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This may be a bit of pro-USA or pro-Western favoritism on my part, but if a company is getting away with illicitly gaining access to trade secrets in order to b
by eganist 6y ago
This may be a bit of pro-USA or pro-Western favoritism on my part, but if a company is getting away with illicitly gaining access to trade secrets in order to build a competitive advantage while shielded by its home country (not the best example, but t-mobile v. huawei - I imagine plenty of others are classified), is it in-scope for opposing nations to destabilize the company responsible for doing so?
- the-dude 6y agoHow about a company leveraging its monopoly on operating systems to illicitly gain an advantage in other markets, say ... webbrowsers? Should we nuke them?
- eganist 6y agoWell, "nuke" might be the wrong word, but doesn't it depend on the end goal? The EU seems to be taking the "extract wealth" approach, and just as with destabilization, is there anything wrong with that? I'm not answering the question; I'm asking it. I guess my overarching question in the end is whether or not it should be left up to the free market to resolve an issue that's spawned from an entity operating "outside" of it, either literally (e.g. in China) or figuratively (e.g. antitrust violations).
- the-dude 6y agoFair enough. Bomb 'em.
- ensignavenger 6y agoIf you are referring to Microsoft, then yes, the US and Europe both prosecuted them and placed restrictions on them.
- FrankBooth 6y agoMicrosoft? It’s not the nineties. Try Google.
- philipov 6y agoI think you mean Alphabet, and yes. Nuke Facebook and Amazon while we're at it. Break up all the huge conglomerates.
- pb7 6y agoWhy? How small do the pieces have to be to satisfy you?
- philipov 6y agoAmazon should be forced to spin off AWS and release Twitch. Facebook should be forced to release Instagram and Whatsapp. Alphabet should be forced to release Youtube, Waymo, etc. That's about the right scale of antitrust required here.
- rudolph9 6y agoMaybe there is a better word than “Nuke” to describe this? Perhaps a word not so strongly associated with death and destruction, unless you truly mean the physical locations of these orgs should be hit with atomic weapons?
- 6y ago
- ciarannolan 6y agoCompanies who make a web browser and a company that builds the hardware backbone of a nation's internet are not even comparable.
- eganist 6y agoTangential conversation, but I might actually disagree with you there. The modern web browser is the gateway to easily the vast majority of content consumption and creation tools currently in existence. They can be compared in terms of whether control of such can sway the balance of power in a grander scheme.
- Robotbeat 6y agoThe web browser is easier to replace than almost any of those things, though. I regularly use 2 or even 3 different web browsers on the same computer and another on my phone. If Chrome went away, there’d Be basically no impact on my life. Same not true for operating systems as it’s harder to switch.
- ardy42 6y ago> The web browser is easier to replace than almost any of those things, though. I regularly use 2 or even 3 different web browsers on the same computer and another on my phone. If Chrome went away, there’d Be basically no impact on my life. Same not true for operating systems as it’s harder to switch. I'm not so sure. Yeah you could fork Chromium or Firefox (the only two browsers left), but "web standards" have ballooned and gotten so bloated that you'd need a pretty significant engineering organization to manage to support it yourself.
- simlevesque 6y agoI'm not sure since so much of the internet is web browsing
- pb7 6y agoWhich company has a monopoly on operating systems?
- friendlybus 6y agoIf microsoft or google were to illicitly gain access to trade secrets through their extensive tracking systems, we wouldnt even know about it.
- rudolph9 6y agomaybe not right away but eventually people would catch on. Regardless, it’s pretty certain Huawei does it and the possibility someone else is doing it and currently getting away with it does not justify someone else doing it.
- threatofrain 6y agoBut is there a narrative that the federal government has a side channel way to deliver high quality intelligence to Google and Microsoft executives? How does it happen?
- jhwang5 6y agoGlad you came to terms with your pro-Western bias and even be upvoted by your peers for it.
- pb7 6y agoIt’s okay to have differing views, Wang.
- jhwang5 6y agoLmao, you must hate your life
- whylie 6y agoWang - please don't make these sort of hateful, projecting comments.
- dang 6y agoAs I've pointed out upthread, using someone's name like that crosses into personal attack and even harassment. But piling on with more, like you did here is even worse—it is mob behavior. That is seriously not cool. No more of this on HN, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 6y agoUsing someone's name like that crosses into personal attack and even harassment. That's not ok on HN, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pb7 6y agoI don’t agree with this. It is literally his username. Have you ever seen that episode of The Office where Michael won’t call Mr. Brown by his name because he thinks it’s racist to do so? That’s what you’re doing here, Dang. It is not a personal attack unless you interpret it as such. Guidelines state to take the most charitable version of what one says. Do you think you’re doing that here?
- moltar 6y agoEvery major Corp is getting intel. This has always been the case and will always be the case.