
A new round of antitrust questions can’t go well for Google - Jerry2
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-afraid-very-afraid-121312132.html
======
studentrob
Wouldn't it make more sense to break up broadband ISP monopolies first?
Google, Facebook, Amazon etc. cannot do business without ISPs. Plus, you can
always choose to just not use Google.

And no, I don't think the justice department can or will "do both". It's clear
this admin is anti-net neutrality, catering to Comcast's whims.

~~~
loudtieblahblah
I use ProtonMail , standard notes, etesync, duckduckgo, Firefox, tresorit,
wire/signal, lineageos on mobile and Linux on the desktop.

I still can't entirely opt out of Google.

And certainly can't opt out of their tracking.

They are inescapable.

~~~
Hydraulix989
I'm actually curious how Google is still tracking you with that entirely
Google-less stack? (note: I don't work for Google)

~~~
tedivm
The most obvious are Google Payments (from the merchant side), Google
Analytics, Google Ads (doubleclick). Then there's street view cars collecting
photos and wifi data, Google registry services siphoning up domain metadata,
and of course any information someone else enters about you- if they save
their contacts to google and it includes you, you're suddenly part of their
graph.

Then there's the direct cell phone tracking-

> Investigators who spoke with The New York Times said they had not sent
> geofence warrants to companies other than Google, and Apple said it did not
> have the ability to perform those searches. Google would not provide details
> on Sensorvault, but Aaron Edens, an intelligence analyst with the sheriff’s
> office in San Mateo County, Calif., who has examined data from hundreds of
> phones, said most Android devices and some iPhones he had seen had this data
> available from Google.

~~~
pvorb
Don't forget about GMail. Everytime you send a mail to somebody on GMail,
which might not be obvious with custom domains, your mail will be analyzed by
Google. And your email address serves as the perfect ID.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Google maps and Google mail are two apps that have no comparable privacy
focused competition at their price point.

------
sfifs
It will be interesting to see how prosecutors argue any anti trust case
against Google. In American case law, the doctrine of consumer welfare being
the objective of anti trust is pretty deeply enshrined in recent case law [1].
The philosophy essentially says that monopoly is not bad as long as consumers
benefit and increasing competition through anti trust actions can increase
consumer cost. This is very different from how anti trust works in most other
places in the world - so they will have the difficult task to prove consumer
harm

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox)

~~~
onion2k
Isn't the "consumer" in the case of Google advertisers rather than the public
at large? The question Google should be facing is whether or not businesses
can reasonably buy adverts to advertise on the web from someone else, and
whether forcing Google to break up would improve the situation.

~~~
Retric
Google is much further from an advertising monopoly than a search monopoly.

------
gravypod
How do investigations like these work (logistically)? Google is a massive,
multinational, multi-industry,
R&D/Software/Hardware/Logistics/Cloud/SaaS/Ads/everything platform. Google is
also one of the very few who can actually say they are hiring only "the best"
engineers (*by Google standards for Google's use case).

How would an entity run an investigation or audit against Google?

If I, or I'm assuming anyone who doesn't work in Google, was asked to come in
and develop a fundamental understanding of how everything works within
Google's software/infrastructure it would likely take me a long time to do
that and I'd likely need a lot of help from real Googlers. They are, of
course, the best of the best and I'm just some random SWE.

I'm assuming their business side is as complicated as their software must be
and I'm assuming their legal/business/executive team is as smart as their
engineers. How practical is it for an outside party to claim that they
actually understand what is happening within Google? How many people does that
take? How long does that take? Does Google need to provide support staff for
these people to aid them in understanding Google's internal business
structure?

Also, for audits like this is "understanding what is happening within
$company" a factor? If a company is so big that it can't see what it's
stepping on (crushing in an noncompetitive way) does it get a pass?

~~~
sjg007
The business side is easy: subpoena email, documents etc... Google has to
cooperate within reason. Then add in lawyers etc, all external communications
etc... They will run the discovery through analysis software which is pretty
standard plus whatever else the gov't has developed.

And the business is easy: Ads, ads, ads.. plus maybe Google Apps / Compute.
Using android unfairly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law)

~~~
x0x0
Also, if the feds open an antitrust investigation, the companies and people
damaged by google will proactively tell the feds where to look. So they don't
just have to go entirely hunting on their own; they have a pretty good notion
of where to start.

eg phone manufacturers will be upset about google not allowing them to produce
devices that compete with android and android devices; yelp and other sites
are upset google scrapes their content, etc.

~~~
sjg007
The only other mitigating scenario is that this may be politically motivated.
In fact it could be both real and political. It’s a warning shot to Facebook
who is arguably more important politically.

------
bediger4000
Honest question, I'm not trying to incite political discussions, but...

Can Google get out of this by sucking up to Trump? It appears that Trump is
susceptible to flattery, and he also appears to play favorites.

The other viewpoint might be: can Google get a fair trial in the US court
system? Trump has let the Federalist Society pick all the Federal judges he's
nominated, as near as I can tell. Some of them haven't been very knowledgeable
about the law. Or maybe, should the DoJ worry that its case won't get a very
fair hearing at trial?

My point is that we're living in interesting times. Assumptions commonly made
in the past just might not hold today, even in the US Court system.

