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US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

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Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#871

Post by selfhoster »

stogot wrote: post #643
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal, but I wanted to give Edge a chance. I found out that it is quite possibly the most feature-creep rich browser on the market. Its sole purpose seems to be “let Microsoft monitor your entire browsing experience”. I also feel like Microsoft’s heavy handed dark patterns trick less computer savvy people into using it, and those people probably aren’t aware of how much info Microsoft is collecting about them. As…

Chrome has become that for google.

If you believe that, you are mistaken. If you're making the assertion on false pretenses, then it is tantamount to trolling.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#872

Post by magicalhippo »

selfhoster wrote: post #868
rafaelmn wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you started seeing browser embedded ads in Chrome ? It replacing competitor ads with it's own ? Rewriting referral links ? Pushing compromised extensions from "third parties" to siphon data they legally can't. Right now it's just there to cover Googles market position - it doesn't need to make a profit, if it had to make a profit and it couldn't do exclusive search default deal I guarantee you it will get ugly -…

What are you talking about? No, the answer is no, I haven't seen any of that.

But it's things a company could do to try to squeeze the lemon a bit more. Something which they have more incentive to so if they don't have a large, and fairly stable revenue stream from elsewhere.

After all there's a reason people here care about PiHole and such, because ISP's are doing such shenanigans. Or TV makers peeking at pixels so they can phone home to report on what you're watching.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#873

Post by selfhoster »

HaZeust wrote: post #294
cyanydeez wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is now a basic utility. Unless you don't believe in basic public goods, allowing equitable access to the utility benefits everyone, especially businesses.

Public goods are non-excludable (impossible to prevent anyone from using the good) and non-rivalrous (one person's use doesn't diminish the availability for others). Google doesn't match the criteria.

As a consumer, I agree with the parent comment and disagree with your comment. Google is closer to a public utility than any other tech company and most of their valuable services, we get to use for free and it benefits our whole family and probably the families of every home from here to the west, north, south and east of us, mostly all for FREE.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#874

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

yujzgzc wrote: post #844
casey2 wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More pressure than the max? Do you think they are going to start using your password hashes to mine bitcoin? Whatever Google stopped tracking they did because of regulation not out of user backlash or goodwill.

It's not the max yet. You could find yourself dealing with the same kind of dark pattern exploitation as you're dealing with in restaurant checkout experiences this day, around the preservation of your own data. I hope you have backups for yourself if you want to keep these docs and photos!

> You could find yourself dealing with the same kind of dark pattern exploitation as you're dealing with in restaurant checkout experiences this day, around the preservation of your own data.

When it comes to Google, we already find ourselves dealing with worse.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#875

Post by magicalhippo »

mrybczyn wrote: post #828
harrison_clarke wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i like an ad monopoly. it makes ads cost more

that's an interesting perspective. are expensive ads higher quality? but are they therefore pushed more to justify the cost? does the higher cost improve the information conveyed?

Not sure how it is these days, but back around y2k my buddy and I would hunt down Superbowl ads on the internet cause they were usually quite funny (and not aired here in Norway).

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#876

Post by Eridrus »

snielson wrote: post #168

The solution proposed by Kagi—separate the search index from the rest of Google—seems to make the most sense. Kagi explains it more here: https://blog.kagi.com/dawn-new-era-search

I feel like there's some conceptual drift going on in Kagi's blog post wrt their proposed remedy.

They argue that the search index is an essential facility, and per their link "The essential facilities doctrine attacks a form of exclusionary conduct by which an undertaking controls the conditions of access to an asset forming a ‘bottleneck’ for rivals to compete".

But unlike physical locations where bridges/ports can be built, the ability to crawl the internet is not excludable by Google.

They do argue that the web is not friendly to new crawlers, but what Kagi wants is not just the raw index itself, but also all the serving/ranking built on top of it so that they do not have to re-engineer it themselves.

It's also worth noting that Bing exists, and presumably has it's own index of the web and no evidence has been presented that the raw index content itself is the reason that Bing is not competitive.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#877

Post by [deleted] »

selfhoster wrote: post #869
lolinder wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consumer did pay the price. Google built on empire on making consumers believe they were getting things for free while selling other businesses a direct line to its customers' wallets. It's been a very effective sleight of hand operation, to the point where even relatively savvy people on HN seem to forget that advertising pays the bills by getting its targets to spend money they would not have otherwise spent. A…

> The consumer did pay the price. Google built on empire on making consumers believe they were getting things for free We are getting them for free. What a strange point to try to make.

[deleted]

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#878

Post by nothrabannosir »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #678
fergbrain wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “their other services widely available for free” None of their services are free. You just pay for them in other ways, even if you don’t realize it.

I think this is sort of missing the point: I’m happy to trade a bit of attention here and there for services because I’m just going to go without a lot of things if I have to pay real money for them. If we go to a model where every site charges for usage, I will start using fewer services regularly and will use each service for more things which seems a bit counterproductive in terms of monopolies.

You’re not actually paying with attention—attention isn’t money. Google’s customers are paying for your attention and you are paying for more expensive products. All of the money in Google’s pockets comes from their customers and we all end up eating that cost as participants in the global market sooner or later.

The whole “attention” thing is just a proxy.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#879

Post by selfhoster »

hu3 wrote: post #268
creato wrote: post #204

It's disappointing to see the historical revisionism in these threads. Say what you will about google now, but the idea that they just bought their way into X industry doesn't seem right. Until maybe 10 years ago, tech people almost universally loved Google's offerings and adopted them eagerly because they were good. I remember the mad scramble on various forums for a gmail invite. I remember when google maps came ab…

Meanwhile Apple, also sitting on infinite cash, is easily entertained by toying with regulators around the world and contributes back almost nothing in comparison to Google. Heck, they can't even be bothered to fund a single developer to help their hardware run Linux.

Agreed, between Google, Microsoft and Apple, Apple is the worst in not contributing jack back to the world. I can't stand how Microsoft was able to get to their status using evil means but at least the Microsoft of today does give back open and free (at least in beer) products. Google is the best of the three in this regard. Come to think of it, not sure where I'd place Amazon on that scale.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#880

Post by selfhoster »

Here is anticompetitive, I use Firefox on Ubuntu Linux and went to Apple maps site, here is what it says:

https://maps.apple.com/unsupported

"Your current browser isn't supported"

I thought OK, how many people use Firefox on Linux. So I went to their site in this browser, Chrome (most popular browser in the world on the most popular Linux Desktop OS, Ubuntu)...same error.

Every site I visit in Chrome (and Edge when I use it for the few sites I use it for) works on Linux.

Apple should be the target of breaking up. Why isn't Y Combinator and the U.S. going after them?

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