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I don't get why people are so comfortable with the idea of politicians wearing their dislike of certain corporations on their sleeve, such as Senator Warren see

I don't get why people are so comfortable with the idea of politicians wearing their dislike of certain corporations on their sleeve, such as Senator Warren seems to do for Google. Anti-trust regulations are not supposed to be used as generic legal cudgels against corporations you don't like. They are supposed to be, you know, for making sure that the market remains sane. Right now, it almost feels like "We don't like Google, and we gotta throw the book at them so that at least some page sticks". This attitude is akin to selectively weaponizing the law. Kinda like the landlord finding a reason to evict you so he combs through the lease agreement and finds a clause that your curtains need to be white but you actually have pale yellow ones. Sure, you are technically in violation of the lease, but it's very clear why this is being done, and the curtains have little to do with it. And it explains why, for example, no one cares about Comcast or the fact that a handful of payment processors basically run their personal fiefdoms about who or what they will allow on their platform, while we are asked to be over-worried by vague claims of 'Russian tampering'. Application of these regulations should again focus on the actual harms rather than getting some kind of cruel pleasure 'destroying' companies. The government has a lot of power, and often for good reason, but that power can only be respected when it is wielded dispassionately, not to settle personal scores.

stale2002 6y ago
> so that at least some page sticks The alternative is that nothing will ever stick against them. If politicians never engaged in polically motivated anti trust enforcement, then no anti trust enforcement would ever happen. And that sounds much worse.
- gumby 6y ago
  > If politicians never engaged in polically motivated anti trust enforcement, then no anti trust enforcement would ever happen There’s a largely apolitical organization that is supposed to bring antitrust cases under a structure set up by congress. Sore, politicians can and do champion specific issues (in the case of antitrust, Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind) but by and large you’d prefer that the politicians remained high level (let’s have a structure to help keep the air clean) and the bureaucracy remained low level (let’s see what we can do about NOx emissions). If all antitrust had to originate in congress there would hardly have been any, ever.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > There’s a largely apolitical organization that is supposed to bring antitrust cases under a structure set up by congress. And yet here we are, living in a world where anti trust action is long past due. That would be great if they were taking more action against blatant violations of anti trust law. But that's not happening enough. And since it is not happening enough, we should support any possible wins that we get. You should not be advocating against these anti trust enforcement acts. Instead, you should be arguing that more anti trust enforcement is done. > you’d prefer that the politicians remained high level How about, we all just support more anti trust enforcement, because clearly there isn't enough of it happening.
klmadfejno 6y ago
> I don't get why people are so comfortable with the idea of politicians wearing their dislike of certain corporations on their sleeve, such as Senator Warren seems to do for Google. You're talking about elected officials. Transparency of beliefs is exactly what you should want. That's the entire point. > Right now, it almost feels like "We don't like Google, and we gotta throw the book at them so that at least some page sticks". This attitude is akin to selectively weaponizing the law. Senator Warren is a lawmaker. She makes the laws. Throwing the book is the job of the executive or judicial branch. Hopefully Senator Warren has a good reason to justify her beliefs that the people agree with, but if she believes Google is bad for society in specific ways, it is literally her job to create laws that make it more difficult from them to do that. This article is about the justice department doing things and Senator Warren is mentioned as encouraging them to move faster as an aside. > it explains why, for example, no one cares about Comcast Senator Warren does. https://thegrio.com/2019/12/20/elizabeth-warren-blasts-comcast-for-threatening-civil-rights-in-byron-allen-lawsuit/ https://thegrio.com/2019/12/20/elizabeth-warren-blasts-comca... I don't have any particular thoughts on Warren. But I do think large tech companies wield too much power and should be broken up to reduce this power. I would vote for lawmakers who felt similarly. That's about it. I'd be down for a political platform that is exclusively just wanting to reduce the influence of a handful of specific companies.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  But she's not making new laws here. She's declaring that they're breaking old laws that already exist - and a huge portion of the public case she's presenting is "well, I don't like how they're using their power". It's like seeing a DA indict a guy for murder, and then deliver a bunch of press conferences about how he's a greedy businessman who'll no longer be able to get away with overcharging the public for poor quality services.
