll get used to extensions requiring "full access to everything" and become more likely to approve that permission even for malicious extensions. That's essentially the situation for lots of extensions prior to manifest v3 (and arguably post-v3 too, but it's a step in the right direction).

Fine-grained permissions are a good thing, even though they do unfortunately make things more challenging for developers.

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

#734

Post by tightbookkeeper »

relistan wrote: post #639
tightbookkeeper wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a complicated chain of cause and effect to claim so casually.

Feel free to read up on it. Start with the histories of MCI and Sprint, then NSFNet, etc

I don’t need to know all of those histories are filled with debate and nuance and it’s not clear what would have happened in a counterfactual.

You’re repeating someones posthoc thesis as obvious fact.

It’s probably a good point to share. Let’s just have a little more skepticism and openness to other analysis.

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

#735

Post by causal »

ksenzee wrote: post #147
richwater wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> results in a materially worse world. Please explain how Google has created a materially worse world

The choices are not “Google as it currently exists” vs “a world without Google,” but rather “Google as it currently exists” and “Google as subject to stricter regulation.” There’s a fair case to be made that the world is worse than it would have been if the US had kept a tighter rein on Google.

Yeah, so little imagination in these pro-Google comments. They're imagining a world without Google instead of a world where ten Googles are all competing with one another.

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

#736

Post by maccard »

jmb99 wrote: post #606
maccard wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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

I could have asked the same thing about a weapon of mass destruction 80 years ago. I don't have an answer for how we can use those things in ways to better society. But I'm not convinced that there are _none_.

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

#737

Post by youngtaff »

kelnos wrote: post #599
ineedasername wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google will let you target on the following. Especially by combining criteria you can narrow things down to very small specific groups of people. If a person in that campaign then clicms and enters a name and email I have a better profile on them as a person than many of their neighbors. Demographics: Target users based on age, gender, parental status, household income, and more Interests: Target people based on thei…

Not sure what point you're trying to make, though: you buy ad placement from Google, not data about people. Sure, you can make the inference that people who visit your site via a Google ad fall into one of the categories you've targeted (though you won't know which one, unless you've only chosen one), but that's it.

Depends… if you run an ad server then you can get some information on who sees the ads

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

#738

Post by [deleted] »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #725
mossTechnician wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, no third party is entitled to loading resources on my computer or displaying content on my screen without my permission.

So the people who view the ads and make it possible for you to load just the content are suckers for doing so?

[deleted]

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

#739

Post by BurningFrog »

idle_zealot wrote: post #567
BurningFrog wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll try to explain to the young people how bad things used to be. Google ads was (and is) incredibly good for niche companies, since it makes it possible to advertise to people who are interested in your product instead of the general public. So if you sell Warhammer paraphernalia, you can buy ads to be shown only to people who have searched for Warhammer related words, rather than "everyone in Wisconsin". This lowe…

> if you sell Warhammer paraphernalia, you can buy ads to be shown only to people who have searched for Warhammer related words, rather than "everyone in Wisconsin". Tracking people and shoving your wares in their faces is not the only way to reach interested parties. You could go to a Warhammer convention, join a Warhammer forum and offer to send members samples, or just post images of your stuff in a sharing thread…

You're making a theoretical argument about how things could work.

I'm telling you what actually happened in the real world.

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

#740

Post by jmb99 »

maccard wrote: post #736
jmb99 wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> What is the possible societal-positive outcome of another social media filter? Or improved ad targeting algorithm? Or more attention-grabbing social media feed? I could have asked the same thing about a weapon of mass destruction 80 years ago. I don't have an answer for how we can use those things in ways to better society. But I'm not convinced that there are _none_.

It was well known even to the general public in the 1940s that the mechanism behind the nuclear bomb could generate vast amounts of cheap energy. It was known by nuclear scientists in the late 1930s that massive amounts of energy were released upon nuclear decay, and that chain reactions were possible, but that harvesting the energy for power generation would take some time.

I don’t believe there is anyone in the general public or who is an expert in any of the aforementioned fields (which have been around for 1-3 decades) that truly believes they are net positives.

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