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This is so grossly political that it's disgusting. Clearly the administration sees Google through the lens of an adversary, which is astonishing enough. When r

This is so grossly political that it's disgusting. Clearly the administration sees Google through the lens of an adversary, which is astonishing enough. When reading something like this, "according to five people briefed on internal department conversations." is the first clue. You have mass leakage of internal discussions, with career ending consequences. You can't have any greater signal that something is very wrong, and that people believe the chain of reporting is compromised. The question of whether Google represents a monopoly is critical for every software professional in this forum, and it is a trillion dollar US company that represents most people's discovery platform for information. It has has nuance, and there are gray areas that are going to have generational impact when they are litigated. It an important legal question and not well served by a thin case served out two months from an election.

tathougies 6y ago
Hacker news is so bipolar on this. I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immediately, there's a rush to defend Google. It's getting nauseating really. Something being 'political' is not bad, especially when it being 'political' enforces the will of the people against those who ought to be subject to the will of the people. In particular, many Americans believe Google to be engaging in anti-competitive practices, so being political by following what the American populace wants cannot and should not be used as an insult.
- AJ007 6y ago
  These comments are bizarre. This topic has been discussed ad nauseam in hacker news for many years. The discussion on here was justifiably more extensive and explained more deeply than anywhere else. People on hacker news have used Google services for 15+ years. They’ve built businesses around Google’s platform. They’ve built businesses which compete with Google. They’ve seen Google do things which dismantled other businesses so that Google could earn some incremental revenue in order to continue to pay their executives and employees wildly bloated salaries (e.g. Anthony Levandowski paid over $100m; that’s insane.) Google has a lot of deep problems. They managed to kick the US regulatory can down the road over and over again. Now they have to deal with it. All but 1 state AG was on board for this. They were very cozy with the Obama White House so there is very good justification for this to happen now.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  HN isn't an entity. You see discussions here praising Haskell or Lisp as the second coming, and then discussions about how awful they are and how they'll never amount to anything because they don't match the underlying machine as well as C. It's different people with different opinions, experiences, and views expressing them at different times.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    HN is an entity. Among other things it’s a community. As a community it has prevailing opinions about certain things, and you can measure that with how things are up/down voted. It’s also true that many of the prevailing opinions here are completely at odds with each other.
    - lizardmancan 6y ago
      hah, i wonder at what level of self-censorship we actually are (if there is a we) in theory the hn opinion could be very different from the users.
- geofft 6y ago
  > I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immediately, there's a rush to defend Google. Well, that's my actual position. "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." I think it's important to enforce the laws we have fairly. However, going after political opponents because they are political opponents, and retroactively figuring out what laws you can use against them, is very different from enforcing the laws fairly. I think we should be going after many more companies than we do on antitrust grounds (and I think society would be better if we had even more stringent antitrust laws). Going after a single company and saying "Hmmm, antitrust?" does not actually succeed at maintaining the rule of law. (I do, for what it's worth, agree that "political" is not an insult. It's a descriptor, and it applies to just about anything involving the government or the shape of society. In this case, I think it happens to be a descriptor for something bad. It is entirely good and proper for politics to influence what laws we have; it is improper for politics to influence against whom we choose to enforce them.)
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    This comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239) has mentioned that multiple major companies are being investigated, so maybe the investigation into Google just happens to be further along.
    - geofft 6y ago
      That's a good point, but also, given that "and Facebook and Amazon" are often Trump's next words after "Google," it doesn't do much to convince me that this isn't politically-motivated selective enforcement. (Though, on the other other hand, I'm not sure what big tech companies Trump isn't mad at, so maybe this is a low-selectivity filter.)
  - tathougies 6y ago
    But Google is not a political opponent of trump and if biden were to go after facebook one could make the same accusation. This is a ridiculous standard. Those with opposing political views (and it's not clear Google really has political views) are not exempt from the law.
topspin 6y ago
"You have mass leakage of internal discussions, with career ending consequences. You can't have any greater signal that something is very wrong, and that people believe the chain of reporting is compromised." Leaks from DOJ is SOP; Trump or not the place is a hot bed of political grifters posing as law enforcement officials and playing footsies with their media contacts. And I don't share your alarm over the potential consequences. The political class won't hurt Alphabet. At worst there will be a shakedown, some new toothless minders will emerge (captured on inception,) and then they'll throw the fish back, just like they did with Microsoft.
hiram112 6y ago
> Clearly the administration sees Google through the lens of an adversary, which is astonishing enough. How is that astonishing? Google has made it more than clear that they will use their vast resources to help Trump's opponents. It's almost a meme at this point that if you want to search for something politically incorrect - or anything that doesn't align with the left - you need to use Bing or DDG. * Google: [The donald](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+donald https://www.google.com/search?q=the+donald) - not on the first page * Bing: [The Donald](https://www.bing.com/search?q=the+donald https://www.bing.com/search?q=the+donald) - 1st result * https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/09/10/silent-donation-corporate-emails-reveal-google-executives-efforts-to-swing-election-to-hillary-clinton-with-latino-outreach-campaign/ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/09/10/silent-donatio...
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. All you example proves is that Google and Bing follow different metrics for relevance -- Google's being more relevant for someone looking for the former subreddit that was widely discussed in other media outlets, Bing's being more relevant for someone looking for the current incarnation i.e. dedicated Trump supporters. The idea that there is some conspiracy within Google to promote Trump's opponents needs more proof than that.
- throwaways885 6y ago
  I want to agree with you, but The Donald was banned. Bing doesn't mention this and Google does. Why link to a dead site?
  - hiram112 6y ago
    The link is not to Reddit, it's to their new site. You'd think people could decide for themselves if they want to go to the actual forum, but Google doesn't think you're bright enough to make your own choice, apparently.
paganel 6y ago
> This is so grossly political that it's disgusting A one-trillion dollars company can only be tackled politically, let's not fool ourselves here. In other words I find nothing "disgusting" about this, if anything the US authorities should have been more open in their approach, i.e. pointing out that letting a few tech behemoths take control of our society (a highly technological one) it's not in the best interest of the populace. Again, you cannot tackle (very) big stuff like this in a non-political matter.
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  What is different now about Google's situation today as compared to one year ago, aside from the US being 2 months from an election and a raging viral pandemic?
  - jjcon 6y ago
    Couple problems with your conspiracy- this began years ago, it’s been in the works for a long time, it is being led by a democrat and has bipartisan supprt
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  If it cannot be done honestly that is a major hint that the political apparatus is in the wrong here. It is only done by those trying to seize power for selfish ends. Everything about how it is done screams "don't trust those offspring of bitches".
natcombs 6y ago
The antitrust congress committee a couple weeks ago is head by a democrat and was bi-partisan so I don’t suspect it’s the administration leading this, but perhaps are working with congress

