6 ms·

I am surprised Google is the highest priority. I would've assumed Amazon or Apple would top the list of antitrust targets.

SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
Or like the ISPs
- paxys 6y ago
  Or credit reporting agencies. Or credit card companies. Or banks. Or defense contractors. Tech is always the soft target for governments worldwide.
  - creddit 6y ago
    Banks aren’t really concentrated, though. Lots of competition in the area.
  - qppo 6y ago
    Because tech has monopolies over specific markets (or duopolies) engaged in anti-competitive practices that harm business and consumers while being comically unregulated. Banking, credit, and defense all have a pretty good balance of competition and regulation. That's not to say there aren't areas that should be targeted by governments, but tech is hardly a "soft target." It's never been hit!
    - thebradbain 6y ago
      Well, except for all the 90s/00s Microsoft + Internet Explorer antitrust drama -- though admittedly Microsoft came out of it mostly unscathed, if a bit humbled.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    >Tech is always the soft target for governments worldwide. lol. Take a look at credit card regulation in Europe and the amount of regulation passed on banks in the last 20 years alone (for good reasons). The only thing that's soft about tech is the industry's constant whinging because they're finally recognizing that the good old days of getting away with everything might be over. Credit cards are actually a good example. Let's slap the 0.2% interchange cap that is the legal limit in the EU on the Apple store and see what happens then.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > Let's slap the 0.2% interchange cap that is the legal limit in the EU on the Apple store and see what happens then. That's exactly the wrong solution, because it implies within it that they get to continue holding a monopoly as long as they're a regulated one. And then the regulations address the most visible seven of the two hundred thousand problems that are caused by monopolies and leave all of the other ones. What's needed is to reintroduce meaningful competition.
      - Barrin92 6y ago
        >That's exactly the wrong solution, because it implies within it that they get to continue holding a monopoly as long as they're a regulated one. That's a pretty common solution when infrastructure is concerned, which platforms basically are. Having 20 stores on your phone to me makes about as much sense as having 50 postal services driving on the streets. Not really sure what's wrong with basically making two regulations. Apple/Google get to charge ~1% or whatever for running the store, and they don't get to ban stuff other than content that's unlawful. To me it seems like that solves 99% of the issues we've been hearing about.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > That's a pretty common solution when infrastructure is concerned, which platforms basically are. It's pretty common for physical infrastructure because it has high fixed costs. Building a water distribution network is billion dollar enterprise. App stores are the complete opposite of that -- if it weren't for the platforms purposely interfering with competing stores, an individual would be able to set one up in a weekend. > Having 20 stores on your phone to me makes about as much sense as having 50 postal services driving on the streets. But we do have 50 postal services driving on the streets. Or at least more than one anyway -- USPS, FedEx, UPS, Amazon, plus private couriers, trucking companies and so on. You might as well ask why we have multiple retailers. "Wouldn't it be more efficient if everybody had to buy everything at Walmart and we just regulated them as a monopoly?" Some minor theoretical increase in efficiency is not worth the crushing oppression that would inevitably bring. > Not really sure what's wrong with basically making two regulations. Apple/Google get to charge ~1% or whatever for running the store, and they don't get to ban stuff other than content that's unlawful. To me it seems like that solves 99% of the issues we've been hearing about. Which means you're putting the role of vetting apps onto some other third parties -- good, now there will be competition and you won't be screwed if the monopoly store rejects something they shouldn't. But then what is the Google or Apple store even supposed to be doing? Hosting the app? Anybody can do that. Payment processing? There are a dozen companies that already do that. The only reason they have a monopoly is that they use control over the platform to purposely put barriers in front of app store competitors. It's not a natural monopoly whatsoever. And you're just proving the point about how the regulations only solve the most obvious problems and leave all the other ones. For example, if you let them exclude app store competitors, even if they can't charge high fees or exclude apps they don't like, they could still bury them in an unfindable hole by eliminating direct links and putting it on page 5000 of any search results, or cover anything they don't like in arbitrarily scary warning prompts, or find a hundred other ways to make your life hard unless you bend the knee. Whereas if their being unreasonable could be remedied by just going to another store, it actually puts a check on unreasonable behavior in general by way of competitive pressure, without you having to predict and explicitly prohibit it ahead of time.
- badwolf 6y ago
  The ISP's are probably who are pushing for this
sergiotapia 6y ago
Amazon sells stuff - Google shapes opinions. They are much more dangerous.
- xibalba 6y ago
  By this logic, would not Facebook and it's market leadership in social media be a better target?
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Better? No. Equally valid? Certainly.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    Not that antitrust has to be based on market share but - it is kinda hard to claim Facebook has a monopoly on much of anything. Facebook is a big player but there are dozens of big alternatives. That is not at all the case for Google. Search, YouTube, browsers, Android all have a dominant market position.
