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Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here,

Why is there so much attention on Google? It's market cap is $800B. Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. We're not a bunch of rubes here, to have this many articles proposing sanctions and/or breakup of Google has all the fingerprints of coordinated action. It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough index ranking. This has a stink to it.

0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
>This has a stink to it. TBH so does using market cap to dismiss criticism of Google
- ddalex 7y ago
  But it's not dismissing criticism. It's acknowledging that other big companies that have pretty similar issues are not coming under fire for the said issues.
  - 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
    Maybe they should talk about those issues and not bring up market cap because market cap really has nothing to do with any of this
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - eitland 7y ago
    As I have pointed out elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20444182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20444182) Microsoft and Facebook has been under fire as well. And yes, it was deserved for them as well.
ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
Some of the accusations are pretty thin too, this one included. Last I checked, Google doesn't make money off of organic Google Maps results, except inasmuch as Maps acts as a halo product. What exactly is Google supposed to do here? Are they to require a validated business license to update one's listing on Google Maps? Besides the non-trivial expense associated with that, it would act as a barrier to entry for smaller businesses that don't have one, and you can bet there'd be articles on here hating that too (just like there have been about the GMail API changes).
opportune 7y ago
Big news and small news alike have both been viewing Google with dollar signs in their eyes for the last 10 or so years, believing that their failure to adopt their business models to the internet is somehow Google's fault.
CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
> Why is there so much attention on Google? Amazon declared tomorrow "Prime Day" and a lot of workers are striking today and/or tomorrow. Throwing shade at Google would be a good way to keep technical people from paying attention to the plights of workers. But it could also just be a coincidence.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I was thinking they were all guilt of this within the first paragraph. You use to have to beware on eBay, but the Amazon marketplace is just as full with counterfeits and bad products that it's like the new Wal-Mart. Newegg and Reverb both do the marketplace thing too, but their volume seems to be low enough to be hit with unsavory shops. I heard about the problem with Google and locksmiths and was very careful the one time I locked my keys in my car without a backup a few years ago. I refused any locksmith that didn't quote an absolute price and found a local one that only charged $60.
- notriddle 7y ago
  > But it could also just be a coincidence. It's not Prime Day, and there's bad press about Google. It's Prime Day, and there's still bad press about Google. Prime Day is over, and there will continue to be bad press about Google. The word I'd go for isn't "coincidence." It's something more like Captain Obvious.
- false-mirror 7y ago
  I'd love it love it love it if the richest companies had this little class solidarity. A nice change of pace. I'd guess many anti-corporate sentiments are rising, and there's just some overlap in scheduling
chvid 7y ago
I don’t know. But one should not be naive about it. The political machines have massive resources, strong connection to media and have nailed information campaigns down to an art. I noticed a similar thing about a year ago when Facebook was in the crosshairs. Having said that. These companies are obvious monopolies prone to abuse their power.
forgottenpass 7y ago
There is attention on all of them. And every time one of them gets bad press, someone is ready to point out that the current target is unfairly singled out from the others.
ceejayoz 7y ago
There's been a substantial amount of criticism for fraud on Amazon's ecommerce arm, here on HN and generally. Microsoft's market cap is largely software/services, where fraud's largely going to impact Microsoft themselves. Bing Ads are likely peanuts compared to Google's offering.
KirinDave 7y ago
There is a major boycott of Amazon this week after it came out they're directly competing for military contracts that Google declined to take [0]. It's almost certainly the case that Amazon is helping and urging people to post negative stories about other high profile competitors, Google included, right now. That's just how tech journalism works. Amazon is just much better at it than less successful attempts like the "scroogled" campaign. This does not dismiss the bad things Google does. However, it does mean that it's a good week to remind people to boycott Amazon any way they can in addition to holding Google accountable. [0]: Although that outcome was largely driven by collective action from employees and reports of some employee retaliation were public as a result of it.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  "It's almost certainly the case" without any evidence whatsoever? I mean, there's a lot of companies who have a reason to promote Google's fraud-based business model (mostly, companies being defrauded by it). What would you say makes it "almost certainly" about Amazon?
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    Forgive me if it's a case of mistaken identity, but I seem to recall last time we talked you started harassing me on other social media sites demanding I answer your arbitrary questions and attempting to solicit distributed harassment. Don't you think it's better for both our mental health and the tone of HN if we not argue about this, and perhaps agree both companies do bad things and scheduled boycotts of both can be a good example of collective action?
eclipxe 7y ago
Charles C. Johnson
eitland 7y ago
> Why is there so much attention on Google? Because they’ve been behaving badly for years and a number of people like me will upvote anything that gives them a pounding (of course only if I think it makes sense.) A better question should probably (again IMO) be why they’ve gotten away so easily for so long. > Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. Facebook has taken a lot more beating. All very deserved IMO, in fact I think they deserve a fair bit more, but at least they got more than Google AFAIK, which is reasonable. Microsoft has been beaten so much by sysadmins like me, governments etc, both for fun and for profit that I don’t think anything Google or Facebook has experienced yet really compares. Amazons time hasn’t come yet I guess.
chrshawkes 7y ago
Google's been stinking a long time my friend. The other companies you mentioned are also dealing with one bad publicity piece after another. Amazon strikes going on today for instance. 5 Billion dollar fine to Facebook etc...
asark 7y ago
Don't worry, there's plenty of room in my heart to hate and wish ill upon all the scummy fraud-enabling private dragnet spy corporations.
catacombs 7y ago
> It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough index ranking. Keep in mind that this is a hunk of crap.
AJ007 7y ago
It does stink. https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...
asdff 7y ago
The top 10 tech companies are interchangeably flamed here and all over the internet and for good reason. This isn't a google problem, you just happen to be in a google thread.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Appreciate your comment, but I've been posting here in various capacities for about a decade and employed in tech for about twice that long. I am not talking about HN's reaction, but the wider pattern of calls from high levels to investigate and break up Alphabet. It is functionally the same as AT&T and Time Warner - using the threat of antitrust and other powers of the FTC to get favorable treatment and harm adversaries. It is new and dangerous.

