
U.S. Google antitrust case set to expand with GOP states joining - aspenmayer
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-12/u-s-google-antitrust-case-set-to-expand-with-gop-states-joining
======
kinkrtyavimoodh
I don't get why people are so comfortable with the idea of politicians wearing
their dislike of certain corporations on their sleeve, such as Senator Warren
seems to do for Google.

Anti-trust regulations are not supposed to be used as generic legal cudgels
against corporations you don't like. They are supposed to be, you know, for
making sure that the market remains sane.

Right now, it almost feels like "We don't like Google, and we gotta throw the
book at them so that at least some page sticks". This attitude is akin to
selectively weaponizing the law. Kinda like the landlord finding a reason to
evict you so he combs through the lease agreement and finds a clause that your
curtains need to be white but you actually have pale yellow ones. Sure, you
are technically in violation of the lease, but it's very clear why this is
being done, and the curtains have little to do with it.

And it explains why, for example, no one cares about Comcast or the fact that
a handful of payment processors basically run their personal fiefdoms about
who or what they will allow on their platform, while we are asked to be over-
worried by vague claims of 'Russian tampering'.

Application of these regulations should again focus on the actual harms rather
than getting some kind of cruel pleasure 'destroying' companies. The
government has a lot of power, and often for good reason, but that power can
only be respected when it is wielded dispassionately, not to settle personal
scores.

~~~
klmadfejno
> I don't get why people are so comfortable with the idea of politicians
> wearing their dislike of certain corporations on their sleeve, such as
> Senator Warren seems to do for Google.

You're talking about elected officials. Transparency of beliefs is exactly
what you should want. That's the entire point.

> Right now, it almost feels like "We don't like Google, and we gotta throw
> the book at them so that at least some page sticks". This attitude is akin
> to selectively weaponizing the law.

Senator Warren is a lawmaker. She makes the laws. Throwing the book is the job
of the executive or judicial branch. Hopefully Senator Warren has a good
reason to justify her beliefs that the people agree with, but if she believes
Google is bad for society in specific ways, it is literally her job to create
laws that make it more difficult from them to do that. This article is about
the justice department doing things and Senator Warren is mentioned as
encouraging them to move faster as an aside.

> it explains why, for example, no one cares about Comcast

Senator Warren does. [https://thegrio.com/2019/12/20/elizabeth-warren-blasts-
comca...](https://thegrio.com/2019/12/20/elizabeth-warren-blasts-comcast-for-
threatening-civil-rights-in-byron-allen-lawsuit/)

I don't have any particular thoughts on Warren. But I do think large tech
companies wield too much power and should be broken up to reduce this power. I
would vote for lawmakers who felt similarly. That's about it. I'd be down for
a political platform that is exclusively just wanting to reduce the influence
of a handful of specific companies.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
But she's not making new laws here. She's declaring that they're breaking old
laws that already exist - and a huge portion of the public case she's
presenting is "well, I don't like how they're using their power". It's like
seeing a DA indict a guy for murder, and then deliver a bunch of press
conferences about how he's a greedy businessman who'll no longer be able to
get away with overcharging the public for poor quality services.

~~~
R0b0t1
The example you gave is disingenuous. The reasons to not like Google go hand
in hand with their position as a monopoly or member of an oligopoly.

------
gregorythecat
Google et al are no saints. However, I can’t help but feel like all this
misdirection and grandstanding is the establishment’s territorial reaction
against the rise of another powerful opponent.

Whoever wins we lose.

~~~
mhh__
A lot of this is basically just the republican establishment pissing into the
unknown. They don't understand the scale at which google operates - the people
at the committee Google's CEO testified at seem to think liberals with dyed
hair get to go through and manage every single search result one byone.

Trump would not have won without social media, for example. The republican
party didn't even ratify any policy at their convention, just sweating
allegiance to the man - that is the position they base their actions from.

This isn't an establishment thing as much as an explicitly partisan play by
part of the establishment.

~~~
salawat
Given the other side of the aisle's behavior, the Republican party doesn't
_have_ to. They just have to point at looting, riots, unmanageable fires,
monument and cultural destruction, things cancel culture, etc... and say "Say
what you want about how we do things, but that isn't us."

And the sad thing is, it isn't right, it _shouldn 't_ work. It shouldn't be
convincing. It shouldn't be reasonable. They should have to fight to
articulate, react to, uphold, and reify the values of the public at large.
They should have to claw and change, evolve, and do something. In this year
though, it's laughable. I can't take any political party in the United States
seriously given the repeated failures at generating reasonable candidates.

The fact we have the fundamental dysfunctional logic that we have to put up
with the big two National conventions candidates because the anything else is
a wash just demonstrates how broken the system has become, and why the
Founders were wary of the social construct and institution in the first place!

~~~
gamblor956
The lootingv and riots are mostly far right nutjobs trying to create the
appearance of chaos.

The fires are occurring in largely Republican areas of the west, on federal
land mismanaged by a republican administration. And cancel culture is worse on
the right side of the aisle than it is on the left, see e.g., what has
happened to every former Trump ally.

------
ABCLAW
Wow a lot of comments in the theme of 'but what about this OTHER company
acting anticompetitively'.

Okay, so let's bring action against them too. The answer isn't to ignore all
of them.

