4 ms·

> I was around during the “search wars”, and what’s usually forgotten is that well, they were by far the best behaved as a corporate entity. They were well beh

by mikl 7y ago

> I was around during the “search wars”, and what’s usually forgotten is that well, they were by far the best behaved as a corporate entity. They were well behaved when they had competition to worry about. Once they effectively achieved a monopoly, ethics slowly got relegated to the back seat. They started leveraging the search monopoly to take over other industries, to undermine the open web, to engage in political censorship (hello Project Dragonfly) and much more. Everything you say here is an excellent argument why search should not be a monopoly. We need competition to keep the search engines honest. Regulation won’t help, since orgs like the FCC are vulnerable to regulatory capture, and there’s no other way to "hold them to a higher standard" than taking your business elsewhere. As long as you continue using their products and thus earning them money, they don’t have any reason to care what you think about their business practises.

candiodari 7y ago
Isn't "project dragonfly" the Google search engine version for China? Google was trying to comply with the law. It's a law you might not agree with, but come on. The reason all these governments want Google split up is more censorship, not less. From torrents to negative reporting on EU commissars. From everyone's interpretation of hate speech to pages pointing out that sometimes social services are the abusers in children's lives, not so much their savior. Scihub, Schwartz, Snowden, Yellow vest demonstrations, Hong Kong student injuries and disappearances, Twitter making some tax agency officer's abuse of power a big deal, ... That's why they want Google and Facebook broken. And of course, they're unwilling to spend any money, change any law anywhere, accommodate anyone, or put in any kind of effort whatsoever. Fundamentally they want the internet to disappear. They want the control of information out of the hands of these idiotic American nerds that refuse to control information !
- lonelappde 7y ago
  How would breaking up a company help censorship? Surely it's easier to censor one entity than many.
  - asciident 7y ago
    Divide and conquer. They can push for one of the companies that is pro-censorship.
  - CDSlice 7y ago
    One the other hand, Google is so big that it could just ignore demands from smaller countries, especially when they are a small drop on the bucket in terms of revenue. Multiple small, regional companies can't afford to go against the government in their area and aren't present in other areas. Right now the only country that could actually do anything about Google is the US, but they won't because we benefit from having the number one internet search company be American. Also, the rank and file employees in Google are largely liberal and tend to make a big fuss over things like censorship. If Google is broken up a company that is more friendly to state interference could emerge and take it's place.
- asciident 7y ago
  You've nailed it. Back when tech was the underdog, it was trying to make things more open, accessible, free-as-in-speech. I remember when the internet was very pro Ron Paul, and against government regulating technology (remember the losing battle against DMCA and DRM and the PATRIOT act?). Now that tech has become successful, the losers (those who want the control) are trying their hardest to create new narratives about tech companies' abuse / monopoly. Can tech be improved? Or course, but with small iterations, not complete overhauls.
- mikl 7y ago
  > Google was trying to comply with the law. Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries. Expecting Google to stand up to EU on anything is naïve. They already got massive fines, they don’t have the spine to risk more. They will do as the commisars dictates, whether they’re split up or not.
  - creato 7y ago
    > Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries. I'm super glad that google didn't go through with dragonfly and it's really sad that they even went as far as they did. However, going through with it would have just made them the same as basically every other company. Apple, microsoft, and basically every other company all operate in china, following chinese "law". Ironically, it's two of the worst/most hated companies (google, facebook) in the US, and most frequently demanded to be broken up here on HN, are two of the very, very few companies that haven't bent over for china.
    - mikl 7y ago
      I think it’s pretty clear that Google would have gone through with Dragonfly if it wasn’t for the protests against it, both from the public and Google employees. In other words, their refraining from Dragonfly wasn’t because of moral courage or a principled stance. It was just to avoid a PR disaster. And it was only because Dragonfly was leaked that that we ever heard of it. Imagine what other interesting programs they’ve got going on that we haven’t heard of yet.
turk73 7y ago
When they started doing partisan Democrat shit like screwing with legitimate searches to place their favored information at the top or just simply diminish the importance of other points of view, they went evil big time. We can't survive this and still be free people. We will end up like China and it doesn't matter how we got there. If corporations are doing this to us, then corporations are the enemy of the people. And look, the brave kids in Hong Kong are the ones we ought to be emulating RIGHT NOW because if we wait until we are as weak as them, we're screwed, just like they are. The reason they are fighting now is because they finally realized they have no future but a gunshot to the back of the head and a quick fall into a ditch, covered over by a bulldozer. That is your future under collectivism--the boot on your neck forever with no escape, which is what modern day China is right now. The only way to avoid it is to have INDIVIDUAL rights and have government and its fascist corporations treat you like an individual and value your rights. Corporations are doing the collectivizing that our government can't do, but imagine a corporation with the power to kill you. That's the course America is on right now. If you want my true opinion, I don't think we get back out now without bloodshed. The oligarchs believe us to be doormats and without push back we are doormats.

