6 ms·

Whatever problems I have with Google pales with what problems I'd have with whatever the US would want to carve Google into.

paulddraper 7y ago
How would you even know that?
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Because right now Google has enormous value because people trust it. I believe they won't do something horrible with my data because if they did, it would potentially erase billions of dollars of value from their share price. Yet. If I start feeling like Google operates as a compromise with the Trump administration, it super freaks me out. Kind of like what happened with Facebook?
  - Karunamon 7y ago
    At the risk of sounding overly snarky, what exactly has google done to secure or gain, rather than piss away trust at every conceivable turn? Maintain solid products? Google kills more products than they run. Stewardship of customer information? They're the biggest advertiser and have had multiple scandals. Good customer service? Not in this universe. Clear rules? Ask anyone that's lost their entire google account, email included, for a BS accusation of click fraud. I think I trust my phone company more than I trust Google.
    - temporalparts 7y ago
      I'll bite. > Maintain solid products? Google kills more products than they run. Google Search, Youtube, Gmail, Google Maps are all amazing free products that have immensely benefited the world. Yeah, they kill a bunch of products, but that doesn't mean they don't maintain solid, if not amazing, products. > Stewardship of customer information? They're the biggest advertiser and have had multiple scandals. Do you have any evidence that Google sells non-anonymized customer data to advertisers? Can you cite a Google scandal about selling your data? Complying with subpoenas or government authority notwithstanding. > Good customer service? Not in this universe. Yeah, I agree with this one lol. > Clear rules? Ask anyone that's lost their entire google account, email included, for a BS accusation of click fraud. Yeah, I agree on the rules being opaque. > I think I trust my phone company more than I trust Google. I don't know what country you live in, but if you're in the US, do you mean the people making your phone (Huawei, Xiaomi, ... or you know Google) or the carriers who have been selling your location data [0]? [0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/31/carriers-violated-federal-law-by-selling-your-location-data-fcc-tells-congress/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/31/carriers-violated-federal-...
      - Karunamon 7y ago
        Gmail can't be trusted to actually deliver messages to the recipient's inbox (one of the reasons I left them), YouTube is in the process of imploding with insane content restrictions and copyright claim abuse. Maps is actually really good, I'll give you that. By carriers, I meant the mobile carriers. I can at least avoid them. Avoiding Google is significantly more difficult. >Do you have any evidence that Google sells non-anonymized customer data to advertisers? That's a rather specific subset of "multiple scandals" that I didn't say or imply. As to what they've been doing wrong, we could start with the recently uncovered uniquely generated tracking ID in Chrome (currently on the front page), or the Google+ data leak that led to the service being shut down, or the email scanning for ad targeting that was happening as late as 2017, or when they had to fire an engineer for snooping through people's gmail accounts. All of these tell me that their internal controls are not that great. What puts the topping on the shit sundae for me is that they're an advertising company at the end of the day. Their user's privacy interests and their own interests will be perpetually at odds. That by itself makes them unworthy of trust in my eyes.