~~~
izacus
The gist of it is that those other corporations cowtowed to the administration
and could then got away with scummy antitrust behaviour. There doesn't seem to
be any cases on the horizon for any of the others.

That's the problem - some people would consider that corruption.

~~~
ABCLAW
"The gist of it is that those other corporations cowtowed to the
administration and could then got away with scummy antitrust behaviour"

I think the reality is simpler; antitrust enforcement in the states is
laughable and historically has been more the exception than the rule. Even the
golden age of robber baron breakups was a historical anomaly due to a freak
accident.

Having worked on a ton of competition filings, I can tell you that this isn't
an administration specific issue; competition law itself has been defanged by
a history of refusal to enforce.

------
disposable20202
Ok interesting-- after this do

Experian, Equifax, etc

Coal mining and other swine industries that are politically connected and
valuable. Of all the bad actors in the world, this seems like a funny
prioritization but we live in dumb times

Another self-inflicted wound in our economy

~~~
woofie11
Experian: 34.63 billion market cap

Google: 1.024 trillion market cap

Experian is also really evil, but it's not obvious to me how they're
anticompetitive.

------
strbean
Everyone loves to saber rattle about FAANG and antitrust, while we all sit
back and let Charter and Comcast make contracts to not compete with
eachother[0], we rapidly head towards having one major national bank[1] and
somehow the big 4 always seem to spontaneously engage in the same bad
behaviors, and Ma Bell has much been re-assembled to it's original state[2].

We desperately need a new trust buster president.

[0]: [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/05/comca...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/05/comcast-and-charter-agree-not-to-compete-against-each-
other-in-wireless/)

[1]: [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-banking-oligopoly-in-
on...](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-banking-oligopoly-in-one-chart/)

[2]: [https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-
warner...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner-
merger-breakup-bell-system-chart)

~~~
fred_is_fred
Ma Bell being reassembled is orders of magnitude less problematic than it
would have been in the 1980s. Back when you only had 1 choice for local phone
(no cell phones) and long distance calls were a quarter a minute (or more). I
haven't made a normal phone call in years and have decent cell options. If I
wanted a local phone I could use VOIP or get a real line (via centurylink).

------
m0zg
Why aren't "blue" states going after Google, that's the real question. It's as
though they might prefer Google to be an insurmountable monopoly with total
control of web search or something.

Google doesn't know it yet, BTW, but it will benefit from increased
competition, just like Microsoft did. I was at MS when Google became a force
to reckon with, and we used to joke that if Google did not exist, MS would
just consist entirely of sales people, lawyers, and managers of all sorts. It
was not uncommon at the time to have 1:1 program manager (aka people who
mostly just sit in meetings and report "status" to each other) to dev ratio in
teams. This is _excluding_ people managers. With competition in place you have
to actually hire people who can do the work, and pay them well so that
competition doesn't hire them away from you.

Google's org hierarchy when I left a few years ago was already 2 levels deeper
than Microsoft's in late 00s, so I'd argue it's well on its way there. It's an
inevitable consequence of not having to compete. You grow a massive amount of
counterproductive barnacles.

------
actuator
That Elizabeth Warren tweet mentioned in the article stands out to me. She has
spoken about breaking up big tech in her campaign as well.

While I completely agree with regulation ensuring fairer competition; as we
are seeing how much abuse total control over a computing platform can lead to
in Apple vs Epic case, is breaking them up the right way?

R&D is costly, and these companies spend a lot on it which is the reason US is
still the leader in a lot of tech areas. The ability to spend that much just
comes from their size. Breaking up companies might lead to inability of
companies to go for moonshots and invest in cutting edge stuff. With China
catching up and it being unlikely of them to restrict their companies this
way, will it reduce competitiveness?

~~~
andrewjl
Why should consumers subsidize R&D by a company with no accountability to them
what so ever?

US is the leader in many tech areas due to free market competition as well as
defense spending, not Google's R&D. Google is also happy to sell their R&D to
China, but then somehow finds it uncomfortable to transact with the DoD.

Hard to make case Google is a net positive for the US with a straight face.

~~~
actuator
They shouldn't, the accountability should come with regulation ensuring fair
competition and respect for user data, not just going ahead and reducing
competitiveness of US companies by breaking them up.

I will be really surprised if Google sold their R&D to China, as it makes no
sense whatsoever, but my comment was in general about all US big tech
companies.

~~~
MiroF
> the accountability should come with regulation ensuring fair competition and
> respect for user data

Yes, so what we're saying is there's clear evidence that they have failed at
adhering to those regulation, so should be broken up.

> not just going ahead and reducing competitiveness of US companies by
> breaking them up.

Siri, define competition.

~~~
actuator
> there's clear evidence that they have failed at adhering to those
> regulation, so should be broken up.

If there is clear evidence of them breaking existing regulation, then I am all
for taking action. If the existing regulations are insufficient, I am all for
introducing new ones as in the case of App Store debate.

> Siri, define competition.

I meant competitiveness in terms of R&D by cutting their cash flows.

~~~
MiroF
> If there is clear evidence of them breaking existing regulation, then I am
> all for taking action.

Cool, so that is why they are taking Alphabet to court, because of alleged
anti-trust violations. If the court determines there is clear evidence of them
breaking existing regulation, then Alphabet might be broken up.

Glad we agree that we ought to enforce our anti-trust laws.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/12VZ4](https://archive.is/12VZ4)

