11 ms·

Missouri Attorney General launches investigation of Google

126 points by elsewhen 9y ago

sounds 9y ago
In case you got a weird sense of deja vu, this is Missouri, not Mississippi. Mississippi's AG, Jim Hood vs Google: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-jim-hood-sues-google-again/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-j...
CobrastanJorji 9y ago
I haven't read Axios before, but I really appreciated that summary. I got the gist of what the lawsuit concerned and what the ulterior motive might be and there weren't 10 more unnecessary paragraphs with no real information padding it out. It's almost exactly the right amount of concise.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  A politician elected on a populist platform doing things to stand up for his people is an "ulterior motive"? To me, an ulterior motive would be getting elected on a populist platform, then taking actions to benefit his own commercial interests.
  - CobrastanJorji 9y ago
    Why does your definition of an "ulterior" motive require commercial benefit? Are you suggesting that, if this man had a secret reason for going after Google, and that reason was that it was part of his plan to boost his popularity and name recognition with local conservatives by shitting on "liberal" companies in order to boost his chances of winning a seat in the Senate, it would somehow not count as an "ulterior motive"? Mind you, I'm not saying that this is the case. Maybe he's just going after a big company for a good reason. But your suggestion that an ulterior motive could not even theoretical exist because he's not engaged in commerce seems ridiculous.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      I don't see anything in the currently-linked piece that speaks to an ulterior motive? Surely you're not just suspicious because he's a Missourian? Having served in public office for about ten months, Hawley has very little record as a public official. He was a law professor before running for this office. Trying to read the fact that he's a Republican as some sort of secret clue to his motives is foolish. I, for one, was delighted to be able to vote for an AG candidate who isn't a former prosecutor. Locking up hundreds or thousands of people for victimless fake crimes is toxic to one's soul, and usually we get a "choice" between two such corrupted sociopaths for this office. Time will tell if Hawley will be tempted down that awful path, but the fact that his first "big" initiative has nothing to do with taking revenge on pitiful unfortunates as a proxy for old people's frustration with the general direction of societal change is a good thing.
      - CobrastanJorji 9y ago
        Ah, sorry for the confusion, the suggestion of motive came from the original link, which was apparently changed after my comment from: https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-protection-probe-into-google-2509102675.html https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-... I agree that going after big companies is better than just being "tough on crime" and trying to get conviction numbers as high as possible regardless of harm. And I have no idea whether this particular charge is fair or not. I wouldn't normally read into his political leanings as automatically implying motive, but they're relevant here given that Hawley just announced his run for US Senate a few weeks ago and now has followed up on that by going after a company that is generally thought of as being on the Left.
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      My definition doesn’t require a commercial interest. It’s just amazing to me in an age where politicians are typically benefitting their or their crony’s commercial interests that a guy who is elected on a populist platform is accused of having an ulterior motive for defending the interests of the people as he promised, because that might cause his constituents to elect him to a different office and serve them further.
- beams_of_light 9y ago
  I'm very wary of Republican politicians doing anything like this. They're the primary enemies of Net Neutrality thanks to lobbyists, and the big telecoms that spend money lobbying them tried to drive a narrative that Google was "getting a free ride" on their networks. Combine those factors, and you can imagine a very simple diagram of telecoms applying legal pressure to Google via the politicians they've purchased.
dontnotice 9y ago
This is bizarre. It's also bizarre how the reporting on it doesn't mention how out of left field this is. Why Google? why Missouri? How come a republican is doing this? As for: The United States has lagged behind Europe in pursuing antitrust cases against tech giants This narrative is silly. The EU goes after "tech giants" partly because they are foreign, the US doesn't have that incentive.
- Erik816 9y ago
  The EU also has vastly different anti trust laws. There's no point pursuing some of the cases prosecuted in the EU in the US, because you would lose.
- mpweiher 9y ago
  Nah, the EU also goes after local champions, see for example the Vitamin case: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-01-1625_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-01-1625_en.htm It's just that the US has become extremely lax in its anti-trust stance.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - bduerst 9y ago
    That's from 16 years ago. To give context, that's six years before the treaty of Lisbon which defines the EU Commission today.
- Top19 9y ago
  Europe has a bad history with records misused to later pursue political enemies. The records the Germans used come to mind, but also things like the Staszi secret police in East Germany. Interestingly, a lot of stuff that just “works” in America is dangerous when exported abroad. This is a strange sociological concept I only encountered recently, but one example is that the American conception of “fame”, dating back to PT Barnum‘s days, was an impetus for fascism in America. So something that’s “culturally safe” in the US due to our history and institutions can be dangerous when exported abroad. For more information, check out the book “The Frenzy of Renown”. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679776303/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679776303/
ifij775 9y ago
I'm guessing someone in Missouri didn't get their political payoff this month.
thebiglebrewski 9y ago
Yay! I am happy about this. I feel as if there are a ton of monopolies and trusts today that stifle competition. Does anyone else feel similar?
- fishcolorbrick 9y ago
  I don't. I use a mix of Google services and non-Google services, and I've never had a hard time finding a good competitor for a Google tool.
