8 ms·

I will continue to believe that this is another tentacle of William Barr's political harassment of Google and tech in general until he leads the same crusade ag

I will continue to believe that this is another tentacle of William Barr's political harassment of Google and tech in general until he leads the same crusade against other 'monopolies' of the same degree like Comcast, Apple, Boeing, Amazon, United Airlines, etc.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Even if it is, it could set a precedent that makes it easier for a future, less corrupt administration. I don't know if the good necessarily outweighs the bad, but maybe it does.
- dantheman 6y ago
  Yeah, because the government going after private organizations with vague mandates is a clear way to avoid corruption. /S This is a continuation of politics trying to skim money off of tech and funnel it to thier favored constituents - it's straight up corruption.
  - barrkel 6y ago
    Democracy is about setting the rules for society, including how to reallocate some fraction of private resources according to a popular mandate. This doesn't mean its corruption. You need more qualification to call it that. (Not saying that the Trump admin isn't corrupt. I'm rather saying that your statement is too broad, and it fits almost all generally accepted democratic governance.)
    - dodobirdlord 6y ago
      It’s possible to be corrupt with a democratic mandate. Levying taxes is one thing, sending the justice department after companies because they are out of favor with the current administration is obviously another.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I wonder if you would say that if the government took your property under eminent domain so that Walmart could build a store.
- tyre 6y ago
  This. Precedent is tricky. Democrats removing the filibuster for judges came back to haunt them. There was a recent (last few weeks) SCOTUS decision that came out with numerous opinions by different coalitions. You could tell that they were all maneuvering around this idea of precedent. Liberal justices who ended up on either side (majority or minority) were couching their votes as upholding a prior precedent, even when they definitely weren't. Conservative justices ended up on either side of the case while subtly arguing that overturning precedent, or at least modifying it, was okay and normal. Both are presumed to be setting up for the next challenge to Roe vs. Wade. EDIT: mistakenly put that the democrats removed filibuster for SCOTUS judges, that was for other nominations
  - ryanwaggoner 6y ago
    Precedent is tricky. Democrats removing the filibuster for SCOTUS judges came back to haunt them. Did it though? Legal precedent is different (for now) from political precedent, and I think the Republicans have proven they’re happy to steamroll through almost anything they can to seat a Justice. They would have instantly dropped the filibuster if it hadn’t already been done.
    - exclusiv 6y ago
      Come on now. Both sides will do what it takes to get their ideologically bent Justice in place. The leadership on both sides is complete trash anyway.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      This is no excuse to be the aggressor. "Republicans might do this" allows you to steamroll over anything set up to force compromise and bipartisanship. Once they're already doing something you don't have to feel bad about doing the same thing when it's your turn, but whoever is the first to tear down a barrier to naked partisanship is the party doing wrong.
      - lazulicurio 6y ago
        At least with respect to judges, it's not so much "Republicans might do this" as "Republicans are already doing this". Don't want to get too deep into the weeds here, but take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXl5A9EdLtU&t=2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXl5A9EdLtU&t=2015
- GoodJokes 6y ago
  Ah yes, the all powerful precedent! It has shown its strength lately don't you think.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Imagine believing that American jurisprudence will survive Trump.
iateanapple 6y ago
Are any of those companies (except Amazon) even in the same league in terms of negative impact as big tech?
- akersten 6y ago
  I mean, your choices for flying somewhere are what - Delta or United? Some small regional carriers? What about for internet service - just a single ISP in most areas. Sometimes a monopoly by law, where no one else can lay fiber and they're free to charge as much as they want. Your choices for searching something on the internet, hosting a video, doing email, etc. are innumerable. So you'll have to qualify what you mean by "negative impact" before I can answer that.
  - gwright 6y ago
    I don't think transportation is a good analogue because it is very easy to make substitutions. There are lots of ways to get from point A to point B with no single entity blocking your path. How many ways are there to publish a mobile app, for example? I generally describe myself as libertarian but I'm struggling to have a laissez-faire attitude about some aspects of big tech. I think the most frustrating thing is the lack of "due process" in the way that big tech deals with customers. Look at the recent story about the ridiculous review process for Chrome extensions. I could tell similar stories about the app stores.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Both American Airlines and Southwest Airlines would like a word with you. The definition of a monopoly isn't "really big". It's not even "the biggest of four major companies".
  - iateanapple 6y ago
    > I mean, your choices for flying somewhere are what - Delta or United? Both delta and united are operating very high capital cost businesses on thin margins. What can we gain by trust busting them? > What about for internet service - just a single ISP in most areas. ISPs can be dealt with effectively at the local level - and they are not as invasive or as politically powerful as the tech giants. I’ve never had my searches for coronavirus related content restricted in any way by my ISP for example. > Your choices for searching something on the internet, hosting a video, doing email, etc. are innumerable. You are ignoring network effects and the advertising monopoly. But maybe that’s a good way to trust bust them? Perhaps YouTube should be made to start showing my dlive streams in the search results?
squnch 6y ago
What are you even talking about. Boeing and United?
subsubzero 6y ago