        paulddraper 7y ago
        In 12 years of using Gmail, I have never had a problem with it delivering my mail. Perhaps I was just lucky?
  - birdyrooster 7y ago
    No, they have enormous value because people have limited choice.
    - pb7 7y ago
      For which Google products do people have limited choice in alternatives?
      - birdyrooster 7y ago
        AdSense, Search, and YouTube
        pb7 7y ago
        All of those have alternatives. Bing? DuckDuckGo? Qwant? Vimeo? DailyMotion? MetaCafe? Even Facebook Video. As for ads, there are so many I don’t even know what their relative ordering is.
        birdyrooster 7y ago
        You've made my point for me. Incredibly limited offerings for alternatives.
        pb7 7y ago
        And this is Google’s fault, how? How many options do you need? There are more options for each than I have Internet providers but no one is talking anti-trust there.
        Karunamon 7y ago
        Options existing doesn't make them viable. Excluding Google in favor of advertising on also-ran search engines like Bing or DDG loses you a huge amount of visibility, for example. Searching? Again, Google in clear first place, everyone else tied for last. Video? Nobody uses Vimeo, and their content rules are even more strict than YouTube's. A couple of those names I've never even heard of before.
- kick 7y ago
  The USA's history on this hasn't been stellar. The breakup of AT&T is testament to that.
  - Teever 7y ago
    Can you elaborate on that?
    - lioeters 7y ago
      Perhaps it's a reference to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
    - kick 7y ago
      Sure! Most of the RBOCs were purchased...by other RBOCs, or AT&T itself. The research output of AT&T halved. The well-regulated monopoly was sacrificed for what is now more or less unregulated yet governmentally-defended triopolies in every area AT&T was touching, and then some. The quality of the service has dropped dramatically, even if there was cost reduction (which arguably is tied to said decline in quality). There was a great book written by two engineers working on the Bell System a few decades ago with a rather rotten title, but a subtitle that'll allow you to find the book just the same: The Criminal Wrecking of the Best Telephone System in the World. I found it really fascinating in many ways, although I'll admit that it served to justify my own beliefs, rather than making me change them, so I could be biased.
  - sailfast 7y ago
    So, the Standard Oil and Bell breakups didn't work out? Do you still have to pay to rent your telephone handset hardware each month? Also I don't think in this case that the determination that something requires action to mitigate anti-competitive behavior means that the government declares what happens. Not a lawyer, and have not read any precedent but I'd imagine a first step would be to ask these companies about a structure that would work best if business units were separated, with some guidance, rather than some declaratory thing.
    - 7y ago
- killface 7y ago
  well, when you lack all trust in the current government to do anything that doesn't directly benefit them, that's how.
TuringNYC 7y ago
I would be more worried about giving up market share to overseas competitors and the US losing strategic advantage.
- rifung 7y ago
  I work for Google, opinions are my own. In theory, breaking up monopolies increases competition which allows better companies/products to spring up that would otherwise be crushed by anti competitive practices. If you agree with that theory, then the act of breaking up monopolies actually makes the US more competitive.