  - CottageCarry 9y ago
    I'd love an actually decent competitor to Youtube.
    - rumblestrut 9y ago
      Vimeo?
      - kevinnk 9y ago
        Facebook and vid.me as well. And twitch for streaming.
      - Dirlewanger 9y ago
        Vimeo isn't, and doesn't want to be, a YouTube competitor.
    - savanaly 9y ago
      I mean, I want the improvement in quality that usually comes with competition, but I don't actually want there to be competition. Does anyone really relish the idea of having to search multiple sites for a given video because you don't know or can't remember which one it's on, and having to have an account and different set of uploader subscriptions for Youtube A, B and C? And remember where the subscribe button is on A vs. B and does C support changing video speed or not? etc. Just one platform is a massive, MASSIVE perk of the current system.
jgowdy 9y ago
Translation: We need money and we are watching the EU take incredible amounts of money in fines, and it occurred to someone “Why can’t we do that?!”
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  The EU doesn't fine to fund itself. Fines are not a good funding source.
  - dontnotice 9y ago
    They are a decent ancillary source. The EU has a fixed multi year budget, fines are one way they use to supplement it.
  - DanCarvajal 9y ago
    You obviously don't understand the state of public finance in Missouri. They haven't changed their income tax brackets since the 1930s. They recently constitutionally banned sales taxes from being applied to services which guts their future ability to broaden their overly narrow sales tax base. They've basically cut their taxes in all the wrong ways so that actually funding their state is increasingly a problem.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    Just look at where cops do traffic monitoring (aka speed traps). In Germany they are supposed to put speed traps in areas with a large amount of accidents caused by speeding, but many end up being placed simply where people casually speed in tiny amounts (e.g. 20 km/h too fast is 30€)... and a single trap can bring 15M € per year (http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.verkehrsueberwachung-a-8-blitzer-bringt-dem-land-rekordeinnahmen.b2b85819-b0dc-455b-9f7b-8c4ffb582681.html http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.verkehrsueberwa...). In total, speed traps in Germany are estimated to bring in billions of euros in revenue (https://www.welt.de/motor/article13877289/Das-Milliardengeschaeft-mit-den-Tempo-Blitzern.html https://www.welt.de/motor/article13877289/Das-Milliardengesc...). There are many agencies which can place speed traps and profit - federal, country, county and city cops, in addition to city personnel and sometimes even private companies. They are not a good funding source, but a very consistent one once you find the right spots to milk people.
grb423 9y ago
I wonder how long a search for "eminent scientists" will return a tidy photo strip of dead white men. This needs to be fixed.
11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
Missouri 2017 State Budget: $27 Billion [0] Google Net Profit Last 4 Qs: $63 Billion Google can literally fund the state of Missouri indefinately. How does Missouri make this a fair fight? [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/missouri/articles/2017-06-30/missouri-governor-signs-budget-cuts-250m-in-spending https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/missouri/articles/20...
- sp332 9y ago
  A monopoly on force?
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  How does Missouri make this a fair fight? The power of government. Missouri can definitely pay for quite a few attorneys (maybe do a tobacco litigation type deal) but the danger is that other states will join in. Having taken on Google can be quite a thing on your resume as you seek higher office...who will resist it?
  - bitmapbrother 9y ago
    Surely you mean the taxpayers of Missouri will be paying for a long and protracted legal battle. And once they find out the amount they paid to pad his resume they'll have a thing or two to say on how Missouri funds were used.
    - tryingagainbro 9y ago
      Always been like that. But personally I think Google should be investigated and stopped, smaller companies will again have a chance. I assume that they are safeguards: the governor might be able to intervene if an AG goes nuts, the courts etc etc.
dan1y 9y ago
And I was just lobbying Google Fiber employees about expanding fiber (or wireless) to my hometown, St. Joseph, which is near Kansas City.
sjg007 9y ago
Google is a target because of their strong relationship with Obama/Clinton/democrats. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-post-obama-era-aggressively-woos-republicans.html?mtrref=www.google.com https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-post...
- sctb 9y ago
  Whether or not that's true we need commenters to include substantive information when making such claims, otherwise we're just gonna have another tedious partisan flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- abiox 9y ago
  seems to me that google cultivates a relationship with whoever they see has influence. same as everyone.
sctb 9y ago
We've updated the URL from https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-protection-probe-into-google-2509102675.html https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-..., which points to this.
wnevets 9y ago
There are so many actual monopolies that seemly get ignored. Maybe google needs to buy I mean donate to more politicians.
- izacus 9y ago
  They should learn from Comcast, which manages to bribe government in banning their competiton :)
  - mcintyre1994 9y ago
    If you're talking AT&T/Time Warner, then consider Time Warner own CNN's parent company.. I doubt Comcast's bribes are necessary for the current government.
- Steko 9y ago
  Google is already one of the top spenders on lobbying, along with Comcast, Boeing and AT&T.
Qw3r7 9y ago
It's actually correctly pronounced Missouri. But it's nice to see our state in the news for a good purpose.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 9y ago
It seems like an easy way to generate some publicity for an Attorney General to sue Google. I watched with interest when the Mississippi AG did this (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-jim-hood-sues-google-again/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-j...). It always seems to go back to some sort of privacy and/or surfacing web data that someone else doesn't want surfaced. I don't know if there is an easy answer here.

