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Google 'colluded' with Facebook to bypass Apple privacy

808 points by webmaven 5y ago

known 5y ago
So China was right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
junon 5y ago
On the HN front page as of writing, this is #7. Right above it at #6, is the article about Google boasting about slowing down EU privacy laws[0]. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antitrust_complaint/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antit...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AlbertCory 5y ago
Brief note about this vs. yesterday's threads: People who think the tech giants maintain their dominance via patents are 60 years behind the times. It's network effect plus some outright illegality like this.
lvl100 5y ago
Collusion and monopoly behaviors are nothing new. Competition as defined in modern day capitalism is destined for these market structures.
DeathArrow 5y ago
Nothing will happen. Big tech companies invested large sums of money in the elections.
shoto_io 5y ago
The rate of bad news for Facebook and Google seems to be accelerating by the day…
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Good news for us.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  That might be more due to what type of news sell rather than Facebook or Google becoming worse.
  - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    It might also be due to people getting increasingly tired of their crap.
    - izacus 5y ago
      "People" in this case being their competitors for ad placement in traditional media which is writing these articles. :) Remember that you're reading this on newssites which have 100+ trackers installed so they can extract revenue from you as well... and they get paid more when they write these articles. It's not like they're poor innocent parties which won't benefit when FB/Google get cut down to size. (Many news-site traffic went up by as much as 30% when FB went down the other week.) Heck, when Apple added their "privacy" changes, their own advertising has profited massively: https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ It's all black kettles yelling at other kettles.
      - reaperducer 5y ago
        "People" meaning insiders and former employees ready to spill the beans. In the real world, not everything is a conspiracy.
      - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
        True. But the non-monopolistic kettles get MY vote.
  - harry8 5y ago
Intermernet 5y ago
Can we just step back and recognise that the elephant in the room here is advertising? No matter your views on Google, Apple or Facebook, the issue here is nefarious practices predicated on the implied right for these companies to make money from you by polluting your internet experience with injected, paid for, content. I'll play devil's advocate for a second and say that "not all advertising is bad", but the fact that this even reached court should tell you what the companies involved care about. We really need to regulate online advertising. My personal opinion is that we should eradicate it and let the cards fall where they will, but that's unpopular and unrealistic for many valid reasons.
- elvischidera 5y ago
  Why don't these companies just offer a paid version of their products? Giving people an opportunity to back out. E.g: Pay X per month to use Google and you get no ads or tracked. YouTube does something similar, but I guess they still track you. I personally would still mostly use the free ad-supported version.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Many times they do. And then they put ads on it as well because why not make even more money? Also, paying customers are worth more to advertisers.
    - elvischidera 5y ago
      Haha true. And the amount of money made per user with ads/adtech is unbounded, so why bound it to X per month. This greed? would probably lead them to ruins.
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Exactly. It's pure greed, they will never stop. The only solutions are to make advertising illegal or technologically infeasible.
    - 5y ago
tfehring 5y ago
So, when do we see some real fines for this type of behavior? I’m a shareholder of both companies (through index funds) but I want to see a Treaty of Versailles level punishment for both companies that pushes them to the brink of bankruptcy and incentivizes their management and board to actively police monopolistic behavior. I’m talking high 11 or 12 figures.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
xyzzy21 5y ago
Probably constitute RICO!
specialist 5y ago
Break these companies up, vertically. For social medias: cleave advertising from search. People would rightly scream if NYSE was owned and operated by a cabal, playing both sides of every transaction. One pillar of open markets is clear division of responsibilities. To prevent this kind of market manipulation. No conflicts of interest. No competing with your own customers. No hiding important economic (market) activity.
- harry8 5y ago
  This is well expressed, the NYSE analogy is sound and speaks to the heart of the thing. How do we make it happen?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- trapped 5y ago
  Search is very expensive business to run Yahoo! and MSFT tried and still they are at behind. Will you pay $$ for each search query? Easy to asking breaking up these companies. Will you help all small business and companies relying on free internet products?
