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How do investigations like these work (logistically)? Google is a massive, multinational, multi-industry, R&D/Software/Hardware/Logistics/Cloud/SaaS/Ads/everyth

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?

tzakrajs 7y ago
I am curious why you think Google, given its spurious record with privacy, security and labor, that it would have the best engineers? Not to mention engineers in the valley often lambast Google for sun setting every decent platform that engineers care about.
- gravypod 7y ago
  Everyone makes mistakes, few people make multi-billion dollar companies that shape the industry they occupy.
  - salawat 7y ago
    Few companies shape their industry as drastically as Google does. Hence the Anti-Trust probe. Nobody is that good, sadly. Every time someone has looked to be that good historically, it was because they were engaging in anti-competitive practices, and needed to be broken up.
    - salawat 7y ago
      This isn't hard to look up. MaBell, Standard Oil. It's a pretty consistent pattern. We've been pretty hands off on the trust busting simce the MaBell breakup, and the impetus to do anything about Google or Facebook has been rather low, since there hadn't been any glaringly obvious downsides to letting them do their thing. However, given certain waves that Big Tech has started to make; Oracle v. Google, making ad blocking in the major dominant browser contingent upon subscription, Cambridge Analytics, perceived political bias and activism by Dr-platforming, tech has not only made it painfully obvious the danger posed by massive stores of unbridled data collection, but that having platforms all economically centralized under a small number of stakeholders is a danger to the continued stability of "the System". It's one of those wisdom of the masses sort of things. Awareness and sentiment forming seems to have finally hit the tipping point at which enough people are onboard for something to be done about it all. Interesting times ahead.
wangii 7y ago
good point, and it's exactly a strong point why it should be investigated. given what you said, it's not difficult to conclude there is no one in the world actually understand google's business, and/or engineering, including googlers. therefore, who is going to be hold accountable, which person we need to push if anything goes horribly wrong? Google, facebook and amazon have been way too powerful financially, technologically, politically and culturally. install armies they will be superpowers. it's better to do something before it's too late.
- jdc 7y ago
  > Google, facebook and amazon have been way too powerful financially, technologically, politically and culturally. Seems true, but also too vague. Is because we can't trust a profit-motivated organization with that much influence? Is it because they (FAANG) came by it dishonestly? Are they abusing that power? Are they unique in that regard? Or is it because "anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things"?
  - wangii 7y ago
    I'm not that old :) why do you think checks and balances only apply to politics? power corrupts, and not necessarily only political ones. I'd say any power corrupts, e.g. in marriage, one side gains significant upper hand and he/she has a decent chance to abuse the position.
    - jdc 7y ago
      I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, but also interested in a potential de-FAANGing law or executive order not setting a dangerous precedent for arbitrary redistribution of power in the future.
soup10 7y ago
Why are you putting Google and its employees on such a pedestal? It's software and business are not magic and there are plenty of people qualified to audit them.
- gravypod 7y ago
  I'm not putting them on a pedestal. I'm exaggerating the situation to make my question simpler to communicate. I think the complexity of an audit holds true for the FAAN in FAANG. I think it likely also holds true for other large companies as well.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    It's not complicated. The only thing is that the market might move on before the govt does... An example is Microsoft that missed the boat on the Internet. That doesn't mean that Microsoft didn't violate antitrust law though.
cjhanks 7y ago
Yeah... The average Google engineer is better than the average engineer. But there are plenty of competent software engineers who don't want to live in South Bay or near a Google hub. There are engineers with interests outside of Google interests. And there are certainly business people out there with more knowledge than those in Google - see NY.
sjg007 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Const-me 7y ago
I know a few people from Google. They're good but not best. The best software people I know work in their own companies, and/or doing more meaningful things than selling ads.
ssivark 7y ago
It's not so impossibly complex. After all, even for a typical big corp like Google a dozen people or so will be respectively responsible for understanding the functioning of each of their sub-organizations. They will have to understand it in and out -- especially the business/human consequences, if not the technical details. Any new member (at "vice president" level or something) will be on-boarded in this matter in a matter of weeks to months. So it's definitely possible for someone to go in now and get to the bottom of some of these questions. That doesn't require exceptional "intelligence", but it does require a tenacity in finding information and the integrity to relentlessly ask questions till you understand what's going (without prejudice regarding the outcome), without being prematurely satisfied that it's "too complex". And of course, it will be a when team of people, who would have developed a similar understanding of other comes situations, and they will have significant help, and the authority to ask questions. If you want a more explicit and hands on understanding of the process, look up narratives of major investigations, eg: the Challenger disaster investigation, or the investigation that led to the breaking up of AT&T.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Just watch! There are plenty of super-smart and ambitious people looking to take on Google. Just let DOJ start and Oracle, MSFT, AAPL, Yelp and many other companies will tell FBI where to look. The only thing needed is the political will, the rest is easy. Those "best of the best" engineers face jail time and financial ruin, if they lie to cover Google's behind, so they have to think twice.
- v7p1Qbt1im 7y ago
  If that’s the case then this seems even more politically motivated. Oracle and Yelp in particular are some of the most dirty players out there. They realize there is no future for them, so the only hope is legal action.
fauigerzigerk 7y ago
>I'm assuming their business side is as complicated as their software That assumption doesn't hold. Google's business model isn't that complicated. Industry experts and competitors understand perfectly well how Google makes money. Any investigation will focus on a handful areas that are well known and often discussed. And when it comes to understanding who at Google has done what, why and when, there's prisoner's dilemma to the rescue. If investigators question a couple of managers under penalties of perjury, they will put their own personal interests (i.e staying out of prison) over Google's interests and just tell the truth or at least say something that isn't provably false.