    - xibalba 6y ago
      Fair, but, conversely, Facebook has a well documented history of growth through acquiring or cloning competitors.
- creddit 6y ago
  Wait until I tell you about the major media corps!
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  Sounds rather Staliniesque given his infamous quote about not allowing enemies pens.
cmauniada 6y ago
It would be interesting to see how much amazon and apple spend vs. how much google spends on lobbying - might answer your q.
- oflannabhra 6y ago
  Seems like you'd be the one surprised: Even though they have cut their lobbying budget in the past two years, Alphabet has spent more on lobbying Congress over the past decade than any other tech firm, except maybe Amazon. [0] - https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2020&id=D000067823 https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...
- jjcon 6y ago
  Google has spent by far the most over the past 10 years. https://si-wsj-net.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OG-DI768_TECHLO_4U_20191025152941.png https://si-wsj-net.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/si.wsj.net/p...
  - cmauniada 6y ago
    Interesting. So its just a different admin that wants to get a point across. Right before elections too - simply political imo.
    - adventured 6y ago
      The Republican Party now views Google as a hostile, specifically anti-Republican entity. Google is regarded as a political enemy. It's not just about the election. The Republicans will persistently pursue any comapny that attempts to attack them as Google openly has. Google declared war on that political party, that party is now striking back. It was an enormous mistake by Google, as the Republican Party is one of the few entities in the US that is drastically more powerful than Google is; they can make their operational existence absolute hell, and they can destroy the company over time very easily just by pursuing their executives using available power levers, the best execs will avoid Google rather than deal with all the shit. It's what prompted both Larry and Sergey to run for cover as fast as they could, so they could avoid the scrutiny and investigations; I pity Pichai, he's the well-paid volunteer patsy to stand in and take the fire for Larry and Sergey.
marta_morena_25 6y ago
Did you read the article? "“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media,” he said on Twitter. “In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others.” He also said Google had potentially violated the law." Any more questions why it's neither Amazon, nor Apple. Trump doesn't give a shit about computers or warehouses. He also doesn't give a shit about anti-trust, or consumers. He cares about re-election and his own interests. And that puts Google and Facebook in the cross-hair. At least for now. Trumps decisions are easy to understand, once you keep in mind that he does nothing that isn't for his own benefit. Everything makes sense then.
Aperocky 6y ago
Amazon can easily point to Walmart, Apple can easily point to.. Every other phone that's not an iPhone. Google is the only one who doesn't have anybody realistic to point to, and no, Bing does not count.
- adrr 6y ago
  Google can point to FB, TikTok and other social networks that also utilizes UGC video consumption to deliver ads.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Isn't this more about their search engine than it is about youtube? Unless youtube also has >90% market.
    - actuator 6y ago
      Do Alexa, Siri and all the new ways of searching count as search engines?
      - D2187645 6y ago
        You ever herd someone say "just siri/alexa/bing/yahoo/ddg it"?
        asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        This isn't a particularly strong argument. Kleenex isn't on the antitrust chopping block even though you never hear anyone say, "Hey, can you pass me an AngelSoft?"
        actuator 6y ago
        Even if that is true, do you deny that they are search engines themselves. Siri, Alexa etc are even more opaque as they don't give a list of results, rather have deep integration to their own services and can't even be replaced by an alternative.
Ensorceled 6y ago
This is a poltical play. All of these should be targets but the WH is looking for a pre-election "win", more symbolic than anything. Google is ~80% of search in the US. Large percentage of online advertising. Lots of anti-competitive stuff to point to. Apple is 50% at best of the smartphone market and their major competitors are South Korean and Chinese. Targeting Apple, with no major US competitor, is NOT a win. Not a good thing to be bringing up in an election year. Amazon would also be a complicated anti-trust target, you need to specifically focus on online retail effects while not allowing Amazon to switch the conversation to talking about general retail and Walmart/Target. So, too complicated for any kind of quick traction.
- pbourke 6y ago
  > the WH is looking for a pre-election "win", more symbolic than anything. The "win" being the announcement of a case and ensuing press coverage or whatnot? I'm assuming it would take years for such a case to be concluded.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    Yeah if the dust has settled in five years that would be surprisingly quick. I'm curious what the community of legal scholars considers most likely in this case.
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    Pick more fights to distract people from all the existing losing fights! How's that wall looking?
    - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
      Going great! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/us/politics/border-wall-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/us/politics/border-wall-c... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/nyregion/steve-bannon-arrested-indicted.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/nyregion/steve-bannon-arr...