  - R0b0t1 6y ago
    The example you gave is disingenuous. The reasons to not like Google go hand in hand with their position as a monopoly or member of an oligopoly.
save_ferris 6y ago
Another way to look at it is: which big companies are politically popular to go after? A big reason companies like Comcast largely stay under the radar is that they donate to many legislators in both parties in Congress, and they have money to mount challenges to legislators that don’t toe the line. Comcast maintains stability of their influence. Going after Comcast wouldn’t likely yield much while risking political capital. Google OTOH has created a lot of enemies in both parties. There’s political momentum to knock them down a peg by the progressive left and the far right, albeit for different reasons. When you start to see that kind of consensus forming, the likelihood of action taken against them increases. > The government has a lot of power, and often for good reason, but that power can only be respected when it is wielded dispassionately, not to settle personal scores. This statement fundamentally ignores the reality of politics, particularly in our current era. To suggest that government is capable of acting dispassionately is to ignore the long and deep personal conflicts that have existed throughout history. It ignores the reality that money and influence, both of which are deployed to deeply personal ends on both sides of the political spectrum. Political power can not be wielded dispassionately because political power can not be attained dispassionately.
- Retric 6y ago
  > To suggest that government is capable of acting dispassionately Government is a massive beast doing all kinds of things at the same time. For example only 12% of all US governmental employees work for the federal government, it’s 24% at the state level, and 63% at the local level. The overwhelming majority of what the government does is run schools, libraries, maintain infrastructure etc in a rather banal fashion. What makes the news are the rare exceptions which people actually find interesting. The 600,000+ bridges making life a little easier are generally background noise, but when just 1 fails that’s potentially national news etc.
atomi 6y ago
If Google didn't break any antitrust laws, I don't see why it has anything to worry about. I for one am happy to see the outcome of a fair and legal trial, whatever the impetus.
- adrianmonk 6y ago
  Let's say 5 companies in 5 different markets did break antitrust laws and the government focuses only on company 1's actions and doesn't even bother looking at what 2-5 do. In that scenario, I'd say 6 parties are acting improperly: all 5 companies plus the government.
  - andrewjl 6y ago
    Except those five companies are dwarfed in size and market power by the one under spotlight. The biggest chunk of US S&P 500 market cap is FAANG stocks.
  - elmersglue 6y ago
    That is the unfortunate reality of how most of civilized society works. E.g. sensational crimes get more attention from law enforcement. Laws are applied according to societies whim. I think the natural conclusion of the “what about X” line of argument would lead to the paralysis of the legal system.
    - techbio 6y ago
      I don't see that as a particularly "civilized" part of our society. More like pitchforks and torches than good governance.
rch 6y ago
Not just politicians, but media companies seem to be picking sides as well.
badrabbit 6y ago
Sentator Warren has made most of her career lashing out and taking action against out of control corporations. Google just happens to be the corporation most out of control (Alphabet really). Politicians are supposed to represent their constituents. I only wish my senator was as passionately outspoken as Senator Warren. It's ok for lawmakers to dislike a specific corporations and make specific laws against that corporation. Matter of fact, many on HN (self included) would be well represented by a politician introducing law to specifically disband Alphabet. > The government has a lot of power, and often for good reason, but that power can only be respected when it is wielded dispassionately, not to settle personal scores. Than how should the people settle scores against these companies? Do you recommend torches or pitchforks? I thought law makers representing the people and passing popular laws was a more democractic way? I don't know if you work at google but no one (except a few extremists) had suggested anything more than a profit loss for your company. To clarify further, I have severe disdain against google due to their arrogance pattern of very dangerous and harmful anti-consent activites that undermines the very concept of individual freedom.