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Google can sell search ads on an ad exchange that they don't operate. They shouldn't be able to simultaneously operate a major seller and the exchange.
    - trapped 5y ago
      Yahoo! and MSFT tried doing same, selling Bing search ads on Yahoo ad exchange. Didn't work well and can't scale it. And these are Google innovation why should they not use it. Is it fair to ask some other ad exchanges to run ads on NYTimes or CNN, Fox news?
      - 5y ago
Terretta 5y ago
TL;DR: We need SDK tracking prevention at the user device level. --- > [Google and Facebook] have been working closely to help Facebook "recognize users in auctions and bid and win more often." > "For example, Google and Facebook have integrated their software development kits (SDKs) so that Google can pass Facebook data for user ID cookie matching," the amended complaint says. Devs flipped out when Apple put code in iCloud Photos SDK to screen images prior to encrypted storage on Apple’s servers. Gist was “it’s my phone, not Apple’s phone, they have no right…” even though this was an SDK for user intent uploads. I raised the point this isn’t ‘just’ an Apple issue, it’s an SDK issue. Referenced the weather app SDK scandal a few years back when most weather apps were selling user tracking, many without even knowing. Similar happens with user/member/location SDKs across the board. Devs are incorporating user-hostile SDKs in their apps, with Google and FB among the top two. Users have dev’s apps running in their phones with no idea they’re giving those two firms broad reach. The SDK telemetry for user tracking aggregation is much more pervasive, hostile, and unexpected by users than a hash check on image upload. Tools like NextDNS.io, AdGuard, or eero Secure help block these SDKs’ tentacles but most DNS providers refuse to help. (CloudFlare, for instance — are their ad clients too big?) Apple’s new tracker blocking doesn’t help enough either, as it blocks some trackers but not ads which track, and breaks NextDNS and AdGuard (bug they say they’ll fix). This problem of common SDKs working across apps to ensure one way or another the user is caught in the dragnet demands a technical solution at the user device level.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  SDKs won't solve a fingerprinting problem. We can play a reductive game where we slowly strip devices of permissions in the name of 'security' but at the end of the day, anything connected to the internet is forced to relay enough information to be identifiable on a network.
  - harry8 5y ago
    And if you leave your house no amount of armor can prevent you from being assaulted. This is why we have law and social norms that ensure there are consequences for committing assault and we leave our houses mostly without wearing armor. Ban the tracking. It's like toxic waste, if it's on your servers you're responsible for it. If you do it anyway and get found guilty you are banned from selling advertising for some number of years. The hint of a problem should see a significant immediate drop in the share price. Level playing field, same for everyone, if you can't survive that you don't have a viable business model anymore than any other racketeer whose run ends.
cowpig 5y ago
Google/Facebook doing shady things to undermine user privacy is a generally accepted fact in this community, so I think that the title understates the severity of the allegations in the article! It contends that there was collusion between Google and Facebook to protect their abuses of dominance in the marketplace: "Google quickly realized that this innovation substantially threatened its exchange’s ability to demand a very large – 19 to 22 percent – cut on all advertising transactions," ... "However, Google secretly made its own exchange win, even when another exchange submitted a higher bid," ... "And as one Google employee explained internally, Google deliberately designed Jedi to avoid competition, and Jedi consequently harmed publishers. In Google’s words, the Jedi program 'generates suboptimal yields for publishers and serious risks of negative media coverage if exposed externally.'" ... "For example, Google and Facebook have integrated their software development kits (SDKs) so that Google can pass Facebook data for user ID cookie matching," the amended complaint says. "They also coordinated with each other to harm publishers through the adoption of Unified Pricing rules…"
- shawkinaw 5y ago
  > It contends that there was collusion between Apple and Facebook to protect their abuses of dominance in the marketplace s/Apple/Google/
  - cowpig 5y ago
    Thanks! Fixed
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  I just wonder who in management positions thought this was a good idea (in both companies) and green lighted it?
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Management is full of idiots
    - deleted 5y ago
kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
> "We've been clear about our support for consistent privacy rules around the globe. For example, we have been calling on Congress to pass federal privacy legislation for years." Ah, the ol’ “Congress oughta do sumthin’” move! Facebook just used this one in their response to Haugen. It’s a classic, like fine wine.
- aspenmayer 5y ago