~~~
britch
I think the tactic would work, but I don't think Google would want to use it.
IMO they'd burn through a lot of recruiting/culture credit pretty quickly if
they became too friendly with the Trump administration. Say what you will
about Google, they still have a reputation for hiring some of the best
engineers. I think a lot of that is off the back that many do not view them as
an "evil" company. Becoming very close with the Trump administration would be
good way of doing that. I don't think Google really wants to give up their
reputation, even if the cost is a monopoly investigation.

Being too buddy-buddy with conservatives has resulted in pushback for
Facebook[0] and Uber[1] (Apple[2] too, but a little less so).

Personally I believe that Google, Amazon, and Facebook( a little bit less so)
should all be broken up. When you look at Google and Amazon they have their
fingers in every pie, it's mind boggling.

I am more left than right, and I am very skeptical of what the Trump
administration would do about this. It feels like, with Facebook especially,
conservatives are not exactly mad that the companies are big. They are mad
that the companies are big and not entirely right-wing mouth pieces. There's a
lot of anger about "biased" Google results[3] and "censorship" from
Facebook[4].

If you look at the business landscape in US, most very large businesses are
culturally conservative. Most tech companies prefer to project a younger,
liberal image partially for recruiting reasons. I don't think the Trump
administration would be interested in pursuing this if Google looked and acted
a bit more like Procter and Gamble.

This seems like a winning position for Trump and a losing position for Google
no matter how it shakes out.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/technology/facebook-
kavan...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/technology/facebook-kavanaugh-
nomination-kaplan.html)

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/technology/uber-ceo-
travi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/technology/uber-ceo-travis-
kalanick-trump-advisory-council.html)

[2] [https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/3/8/18256467/ti...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/3/8/18256467/tim-apple-cook-donald-trump-ivanka)

[3] [https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-
sear...](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-search-for-
anti-conservative-bias-on-google)

[4]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/09/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/09/facebook-
newsfeed-censor-conservative-news)

~~~
v7p1Qbt1im
I pretty much agree. I big part of the reason why I personally like Google is
because they, or at least a majority of their employees is actively
progressive. Even if that’s just PR it’s still a nice counterweight to the
mountains of companies who are just completely neutral or conservative
culturally. At the same time, they and facebook facilitate the spread if right
wing extremist ideology to some extent.

------
RickJWagner
This is interesting to me because Google has the power to greatly influence
public opinion.

For me, it's not the business monopoly, it's the influence monopoly. And
that's very much worth regulating.

~~~
studentrob
I don't think they have any more influence than media conglomerates like
Comcast, who owns NBC, and who effectively turned the attention from net
neutrality to hatred of Facebook, Amazon, and Google. It is rather ridiculous
to argue that Google, who provides free services, is any more of a monopoly
than broadband ISPs.

~~~
dewey
If you look at adtech there’s really only Google and Facebook so it’d call
this very close to a monopoly. This is also not a free service so you are only
comparing a small subset of Google services which are mostly built to fuel the
ad part (Search and YouTube being the biggest one probably)

~~~
akarki15
> If you look at adtech there’s really only Google and Facebook so it’d call
> this very close to a monopoly.

Please look up the definition of monopoly before throwing the word. Earlier
part of your own sentence refutes the claim that google has a monopoly in ad.
Further numbers: [https://adage.com/article/digital/duopoly-loses-share-ad-
spe...](https://adage.com/article/digital/duopoly-loses-share-ad-spend/316692)

~~~
dewey
I‘m well aware of the textbook definition of a monopoly. Thanks for your
concern.

I said „close to a monopoly“ to refer to the big market share of either of
them, which is clearly the case as also written in your linked article.

------
sanguy
Needs to be split up but the problem is the advertising side needs all the
free services to harvest data to drive the ad business.

A split up google may not be a viable business.