  - 6y ago
cryptica 6y ago
Google has complete control over all internet search traffic in most of the world. They get to decide which websites are popular and which are not. This affects every person who owns a website or blog; a LOT of people. This is too much power for one company. Amazon is just an online retailer, their monopoly only affects people who have shops on Amazon; this is not as harmful because it does not affect as many people and businesses (currently). Same with Apple, their monopoly only affects people and businesses who want to sell apps on the Apple App store; this is a small number of people and businesses compared to the number affected by Google's search monopoly. If you own a website, your life is being affected by Google. At a society level, Google can control the narrative of any social issue by tweaking its ranking algorithms to serve its own interests. From first hand experience as an open source author who runs an open source project website, it certainly seems that Google has been treating me progressively worse over time.
- zo1 6y ago
  I don't think people realize how much of an effect google has had on shaping the internet over the past decade. I get the impression that most people think Google is just following-along with the trends/changes occurring on the internet, rather than being the driving/molding force. And the fact that Google is politically biased internally should also be equally worrying.
- Supermancho 6y ago
  > If you own a website, your life is being affected by Google. Once chrome removes the url bar, life is going to get a lot tougher for any company that wants to avoid Alphabet.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  That is an impressive reversal of cause and effect on so many levels.
  - cryptica 6y ago
    I think you know the truth and you're saying the opposite. Maybe you own Google shares, maybe you work there, maybe someone is paying you to post comments on HN... How can anyone believe what you're saying? We can all look around and see for ourselves with our own eyes that Google's monopoly is harming us. Why should anyone believe Google more than their own eyes? Even if our eyes were deceiving us, doesn't it say something about Google that we have become so distrusting of it? So if a company earns the trust of their users (and grows very big and successful as a result), they get to claim full credit for it, but if they lose that trust, they're not responsible? I'd trust the gut feelings of the majority of people rather than the opinions of a handful of experts... What's worse about this case is that there are no experts coming out in defense of Google; they do have financial incentives; so I suspect that they simply have no material to work with! They cannot show proof to defend the fairness of Google's ranking algorithm because they know that any insight into how it works would conclusively prove that it's not fair. That's why Google is keeping the algorithm a secret.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
js2 6y ago
It’s politically motivated. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1158797735488888837 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11587977354888888...
- zo1 6y ago
  Good - that's what people voted him into office for, I would assume. Specifically his "Fake News" focused platform.
averysmallbird 6y ago
There are reportedly investigations against Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook; with DOJ taking the first two and the FTC taking the latter. Google was likely the easiest because there was a prior FTC investigation and EU enforcement actions taken against Google. Additionally, more state AGs rallied to the Google case.
ideals 6y ago
Amazon has huge warehouses in lots of states which means they have political power to threaten pulling jobs from districts or states. Google is a much softer target.
- josefx 6y ago
  Not sure how much of a net positive Amazon jobs are. New York already refused to deal with all the demands Amazon had when it planned its HQ there. Large companies know exactly how much perceived value they bring to the table and try to make sure that society pays for it at least twice over without giving any guarantees.
sangnoir 6y ago
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say YouTube's value to a certain political campaign might have played at part in bumping up Google's priority. Apple and Amazon do not have a similar propaganda^w free speech platform that has to be kept on a short leash with similar urgency. Obviously that wouldn't never happen in the U.S.A. - the DoJ's dealings have been entirely professional, non-partisan and above-board.
Pandabob 6y ago
I know antitrust covers more than just the classic case of monopolies driving up consumer prices. But looking at it just from the anti-consumer lens, the case against Amazon really is kind of funny, when they're at the same time blamed for pushing prices down so low that that the fed uses them as a possible explanation for low inflation [1]. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/new-fed-chairman-says-amazon-helped-keep-inflation-low.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/new-fed-chairman-says-amazon...
pwinnski 6y ago
This seems topsy-turvy to me. _Of course_ Google is at the top of the list! Amazon and Apple don't own YouTube, as well as both the supply and demand sides of the vast majority of the advertising market. There's plenty of reasons to go after all of the big tech companies, but Google seems like an obvious candidate for first.
- TheMblabla 6y ago
  Apple and amazon have antitrust issues in their own walled garden ecosystems, with the app store and amazon marketplace. I would think Amazon an initial candidate actually, since it's been displacing so many existing businesses.
ummonk 6y ago
Not really. Both have robust competition in their respective primary product spaces. Google does not.

SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago

Or like the ISPs

paxys 6y ago
Or credit reporting agencies. Or credit card companies. Or banks. Or defense contractors. Tech is always the soft target for governments worldwide.
- creddit 6y ago
  Banks aren’t really concentrated, though. Lots of competition in the area.
- qppo 6y ago
  Because tech has monopolies over specific markets (or duopolies) engaged in anti-competitive practices that harm business and consumers while being comically unregulated. Banking, credit, and defense all have a pretty good balance of competition and regulation. That's not to say there aren't areas that should be targeted by governments, but tech is hardly a "soft target." It's never been hit!
  - thebradbain 6y ago
    Well, except for all the 90s/00s Microsoft + Internet Explorer antitrust drama -- though admittedly Microsoft came out of it mostly unscathed, if a bit humbled.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  >Tech is always the soft target for governments worldwide. lol. Take a look at credit card regulation in Europe and the amount of regulation passed on banks in the last 20 years alone (for good reasons). The only thing that's soft about tech is the industry's constant whinging because they're finally recognizing that the good old days of getting away with everything might be over. Credit cards are actually a good example. Let's slap the 0.2% interchange cap that is the legal limit in the EU on the Apple store and see what happens then.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Let's slap the 0.2% interchange cap that is the legal limit in the EU on the Apple store and see what happens then. That's exactly the wrong solution, because it implies within it that they get to continue holding a monopoly as long as they're a regulated one. And then the regulations address the most visible seven of the two hundred thousand problems that are caused by monopolies and leave all of the other ones. What's needed is to reintroduce meaningful competition.
    - Barrin92 6y ago
      >That's exactly the wrong solution, because it implies within it that they get to continue holding a monopoly as long as they're a regulated one. That's a pretty common solution when infrastructure is concerned, which platforms basically are. Having 20 stores on your phone to me makes about as much sense as having 50 postal services driving on the streets. Not really sure what's wrong with basically making two regulations. Apple/Google get to charge ~1% or whatever for running the store, and they don't get to ban stuff other than content that's unlawful. To me it seems like that solves 99% of the issues we've been hearing about.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > That's a pretty common solution when infrastructure is concerned, which platforms basically are. It's pretty common for physical infrastructure because it has high fixed costs. Building a water distribution network is billion dollar enterprise. App stores are the complete opposite of that -- if it weren't for the platforms purposely interfering with competing stores, an individual would be able to set one up in a weekend. > Having 20 stores on your phone to me makes about as much sense as having 50 postal services driving on the streets. But we do have 50 postal services driving on the streets. Or at least more than one anyway -- USPS, FedEx, UPS, Amazon, plus private couriers, trucking companies and so on. You might as well ask why we have multiple retailers. "Wouldn't it be more efficient if everybody had to buy everything at Walmart and we just regulated them as a monopoly?" Some minor theoretical increase in efficiency is not worth the crushing oppression that would inevitably bring. > Not really sure what's wrong with basically making two regulations. Apple/Google get to charge ~1% or whatever for running the store, and they don't get to ban stuff other than content that's unlawful. To me it seems like that solves 99% of the issues we've been hearing about. Which means you're putting the role of vetting apps onto some other third parties -- good, now there will be competition