  Megacorps clamor for more regulatory capture because they have the means to lobby to ensure legislation is crafted to hurt them less than it benefits competitors, and they will have advance knowledge of impending regulatory changes so that they can price in anything on the horizon today before that ship sails tomorrow. Of course they want more regulation. It gives Congress an ephemeral “win” while advancing megacorp interests at every other counter-party’s expense. Capitalism is the crisis. Advertising is just one expression of said crisis.
  - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    Agreed! Same reason, for instance, that big oil companies love mandated additional costs for gas stations, such as replacing underground tanks more often: It drives out the little guys.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
coldcode 5y ago
Not just Apple privacy, but dominating the entire online ad industry. Jedi, but the dark side clearly. Also amazing how self aware they were about how bad this would look if it got out.
Lamad123 5y ago
Let's just be clear that apple is as evil and exploitative as the other two!
- smoldesu 5y ago
  B-but I've got a T2 security chip! They must have my best interests at heart!
literallyaduck 5y ago
Facebook and Google have a long history of illegal activities. If they colluded like a "cartel", they should be treated like a cartel. The problem is both sides of the aisle have are irreparably entangled with big tech and cannot be trusted to prosecute not just fine them a paltry some that is insufficient to correct their behavior. People have gone to jail for weed longer than anyone in power at big tech has paid for their gross violations of trust and privacy of the entire world. Edit: Someone believes cartels are just for drugs here is a link about some of our remedies: https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/cartels-laws-and-regulations/usa https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/cartels-l... The DOJ can raid them, and states attorney's can file separate suits. Perhaps there is one state government that hasn't succumbed to the corruption.
- m0zg 5y ago
  Here's why FB is in no danger until at least 2024: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-furious-zuckerberg-piled-400m-into-dem-groups-to-sway-election/ar-AAPx46T?li=BB141NW3 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-furious-zuckerbe.... Don't hold your breath on this, at all. It's all for sale, and Zuck is buying.
- swarnie 5y ago
  > If they colluded like a "cartel", they should be treated like a cartel Are you suggesting we use their distribution networks to move crack in to the cities, then use the money made to fund illegal interventions in South America? Seems a bit extreme, i'd say just break them up.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Cartels aren't just for drugs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel) but I agree, break them up.
    - beckman466 5y ago
      it was meant in jest because the CIA directly participated in the drug trade as uncovered by investigative journalist Gary Webb (who died from two gunshot wounds to the head...). "Michael Cuesta’s movie 'Kill the Messenger' tells the story of Gary Webb, whose August 1996 investigative series “Dark Alliance,” published in the San Jose Mercury News, uncovered ties between the Central Intelligence Agency and massive drug peddling by the right-wing, mercenary Nicaraguan Contras. Webb’s three-part series established that in the 1980s the CIA-backed Contras smuggled cocaine into the US that was widely distributed as crack. The drug profits were then funneled by the CIA to the Contras in their war against the left-nationalist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/17/kill-o17.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/17/kill-o17.html
fencepost 5y ago
Of course Google takes privacy very seriously! It's a potential threat to a huge part of their business, and if you don't take those threats seriously how can you neutralize them?
elliekelly 5y ago
> Google, it's claimed, struck a deal with Facebook – dubbed "Jedi Blue" Interesting choice for a code name.
iammisc 5y ago
But they're just private companies which according to many means they can do whatever they want without repercussion
throwawayay02 5y ago
We need a ban on targeted advertisement.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  No thanks. Last thing I want is to be carpet bombed with un-targeted ads...
aasasd 5y ago
> We've been clear about our support for consistent privacy rules around the globe. Truly PR statements can be generated with Markov chains, for a long time now. Every single statement and press release from a major company is at least half self-aggrandization: these robots really expect that the sentiment will be imprinted in our brains, instead of making us vomit a little each time. I'm surprised they don't walk around with twisted and bruised arms from patting their own backs so hard.
zipiridu 5y ago
If this is true, unless they get fined in the order of $200B it won't matter and whoever made the decisions will get promoted within both companies. Snapchat lost ~25% of their market value and other companies that did not collude probably also lost a lot.
aasasd 5y ago
This leaves me curious, though, as to how Google subverted ‘header bidding’. Afaiu from the linked description, it happens on the client side—so how is the Goog able to manipulate it?
arihant 5y ago
I always wonder why Google doesn’t do an Apple and turn off all advertising on Google phones. Selling hardware and subscriptions has proved to be more yielding than advertising. With Fuchsia on horizon, Google can literally own the entire ecosystem from desktop to mobile.
- zdyn5 5y ago