126 points by elsewhen 9y ago

In case you got a weird sense of deja vu, this is Missouri, not Mississippi. Mississippi's AG, Jim Hood vs Google: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-jim-hood-sues-google-again/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-j...

CobrastanJorji 9y ago

I haven't read Axios before, but I really appreciated that summary. I got the gist of what the lawsuit concerned and what the ulterior motive might be and there weren't 10 more unnecessary paragraphs with no real information padding it out. It's almost exactly the right amount of concise.

CodeWriter23 9y ago
A politician elected on a populist platform doing things to stand up for his people is an "ulterior motive"? To me, an ulterior motive would be getting elected on a populist platform, then taking actions to benefit his own commercial interests.
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  Why does your definition of an "ulterior" motive require commercial benefit? Are you suggesting that, if this man had a secret reason for going after Google, and that reason was that it was part of his plan to boost his popularity and name recognition with local conservatives by shitting on "liberal" companies in order to boost his chances of winning a seat in the Senate, it would somehow not count as an "ulterior motive"? Mind you, I'm not saying that this is the case. Maybe he's just going after a big company for a good reason. But your suggestion that an ulterior motive could not even theoretical exist because he's not engaged in commerce seems ridiculous.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    I don't see anything in the currently-linked piece that speaks to an ulterior motive? Surely you're not just suspicious because he's a Missourian? Having served in public office for about ten months, Hawley has very little record as a public official. He was a law professor before running for this office. Trying to read the fact that he's a Republican as some sort of secret clue to his motives is foolish. I, for one, was delighted to be able to vote for an AG candidate who isn't a former prosecutor. Locking up hundreds or thousands of people for victimless fake crimes is toxic to one's soul, and usually we get a "choice" between two such corrupted sociopaths for this office. Time will tell if Hawley will be tempted down that awful path, but the fact that his first "big" initiative has nothing to do with taking revenge on pitiful unfortunates as a proxy for old people's frustration with the general direction of societal change is a good thing.
    - CobrastanJorji 9y ago
      Ah, sorry for the confusion, the suggestion of motive came from the original link, which was apparently changed after my comment from: https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-protection-probe-into-google-2509102675.html https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-... I agree that going after big companies is better than just being "tough on crime" and trying to get conviction numbers as high as possible regardless of harm. And I have no idea whether this particular charge is fair or not. I wouldn't normally read into his political leanings as automatically implying motive, but they're relevant here given that Hawley just announced his run for US Senate a few weeks ago and now has followed up on that by going after a company that is generally thought of as being on the Left.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    My definition doesn’t require a commercial interest. It’s just amazing to me in an age where politicians are typically benefitting their or their crony’s commercial interests that a guy who is elected on a populist platform is accused of having an ulterior motive for defending the interests of the people as he promised, because that might cause his constituents to elect him to a different office and serve them further.
beams_of_light 9y ago
I'm very wary of Republican politicians doing anything like this. They're the primary enemies of Net Neutrality thanks to lobbyists, and the big telecoms that spend money lobbying them tried to drive a narrative that Google was "getting a free ride" on their networks. Combine those factors, and you can imagine a very simple diagram of telecoms applying legal pressure to Google via the politicians they've purchased.