Not saying google isn't a monopoly, it classically is, same with facebook. But I wonder if Goog wasn't a majority "blue" company would he aggressively go after them. The problem is there are so many oligarchy's controlling industries. Chips, well its a two or three company game(intel, amd, ARM). Lets look at airlines, well its united, delta, american etc. Communications(cell phones), ATT, Verizon, Sprint/Tmobile. America is increasingly becoming a land of large companies controlling industries where the consumer almost always loses, think higher prices due to less competition. I point out google/facebook as they are the only companies in their space (search, social media) that control more than 75% of the space by themselves.
- bgorman 6y ago
  The government intentionally created the Airline oligopoly by banning foreign airlines from operating domestic flights in the US, and further by allowing United, American and Delta to form joint-ventures with foreign airlines to control prices/schedules between continents. Is Google really a monopoly? Many people use Outlook, iPhones, Apple Maps, AWS, Bing, HERE maps etc...
  - jbeam 6y ago
    The antitrust investigation is focused on online advertising. So Outlook, iPhones, maps, AWS doesn't really apply there. "Many people" might use Bing, but Google dwarfs it in market share. I'm not particularly familiar with the infrastructure of the ad business, but my layman's view is that alternatives are slim outside of Google for search engine and the more general web and Facebook for specifically social media.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      > The antitrust investigation is focused on X so Y doesn't really apply there. Antitrust prosecutions are heavily dependent upon shaping the "market" which supposedly is being monopolized. There is no good argument for antitrust against the Apple App Store if the market is "all transactional marketplaces where software can be purchased", but there is a good argument if the market is narrowly defined as "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices". Look for similar shaping of the market by both sides (the prosecutor will attempt to narrow the market and the defendants will attempt to broaden the market). Also worth noting that Amazon already chipping away at Google's market share dominance in online advertising[1]. By the time the DOJ's prosecution goes thru the courts, the market is likely to be significantly changed from where it was when AG Sessions (who started these investigations) started crafting an anti-tech-giants strategy. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-googles-dominance-in-search-ads.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-google...
onetimemanytime 6y ago
Google has done a lot of harm to websites strictly to force people to advertise. I cannot "prove" it but, I, and god knows how many sites know it to be true. They went from sending people to the best match to keeping them in Google's circle. (Matt Cutts, you were the enabler. Your money and reputation is tainted)
- mrkramer 6y ago
  Matt Cutts Google's infamous SEO boss, you know he was only doing his job and trying to rank literally millions of websites on the internet. Ranking algorithms are black box btw no way somebody will completely understand them any time soon.
tjs8rj 6y ago
Part of it is surely just the PR of it. It's popular to hate on Google - and relatively non-partisan.
vondur 6y ago
I agree with Comcast, they need to be broken up, and Amazon could do with some scrutiny. But Apple, Boeing and United Airlines? The aren't monopolies by any definition.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Apple's monopoly is unusual, because what they did was create a wall around a section of an ancillary market (apps) which caused it to be its own market. Walmart doesn't have a monopoly on bread because anybody can buy bread from Costco instead without having to buy a new toaster. Once you make buying $1 apps from not-Apple require people to replace their $1000 phone, that makes apps for that kind of phone its own market which Apple has a monopoly on. That wouldn't be the case if they had competing app stores, but they don't. Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. I don't understand why United Airlines is on that list either. Airlines are a weird market because it's extremely capital intensive but also aggressively competitive, so they sort of alternate between all going bankrupt from relentless price competition and all colluding to raise prices enough that they don't all go bankrupt and then getting in trouble over it.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    > Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. This isn't due to monopolistic behavior; the McDonnell Douglas company, the last big American competitor to Boeing, would probably have ceased to be a going concern had the merger not happened. Modern aircraft cost billions and billions of dollars to develop; Bombardier just threw in the towel and sold to Airbus, and Embraer almost did the same with Boeing were it not for COVID. There are only so many aircraft manufacturers with the resources to invest in development of brand new commerical aircraft.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
rayiner 6y ago
Market concentration for all of those companies is much less than for Google. Google has 91% of the search market. Boeing has 45% of the global airline market. Amazon has a similar percentage of the e-commerce market, and an even smaller percentage of the retail market. Apple had 39% of the domestic airline market. United has 15% of the domestic airline market. Comcast’s market penetration is under 50%. (That means they have less than half the market in the areas they serve.) I don’t know if there is a political angle to this or not. But Google is objectively differently situated than the other companies you mention.
thephyber 6y ago
Not specific to AG Barr. Every AG under Trump has had the same goal. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/09/25/inside-big-meeting-federal-state-law-enforcement-that-signaled-new-willingness-investigate-tech-giants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/09/25/inside-...
w3mmpp 6y ago
Other monopolies don't openly support and promote a liberal agenda like tech companies do in general. They should have stay out of politics.
karmakaze 6y ago
Not to get far off topic, but in what way is Apple a monopoly? What do they have a majority market share of, internet-connected watches?
- blackflame7000 6y ago
  Yes because frankly, I need something else to wear on my wrist for Saturday nights so more competition is needed /s In reality, I agree that Apple doesn't really qualify as a monopoly. Same with United.
gfodor 6y ago
Google ought to scare you a lot more than the other companies you listed. One not need bring politics into the picture to understand why surveillance capitalism-based companies may require distinct scrutiny.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