  Their revenues would plummet - last time I checked, ads are something like 70-80% of their revenue. And they can’t charge anywhere near Apple can for their hardware products because they don’t have the established luxury brand. I’d doubt their other subscriptions can make up for much either. Maybe they’re making some progress on Google Cloud and it could be a long-term profit center but AFAIK Google Cloud still isn’t profitable as of yet. They ain’t turning off ads anytime soon.
  - throwaway788 5y ago
    I don’t know how serious Google take GCP. BigQuery Data Transfer service has been failing with internal errors when trying to copy datasets between regions for the last 2+ days. Must be no alerting/monitoring on the service. Doesn’t instil confidence in a platform when an important part of a product can fail with no one seemingly noticing. Good luck trying to contact anyone about it as well!
- _8j50 5y ago
  You never touch your main revenue/profit stream. Bad for short term share holder happiness.
- summerlight 5y ago
  That takes time. It's not that easy to move your main revenue stream from one to another when it's an order of billion. And yet Google's ads grows very fast, something like 20~30% YoY.
xvector 5y ago
Some of the quotes in this article are horrifying and disgusting. Anyone that worked on this is morally bankrupt. Amazing what greed makes people do.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Might be helpful to have a link to the amended complaint, since El Reg fails to include one. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2021/Press/Redacted%20Amended%20Complaint%20FILED%20(002).pdf https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...
zwaps 5y ago
The collusion may the main point of the article, but the other actions really paint a horrific picture. This is a company which had (sometime in the past) a "Don't be evil" in their statutes. By contrast, the collection of misdeeds are mustache-twirling villainy. Like, I would make a joke about stealing from children and so on, but if you look at the section about them trying to delay child protection legislation, well, my humor seems to have dissipated. Quite shocking, to be honest.
trapped 5y ago
Google, Facebook and other many tech companies are providing many free services which has led to so many new business, innovations and employment and these free services could cost a lot of money if not funded by advertising. These companies are not selling drugs like Purdue pharma or exploiting Weapons, natural resource like water or Oil or causing pollution or causing deaths. All those who are complaining against these companies and online advertising ask yourself do you want to live in 1990's world without free communication and technological advancement? If yes, then be honest to yourself and stop using any free products provided by these companies and derived products such as Uber, Doordash etc. It's easy to complain against those who are doing good. There are so many other bigger problems to solve instead these money making job providing companies are being targeted. Such a shame.
- trapped 5y ago
  Downvoting if commented or voiced in favor of tech companies. Hacker news is becoming more extremist like Brietbart. Really sad and unfortunate.
- Cipater 5y ago
  This article is about an antitrust case brought by Texas, 14 other US states, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico against Google alleging that they compete unfairly. From the filing: VII. ANTICOMPETITIVE CONDUCT Google forces publishers to license Google’s ad server and trade in Google’s ad exchange Google uses its control over publishers’ inventory to block exchange competition Google blocks publishers from sending their inventory to more than one marketplace at a time Google blocks competition from non-Google exchanges and deceives publishers about Dynamic Allocation Google restricts information to foreclose competition and advantage itself Information asymmetry causes publishers and advertisers to trade on non-Google exchanges at their own risk Google forecloses competition by using inside information to win auctions Google blocks competing exchanges from accessing publishers’ high-value inventory and reaps the benefits for itself A new industry innovation called “header bidding” promotes exchange competition; Google wants to kill it Header bidding facilitates competition among ad exchanges Google creates an alternative to header bidding that secretly stacks the deck in Google’s favor Facebook helps Google “kill” header bidding with an unlawful agreement Google gives Facebook a leg up in its auctions in return for Facebook backing off from header bidding. Google and Facebook agree in the Jedi Blue agreement to a secret “Win Rate.” Google forces market participants to re-route trading through Google Google trades ahead of bid orders to foreclose exchange competition Google deceives exchanges to forgo header bidding Google deceives publishers to disable rival exchanges in header bidding Google cripples publishers’ ability to measure the success of rival exchanges in header bidding. Google obstructs publishers’ use of header bidding through caps Google uses its scale in search to punish publishers that use header bidding Google’s ad server gives exchanges that forego header bidding a leg up Google excludes competition through “nontransparent pricing.”
gumby 5y ago
Why is the California AG not bringing these actions?
deeberl 5y ago
The more I hear about this Google, the less I care for it.