0xDEFC0DE 7y ago

>This has a stink to it. TBH so does using market cap to dismiss criticism of Google

ddalex 7y ago
But it's not dismissing criticism. It's acknowledging that other big companies that have pretty similar issues are not coming under fire for the said issues.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
  Maybe they should talk about those issues and not bring up market cap because market cap really has nothing to do with any of this
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- eitland 7y ago
  As I have pointed out elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20444182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20444182) Microsoft and Facebook has been under fire as well. And yes, it was deserved for them as well.

ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago

Some of the accusations are pretty thin too, this one included. Last I checked, Google doesn't make money off of organic Google Maps results, except inasmuch as Maps acts as a halo product. What exactly is Google supposed to do here? Are they to require a validated business license to update one's listing on Google Maps? Besides the non-trivial expense associated with that, it would act as a barrier to entry for smaller businesses that don't have one, and you can bet there'd be articles on here hating that too (just like there have been about the GMail API changes).

opportune 7y ago

Big news and small news alike have both been viewing Google with dollar signs in their eyes for the last 10 or so years, believing that their failure to adopt their business models to the internet is somehow Google's fault.

CiPHPerCoder 7y ago

> Why is there so much attention on Google? Amazon declared tomorrow "Prime Day" and a lot of workers are striking today and/or tomorrow. Throwing shade at Google would be a good way to keep technical people from paying attention to the plights of workers. But it could also just be a coincidence.

djsumdog 7y ago
I was thinking they were all guilt of this within the first paragraph. You use to have to beware on eBay, but the Amazon marketplace is just as full with counterfeits and bad products that it's like the new Wal-Mart. Newegg and Reverb both do the marketplace thing too, but their volume seems to be low enough to be hit with unsavory shops. I heard about the problem with Google and locksmiths and was very careful the one time I locked my keys in my car without a backup a few years ago. I refused any locksmith that didn't quote an absolute price and found a local one that only charged $60.
notriddle 7y ago
> But it could also just be a coincidence. It's not Prime Day, and there's bad press about Google. It's Prime Day, and there's still bad press about Google. Prime Day is over, and there will continue to be bad press about Google. The word I'd go for isn't "coincidence." It's something more like Captain Obvious.
false-mirror 7y ago
I'd love it love it love it if the richest companies had this little class solidarity. A nice change of pace. I'd guess many anti-corporate sentiments are rising, and there's just some overlap in scheduling