Even if it is, it could set a precedent that makes it easier for a future, less corrupt administration. I don't know if the good necessarily outweighs the bad, but maybe it does.

dantheman 6y ago
Yeah, because the government going after private organizations with vague mandates is a clear way to avoid corruption. /S This is a continuation of politics trying to skim money off of tech and funnel it to thier favored constituents - it's straight up corruption.
- barrkel 6y ago
  Democracy is about setting the rules for society, including how to reallocate some fraction of private resources according to a popular mandate. This doesn't mean its corruption. You need more qualification to call it that. (Not saying that the Trump admin isn't corrupt. I'm rather saying that your statement is too broad, and it fits almost all generally accepted democratic governance.)
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    It’s possible to be corrupt with a democratic mandate. Levying taxes is one thing, sending the justice department after companies because they are out of favor with the current administration is obviously another.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    I wonder if you would say that if the government took your property under eminent domain so that Walmart could build a store.
tyre 6y ago
This. Precedent is tricky. Democrats removing the filibuster for judges came back to haunt them. There was a recent (last few weeks) SCOTUS decision that came out with numerous opinions by different coalitions. You could tell that they were all maneuvering around this idea of precedent. Liberal justices who ended up on either side (majority or minority) were couching their votes as upholding a prior precedent, even when they definitely weren't. Conservative justices ended up on either side of the case while subtly arguing that overturning precedent, or at least modifying it, was okay and normal. Both are presumed to be setting up for the next challenge to Roe vs. Wade. EDIT: mistakenly put that the democrats removed filibuster for SCOTUS judges, that was for other nominations
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  Precedent is tricky. Democrats removing the filibuster for SCOTUS judges came back to haunt them. Did it though? Legal precedent is different (for now) from political precedent, and I think the Republicans have proven they’re happy to steamroll through almost anything they can to seat a Justice. They would have instantly dropped the filibuster if it hadn’t already been done.
  - exclusiv 6y ago
    Come on now. Both sides will do what it takes to get their ideologically bent Justice in place. The leadership on both sides is complete trash anyway.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    This is no excuse to be the aggressor. "Republicans might do this" allows you to steamroll over anything set up to force compromise and bipartisanship. Once they're already doing something you don't have to feel bad about doing the same thing when it's your turn, but whoever is the first to tear down a barrier to naked partisanship is the party doing wrong.
    - lazulicurio 6y ago
      At least with respect to judges, it's not so much "Republicans might do this" as "Republicans are already doing this". Don't want to get too deep into the weeds here, but take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXl5A9EdLtU&t=2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXl5A9EdLtU&t=2015
GoodJokes 6y ago
Ah yes, the all powerful precedent! It has shown its strength lately don't you think.
jeffbee 6y ago
Imagine believing that American jurisprudence will survive Trump.

