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Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

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Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#81

Post by travoc »

regnull wrote: post #76
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?

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.

Every company does this? I’ve worked at quite a few Fortune 500’s and never experienced this.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#82

Post by smhost »

regnull wrote: post #76
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?

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.

That's an indictment of every other company as well then. The point is about anti-competitive ideology. If "anything that can be used against the company" also includes anti-competitive thinking, then that's the conflict.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#83

Post by grecy »

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…

Which is hilarious, because I remember very clearly when McDonald's was crushing Burger King and the head of McDonald's said, on the record, "You know what you do when your competitors are drowning. ... step on their head".

I guess burger joints can't be monopolies.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#84

Post by Frost1x »

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…

But do the means justify the ends? Most people understand that unethical behavior or concerning actions to get a desired 'good' result isn't acceptable.

But the current approach is to mask the ends, the end goal may actually not be what we desire, e.g. corrupt monopolies leeching off society. But as long as we create approaches and incentive structures that get us to the same ends that are deemed acceptable, then it's just an "undesired side effect" we can handwave away, or so many managing businesses think.

Both the ends and the means matter.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#85

Post by bogwog »

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…

At what point does *market share* not become a KPI? At what point does market share become so irrelevant, that you stop tracking it altogether in your entire multibillion-dollar megacorp, and make your employees stop talking about it?

Answer: When you become a monopoly (or are on your way there), and need to hide from regulators. That's the point where the market becomes irrelevant, so tracking market share is nothing more than a liability.

The "improve life for customers" stuff is all fluff that you might read in a training manual alongside photos of happy employees playing ping pong at work.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#86

Post by pixl97 »

titzer wrote: post #32
skybrian wrote: post #8

This is about being careful what you put in writing, because the discovery process for lawsuits will find your carelessly written email and opposing lawyers will take it out of context, and do you want to end up in court years later explaining what you meant? Google has so many employees that they need training to limit the damage from random chatter and speculation. It’s more cumbersome to have to talk about some th…

They also have a corporate email policy where mails get auto-deleted after 18 months, unless you apply labels or are on a litigation hold (which would make such policy completely illegal). The email policy has no other purpose than to limit legal exposure. There is no legitimate business reason for that policy. In fact, it actively harms institutional memory and is frankly Orwellian, IMHO.

I disagree. If its part of the institutional memory it should be documented on an internal site and kept. Not stuck in an email format to disappear.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#87

Post by azalemeth »

AlbertCory wrote: post #46

I was in Google Ads from 2008-2010. At that time, there was a limit of 3 top ads and 8 right-hand-side ads. The top ads generated the vast bulk of the revenue. They were also in blue or yellow (I forget which, but one was WAY more lucrative than the other!) so it was very easy for the user to distinguish an ad from a search result. I just did the canonical $$$ search "flowers" on my Macbook. The entire first page was…

And, simultaneously, I've switched search engines to DDG (something I last did in the mid 1990s -- to Google!), and have multilayered network, browser, and hosts-file level adblocking. Such is the price of progress...

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#88

Post by bickeringyokel »

How large a market share does a company need to be a monopoly? Search seems like more of an oligopoly, is there a legal definition of market size for something to be a monopoly or is it more of a case by case thing?

I'd say youtube is probably the closest thing they have to a monopoly, but even then there's tiktok, ig/Facebook etc. Those probably count as video "creator" platforms.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#89

Post by titzer »

pixl97 wrote: post #86
titzer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have a corporate email policy where mails get auto-deleted after 18 months, unless you apply labels or are on a litigation hold (which would make such policy completely illegal). The email policy has no other purpose than to limit legal exposure. There is no legitimate business reason for that policy. In fact, it actively harms institutional memory and is frankly Orwellian, IMHO.

I disagree. If its part of the institutional memory it should be documented on an internal site and kept. Not stuck in an email format to disappear.

Personally, I often refer back to emails of what people sent me in order to have proper context, both technical, logistical, etc. Instructions on how to do things, how we debugged something or other, etc. That makes me more productive and useful as well as other people. If we gotta write every email over again and put it up on a wiki, that just won't happen.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#90

Post by jollybean »

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…

'Legal's job is much more about language than approach.

They will require you not to say 'crush competitors' because it would be used as evidence.

The issue 'make a better product vs. crush competitors' is usually a more of a strategic issue.

Edit: it's not illegal to want to 'crush competitors' FYI the issue is the language that would point in a particular direction. The evidence of my point is Google's existence - I would argue it participates in a number of anti-competitive practices for which it's very smart legal team has made sure the language they use doesn't support legal scrutiny.

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