and you won't be screwed if the monopoly store rejects something they shouldn't. But then what is the Google or Apple store even supposed to be doing? Hosting the app? Anybody can do that. Payment processing? There are a dozen companies that already do that. The only reason they have a monopoly is that they use control over the platform to purposely put barriers in front of app store competitors. It's not a natural monopoly whatsoever. And you're just proving the point about how the regulations only solve the most obvious problems and leave all the other ones. For example, if you let them exclude app store competitors, even if they can't charge high fees or exclude apps they don't like, they could still bury them in an unfindable hole by eliminating direct links and putting it on page 5000 of any search results, or cover anything they don't like in arbitrarily scary warning prompts, or find a hundred other ways to make your life hard unless you bend the knee. Whereas if their being unreasonable could be remedied by just going to another store, it actually puts a check on unreasonable behavior in general by way of competitive pressure, without you having to predict and explicitly prohibit it ahead of time.
badwolf 6y ago
The ISP's are probably who are pushing for this

sergiotapia 6y ago

Amazon sells stuff - Google shapes opinions. They are much more dangerous.

xibalba 6y ago
By this logic, would not Facebook and it's market leadership in social media be a better target?
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Better? No. Equally valid? Certainly.
- jjcon 6y ago
  Not that antitrust has to be based on market share but - it is kinda hard to claim Facebook has a monopoly on much of anything. Facebook is a big player but there are dozens of big alternatives. That is not at all the case for Google. Search, YouTube, browsers, Android all have a dominant market position.
  - xibalba 6y ago
    Fair, but, conversely, Facebook has a well documented history of growth through acquiring or cloning competitors.
creddit 6y ago
Wait until I tell you about the major media corps!
Nasrudith 6y ago
Sounds rather Staliniesque given his infamous quote about not allowing enemies pens.

cmauniada 6y ago

It would be interesting to see how much amazon and apple spend vs. how much google spends on lobbying - might answer your q.

oflannabhra 6y ago
Seems like you'd be the one surprised: Even though they have cut their lobbying budget in the past two years, Alphabet has spent more on lobbying Congress over the past decade than any other tech firm, except maybe Amazon. [0] - https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2020&id=D000067823 https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...
jjcon 6y ago
Google has spent by far the most over the past 10 years. https://si-wsj-net.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OG-DI768_TECHLO_4U_20191025152941.png https://si-wsj-net.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/si.wsj.net/p...
- cmauniada 6y ago
  Interesting. So its just a different admin that wants to get a point across. Right before elections too - simply political imo.
  - adventured 6y ago
    The Republican Party now views Google as a hostile, specifically anti-Republican entity. Google is regarded as a political enemy. It's not just about the election. The Republicans will persistently pursue any comapny that attempts to attack them as Google openly has. Google declared war on that political party, that party is now striking back. It was an enormous mistake by Google, as the Republican Party is one of the few entities in the US that is drastically more powerful than Google is; they can make their operational existence absolute hell, and they can destroy the company over time very easily just by pursuing their executives using available power levers, the best execs will avoid Google rather than deal with all the shit. It's what prompted both Larry and Sergey to run for cover as fast as they could, so they could avoid the scrutiny and investigations; I pity Pichai, he's the well-paid volunteer patsy to stand in and take the fire for Larry and Sergey.