tathougies 6y ago

Hacker news is so bipolar on this. I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immediately, there's a rush to defend Google. It's getting nauseating really. Something being 'political' is not bad, especially when it being 'political' enforces the will of the people against those who ought to be subject to the will of the people. In particular, many Americans believe Google to be engaging in anti-competitive practices, so being political by following what the American populace wants cannot and should not be used as an insult.

AJ007 6y ago
These comments are bizarre. This topic has been discussed ad nauseam in hacker news for many years. The discussion on here was justifiably more extensive and explained more deeply than anywhere else. People on hacker news have used Google services for 15+ years. They’ve built businesses around Google’s platform. They’ve built businesses which compete with Google. They’ve seen Google do things which dismantled other businesses so that Google could earn some incremental revenue in order to continue to pay their executives and employees wildly bloated salaries (e.g. Anthony Levandowski paid over $100m; that’s insane.) Google has a lot of deep problems. They managed to kick the US regulatory can down the road over and over again. Now they have to deal with it. All but 1 state AG was on board for this. They were very cozy with the Obama White House so there is very good justification for this to happen now.
Jtsummers 6y ago
HN isn't an entity. You see discussions here praising Haskell or Lisp as the second coming, and then discussions about how awful they are and how they'll never amount to anything because they don't match the underlying machine as well as C. It's different people with different opinions, experiences, and views expressing them at different times.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  HN is an entity. Among other things it’s a community. As a community it has prevailing opinions about certain things, and you can measure that with how things are up/down voted. It’s also true that many of the prevailing opinions here are completely at odds with each other.
  - lizardmancan 6y ago
    hah, i wonder at what level of self-censorship we actually are (if there is a we) in theory the hn opinion could be very different from the users.
geofft 6y ago
> I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immediately, there's a rush to defend Google. Well, that's my actual position. "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." I think it's important to enforce the laws we have fairly. However, going after political opponents because they are political opponents, and retroactively figuring out what laws you can use against them, is very different from enforcing the laws fairly. I think we should be going after many more companies than we do on antitrust grounds (and I think society would be better if we had even more stringent antitrust laws). Going after a single company and saying "Hmmm, antitrust?" does not actually succeed at maintaining the rule of law. (I do, for what it's worth, agree that "political" is not an insult. It's a descriptor, and it applies to just about anything involving the government or the shape of society. In this case, I think it happens to be a descriptor for something bad. It is entirely good and proper for politics to influence what laws we have; it is improper for politics to influence against whom we choose to enforce them.)
- nitrogen 6y ago
  This comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239) has mentioned that multiple major companies are being investigated, so maybe the investigation into Google just happens to be further along.
  - geofft 6y ago
    That's a good point, but also, given that "and Facebook and Amazon" are often Trump's next words after "Google," it doesn't do much to convince me that this isn't politically-motivated selective enforcement. (Though, on the other other hand, I'm not sure what big tech companies Trump isn't mad at, so maybe this is a low-selectivity filter.)
- tathougies 6y ago
  But Google is not a political opponent of trump and if biden were to go after facebook one could make the same accusation. This is a ridiculous standard. Those with opposing political views (and it's not clear Google really has political views) are not exempt from the law.