chvid 7y ago

I don’t know. But one should not be naive about it. The political machines have massive resources, strong connection to media and have nailed information campaigns down to an art. I noticed a similar thing about a year ago when Facebook was in the crosshairs. Having said that. These companies are obvious monopolies prone to abuse their power.

forgottenpass 7y ago

There is attention on all of them. And every time one of them gets bad press, someone is ready to point out that the current target is unfairly singled out from the others.

ceejayoz 7y ago

There's been a substantial amount of criticism for fraud on Amazon's ecommerce arm, here on HN and generally. Microsoft's market cap is largely software/services, where fraud's largely going to impact Microsoft themselves. Bing Ads are likely peanuts compared to Google's offering.

KirinDave 7y ago

There is a major boycott of Amazon this week after it came out they're directly competing for military contracts that Google declined to take [0]. It's almost certainly the case that Amazon is helping and urging people to post negative stories about other high profile competitors, Google included, right now. That's just how tech journalism works. Amazon is just much better at it than less successful attempts like the "scroogled" campaign. This does not dismiss the bad things Google does. However, it does mean that it's a good week to remind people to boycott Amazon any way they can in addition to holding Google accountable. [0]: Although that outcome was largely driven by collective action from employees and reports of some employee retaliation were public as a result of it.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
"It's almost certainly the case" without any evidence whatsoever? I mean, there's a lot of companies who have a reason to promote Google's fraud-based business model (mostly, companies being defrauded by it). What would you say makes it "almost certainly" about Amazon?
- KirinDave 7y ago
  Forgive me if it's a case of mistaken identity, but I seem to recall last time we talked you started harassing me on other social media sites demanding I answer your arbitrary questions and attempting to solicit distributed harassment. Don't you think it's better for both our mental health and the tone of HN if we not argue about this, and perhaps agree both companies do bad things and scheduled boycotts of both can be a good example of collective action?

eclipxe 7y ago

Charles C. Johnson

eitland 7y ago

> Why is there so much attention on Google? Because they’ve been behaving badly for years and a number of people like me will upvote anything that gives them a pounding (of course only if I think it makes sense.) A better question should probably (again IMO) be why they’ve gotten away so easily for so long. > Amazon and Microsoft are roughly $1T. Facebook is $600B. Facebook has taken a lot more beating. All very deserved IMO, in fact I think they deserve a fair bit more, but at least they got more than Google AFAIK, which is reasonable. Microsoft has been beaten so much by sysadmins like me, governments etc, both for fun and for profit that I don’t think anything Google or Facebook has experienced yet really compares. Amazons time hasn’t come yet I guess.

chrshawkes 7y ago

Google's been stinking a long time my friend. The other companies you mentioned are also dealing with one bad publicity piece after another. Amazon strikes going on today for instance. 5 Billion dollar fine to Facebook etc...

asark 7y ago

Don't worry, there's plenty of room in my heart to hate and wish ill upon all the scummy fraud-enabling private dragnet spy corporations.

catacombs 7y ago

> It's less than a month after the US president saying he would sue them because he felt they didn't give conservative sources favorable enough index ranking. Keep in mind that this is a hunk of crap.

AJ007 7y ago

It does stink. https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...

asdff 7y ago

The top 10 tech companies are interchangeably flamed here and all over the internet and for good reason. This isn't a google problem, you just happen to be in a google thread.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
throwaway5752 7y ago
Appreciate your comment, but I've been posting here in various capacities for about a decade and employed in tech for about twice that long. I am not talking about HN's reaction, but the wider pattern of calls from high levels to investigate and break up Alphabet. It is functionally the same as AT&T and Time Warner - using the threat of antitrust and other powers of the FTC to get favorable treatment and harm adversaries. It is new and dangerous.