~~~
perlgeek
Maybe you can't split ads from search, but you could totally split Google
Cloud | Search + Ads | Youtube | Maps -- and who knows what else google makes
profit with.

~~~
chiefofgxbxl
The effect on YouTube may be interesting and actually end up more beneficial.
They could still run ads based on the videos you are viewing, but maybe they'd
have to make up lost revenue by getting more people to pay for subscriptions
(e.g. YouTube Red). Those subscriptions would signal to YouTube which users
have expendable money (especially if it's a tiered pricing system), and what
channels and videos you as a paying customer actually value spending money on.
Some of that money could be used to increase payouts for content developers,
hopefully increasing quality and user retention, ultimately spurring a
positive cycle.

------
patient_zero
Financial opinion pieces are always a difficult read for me, as they always
seem slanted in favor of the company and against any hint of regulations n
such. This one seems to have a tone of "can google survive the big bad
regulators?" to it that makes me... tired.

Consider this excerpt:

    
    
        "In the U.S. and elsewhere, politicians from all party
     stripes have sought to attack Google or other tech giants for various perceived sins,including being too big for the
     good of industry and consumers. Being Google has meant dealing with perennial regulatory and political nightmares."
    

"sought to attack"... "perceived sins"... "Being google... has lead to
nightmares"

Is this language not considered to be pushing the reader's opinion in a
certain direction?

On a related note, I would like to postulate that monopolies are inherently
anti-consumer because they are anti competitive by design.

A monopoly as a rule breaks capitalism, which only works because of
competition. the fact that harm must be _proven_ somehow is a ridiculous
notion and too high a bar. The fact that this is even up for debate is wild on
its face and I just don't understand why we're here except for maybe we as a
country have a collective case of stockholm syndrome towards the market that
the government has shown it is unable to control.

Consider the other Google-related link on this very site. Google decided to
break adblocking, and because they are a monopoly they can do that.

This and other anti-trust laws we've slacked off on enforcing is how we've
gotten to the point where there are very few choices for the consumer in many
aspects of life here in the states.

~~~
dragonwriter
> On a related note, I would like to postulate that monopolies are inherently
> anti-consumer because they are anti competitive by design.

Monopolies are the fact of absence of competition by definition, but not
necessarily anti-competitive by design.

But the absence of competition in a market isn't always bad for consumers.

First, a market may not be a consumer market, and more importantly monopolies
may be bad for customers because they may improve the product that can be
offered. (Netflix acquiring competition had made each streaming services
worse, with smaller and less stable libraries and rising prices; it's been a
bonanza for _content owners_ , but not consumers.) One factor in why
monopolies can be better for consumers is that they tend also to be
monopsonies.

------
chvid
Why would the US ever breakup Google? This company is key to the American
surveillance of the rest of the world.

~~~
myko
The NSA could just as easily (probably more easily) hack smaller companies. It
isn't as if Google is giving the US government access to user data (except
when legally obligated through warrants) - the Prism program was essentially
spying on these companies without their knowledge.

~~~
chvid
NSA does not hack Google; it gets direct access through a series of secret
laws and courts. American citizens may have some protection against
surveillance but the rest of the world does not.

~~~
myko
<citation needed>

~~~
chvid
google prism

~~~
myko
Yeah, I have. That's what I was referring to. They didn't give the NSA a
firehose.

Check out Yonatan Zunger's comments from the time this came out:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/12/heres...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/12/heres-
everything-we-know-about-prism-to-date/?utm_term=.0444e63cf675)

You're acting like Google was complicit with the NSA capturing data without a
specific target - they weren't.

------
dredmorbius
Source:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-01/trump-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-01/trump-
antitrust-case-against-google-should-scare-tech-industry)

(Post currently points to Yahoo.)

~~~
dang
OK, changed from [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-afraid-very-
afraid-121...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-afraid-very-
afraid-121312132.html).

~~~
Jerry2
Hi dang! Problem with Bloomberg is that it's paywalled. Yahoo News is not.

~~~
dang
OK, we'll change it back. Thanks!

------
gesman
Normal, regular process of government[s] extracting extra tax dollars from
large enterprises in forms of penalties/fines for whatever violations.

This will ends when Google will pay up and promise to do some [cosmetic]
changes.

~~~
devoply
Yeah it did nothing to Microsoft. Business as usual.

~~~
RyJones
Strong disagree. I was at Microsoft post-conviction, and nobody wanted to put
anything in writing.

~~~
furgooswft13
They were ordered to be broken up, a la AT&T and Standard Oil. When that
decision got neutered, it was indeed business as usual.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
No. They didn't get broken up. But they stopped a number of anti-competitive
behaviors for a decade or more. It definitely was not "business as usual",
either in internal attitude (from what I've heard) or in external behavior
(from what I observed).