- mythrwy 6y ago
  "Settling Scores" is a very strange term to use. I don't think the law is for settling scores.
  - badrabbit 6y ago
    Yes it is. Justice is setting scores with legitimate authority. I wouldn't use the term but despite hyperboles used in the parent comment this sort of thing is very common. HN would be cheering Sen. Warren if it was Exxon and the subject was climate change. Large Corporations when committing crimes tend to commit special and unique crimes. Replace Google with Al-Qaeda and you will see why,except this is white collar tech crime not kinetic terrorism.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      The law is for crimes or civil matters not petty grudges implied by score. You might have a score to settle with a (former) friend for sleeping with your sibling as a breach in etiquette but that isn't a matter for the law. Score is too expansice a term. Apply it in politicians context and the abuses become horrifying as in "we testified before congress that the bill was an ill considered mess so now face retaliation". Allowing that strong arming is not justice.
Barrin92 6y ago
>And it explains why, for example, no one cares about Comcast or the fact that a handful of payment processors basically run their personal fiefdoms about who or what they will allow on their platform, while we are asked to be over-worried by vague claims of 'Russian tampering'. There's already a lot of regulation addressing traditional telecommunication, as the result of past lawsuits or FCC action, so I don't think this statement holds much water. Say for example the numerous regulation on advertisement in children's programming[1] which had huge impact on the business of cable tv. No such thing exists for Youtube Kids, say. Compared to the wild west that is digital advertising, traditional telecoms actually are subject to a huge amount of constraints already. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations_on_children%27s_television_programming_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations_on_children%27s_te...
sieabahlpark 6y ago
I come to HN to get away from red-, oh no, this is exactly what I'd find there. Blind defense of a company because of a perceived witch-hunt. Google has broken plenty of rules and is truly anti competitive, along with apple.
wutsyrpt1 6y ago
The only context Adam Smith brings up markets is free labor able to consider and move between opportunities, to avoid extreme division oof labor which would make men incredibly stupid. We didn’t cling to it. We don’t need to rely on grandads view of a monopoly to decide where one exists today. Indeed, assuming we should or most is vanity to assume one moment in time captures the needs of all future moments. These companies are distorting human agency for their gain, and really they have no economic or information advantage except the one their capital gives them, which is an entirely social behavior. I get sick of the “it’s immoral” to take from the extremely rich whole ignoring the problems then foisted on the extremely poor. It’s all just people, and no one person is every that important. There is no hidden mystery to daily social life they know the secret to anymore. So much of that is just ignorant monkeys limbic systems repeating their coding. You can’t know living outside of this legal model is better while advocating to constant caution. There is no perfect social vacuum. No perfect freedom. Romantic western attitudes about lack the extreme proof needed that they’re onto something so novel we must continue to heap such rewards on them. Technologists aren’t gods or kings, and our era isn’t the ultimate result of humanity. Figurative death of companies and contemporary ideals isn’t the end of reality. I don’t see this as personal score settling at all; I see it as an opportunity to remind a minority they don’t control the world and can’t take agency away from the masses without repercussions. How long does humanity go on playing the same old biological loop of deference to power crazed elites who would end the species rather than figuratively die a bit? You know, don’t bother. Your concern for destruction of vague tent pole ideas like a company, not things like destruction of individual humanity in deference to non-godly normies applying stats to other productivity and value says enough. This society is grotesque.