dontnotice 9y ago

This is bizarre. It's also bizarre how the reporting on it doesn't mention how out of left field this is. Why Google? why Missouri? How come a republican is doing this? As for: The United States has lagged behind Europe in pursuing antitrust cases against tech giants This narrative is silly. The EU goes after "tech giants" partly because they are foreign, the US doesn't have that incentive.

Erik816 9y ago
The EU also has vastly different anti trust laws. There's no point pursuing some of the cases prosecuted in the EU in the US, because you would lose.
mpweiher 9y ago
Nah, the EU also goes after local champions, see for example the Vitamin case: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-01-1625_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-01-1625_en.htm It's just that the US has become extremely lax in its anti-trust stance.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bduerst 9y ago
  That's from 16 years ago. To give context, that's six years before the treaty of Lisbon which defines the EU Commission today.
Top19 9y ago
Europe has a bad history with records misused to later pursue political enemies. The records the Germans used come to mind, but also things like the Staszi secret police in East Germany. Interestingly, a lot of stuff that just “works” in America is dangerous when exported abroad. This is a strange sociological concept I only encountered recently, but one example is that the American conception of “fame”, dating back to PT Barnum‘s days, was an impetus for fascism in America. So something that’s “culturally safe” in the US due to our history and institutions can be dangerous when exported abroad. For more information, check out the book “The Frenzy of Renown”. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679776303/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679776303/

ifij775 9y ago

I'm guessing someone in Missouri didn't get their political payoff this month.

thebiglebrewski 9y ago

Yay! I am happy about this. I feel as if there are a ton of monopolies and trusts today that stifle competition. Does anyone else feel similar?

fishcolorbrick 9y ago
I don't. I use a mix of Google services and non-Google services, and I've never had a hard time finding a good competitor for a Google tool.
- CottageCarry 9y ago
  I'd love an actually decent competitor to Youtube.
  - rumblestrut 9y ago
    Vimeo?
    - kevinnk 9y ago
      Facebook and vid.me as well. And twitch for streaming.
    - Dirlewanger 9y ago
      Vimeo isn't, and doesn't want to be, a YouTube competitor.
  - savanaly 9y ago
    I mean, I want the improvement in quality that usually comes with competition, but I don't actually want there to be competition. Does anyone really relish the idea of having to search multiple sites for a given video because you don't know or can't remember which one it's on, and having to have an account and different set of uploader subscriptions for Youtube A, B and C? And remember where the subscribe button is on A vs. B and does C support changing video speed or not? etc. Just one platform is a massive, MASSIVE perk of the current system.

jgowdy 9y ago

Translation: We need money and we are watching the EU take incredible amounts of money in fines, and it occurred to someone “Why can’t we do that?!”