808 points by webmaven 5y ago

So China was right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...

junon 5y ago

On the HN front page as of writing, this is #7. Right above it at #6, is the article about Google boasting about slowing down EU privacy laws[0]. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antitrust_complaint/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antit...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

AlbertCory 5y ago

Brief note about this vs. yesterday's threads: People who think the tech giants maintain their dominance via patents are 60 years behind the times. It's network effect plus some outright illegality like this.

lvl100 5y ago

Collusion and monopoly behaviors are nothing new. Competition as defined in modern day capitalism is destined for these market structures.

DeathArrow 5y ago

Nothing will happen. Big tech companies invested large sums of money in the elections.

shoto_io 5y ago

The rate of bad news for Facebook and Google seems to be accelerating by the day…

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Good news for us.
Tenoke 5y ago
That might be more due to what type of news sell rather than Facebook or Google becoming worse.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  It might also be due to people getting increasingly tired of their crap.
  - izacus 5y ago
    "People" in this case being their competitors for ad placement in traditional media which is writing these articles. :) Remember that you're reading this on newssites which have 100+ trackers installed so they can extract revenue from you as well... and they get paid more when they write these articles. It's not like they're poor innocent parties which won't benefit when FB/Google get cut down to size. (Many news-site traffic went up by as much as 30% when FB went down the other week.) Heck, when Apple added their "privacy" changes, their own advertising has profited massively: https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/18/apples-ad-business-windfall/ It's all black kettles yelling at other kettles.
    - reaperducer 5y ago
      "People" meaning insiders and former employees ready to spill the beans. In the real world, not everything is a conspiracy.
    - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
      True. But the non-monopolistic kettles get MY vote.
- harry8 5y ago

Intermernet 5y ago

Can we just step back and recognise that the elephant in the room here is advertising? No matter your views on Google, Apple or Facebook, the issue here is nefarious practices predicated on the implied right for these companies to make money from you by polluting your internet experience with injected, paid for, content. I'll play devil's advocate for a second and say that "not all advertising is bad", but the fact that this even reached court should tell you what the companies involved care about. We really need to regulate online advertising. My personal opinion is that we should eradicate it and let the cards fall where they will, but that's unpopular and unrealistic for many valid reasons.

elvischidera 5y ago
Why don't these companies just offer a paid version of their products? Giving people an opportunity to back out. E.g: Pay X per month to use Google and you get no ads or tracked. YouTube does something similar, but I guess they still track you. I personally would still mostly use the free ad-supported version.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Many times they do. And then they put ads on it as well because why not make even more money? Also, paying customers are worth more to advertisers.
  - elvischidera 5y ago
    Haha true. And the amount of money made per user with ads/adtech is unbounded, so why bound it to X per month. This greed? would probably lead them to ruins.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      Exactly. It's pure greed, they will never stop. The only solutions are to make advertising illegal or technologically infeasible.
  - 5y ago

tfehring 5y ago

So, when do we see some real fines for this type of behavior? I’m a shareholder of both companies (through index funds) but I want to see a Treaty of Versailles level punishment for both companies that pushes them to the brink of bankruptcy and incentivizes their management and board to actively police monopolistic behavior. I’m talking high 11 or 12 figures.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

xyzzy21 5y ago

Probably constitute RICO!

specialist 5y ago

Break these companies up, vertically. For social medias: cleave advertising from search. People would rightly scream if NYSE was owned and operated by a cabal, playing both sides of every transaction. One pillar of open markets is clear division of responsibilities. To prevent this kind of market manipulation. No conflicts of interest. No competing with your own customers. No hiding important economic (market) activity.

harry8 5y ago
This is well expressed, the NYSE analogy is sound and speaks to the heart of the thing. How do we make it happen?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
trapped 5y ago
Search is very expensive business to run Yahoo! and MSFT tried and still they are at behind. Will you pay $$ for each search query? Easy to asking breaking up these companies. Will you help all small business and companies relying on free internet products?
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Google can sell search ads on an ad exchange that they don't operate. They shouldn't be able to simultaneously operate a major seller and the exchange.
  - trapped 5y ago
    Yahoo! and MSFT tried doing same, selling Bing search ads on Yahoo ad exchange. Didn't work well and can't scale it. And these are Google innovation why should they not use it. Is it fair to ask some other ad exchanges to run ads on NYTimes or CNN, Fox news?
    - 5y ago

