4 ms·

Las I checked judges don't love it when you try to be clever or cute.

by lugged 5y ago

cormacrelf 5y ago
Establishing the use of the word "market" in an email is not the end goal. The end goal is establishing the violation of US antitrust laws by, e.g. buying out the competition and taking actions that unreasonably restrict trade (generally in your competitors' goods/services). But there are two ways to hold a company to account. One is a civil mechanism, producing civil penalties and consent decrees (or damages, maybe?). The other is by the prosecution of a criminal offence. Enforcement via the latter is harder to do. It requires showing the actions were done intentionally, just like every criminal prosecution. It also has a very high standard of proof. Using the word "crushing the competition" in the context of buying competitors or engineering them out of the first page of search results is evidence of that. Google doesn't want exposure to criminal liability. It is undoubtedly harder to prove they did this stuff intentionally if they deliberately refrain from talking about it and do it in winks and nods. I don't know what you're referring to by "try to be clever or cute" but using these language guidelines to decode discovered materials and show a criminal intent to do things that constitute criminal violations of antitrust law is not cute, and neither is relying on the absence of directly incriminating language to absolve yourself.
rpmisms 5y ago
"Your honor, my case is kawaii. The defense rests." In all seriousness, a clever argument can be very good, as long as it's also solid. Not mutually exclusive.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
q: why do you ask people to use the word area instead of market? a: Because imprecise language clouds thinking and makes things less intelligible, and Google is a company that makes its money from intelligence. People have been incorrectly referring to areas as markets, in order to better communicate we laid down guidelines. We often lay down guidelines about corporate communications to heighten their efficiency, as do other companies on edit: I'm not saying that this is true, but one can easily make an argument as to why you use area instead of market in communication and ask your workers to do likewise. I would think the courts would require more evidence than that.
- sidlls 5y ago
  You're suggesting that an answer which explicitly makes "area" a synonym for "market" is a defense against the suggestion that using "area" is an attempt to obfuscate that they're really referring to "market". That, uh, doesn't add up.

Las I checked judges don't love it when you try to be clever or cute.

by lugged 5y ago

Las I checked judges don't love it when you try to be clever or cute.

Establishing the use of the word "market" in an email is not the end goal. The end goal is establishing the violation of US antitrust laws by, e.g. buying out the competition and taking actions that unreasonably restrict trade (generally in your competitors' goods/services). But there are two ways to hold a company to account. One is a civil mechanism, producing civil penalties and consent decrees (or damages, maybe?). The other is by the prosecution of a criminal offence. Enforcement via the latter is harder to do. It requires showing the actions were done intentionally, just like every criminal prosecution. It also has a very high standard of proof. Using the word "crushing the competition" in the context of buying competitors or engineering them out of the first page of search results is evidence of that. Google doesn't want exposure to criminal liability. It is undoubtedly harder to prove they did this stuff intentionally if they deliberately refrain from talking about it and do it in winks and nods. I don't know what you're referring to by "try to be clever or cute" but using these language guidelines to decode discovered materials and show a criminal intent to do things that constitute criminal violations of antitrust law is not cute, and neither is relying on the absence of directly incriminating language to absolve yourself.

rpmisms 5y ago

"Your honor, my case is kawaii. The defense rests." In all seriousness, a clever argument can be very good, as long as it's also solid. Not mutually exclusive.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

q: why do you ask people to use the word area instead of market? a: Because imprecise language clouds thinking and makes things less intelligible, and Google is a company that makes its money from intelligence. People have been incorrectly referring to areas as markets, in order to better communicate we laid down guidelines. We often lay down guidelines about corporate communications to heighten their efficiency, as do other companies on edit: I'm not saying that this is true, but one can easily make an argument as to why you use area instead of market in communication and ask your workers to do likewise. I would think the courts would require more evidence than that.

sidlls 5y ago
You're suggesting that an answer which explicitly makes "area" a synonym for "market" is a defense against the suggestion that using "area" is an attempt to obfuscate that they're really referring to "market". That, uh, doesn't add up.