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Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

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Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#91

Post by ExtraE »

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…

I just tried this (firefox on iOS, new england). Google asked for my location and I said “no”.

TLDR: 2 ads, the rest organic.

Top-2 were ads, a maps widget, organic result, people also ask, 4 organic results, people also search for, images, 4 organic, 1 ad.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#92

Post by nitrogen »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #55
skybrian wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you’re getting at and there is certainly a lot of closed-mindedness going around. I don’t think any organization is immune to this. But there are also a lot of employees who have strongly opposed various Google policies and engaged in various political activity based on that, so the groupthink doesn’t seem to be working very well? Also, the company leaks like a sieve these days. Even before that, th…

Isn't continuing to work for a company that has policies you strongly oppose an example of successful groupthink? I suppose you could make a case for continuing if the policies are/have been/could realistically be changed. But if that's unlikely?

When a company is large enough[0], it's probably not unreasonable to start thinking of it as a municipality, or even a small country. There are probably people who live in my city who I wouldn't like, there are probably policies of my city I don't like, but I still live where I live.

Similarly, at a large enough company, if your work is good, but some other division of the company is bad, should you leave the company(city/country)? Or just avoid the bad division?

[0] Leaving aside the question of whether it's a good thing for companies to get that large.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#94

Post by jollybean »

gumby wrote: post #38
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.

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

I doubt that because it's probably illegal. Execs have to keep copies of things they write around.

EDIT: For those who are wondering, here is a quick summary [1].

Eric Schmidt's emails are definitely kept around a very long time, for very legal reasons, and whatever he happens to do with his own personal 'inbox' is not relevant to the subject at hand, and amounts to a kind of personal email/habit choice.

To suggest '72 hours' in response to a discussion about legal discovery etc. is basically misleading in that regard.

[1] https://www.spamtitan.com/web-filtering/email-retention-laws...

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#96

Post by ehsankia »

_2d30 wrote: post #79

It's hilarious to me that someone thinks this is about controlling thought and not a defensive legal maneuver.

It's also absurd to me how the answer to "how can folks with whom I generally respect have reached such a significant gap in thinking?" is basically "they must be brainwashed by their Communicating Safely training"... That's such terrible way of dismissing someone who has a different opinion than you.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#97

Post by amelius »

wccrawford wrote: post #61
greatgib wrote: post #52

I was a direct witness of such a brain washing case a few years ago. Google was about to release a new version of Android or of Nexus phones. (I don't remember the exact details) And there was an insider leak, so the details of the innovation were published on internet a few days before the official announcement. Leaks are now very common and often organized by companies, but a few years ago it was not yet the case.…

I've never even worked at Google, but if my team is working towards something and our announcement is pre-empted, yeah, I'm going to be upset. I would never wish anyone dead over it, but I would definitely be pissed at them. There's a lot of work that goes into those announcements. It's not just advertising the product that is the goal, it's presenting it their way. Similarly, when someone is telling a joke and someo…

As an engineer you should be focused on delivering objective value, not subjective value.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#98

Post by jeffbee »

toast0 wrote: post #68
greatgib wrote: post #52

I was a direct witness of such a brain washing case a few years ago. Google was about to release a new version of Android or of Nexus phones. (I don't remember the exact details) And there was an insider leak, so the details of the innovation were published on internet a few days before the official announcement. Leaks are now very common and often organized by companies, but a few years ago it was not yet the case.…

To some degree, having the work discussed is great. But depending on the way it leaked, it can diminish the focus on the product, and sometimes it can make the official release flop and that's not great. From what I hear, Google has/had a policy/culture of largely free information flow inside the company while not having information flow outside the company; a leak undermines that culture/policy and leads to more loc…

Yes, this happened at Google, in a huge way. Ten years ago you would hear interesting things at TGIF, the weekly informational company-wide event people would demo not-yet-launched software and hardware, discuss R&D, etc. After such a lot of cumulative leaks people stopped saying anything interesting at TGIF. You'd get information faster by reading the company press releases than by waiting for Friday.

It's not like the leakers did some kind of noble service, either. They were just assholes who destroyed something nice.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#99

Post by harryf »

Not directly related but I have a theory that Google has shaped public opinion online - and been very good at it- in a couple of instances when there was a risk to their business.

The first was net neutrality, where you found various think tanks doing stuff like YouTube explaining why it’s bad to lose net neutrality. Once I dug into who was funding one of those think tanks and it looked a lot like Google. Given the % of bandwidth that is people watching YouTube, Google had potentially some big bills coming their way with the loss of net neutrality.

The other one is Kevin Rudd in Australia taking on Rupert Murdoch while Google is at risk of having to share ad revenue on news with NewsCorp. I haven’t researched this much but the question is simply who’s funding Kevin Rudd to fight Murdoch.

Re: Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust

#100

Post by Animats »

The real issue is redefining the market. This is common in antitrust cases.

I could see an antitrust decision that forced Google to sell off the third-party ad, ad tracking, video streaming, email, messaging, and phone businesses, while retaining the search and search ad business. Then at least they couldn't use one monopoly to promote others.

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