4 ms·

This idea is a pipe dream. It would be nationalizing property, it's never going to happen in the US. If you want to enforce anti-trust actions against google'

This idea is a pipe dream. It would be nationalizing property, it's never going to happen in the US. If you want to enforce anti-trust actions against google's app store policies, I'm all for that. But forcing them to give away property is insane.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> This idea is a pipe dream. It would be nationalizing property The author references precedent in the 1956 consent decree with Bell Labs [1]. If anything, that was more extreme. AT&T developed those patents. The author's proposal doesn't involve Google surrendering its algorithm. Just the index it compiled from public resources using a publicly-subsidized Internet infrastructure. All without content owners' permission. [1] https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust_enforcement.pdf https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust...
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Well, the author is an idiot. A search index (as far as the compiled listings of things, not the tech that runs it) would obviously not be covered under this ruling. Google can't have a monopoly on data gathered from the publicly available internet, that's absurd.
- glitchc 7y ago
  What about the computing and infrastructure resources that Google dedicated to build the index, and continues to dedicate to keep the index up to date? This is a failed model. There is no incentive for Google to continue to update the public version, and it would quickly fall out of date while Google focuses on their own internal copy. It’s a solution suggested by lawmakers who fundamentally don’t understand how computers work.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > What about the computing and infrastructure resources that Google dedicated to build the index How is this different from the 1956 consent decree? AT&T spent money developing its patents. But on the basis of longstanding law around public interest, it was forced to license them to third parties. (Note: not give them away.) > and continues to dedicate to keep the index up to date? The author explicitly contemplates, again within the context of the 1956 consent decree and many subsequent and preceding actions by the U.S. government (mostly around pipelines, et cetera), use fees paid to Google. > There is no incentive for Google to continue to update the public version, and it would quickly fall out of date while Google focuses on their own internal copy Google wouldn't be permitted to maintain dual states. Its algorithms would have to use the public index.
    - glitchc 7y ago
      Conflating AT&T to Google is incredibly misleading. AT&T had become a defacto monopoly approx. 20 years prior to that consent decree, not to mention being subjected to an anti-trust lawsuit ten years prior to the decree. The article makes the conceit of equating an online data store to the telephone infrastructure. Google is not preventing other companies from indexing the internet in any way, shape or form. There is no barrier to another company building a similar data store from scratch using the existing internet infrastructure. On the other hand, laying out your own wires has physical limitations, especially when another company has claimed the most optimal route. In such a scenario, your costs will always exceed theirs (more infrastructure to reach the same consumers). Regarding forcing Google to use the same index: How does DoJ plan to enforce this? How would DoJ ever be sure that Google is in compliance? I once again assert that the law magically assumes new technology to solve old technology problems without fundamentally understanding how computers work. Computers are copy-on-write by design. Delete always requires an extra step, and the verification that only one copy exists is impossible to make in the digital domain.
      - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
        > Google is not preventing other companies from indexing the internet in any way AT&T wasn't blocking anyone from laying interstate copper. It's just prohibitively expensive to do so. The analogy, down to the network effects, is quite apt.
  - vgaldikas 7y ago
    Did you read the article?
rpiguy 7y ago
The difference in this case is that the usual defenders of private property rights and libertarianism feel as though Google is suppressing them removing the usual roadblock to this kind reform. This is a rare instance where anti-corporate leftists and dejected right wingers could actually do something substantive together. In most cases I would agree with you the defenders of private industry are pretty fierce in the US, but all that ideology sort of dissipates when you feel like you are being oppressed (whether or not, or to what degree it is true).
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Some people are arguing that catering search results or what content is allowed on a platform to a specific set of political views makes those platforms publishers rather than mere platforms. Apparently this also has some implications in some political campaign laws I don't really understand. I think we're heading towards political ideologies having the same protection as religious institutions (which IMO, are exactly the same in all practical matters).
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    I agree that political ideologies are similar to religions and that protections may be extended to them (although they should already be covered by what is in the constitution). What I don't follow is why it matters that platforms are becoming publishers. The government has never had the right to meddle in what publishers decide to publish (with exceptions for regulations on pornography and classified information). I can't imagine the government forcing Mother Jones or The Nation to print conservative viewpoints. If the platforms become "publishers" their power to select what information is available increases. They become liable for more of the content on their sites, but they also gain full control over content. The only way I see to protect freedom of access to information would be to declare certain spaces (Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, etc.) as "privately-owned public forums" where suppression based on ideology would be heavily restricted.
    - linuxftw 7y ago
      I think it matters in the context of liability. For instance, if you're a newspaper, and you publish "Politician X is a rapist" and you don't have a way to back up that allegation in court you're liable. As a platform, you're not liable for the content your users post. If you are allowing people to say "Politician X is a rapist" but not allowing people to say "Politician Y is a rapist", you've crossed into the land of publisher in some people's minds. Simply being a platform on the web is 'doing business' if you're getting revenue from that operation. Can a platform specifically reject a religious group from their site? Can a platform demonetize a religious group? I personally don't believe in protected groups, but if we're going to have protected groups, we should apply the same protection to all groups, equally, even if the group size is 1.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> This idea is a pipe dream. It would be nationalizing property The author references precedent in the 1956 consent decree with Bell Labs [1]. If anything, that was more extreme. AT&T developed those patents. The author's proposal doesn't involve Google surrendering its algorithm. Just the index it compiled from public resources using a publicly-subsidized Internet infrastructure. All without content owners' permission. [1] https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust_enforcement.pdf https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust...