iateanapple 6y ago

Are any of those companies (except Amazon) even in the same league in terms of negative impact as big tech?

akersten 6y ago
I mean, your choices for flying somewhere are what - Delta or United? Some small regional carriers? What about for internet service - just a single ISP in most areas. Sometimes a monopoly by law, where no one else can lay fiber and they're free to charge as much as they want. Your choices for searching something on the internet, hosting a video, doing email, etc. are innumerable. So you'll have to qualify what you mean by "negative impact" before I can answer that.
- gwright 6y ago
  I don't think transportation is a good analogue because it is very easy to make substitutions. There are lots of ways to get from point A to point B with no single entity blocking your path. How many ways are there to publish a mobile app, for example? I generally describe myself as libertarian but I'm struggling to have a laissez-faire attitude about some aspects of big tech. I think the most frustrating thing is the lack of "due process" in the way that big tech deals with customers. Look at the recent story about the ridiculous review process for Chrome extensions. I could tell similar stories about the app stores.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Both American Airlines and Southwest Airlines would like a word with you. The definition of a monopoly isn't "really big". It's not even "the biggest of four major companies".
- iateanapple 6y ago
  > I mean, your choices for flying somewhere are what - Delta or United? Both delta and united are operating very high capital cost businesses on thin margins. What can we gain by trust busting them? > What about for internet service - just a single ISP in most areas. ISPs can be dealt with effectively at the local level - and they are not as invasive or as politically powerful as the tech giants. I’ve never had my searches for coronavirus related content restricted in any way by my ISP for example. > Your choices for searching something on the internet, hosting a video, doing email, etc. are innumerable. You are ignoring network effects and the advertising monopoly. But maybe that’s a good way to trust bust them? Perhaps YouTube should be made to start showing my dlive streams in the search results?

squnch 6y ago

What are you even talking about. Boeing and United?

subsubzero 6y ago

Not saying google isn't a monopoly, it classically is, same with facebook. But I wonder if Goog wasn't a majority "blue" company would he aggressively go after them. The problem is there are so many oligarchy's controlling industries. Chips, well its a two or three company game(intel, amd, ARM). Lets look at airlines, well its united, delta, american etc. Communications(cell phones), ATT, Verizon, Sprint/Tmobile. America is increasingly becoming a land of large companies controlling industries where the consumer almost always loses, think higher prices due to less competition. I point out google/facebook as they are the only companies in their space (search, social media) that control more than 75% of the space by themselves.