topspin 6y ago

"You have mass leakage of internal discussions, with career ending consequences. You can't have any greater signal that something is very wrong, and that people believe the chain of reporting is compromised." Leaks from DOJ is SOP; Trump or not the place is a hot bed of political grifters posing as law enforcement officials and playing footsies with their media contacts. And I don't share your alarm over the potential consequences. The political class won't hurt Alphabet. At worst there will be a shakedown, some new toothless minders will emerge (captured on inception,) and then they'll throw the fish back, just like they did with Microsoft.

hiram112 6y ago

> Clearly the administration sees Google through the lens of an adversary, which is astonishing enough. How is that astonishing? Google has made it more than clear that they will use their vast resources to help Trump's opponents. It's almost a meme at this point that if you want to search for something politically incorrect - or anything that doesn't align with the left - you need to use Bing or DDG. * Google: [The donald](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+donald https://www.google.com/search?q=the+donald) - not on the first page * Bing: [The Donald](https://www.bing.com/search?q=the+donald https://www.bing.com/search?q=the+donald) - 1st result * https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/09/10/silent-donation-corporate-emails-reveal-google-executives-efforts-to-swing-election-to-hillary-clinton-with-latino-outreach-campaign/ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/09/10/silent-donatio...

betterunix2 6y ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. All you example proves is that Google and Bing follow different metrics for relevance -- Google's being more relevant for someone looking for the former subreddit that was widely discussed in other media outlets, Bing's being more relevant for someone looking for the current incarnation i.e. dedicated Trump supporters. The idea that there is some conspiracy within Google to promote Trump's opponents needs more proof than that.
throwaways885 6y ago
I want to agree with you, but The Donald was banned. Bing doesn't mention this and Google does. Why link to a dead site?
- hiram112 6y ago
  The link is not to Reddit, it's to their new site. You'd think people could decide for themselves if they want to go to the actual forum, but Google doesn't think you're bright enough to make your own choice, apparently.

paganel 6y ago

> This is so grossly political that it's disgusting A one-trillion dollars company can only be tackled politically, let's not fool ourselves here. In other words I find nothing "disgusting" about this, if anything the US authorities should have been more open in their approach, i.e. pointing out that letting a few tech behemoths take control of our society (a highly technological one) it's not in the best interest of the populace. Again, you cannot tackle (very) big stuff like this in a non-political matter.

throwaway5752 6y ago
What is different now about Google's situation today as compared to one year ago, aside from the US being 2 months from an election and a raging viral pandemic?
- jjcon 6y ago
  Couple problems with your conspiracy- this began years ago, it’s been in the works for a long time, it is being led by a democrat and has bipartisan supprt
Nasrudith 6y ago
If it cannot be done honestly that is a major hint that the political apparatus is in the wrong here. It is only done by those trying to seize power for selfish ends. Everything about how it is done screams "don't trust those offspring of bitches".

natcombs 6y ago

The antitrust congress committee a couple weeks ago is head by a democrat and was bi-partisan so I don’t suspect it’s the administration leading this, but perhaps are working with congress