paulddraper 7y ago

How would you even know that?

dr_dshiv 7y ago
Because right now Google has enormous value because people trust it. I believe they won't do something horrible with my data because if they did, it would potentially erase billions of dollars of value from their share price. Yet. If I start feeling like Google operates as a compromise with the Trump administration, it super freaks me out. Kind of like what happened with Facebook?
- Karunamon 7y ago
  At the risk of sounding overly snarky, what exactly has google done to secure or gain, rather than piss away trust at every conceivable turn? Maintain solid products? Google kills more products than they run. Stewardship of customer information? They're the biggest advertiser and have had multiple scandals. Good customer service? Not in this universe. Clear rules? Ask anyone that's lost their entire google account, email included, for a BS accusation of click fraud. I think I trust my phone company more than I trust Google.
  - temporalparts 7y ago
    I'll bite. > Maintain solid products? Google kills more products than they run. Google Search, Youtube, Gmail, Google Maps are all amazing free products that have immensely benefited the world. Yeah, they kill a bunch of products, but that doesn't mean they don't maintain solid, if not amazing, products. > Stewardship of customer information? They're the biggest advertiser and have had multiple scandals. Do you have any evidence that Google sells non-anonymized customer data to advertisers? Can you cite a Google scandal about selling your data? Complying with subpoenas or government authority notwithstanding. > Good customer service? Not in this universe. Yeah, I agree with this one lol. > Clear rules? Ask anyone that's lost their entire google account, email included, for a BS accusation of click fraud. Yeah, I agree on the rules being opaque. > I think I trust my phone company more than I trust Google. I don't know what country you live in, but if you're in the US, do you mean the people making your phone (Huawei, Xiaomi, ... or you know Google) or the carriers who have been selling your location data [0]? [0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/31/carriers-violated-federal-law-by-selling-your-location-data-fcc-tells-congress/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/31/carriers-violated-federal-...
    - Karunamon 7y ago
      Gmail can't be trusted to actually deliver messages to the recipient's inbox (one of the reasons I left them), YouTube is in the process of imploding with insane content restrictions and copyright claim abuse. Maps is actually really good, I'll give you that. By carriers, I meant the mobile carriers. I can at least avoid them. Avoiding Google is significantly more difficult. >Do you have any evidence that Google sells non-anonymized customer data to advertisers? That's a rather specific subset of "multiple scandals" that I didn't say or imply. As to what they've been doing wrong, we could start with the recently uncovered uniquely generated tracking ID in Chrome (currently on the front page), or the Google+ data leak that led to the service being shut down, or the email scanning for ad targeting that was happening as late as 2017, or when they had to fire an engineer for snooping through people's gmail accounts. All of these tell me that their internal controls are not that great. What puts the topping on the shit sundae for me is that they're an advertising company at the end of the day. Their user's privacy interests and their own interests will be perpetually at odds. That by itself makes them unworthy of trust in my eyes.
      - paulddraper 7y ago
        In 12 years of using Gmail, I have never had a problem with it delivering my mail. Perhaps I was just lucky?
- birdyrooster 7y ago
  No, they have enormous value because people have limited choice.
  - pb7 7y ago
    For which Google products do people have limited choice in alternatives?
    - birdyrooster 7y ago
      AdSense, Search, and YouTube
      - pb7 7y ago
        All of those have alternatives. Bing? DuckDuckGo? Qwant? Vimeo? DailyMotion? MetaCafe? Even Facebook Video. As for ads, there are so many I don’t even know what their relative ordering is.
        birdyrooster 7y ago
        You've made my point for me. Incredibly limited offerings for alternatives.
        pb7 7y ago
        And this is Google’s fault, how? How many options do you need? There are more options for each than I have Internet providers but no one is talking anti-trust there.
        Karunamon 7y ago
        Options existing doesn't make them viable. Excluding Google in favor of advertising on also-ran search engines like Bing or DDG loses you a huge amount of visibility, for example. Searching? Again, Google in clear first place, everyone else tied for last. Video? Nobody uses Vimeo, and their content rules are even more strict than YouTube's. A couple of those names I've never even heard of before.
kick 7y ago
The USA's history on this hasn't been stellar. The breakup of AT&T is testament to that.
- Teever 7y ago
  Can you elaborate on that?
  - lioeters 7y ago
    Perhaps it's a reference to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
  - kick 7y ago
    Sure! Most of the RBOCs were purchased...by other RBOCs, or AT&T itself. The research output of AT&T halved. The well-regulated monopoly was sacrificed for what is now more or less unregulated yet governmentally-defended triopolies in every area AT&T was touching, and then some. The quality of the service has dropped dramatically, even if there was cost reduction (which arguably is tied to said decline in quality). There was a great book written by two engineers working on the Bell System a few decades ago with a rather rotten title, but a subtitle that'll allow you to find the book just the same: The Criminal Wrecking of the Best Telephone System in the World. I found it really fascinating in many ways, although I'll admit that it served to justify my own beliefs, rather than making me change them, so I could be biased.
- sailfast 7y ago
  So, the Standard Oil and Bell breakups didn't work out? Do you still have to pay to rent your telephone handset hardware each month? Also I don't think in this case that the determination that something requires action to mitigate anti-competitive behavior means that the government declares what happens. Not a lawyer, and have not read any precedent but I'd imagine a first step would be to ask these companies about a structure that would work best if business units were separated, with some guidance, rather than some declaratory thing.
  - 7y ago
killface 7y ago
well, when you lack all trust in the current government to do anything that doesn't directly benefit them, that's how.

TuringNYC 7y ago

I would be more worried about giving up market share to overseas competitors and the US losing strategic advantage.

rifung 7y ago
I work for Google, opinions are my own. In theory, breaking up monopolies increases competition which allows better companies/products to spring up that would otherwise be crushed by anti competitive practices. If you agree with that theory, then the act of breaking up monopolies actually makes the US more competitive.