stale2002 6y ago

> so that at least some page sticks The alternative is that nothing will ever stick against them. If politicians never engaged in polically motivated anti trust enforcement, then no anti trust enforcement would ever happen. And that sounds much worse.

gumby 6y ago
> If politicians never engaged in polically motivated anti trust enforcement, then no anti trust enforcement would ever happen There’s a largely apolitical organization that is supposed to bring antitrust cases under a structure set up by congress. Sore, politicians can and do champion specific issues (in the case of antitrust, Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind) but by and large you’d prefer that the politicians remained high level (let’s have a structure to help keep the air clean) and the bureaucracy remained low level (let’s see what we can do about NOx emissions). If all antitrust had to originate in congress there would hardly have been any, ever.
- stale2002 6y ago
  > There’s a largely apolitical organization that is supposed to bring antitrust cases under a structure set up by congress. And yet here we are, living in a world where anti trust action is long past due. That would be great if they were taking more action against blatant violations of anti trust law. But that's not happening enough. And since it is not happening enough, we should support any possible wins that we get. You should not be advocating against these anti trust enforcement acts. Instead, you should be arguing that more anti trust enforcement is done. > you’d prefer that the politicians remained high level How about, we all just support more anti trust enforcement, because clearly there isn't enough of it happening.

klmadfejno 6y ago

> I don't get why people are so comfortable with the idea of politicians wearing their dislike of certain corporations on their sleeve, such as Senator Warren seems to do for Google. You're talking about elected officials. Transparency of beliefs is exactly what you should want. That's the entire point. > Right now, it almost feels like "We don't like Google, and we gotta throw the book at them so that at least some page sticks". This attitude is akin to selectively weaponizing the law. Senator Warren is a lawmaker. She makes the laws. Throwing the book is the job of the executive or judicial branch. Hopefully Senator Warren has a good reason to justify her beliefs that the people agree with, but if she believes Google is bad for society in specific ways, it is literally her job to create laws that make it more difficult from them to do that. This article is about the justice department doing things and Senator Warren is mentioned as encouraging them to move faster as an aside. > it explains why, for example, no one cares about Comcast Senator Warren does. https://thegrio.com/2019/12/20/elizabeth-warren-blasts-comcast-for-threatening-civil-rights-in-byron-allen-lawsuit/ https://thegrio.com/2019/12/20/elizabeth-warren-blasts-comca... I don't have any particular thoughts on Warren. But I do think large tech companies wield too much power and should be broken up to reduce this power. I would vote for lawmakers who felt similarly. That's about it. I'd be down for a political platform that is exclusively just wanting to reduce the influence of a handful of specific companies.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
But she's not making new laws here. She's declaring that they're breaking old laws that already exist - and a huge portion of the public case she's presenting is "well, I don't like how they're using their power". It's like seeing a DA indict a guy for murder, and then deliver a bunch of press conferences about how he's a greedy businessman who'll no longer be able to get away with overcharging the public for poor quality services.
- R0b0t1 6y ago
  The example you gave is disingenuous. The reasons to not like Google go hand in hand with their position as a monopoly or member of an oligopoly.

save_ferris 6y ago

Another way to look at it is: which big companies are politically popular to go after? A big reason companies like Comcast largely stay under the radar is that they donate to many legislators in both parties in Congress, and they have money to mount challenges to legislators that don’t toe the line. Comcast maintains stability of their influence. Going after Comcast wouldn’t likely yield much while risking political capital. Google OTOH has created a lot of enemies in both parties. There’s political momentum to knock them down a peg by the progressive left and the far right, albeit for different reasons. When you start to see that kind of consensus forming, the likelihood of action taken against them increases. > The government has a lot of power, and often for good reason, but that power can only be respected when it is wielded dispassionately, not to settle personal scores. This statement fundamentally ignores the reality of politics, particularly in our current era. To suggest that government is capable of acting dispassionately is to ignore the long and deep personal conflicts that have existed throughout history. It ignores the reality that money and influence, both of which are deployed to deeply personal ends on both sides of the political spectrum. Political power can not be wielded dispassionately because political power can not be attained dispassionately.

Retric 6y ago
> To suggest that government is capable of acting dispassionately Government is a massive beast doing all kinds of things at the same time. For example only 12% of all US governmental employees work for the federal government, it’s 24% at the state level, and 63% at the local level. The overwhelming majority of what the government does is run schools, libraries, maintain infrastructure etc in a rather banal fashion. What makes the news are the rare exceptions which people actually find interesting. The 600,000+ bridges making life a little easier are generally background noise, but when just 1 fails that’s potentially national news etc.

atomi 6y ago

If Google didn't break any antitrust laws, I don't see why it has anything to worry about. I for one am happy to see the outcome of a fair and legal trial, whatever the impetus.

adrianmonk 6y ago
Let's say 5 companies in 5 different markets did break antitrust laws and the government focuses only on company 1's actions and doesn't even bother looking at what 2-5 do. In that scenario, I'd say 6 parties are acting improperly: all 5 companies plus the government.
- andrewjl 6y ago
  Except those five companies are dwarfed in size and market power by the one under spotlight. The biggest chunk of US S&P 500 market cap is FAANG stocks.
- elmersglue 6y ago
  That is the unfortunate reality of how most of civilized society works. E.g. sensational crimes get more attention from law enforcement. Laws are applied according to societies whim. I think the natural conclusion of the “what about X” line of argument would lead to the paralysis of the legal system.
  - techbio 6y ago
    I don't see that as a particularly "civilized" part of our society. More like pitchforks and torches than good governance.

rch 6y ago

Not just politicians, but media companies seem to be picking sides as well.