Terretta 5y ago

TL;DR: We need SDK tracking prevention at the user device level. --- > [Google and Facebook] have been working closely to help Facebook "recognize users in auctions and bid and win more often." > "For example, Google and Facebook have integrated their software development kits (SDKs) so that Google can pass Facebook data for user ID cookie matching," the amended complaint says. Devs flipped out when Apple put code in iCloud Photos SDK to screen images prior to encrypted storage on Apple’s servers. Gist was “it’s my phone, not Apple’s phone, they have no right…” even though this was an SDK for user intent uploads. I raised the point this isn’t ‘just’ an Apple issue, it’s an SDK issue. Referenced the weather app SDK scandal a few years back when most weather apps were selling user tracking, many without even knowing. Similar happens with user/member/location SDKs across the board. Devs are incorporating user-hostile SDKs in their apps, with Google and FB among the top two. Users have dev’s apps running in their phones with no idea they’re giving those two firms broad reach. The SDK telemetry for user tracking aggregation is much more pervasive, hostile, and unexpected by users than a hash check on image upload. Tools like NextDNS.io, AdGuard, or eero Secure help block these SDKs’ tentacles but most DNS providers refuse to help. (CloudFlare, for instance — are their ad clients too big?) Apple’s new tracker blocking doesn’t help enough either, as it blocks some trackers but not ads which track, and breaks NextDNS and AdGuard (bug they say they’ll fix). This problem of common SDKs working across apps to ensure one way or another the user is caught in the dragnet demands a technical solution at the user device level.

smoldesu 5y ago
SDKs won't solve a fingerprinting problem. We can play a reductive game where we slowly strip devices of permissions in the name of 'security' but at the end of the day, anything connected to the internet is forced to relay enough information to be identifiable on a network.
- harry8 5y ago
  And if you leave your house no amount of armor can prevent you from being assaulted. This is why we have law and social norms that ensure there are consequences for committing assault and we leave our houses mostly without wearing armor. Ban the tracking. It's like toxic waste, if it's on your servers you're responsible for it. If you do it anyway and get found guilty you are banned from selling advertising for some number of years. The hint of a problem should see a significant immediate drop in the share price. Level playing field, same for everyone, if you can't survive that you don't have a viable business model anymore than any other racketeer whose run ends.

cowpig 5y ago

Google/Facebook doing shady things to undermine user privacy is a generally accepted fact in this community, so I think that the title understates the severity of the allegations in the article! It contends that there was collusion between Google and Facebook to protect their abuses of dominance in the marketplace: "Google quickly realized that this innovation substantially threatened its exchange’s ability to demand a very large – 19 to 22 percent – cut on all advertising transactions," ... "However, Google secretly made its own exchange win, even when another exchange submitted a higher bid," ... "And as one Google employee explained internally, Google deliberately designed Jedi to avoid competition, and Jedi consequently harmed publishers. In Google’s words, the Jedi program 'generates suboptimal yields for publishers and serious risks of negative media coverage if exposed externally.'" ... "For example, Google and Facebook have integrated their software development kits (SDKs) so that Google can pass Facebook data for user ID cookie matching," the amended complaint says. "They also coordinated with each other to harm publishers through the adoption of Unified Pricing rules…"

shawkinaw 5y ago
> It contends that there was collusion between Apple and Facebook to protect their abuses of dominance in the marketplace s/Apple/Google/
- cowpig 5y ago
  Thanks! Fixed
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
I just wonder who in management positions thought this was a good idea (in both companies) and green lighted it?
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Management is full of idiots
  - deleted 5y ago

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

> "We've been clear about our support for consistent privacy rules around the globe. For example, we have been calling on Congress to pass federal privacy legislation for years." Ah, the ol’ “Congress oughta do sumthin’” move! Facebook just used this one in their response to Haugen. It’s a classic, like fine wine.

aspenmayer 5y ago
Megacorps clamor for more regulatory capture because they have the means to lobby to ensure legislation is crafted to hurt them less than it benefits competitors, and they will have advance knowledge of impending regulatory changes so that they can price in anything on the horizon today before that ship sails tomorrow. Of course they want more regulation. It gives Congress an ephemeral “win” while advancing megacorp interests at every other counter-party’s expense. Capitalism is the crisis. Advertising is just one expression of said crisis.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  Agreed! Same reason, for instance, that big oil companies love mandated additional costs for gas stations, such as replacing underground tanks more often: It drives out the little guys.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

coldcode 5y ago

Not just Apple privacy, but dominating the entire online ad industry. Jedi, but the dark side clearly. Also amazing how self aware they were about how bad this would look if it got out.