bgorman 6y ago
The government intentionally created the Airline oligopoly by banning foreign airlines from operating domestic flights in the US, and further by allowing United, American and Delta to form joint-ventures with foreign airlines to control prices/schedules between continents. Is Google really a monopoly? Many people use Outlook, iPhones, Apple Maps, AWS, Bing, HERE maps etc...
- jbeam 6y ago
  The antitrust investigation is focused on online advertising. So Outlook, iPhones, maps, AWS doesn't really apply there. "Many people" might use Bing, but Google dwarfs it in market share. I'm not particularly familiar with the infrastructure of the ad business, but my layman's view is that alternatives are slim outside of Google for search engine and the more general web and Facebook for specifically social media.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    > The antitrust investigation is focused on X so Y doesn't really apply there. Antitrust prosecutions are heavily dependent upon shaping the "market" which supposedly is being monopolized. There is no good argument for antitrust against the Apple App Store if the market is "all transactional marketplaces where software can be purchased", but there is a good argument if the market is narrowly defined as "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices". Look for similar shaping of the market by both sides (the prosecutor will attempt to narrow the market and the defendants will attempt to broaden the market). Also worth noting that Amazon already chipping away at Google's market share dominance in online advertising[1]. By the time the DOJ's prosecution goes thru the courts, the market is likely to be significantly changed from where it was when AG Sessions (who started these investigations) started crafting an anti-tech-giants strategy. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-googles-dominance-in-search-ads.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-google...

onetimemanytime 6y ago

Google has done a lot of harm to websites strictly to force people to advertise. I cannot "prove" it but, I, and god knows how many sites know it to be true. They went from sending people to the best match to keeping them in Google's circle. (Matt Cutts, you were the enabler. Your money and reputation is tainted)

mrkramer 6y ago
Matt Cutts Google's infamous SEO boss, you know he was only doing his job and trying to rank literally millions of websites on the internet. Ranking algorithms are black box btw no way somebody will completely understand them any time soon.

tjs8rj 6y ago

Part of it is surely just the PR of it. It's popular to hate on Google - and relatively non-partisan.

vondur 6y ago

I agree with Comcast, they need to be broken up, and Amazon could do with some scrutiny. But Apple, Boeing and United Airlines? The aren't monopolies by any definition.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Apple's monopoly is unusual, because what they did was create a wall around a section of an ancillary market (apps) which caused it to be its own market. Walmart doesn't have a monopoly on bread because anybody can buy bread from Costco instead without having to buy a new toaster. Once you make buying $1 apps from not-Apple require people to replace their $1000 phone, that makes apps for that kind of phone its own market which Apple has a monopoly on. That wouldn't be the case if they had competing app stores, but they don't. Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. I don't understand why United Airlines is on that list either. Airlines are a weird market because it's extremely capital intensive but also aggressively competitive, so they sort of alternate between all going bankrupt from relentless price competition and all colluding to raise prices enough that they don't all go bankrupt and then getting in trouble over it.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  > Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. This isn't due to monopolistic behavior; the McDonnell Douglas company, the last big American competitor to Boeing, would probably have ceased to be a going concern had the merger not happened. Modern aircraft cost billions and billions of dollars to develop; Bombardier just threw in the towel and sold to Airbus, and Embraer almost did the same with Boeing were it not for COVID. There are only so many aircraft manufacturers with the resources to invest in development of brand new commerical aircraft.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago

Market concentration for all of those companies is much less than for Google. Google has 91% of the search market. Boeing has 45% of the global airline market. Amazon has a similar percentage of the e-commerce market, and an even smaller percentage of the retail market. Apple had 39% of the domestic airline market. United has 15% of the domestic airline market. Comcast’s market penetration is under 50%. (That means they have less than half the market in the areas they serve.) I don’t know if there is a political angle to this or not. But Google is objectively differently situated than the other companies you mention.

thephyber 6y ago

Not specific to AG Barr. Every AG under Trump has had the same goal. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/09/25/inside-big-meeting-federal-state-law-enforcement-that-signaled-new-willingness-investigate-tech-giants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/09/25/inside-...

w3mmpp 6y ago

Other monopolies don't openly support and promote a liberal agenda like tech companies do in general. They should have stay out of politics.

karmakaze 6y ago

Not to get far off topic, but in what way is Apple a monopoly? What do they have a majority market share of, internet-connected watches?

blackflame7000 6y ago
Yes because frankly, I need something else to wear on my wrist for Saturday nights so more competition is needed /s In reality, I agree that Apple doesn't really qualify as a monopoly. Same with United.

gfodor 6y ago

Google ought to scare you a lot more than the other companies you listed. One not need bring politics into the picture to understand why surveillance capitalism-based companies may require distinct scrutiny.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]