marta_morena_25 6y ago

Did you read the article? "“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media,” he said on Twitter. “In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others.” He also said Google had potentially violated the law." Any more questions why it's neither Amazon, nor Apple. Trump doesn't give a shit about computers or warehouses. He also doesn't give a shit about anti-trust, or consumers. He cares about re-election and his own interests. And that puts Google and Facebook in the cross-hair. At least for now. Trumps decisions are easy to understand, once you keep in mind that he does nothing that isn't for his own benefit. Everything makes sense then.

Aperocky 6y ago

Amazon can easily point to Walmart, Apple can easily point to.. Every other phone that's not an iPhone. Google is the only one who doesn't have anybody realistic to point to, and no, Bing does not count.

adrr 6y ago
Google can point to FB, TikTok and other social networks that also utilizes UGC video consumption to deliver ads.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Isn't this more about their search engine than it is about youtube? Unless youtube also has >90% market.
  - actuator 6y ago
    Do Alexa, Siri and all the new ways of searching count as search engines?
    - D2187645 6y ago
      You ever herd someone say "just siri/alexa/bing/yahoo/ddg it"?
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        This isn't a particularly strong argument. Kleenex isn't on the antitrust chopping block even though you never hear anyone say, "Hey, can you pass me an AngelSoft?"
      - actuator 6y ago
        Even if that is true, do you deny that they are search engines themselves. Siri, Alexa etc are even more opaque as they don't give a list of results, rather have deep integration to their own services and can't even be replaced by an alternative.

Ensorceled 6y ago

This is a poltical play. All of these should be targets but the WH is looking for a pre-election "win", more symbolic than anything. Google is ~80% of search in the US. Large percentage of online advertising. Lots of anti-competitive stuff to point to. Apple is 50% at best of the smartphone market and their major competitors are South Korean and Chinese. Targeting Apple, with no major US competitor, is NOT a win. Not a good thing to be bringing up in an election year. Amazon would also be a complicated anti-trust target, you need to specifically focus on online retail effects while not allowing Amazon to switch the conversation to talking about general retail and Walmart/Target. So, too complicated for any kind of quick traction.

pbourke 6y ago
> the WH is looking for a pre-election "win", more symbolic than anything. The "win" being the announcement of a case and ensuing press coverage or whatnot? I'm assuming it would take years for such a case to be concluded.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  Yeah if the dust has settled in five years that would be surprisingly quick. I'm curious what the community of legal scholars considers most likely in this case.
- sdenton4 6y ago
  Pick more fights to distract people from all the existing losing fights! How's that wall looking?
  - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
    Going great! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/us/politics/border-wall-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/us/politics/border-wall-c... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/nyregion/steve-bannon-arrested-indicted.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/nyregion/steve-bannon-arr...
- 6y ago

cryptica 6y ago

Google has complete control over all internet search traffic in most of the world. They get to decide which websites are popular and which are not. This affects every person who owns a website or blog; a LOT of people. This is too much power for one company. Amazon is just an online retailer, their monopoly only affects people who have shops on Amazon; this is not as harmful because it does not affect as many people and businesses (currently). Same with Apple, their monopoly only affects people and businesses who want to sell apps on the Apple App store; this is a small number of people and businesses compared to the number affected by Google's search monopoly. If you own a website, your life is being affected by Google. At a society level, Google can control the narrative of any social issue by tweaking its ranking algorithms to serve its own interests. From first hand experience as an open source author who runs an open source project website, it certainly seems that Google has been treating me progressively worse over time.