FussyZeus 9y ago
The EU doesn't fine to fund itself. Fines are not a good funding source.
- dontnotice 9y ago
  They are a decent ancillary source. The EU has a fixed multi year budget, fines are one way they use to supplement it.
- DanCarvajal 9y ago
  You obviously don't understand the state of public finance in Missouri. They haven't changed their income tax brackets since the 1930s. They recently constitutionally banned sales taxes from being applied to services which guts their future ability to broaden their overly narrow sales tax base. They've basically cut their taxes in all the wrong ways so that actually funding their state is increasingly a problem.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  Just look at where cops do traffic monitoring (aka speed traps). In Germany they are supposed to put speed traps in areas with a large amount of accidents caused by speeding, but many end up being placed simply where people casually speed in tiny amounts (e.g. 20 km/h too fast is 30€)... and a single trap can bring 15M € per year (http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.verkehrsueberwachung-a-8-blitzer-bringt-dem-land-rekordeinnahmen.b2b85819-b0dc-455b-9f7b-8c4ffb582681.html http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.verkehrsueberwa...). In total, speed traps in Germany are estimated to bring in billions of euros in revenue (https://www.welt.de/motor/article13877289/Das-Milliardengeschaeft-mit-den-Tempo-Blitzern.html https://www.welt.de/motor/article13877289/Das-Milliardengesc...). There are many agencies which can place speed traps and profit - federal, country, county and city cops, in addition to city personnel and sometimes even private companies. They are not a good funding source, but a very consistent one once you find the right spots to milk people.

grb423 9y ago

I wonder how long a search for "eminent scientists" will return a tidy photo strip of dead white men. This needs to be fixed.

11thEarlOfMar 9y ago

Missouri 2017 State Budget: $27 Billion [0] Google Net Profit Last 4 Qs: $63 Billion Google can literally fund the state of Missouri indefinately. How does Missouri make this a fair fight? [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/missouri/articles/2017-06-30/missouri-governor-signs-budget-cuts-250m-in-spending https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/missouri/articles/20...

sp332 9y ago
A monopoly on force?
tryingagainbro 9y ago
How does Missouri make this a fair fight? The power of government. Missouri can definitely pay for quite a few attorneys (maybe do a tobacco litigation type deal) but the danger is that other states will join in. Having taken on Google can be quite a thing on your resume as you seek higher office...who will resist it?
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  Surely you mean the taxpayers of Missouri will be paying for a long and protracted legal battle. And once they find out the amount they paid to pad his resume they'll have a thing or two to say on how Missouri funds were used.
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
    Always been like that. But personally I think Google should be investigated and stopped, smaller companies will again have a chance. I assume that they are safeguards: the governor might be able to intervene if an AG goes nuts, the courts etc etc.

dan1y 9y ago

And I was just lobbying Google Fiber employees about expanding fiber (or wireless) to my hometown, St. Joseph, which is near Kansas City.

sjg007 9y ago

Google is a target because of their strong relationship with Obama/Clinton/democrats. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-post-obama-era-aggressively-woos-republicans.html?mtrref=www.google.com https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-post...

sctb 9y ago
Whether or not that's true we need commenters to include substantive information when making such claims, otherwise we're just gonna have another tedious partisan flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
abiox 9y ago
seems to me that google cultivates a relationship with whoever they see has influence. same as everyone.

sctb 9y ago

We've updated the URL from https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-protection-probe-into-google-2509102675.html https://www.axios.com/missouri-ag-starts-antitrust-consumer-..., which points to this.

wnevets 9y ago

There are so many actual monopolies that seemly get ignored. Maybe google needs to buy I mean donate to more politicians.

izacus 9y ago
They should learn from Comcast, which manages to bribe government in banning their competiton :)
- mcintyre1994 9y ago
  If you're talking AT&T/Time Warner, then consider Time Warner own CNN's parent company.. I doubt Comcast's bribes are necessary for the current government.
Steko 9y ago
Google is already one of the top spenders on lobbying, along with Comcast, Boeing and AT&T.

Qw3r7 9y ago

It's actually correctly pronounced Missouri. But it's nice to see our state in the news for a good purpose.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ChuckMcM 9y ago

It seems like an easy way to generate some publicity for an Attorney General to sue Google. I watched with interest when the Mississippi AG did this (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-jim-hood-sues-google-again/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/mississippi-ag-j...). It always seems to go back to some sort of privacy and/or surfacing web data that someone else doesn't want surfaced. I don't know if there is an easy answer here.