linuxftw 7y ago
Well, the author is an idiot. A search index (as far as the compiled listings of things, not the tech that runs it) would obviously not be covered under this ruling. Google can't have a monopoly on data gathered from the publicly available internet, that's absurd.
glitchc 7y ago
What about the computing and infrastructure resources that Google dedicated to build the index, and continues to dedicate to keep the index up to date? This is a failed model. There is no incentive for Google to continue to update the public version, and it would quickly fall out of date while Google focuses on their own internal copy. It’s a solution suggested by lawmakers who fundamentally don’t understand how computers work.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > What about the computing and infrastructure resources that Google dedicated to build the index How is this different from the 1956 consent decree? AT&T spent money developing its patents. But on the basis of longstanding law around public interest, it was forced to license them to third parties. (Note: not give them away.) > and continues to dedicate to keep the index up to date? The author explicitly contemplates, again within the context of the 1956 consent decree and many subsequent and preceding actions by the U.S. government (mostly around pipelines, et cetera), use fees paid to Google. > There is no incentive for Google to continue to update the public version, and it would quickly fall out of date while Google focuses on their own internal copy Google wouldn't be permitted to maintain dual states. Its algorithms would have to use the public index.
  - glitchc 7y ago
    Conflating AT&T to Google is incredibly misleading. AT&T had become a defacto monopoly approx. 20 years prior to that consent decree, not to mention being subjected to an anti-trust lawsuit ten years prior to the decree. The article makes the conceit of equating an online data store to the telephone infrastructure. Google is not preventing other companies from indexing the internet in any way, shape or form. There is no barrier to another company building a similar data store from scratch using the existing internet infrastructure. On the other hand, laying out your own wires has physical limitations, especially when another company has claimed the most optimal route. In such a scenario, your costs will always exceed theirs (more infrastructure to reach the same consumers). Regarding forcing Google to use the same index: How does DoJ plan to enforce this? How would DoJ ever be sure that Google is in compliance? I once again assert that the law magically assumes new technology to solve old technology problems without fundamentally understanding how computers work. Computers are copy-on-write by design. Delete always requires an extra step, and the verification that only one copy exists is impossible to make in the digital domain.
    - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      > Google is not preventing other companies from indexing the internet in any way AT&T wasn't blocking anyone from laying interstate copper. It's just prohibitively expensive to do so. The analogy, down to the network effects, is quite apt.
- vgaldikas 7y ago
  Did you read the article?

rpiguy 7y ago

The difference in this case is that the usual defenders of private property rights and libertarianism feel as though Google is suppressing them removing the usual roadblock to this kind reform. This is a rare instance where anti-corporate leftists and dejected right wingers could actually do something substantive together. In most cases I would agree with you the defenders of private industry are pretty fierce in the US, but all that ideology sort of dissipates when you feel like you are being oppressed (whether or not, or to what degree it is true).

linuxftw 7y ago
Some people are arguing that catering search results or what content is allowed on a platform to a specific set of political views makes those platforms publishers rather than mere platforms. Apparently this also has some implications in some political campaign laws I don't really understand. I think we're heading towards political ideologies having the same protection as religious institutions (which IMO, are exactly the same in all practical matters).
- rpiguy 7y ago
  I agree that political ideologies are similar to religions and that protections may be extended to them (although they should already be covered by what is in the constitution). What I don't follow is why it matters that platforms are becoming publishers. The government has never had the right to meddle in what publishers decide to publish (with exceptions for regulations on pornography and classified information). I can't imagine the government forcing Mother Jones or The Nation to print conservative viewpoints. If the platforms become "publishers" their power to select what information is available increases. They become liable for more of the content on their sites, but they also gain full control over content. The only way I see to protect freedom of access to information would be to declare certain spaces (Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, etc.) as "privately-owned public forums" where suppression based on ideology would be heavily restricted.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    I think it matters in the context of liability. For instance, if you're a newspaper, and you publish "Politician X is a rapist" and you don't have a way to back up that allegation in court you're liable. As a platform, you're not liable for the content your users post. If you are allowing people to say "Politician X is a rapist" but not allowing people to say "Politician Y is a rapist", you've crossed into the land of publisher in some people's minds. Simply being a platform on the web is 'doing business' if you're getting revenue from that operation. Can a platform specifically reject a religious group from their site? Can a platform demonetize a religious group? I personally don't believe in protected groups, but if we're going to have protected groups, we should apply the same protection to all groups, equally, even if the group size is 1.