by mikl 7y ago

candiodari 7y ago

Isn't "project dragonfly" the Google search engine version for China? Google was trying to comply with the law. It's a law you might not agree with, but come on. The reason all these governments want Google split up is more censorship, not less. From torrents to negative reporting on EU commissars. From everyone's interpretation of hate speech to pages pointing out that sometimes social services are the abusers in children's lives, not so much their savior. Scihub, Schwartz, Snowden, Yellow vest demonstrations, Hong Kong student injuries and disappearances, Twitter making some tax agency officer's abuse of power a big deal, ... That's why they want Google and Facebook broken. And of course, they're unwilling to spend any money, change any law anywhere, accommodate anyone, or put in any kind of effort whatsoever. Fundamentally they want the internet to disappear. They want the control of information out of the hands of these idiotic American nerds that refuse to control information !

lonelappde 7y ago
How would breaking up a company help censorship? Surely it's easier to censor one entity than many.
- asciident 7y ago
  Divide and conquer. They can push for one of the companies that is pro-censorship.
- CDSlice 7y ago
  One the other hand, Google is so big that it could just ignore demands from smaller countries, especially when they are a small drop on the bucket in terms of revenue. Multiple small, regional companies can't afford to go against the government in their area and aren't present in other areas. Right now the only country that could actually do anything about Google is the US, but they won't because we benefit from having the number one internet search company be American. Also, the rank and file employees in Google are largely liberal and tend to make a big fuss over things like censorship. If Google is broken up a company that is more friendly to state interference could emerge and take it's place.
asciident 7y ago
You've nailed it. Back when tech was the underdog, it was trying to make things more open, accessible, free-as-in-speech. I remember when the internet was very pro Ron Paul, and against government regulating technology (remember the losing battle against DMCA and DRM and the PATRIOT act?). Now that tech has become successful, the losers (those who want the control) are trying their hardest to create new narratives about tech companies' abuse / monopoly. Can tech be improved? Or course, but with small iterations, not complete overhauls.
mikl 7y ago
> Google was trying to comply with the law. Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries. Expecting Google to stand up to EU on anything is naïve. They already got massive fines, they don’t have the spine to risk more. They will do as the commisars dictates, whether they’re split up or not.
- creato 7y ago
  > Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries. I'm super glad that google didn't go through with dragonfly and it's really sad that they even went as far as they did. However, going through with it would have just made them the same as basically every other company. Apple, microsoft, and basically every other company all operate in china, following chinese "law". Ironically, it's two of the worst/most hated companies (google, facebook) in the US, and most frequently demanded to be broken up here on HN, are two of the very, very few companies that haven't bent over for china.
  - mikl 7y ago
    I think it’s pretty clear that Google would have gone through with Dragonfly if it wasn’t for the protests against it, both from the public and Google employees. In other words, their refraining from Dragonfly wasn’t because of moral courage or a principled stance. It was just to avoid a PR disaster. And it was only because Dragonfly was leaked that that we ever heard of it. Imagine what other interesting programs they’ve got going on that we haven’t heard of yet.

turk73 7y ago

When they started doing partisan Democrat shit like screwing with legitimate searches to place their favored information at the top or just simply diminish the importance of other points of view, they went evil big time. We can't survive this and still be free people. We will end up like China and it doesn't matter how we got there. If corporations are doing this to us, then corporations are the enemy of the people. And look, the brave kids in Hong Kong are the ones we ought to be emulating RIGHT NOW because if we wait until we are as weak as them, we're screwed, just like they are. The reason they are fighting now is because they finally realized they have no future but a gunshot to the back of the head and a quick fall into a ditch, covered over by a bulldozer. That is your future under collectivism--the boot on your neck forever with no escape, which is what modern day China is right now. The only way to avoid it is to have INDIVIDUAL rights and have government and its fascist corporations treat you like an individual and value your rights. Corporations are doing the collectivizing that our government can't do, but imagine a corporation with the power to kill you. That's the course America is on right now. If you want my true opinion, I don't think we get back out now without bloodshed. The oligarchs believe us to be doormats and without push back we are doormats.