
Rivals aim to document Facebook, Google strong-arming - lalmachado
https://www.axios.com/competitors-document-facebook-google-practices-antitrust-snap-c59039fa-6392-4848-a7da-92038c73e97a.html
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shartshooter
Let’s assume for a moment that Facebook and Google we’re clearly monopolies
that needed to be regulated. How would that work practically? Does the justice
department and federal courts have people capable of understanding the nuances
of some of these companies or are we going to end up with CEOs reminding
senators that iPhones aren’t made by google?

~~~
goatinaboat
Well, same as Standard Oil or Bell, break them up. Make Google sell off
YouTube, GMail, Google Cloud, Android etc and just be a search company again.
End all integrations between them to prevent further abuse.

~~~
tracer4201
And gmail, Google Cloud, and Android are different organizations in one
company. What’s the line? Having too many products? Do we break up other
companies too? I’m trying to tease apart the logic here that makes tech
companies a special case.

~~~
goatinaboat
What made Standard Oil a special case? A combination of its size _and its
behaviour_. Same with Ma Bell.

Specifically we need to prevent the river of cash Google gets from AdWords
being used to run its other businesses at a loss purely to stifle competition.
Maybe YouTube can stand on its own, maybe not. Maybe Google Cloud can, maybe
not.

~~~
tracer4201
You’re stating accusations as facts. How does Google Docs stifle competition?
How does YouTube stifle competition? Who is stopping you from creating another
YouTube?

Ma Bell literally had sole access or directly owned infrastructure and
therefore actually stifled competition. It’s unreasonable to assume someone
else could enter the market. I’m not seeing how that’s the case with Google.
Their ads business may very well be printing money, but stating they can’t
reinvest that to grow their business in other verticals or streams doesn’t
make sense.

I assume you’re arguing in good faith, but your post reads less like “Here’s a
company actually stifling competition and hurting consumers” and more like “I
don’t like tech is so successful. We should break them up.”

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gremlinsinc
Someone should make a documentation site that aggregates and ranks data
showcasing 'monopolozing/market-controlling' behavior that stifles
competition.. Like Spotify/Apple's issues.

Maybe have the offending company, company offended, estimated $$ lost as a
result of offending company's market control.

Then if you're a govt official you could filter by whoever you're looking into
at the moment, and if you click on apple:spotify for instance you'll get
aggregated reports/news articles about the two and their competitive battles.

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merricksb
Different article about same topic, discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21048093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21048093)

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MaupitiBlue
Snapchat - It’s a camera app, and it just makes sense to have the
functionality in FB. Sorry, don’t care.

AppNexus - An ad manager? Not sorry, don’t care.

VEVO - Big Music. Not sorry, don’t care.

I’m keeping an open mind about wether Google and Facebook need to be broken
up, but if these are the most egregious examples they could come up with, it’s
going nowhere.

~~~
tonytheliger
"I’m keeping an open mind about wether Google and Facebook need to be broken
up"

Haha I'm sorry, are you in charge of breaking up Google and Facebook, or are
you just someone commenting on news.ycombinator from a desk job?

~~~
dang
Could you please review the site guidelines and follow them when posting here?
We're looking for thoughtful, substantive comments in HN threads.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