Lamad123 5y ago

Let's just be clear that apple is as evil and exploitative as the other two!

smoldesu 5y ago
B-but I've got a T2 security chip! They must have my best interests at heart!

literallyaduck 5y ago

Facebook and Google have a long history of illegal activities. If they colluded like a "cartel", they should be treated like a cartel. The problem is both sides of the aisle have are irreparably entangled with big tech and cannot be trusted to prosecute not just fine them a paltry some that is insufficient to correct their behavior. People have gone to jail for weed longer than anyone in power at big tech has paid for their gross violations of trust and privacy of the entire world. Edit: Someone believes cartels are just for drugs here is a link about some of our remedies: https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/cartels-laws-and-regulations/usa https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/cartels-l... The DOJ can raid them, and states attorney's can file separate suits. Perhaps there is one state government that hasn't succumbed to the corruption.

m0zg 5y ago
Here's why FB is in no danger until at least 2024: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-furious-zuckerberg-piled-400m-into-dem-groups-to-sway-election/ar-AAPx46T?li=BB141NW3 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-furious-zuckerbe.... Don't hold your breath on this, at all. It's all for sale, and Zuck is buying.
swarnie 5y ago
> If they colluded like a "cartel", they should be treated like a cartel Are you suggesting we use their distribution networks to move crack in to the cities, then use the money made to fund illegal interventions in South America? Seems a bit extreme, i'd say just break them up.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Cartels aren't just for drugs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel) but I agree, break them up.
  - beckman466 5y ago
    it was meant in jest because the CIA directly participated in the drug trade as uncovered by investigative journalist Gary Webb (who died from two gunshot wounds to the head...). "Michael Cuesta’s movie 'Kill the Messenger' tells the story of Gary Webb, whose August 1996 investigative series “Dark Alliance,” published in the San Jose Mercury News, uncovered ties between the Central Intelligence Agency and massive drug peddling by the right-wing, mercenary Nicaraguan Contras. Webb’s three-part series established that in the 1980s the CIA-backed Contras smuggled cocaine into the US that was widely distributed as crack. The drug profits were then funneled by the CIA to the Contras in their war against the left-nationalist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/17/kill-o17.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/17/kill-o17.html

fencepost 5y ago

Of course Google takes privacy very seriously! It's a potential threat to a huge part of their business, and if you don't take those threats seriously how can you neutralize them?

elliekelly 5y ago

> Google, it's claimed, struck a deal with Facebook – dubbed "Jedi Blue" Interesting choice for a code name.

iammisc 5y ago

But they're just private companies which according to many means they can do whatever they want without repercussion

throwawayay02 5y ago

We need a ban on targeted advertisement.

Mikeb85 5y ago
No thanks. Last thing I want is to be carpet bombed with un-targeted ads...

aasasd 5y ago

> We've been clear about our support for consistent privacy rules around the globe. Truly PR statements can be generated with Markov chains, for a long time now. Every single statement and press release from a major company is at least half self-aggrandization: these robots really expect that the sentiment will be imprinted in our brains, instead of making us vomit a little each time. I'm surprised they don't walk around with twisted and bruised arms from patting their own backs so hard.

zipiridu 5y ago

If this is true, unless they get fined in the order of $200B it won't matter and whoever made the decisions will get promoted within both companies. Snapchat lost ~25% of their market value and other companies that did not collude probably also lost a lot.

aasasd 5y ago

This leaves me curious, though, as to how Google subverted ‘header bidding’. Afaiu from the linked description, it happens on the client side—so how is the Goog able to manipulate it?

arihant 5y ago

I always wonder why Google doesn’t do an Apple and turn off all advertising on Google phones. Selling hardware and subscriptions has proved to be more yielding than advertising. With Fuchsia on horizon, Google can literally own the entire ecosystem from desktop to mobile.