badrabbit 6y ago

Sentator Warren has made most of her career lashing out and taking action against out of control corporations. Google just happens to be the corporation most out of control (Alphabet really). Politicians are supposed to represent their constituents. I only wish my senator was as passionately outspoken as Senator Warren. It's ok for lawmakers to dislike a specific corporations and make specific laws against that corporation. Matter of fact, many on HN (self included) would be well represented by a politician introducing law to specifically disband Alphabet. > The government has a lot of power, and often for good reason, but that power can only be respected when it is wielded dispassionately, not to settle personal scores. Than how should the people settle scores against these companies? Do you recommend torches or pitchforks? I thought law makers representing the people and passing popular laws was a more democractic way? I don't know if you work at google but no one (except a few extremists) had suggested anything more than a profit loss for your company. To clarify further, I have severe disdain against google due to their arrogance pattern of very dangerous and harmful anti-consent activites that undermines the very concept of individual freedom.

mythrwy 6y ago
"Settling Scores" is a very strange term to use. I don't think the law is for settling scores.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Yes it is. Justice is setting scores with legitimate authority. I wouldn't use the term but despite hyperboles used in the parent comment this sort of thing is very common. HN would be cheering Sen. Warren if it was Exxon and the subject was climate change. Large Corporations when committing crimes tend to commit special and unique crimes. Replace Google with Al-Qaeda and you will see why,except this is white collar tech crime not kinetic terrorism.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    The law is for crimes or civil matters not petty grudges implied by score. You might have a score to settle with a (former) friend for sleeping with your sibling as a breach in etiquette but that isn't a matter for the law. Score is too expansice a term. Apply it in politicians context and the abuses become horrifying as in "we testified before congress that the bill was an ill considered mess so now face retaliation". Allowing that strong arming is not justice.

Barrin92 6y ago

>And it explains why, for example, no one cares about Comcast or the fact that a handful of payment processors basically run their personal fiefdoms about who or what they will allow on their platform, while we are asked to be over-worried by vague claims of 'Russian tampering'. There's already a lot of regulation addressing traditional telecommunication, as the result of past lawsuits or FCC action, so I don't think this statement holds much water. Say for example the numerous regulation on advertisement in children's programming[1] which had huge impact on the business of cable tv. No such thing exists for Youtube Kids, say. Compared to the wild west that is digital advertising, traditional telecoms actually are subject to a huge amount of constraints already. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations_on_children%27s_television_programming_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations_on_children%27s_te...

sieabahlpark 6y ago

I come to HN to get away from red-, oh no, this is exactly what I'd find there. Blind defense of a company because of a perceived witch-hunt. Google has broken plenty of rules and is truly anti competitive, along with apple.

wutsyrpt1 6y ago

The only context Adam Smith brings up markets is free labor able to consider and move between opportunities, to avoid extreme division oof labor which would make men incredibly stupid. We didn’t cling to it. We don’t need to rely on grandads view of a monopoly to decide where one exists today. Indeed, assuming we should or most is vanity to assume one moment in time captures the needs of all future moments. These companies are distorting human agency for their gain, and really they have no economic or information advantage except the one their capital gives them, which is an entirely social behavior. I get sick of the “it’s immoral” to take from the extremely rich whole ignoring the problems then foisted on the extremely poor. It’s all just people, and no one person is every that important. There is no hidden mystery to daily social life they know the secret to anymore. So much of that is just ignorant monkeys limbic systems repeating their coding. You can’t know living outside of this legal model is better while advocating to constant caution. There is no perfect social vacuum. No perfect freedom. Romantic western attitudes about lack the extreme proof needed that they’re onto something so novel we must continue to heap such rewards on them. Technologists aren’t gods or kings, and our era isn’t the ultimate result of humanity. Figurative death of companies and contemporary ideals isn’t the end of reality. I don’t see this as personal score settling at all; I see it as an opportunity to remind a minority they don’t control the world and can’t take agency away from the masses without repercussions. How long does humanity go on playing the same old biological loop of deference to power crazed elites who would end the species rather than figuratively die a bit? You know, don’t bother. Your concern for destruction of vague tent pole ideas like a company, not things like destruction of individual humanity in deference to non-godly normies applying stats to other productivity and value says enough. This society is grotesque.