zo1 6y ago
I don't think people realize how much of an effect google has had on shaping the internet over the past decade. I get the impression that most people think Google is just following-along with the trends/changes occurring on the internet, rather than being the driving/molding force. And the fact that Google is politically biased internally should also be equally worrying.
Supermancho 6y ago
> If you own a website, your life is being affected by Google. Once chrome removes the url bar, life is going to get a lot tougher for any company that wants to avoid Alphabet.
Nasrudith 6y ago
That is an impressive reversal of cause and effect on so many levels.
- cryptica 6y ago
  I think you know the truth and you're saying the opposite. Maybe you own Google shares, maybe you work there, maybe someone is paying you to post comments on HN... How can anyone believe what you're saying? We can all look around and see for ourselves with our own eyes that Google's monopoly is harming us. Why should anyone believe Google more than their own eyes? Even if our eyes were deceiving us, doesn't it say something about Google that we have become so distrusting of it? So if a company earns the trust of their users (and grows very big and successful as a result), they get to claim full credit for it, but if they lose that trust, they're not responsible? I'd trust the gut feelings of the majority of people rather than the opinions of a handful of experts... What's worse about this case is that there are no experts coming out in defense of Google; they do have financial incentives; so I suspect that they simply have no material to work with! They cannot show proof to defend the fairness of Google's ranking algorithm because they know that any insight into how it works would conclusively prove that it's not fair. That's why Google is keeping the algorithm a secret.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

js2 6y ago

It’s politically motivated. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1158797735488888837 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11587977354888888...

zo1 6y ago
Good - that's what people voted him into office for, I would assume. Specifically his "Fake News" focused platform.

averysmallbird 6y ago

There are reportedly investigations against Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook; with DOJ taking the first two and the FTC taking the latter. Google was likely the easiest because there was a prior FTC investigation and EU enforcement actions taken against Google. Additionally, more state AGs rallied to the Google case.

ideals 6y ago

Amazon has huge warehouses in lots of states which means they have political power to threaten pulling jobs from districts or states. Google is a much softer target.

josefx 6y ago
Not sure how much of a net positive Amazon jobs are. New York already refused to deal with all the demands Amazon had when it planned its HQ there. Large companies know exactly how much perceived value they bring to the table and try to make sure that society pays for it at least twice over without giving any guarantees.

sangnoir 6y ago

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say YouTube's value to a certain political campaign might have played at part in bumping up Google's priority. Apple and Amazon do not have a similar propaganda^w free speech platform that has to be kept on a short leash with similar urgency. Obviously that wouldn't never happen in the U.S.A. - the DoJ's dealings have been entirely professional, non-partisan and above-board.

Pandabob 6y ago

I know antitrust covers more than just the classic case of monopolies driving up consumer prices. But looking at it just from the anti-consumer lens, the case against Amazon really is kind of funny, when they're at the same time blamed for pushing prices down so low that that the fed uses them as a possible explanation for low inflation [1]. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/new-fed-chairman-says-amazon-helped-keep-inflation-low.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/new-fed-chairman-says-amazon...

pwinnski 6y ago

This seems topsy-turvy to me. _Of course_ Google is at the top of the list! Amazon and Apple don't own YouTube, as well as both the supply and demand sides of the vast majority of the advertising market. There's plenty of reasons to go after all of the big tech companies, but Google seems like an obvious candidate for first.

TheMblabla 6y ago
Apple and amazon have antitrust issues in their own walled garden ecosystems, with the app store and amazon marketplace. I would think Amazon an initial candidate actually, since it's been displacing so many existing businesses.

ummonk 6y ago

Not really. Both have robust competition in their respective primary product spaces. Google does not.