tzakrajs 7y ago

I am curious why you think Google, given its spurious record with privacy, security and labor, that it would have the best engineers? Not to mention engineers in the valley often lambast Google for sun setting every decent platform that engineers care about.

gravypod 7y ago
Everyone makes mistakes, few people make multi-billion dollar companies that shape the industry they occupy.
- salawat 7y ago
  Few companies shape their industry as drastically as Google does. Hence the Anti-Trust probe. Nobody is that good, sadly. Every time someone has looked to be that good historically, it was because they were engaging in anti-competitive practices, and needed to be broken up.
  - salawat 7y ago
    This isn't hard to look up. MaBell, Standard Oil. It's a pretty consistent pattern. We've been pretty hands off on the trust busting simce the MaBell breakup, and the impetus to do anything about Google or Facebook has been rather low, since there hadn't been any glaringly obvious downsides to letting them do their thing. However, given certain waves that Big Tech has started to make; Oracle v. Google, making ad blocking in the major dominant browser contingent upon subscription, Cambridge Analytics, perceived political bias and activism by Dr-platforming, tech has not only made it painfully obvious the danger posed by massive stores of unbridled data collection, but that having platforms all economically centralized under a small number of stakeholders is a danger to the continued stability of "the System". It's one of those wisdom of the masses sort of things. Awareness and sentiment forming seems to have finally hit the tipping point at which enough people are onboard for something to be done about it all. Interesting times ahead.

wangii 7y ago

good point, and it's exactly a strong point why it should be investigated. given what you said, it's not difficult to conclude there is no one in the world actually understand google's business, and/or engineering, including googlers. therefore, who is going to be hold accountable, which person we need to push if anything goes horribly wrong? Google, facebook and amazon have been way too powerful financially, technologically, politically and culturally. install armies they will be superpowers. it's better to do something before it's too late.

jdc 7y ago
> Google, facebook and amazon have been way too powerful financially, technologically, politically and culturally. Seems true, but also too vague. Is because we can't trust a profit-motivated organization with that much influence? Is it because they (FAANG) came by it dishonestly? Are they abusing that power? Are they unique in that regard? Or is it because "anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things"?
- wangii 7y ago
  I'm not that old :) why do you think checks and balances only apply to politics? power corrupts, and not necessarily only political ones. I'd say any power corrupts, e.g. in marriage, one side gains significant upper hand and he/she has a decent chance to abuse the position.
  - jdc 7y ago
    I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, but also interested in a potential de-FAANGing law or executive order not setting a dangerous precedent for arbitrary redistribution of power in the future.

soup10 7y ago

Why are you putting Google and its employees on such a pedestal? It's software and business are not magic and there are plenty of people qualified to audit them.

gravypod 7y ago
I'm not putting them on a pedestal. I'm exaggerating the situation to make my question simpler to communicate. I think the complexity of an audit holds true for the FAAN in FAANG. I think it likely also holds true for other large companies as well.
- sjg007 7y ago
  It's not complicated. The only thing is that the market might move on before the govt does... An example is Microsoft that missed the boat on the Internet. That doesn't mean that Microsoft didn't violate antitrust law though.

cjhanks 7y ago

Yeah... The average Google engineer is better than the average engineer. But there are plenty of competent software engineers who don't want to live in South Bay or near a Google hub. There are engineers with interests outside of Google interests. And there are certainly business people out there with more knowledge than those in Google - see NY.

sjg007 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Const-me 7y ago

I know a few people from Google. They're good but not best. The best software people I know work in their own companies, and/or doing more meaningful things than selling ads.

ssivark 7y ago

It's not so impossibly complex. After all, even for a typical big corp like Google a dozen people or so will be respectively responsible for understanding the functioning of each of their sub-organizations. They will have to understand it in and out -- especially the business/human consequences, if not the technical details. Any new member (at "vice president" level or something) will be on-boarded in this matter in a matter of weeks to months. So it's definitely possible for someone to go in now and get to the bottom of some of these questions. That doesn't require exceptional "intelligence", but it does require a tenacity in finding information and the integrity to relentlessly ask questions till you understand what's going (without prejudice regarding the outcome), without being prematurely satisfied that it's "too complex". And of course, it will be a when team of people, who would have developed a similar understanding of other comes situations, and they will have significant help, and the authority to ask questions. If you want a more explicit and hands on understanding of the process, look up narratives of major investigations, eg: the Challenger disaster investigation, or the investigation that led to the breaking up of AT&T.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Just watch! There are plenty of super-smart and ambitious people looking to take on Google. Just let DOJ start and Oracle, MSFT, AAPL, Yelp and many other companies will tell FBI where to look. The only thing needed is the political will, the rest is easy. Those "best of the best" engineers face jail time and financial ruin, if they lie to cover Google's behind, so they have to think twice.

v7p1Qbt1im 7y ago
If that’s the case then this seems even more politically motivated. Oracle and Yelp in particular are some of the most dirty players out there. They realize there is no future for them, so the only hope is legal action.

fauigerzigerk 7y ago

>I'm assuming their business side is as complicated as their software That assumption doesn't hold. Google's business model isn't that complicated. Industry experts and competitors understand perfectly well how Google makes money. Any investigation will focus on a handful areas that are well known and often discussed. And when it comes to understanding who at Google has done what, why and when, there's prisoner's dilemma to the rescue. If investigators question a couple of managers under penalties of perjury, they will put their own personal interests (i.e staying out of prison) over Google's interests and just tell the truth or at least say something that isn't provably false.