zdyn5 5y ago
Their revenues would plummet - last time I checked, ads are something like 70-80% of their revenue. And they can’t charge anywhere near Apple can for their hardware products because they don’t have the established luxury brand. I’d doubt their other subscriptions can make up for much either. Maybe they’re making some progress on Google Cloud and it could be a long-term profit center but AFAIK Google Cloud still isn’t profitable as of yet. They ain’t turning off ads anytime soon.
- throwaway788 5y ago
  I don’t know how serious Google take GCP. BigQuery Data Transfer service has been failing with internal errors when trying to copy datasets between regions for the last 2+ days. Must be no alerting/monitoring on the service. Doesn’t instil confidence in a platform when an important part of a product can fail with no one seemingly noticing. Good luck trying to contact anyone about it as well!
_8j50 5y ago
You never touch your main revenue/profit stream. Bad for short term share holder happiness.
summerlight 5y ago
That takes time. It's not that easy to move your main revenue stream from one to another when it's an order of billion. And yet Google's ads grows very fast, something like 20~30% YoY.

xvector 5y ago

Some of the quotes in this article are horrifying and disgusting. Anyone that worked on this is morally bankrupt. Amazing what greed makes people do.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Might be helpful to have a link to the amended complaint, since El Reg fails to include one. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2021/Press/Redacted%20Amended%20Complaint%20FILED%20(002).pdf https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...

zwaps 5y ago

The collusion may the main point of the article, but the other actions really paint a horrific picture. This is a company which had (sometime in the past) a "Don't be evil" in their statutes. By contrast, the collection of misdeeds are mustache-twirling villainy. Like, I would make a joke about stealing from children and so on, but if you look at the section about them trying to delay child protection legislation, well, my humor seems to have dissipated. Quite shocking, to be honest.

trapped 5y ago

Google, Facebook and other many tech companies are providing many free services which has led to so many new business, innovations and employment and these free services could cost a lot of money if not funded by advertising. These companies are not selling drugs like Purdue pharma or exploiting Weapons, natural resource like water or Oil or causing pollution or causing deaths. All those who are complaining against these companies and online advertising ask yourself do you want to live in 1990's world without free communication and technological advancement? If yes, then be honest to yourself and stop using any free products provided by these companies and derived products such as Uber, Doordash etc. It's easy to complain against those who are doing good. There are so many other bigger problems to solve instead these money making job providing companies are being targeted. Such a shame.

trapped 5y ago
Downvoting if commented or voiced in favor of tech companies. Hacker news is becoming more extremist like Brietbart. Really sad and unfortunate.
Cipater 5y ago
This article is about an antitrust case brought by Texas, 14 other US states, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico against Google alleging that they compete unfairly. From the filing: VII. ANTICOMPETITIVE CONDUCT Google forces publishers to license Google’s ad server and trade in Google’s ad exchange Google uses its control over publishers’ inventory to block exchange competition Google blocks publishers from sending their inventory to more than one marketplace at a time Google blocks competition from non-Google exchanges and deceives publishers about Dynamic Allocation Google restricts information to foreclose competition and advantage itself Information asymmetry causes publishers and advertisers to trade on non-Google exchanges at their own risk Google forecloses competition by using inside information to win auctions Google blocks competing exchanges from accessing publishers’ high-value inventory and reaps the benefits for itself A new industry innovation called “header bidding” promotes exchange competition; Google wants to kill it Header bidding facilitates competition among ad exchanges Google creates an alternative to header bidding that secretly stacks the deck in Google’s favor Facebook helps Google “kill” header bidding with an unlawful agreement Google gives Facebook a leg up in its auctions in return for Facebook backing off from header bidding. Google and Facebook agree in the Jedi Blue agreement to a secret “Win Rate.” Google forces market participants to re-route trading through Google Google trades ahead of bid orders to foreclose exchange competition Google deceives exchanges to forgo header bidding Google deceives publishers to disable rival exchanges in header bidding Google cripples publishers’ ability to measure the success of rival exchanges in header bidding. Google obstructs publishers’ use of header bidding through caps Google uses its scale in search to punish publishers that use header bidding Google’s ad server gives exchanges that forego header bidding a leg up Google excludes competition through “nontransparent pricing.”

gumby 5y ago

Why is the California AG not bringing these actions?

deeberl 5y ago

The more I hear about this Google, the less I care for it.