6 ms·

This in particular seems to blatantly fly in the face of the precedent which was established by the earlier anti-trust judgements against them. It almost seems

by skohan 5y ago

This in particular seems to blatantly fly in the face of the precedent which was established by the earlier anti-trust judgements against them. It almost seems as if they believe anti-trust has been effectively killed between then and now, and they're ready to poke the bear to verify that it's dead.

Ygg2 5y ago
Judging at the current state of Internet, anti-trust is not just dead, but cremated, and thrown into the sea.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure, here across the pond we tend to slap these arrogant giants from time to time with few billions fine. Still just cost of doing their often amoral business, but often a big one.
  - zwaps 5y ago
    As a European, I am pretty sure. These cases are fought for years, and theorized over for decades. In the meantime, the companies have gained or lost market share, profits and future revenues move in whatever direction, and the court ruling and the fine have little importance. This may have been different some time ago. Nowadays, however, rest assured that no internet company will be deterred by pesky things such as laws, morality or ethics. If market share is at stake, that is. This goes for Microsoft as much as for Google and Facebook. Google settles important cases (data related) to not have any legislative interference, and will pay the fine for everything else. Microsoft would be foolish to do anything else. The companies are more powerful than the legal systems in the EU. Not the EU, mind you - if the will was there. But it isn't. Look at the fines, look at the dollars actually being paid. And then look at the prospect of gaining 30,40 maybe 50% market share in the browser market - now that all bets are off and Microsoft has gone back to just siphoning off all data without even giving normal users a choice. Yeah. Don't be naive.
  - aspaceman 5y ago
    Lol "slap".
  - bussierem 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google > To date, Google has been found guilty of antitrust behavior in the cases related to Google AdSense and Android, and has been fined over €8 billion (~$9 billion) https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-global-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-gl... > In the most recently reported fiscal year, Google's revenue amounted to 181.69 billion US dollars. So over the course of a decade so far and ~4-5 different cases, the EU has fined Google for approximately 4% of their revenue of a single fiscal year. Truly "slapping the giant". *Edit: Conversion to dollars*
    - t-writescode 5y ago
      Isn’t that literally the max that they can be hit with in a single case for the GDPR? I’ve called the GDPR fines great because they’re finally actually hitting with real numbers.
      - skohan 5y ago
        Wouldn't the other poster's point be that these are not "real numbers" relative go Google's revenue? Fines actually have to affect the bottom line to act as an incentive to change.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
      I don’t think comparing the fine to the company’s entire revenue makes any sense. It should be compared to the magnitude of the conduct they are being fined for. If you base the fine for a specific action on the company’s entire revenue, it creates some perverse incentives around corporate structure and leads to all sorts of absurd results. For example, if breaking the rules to earn 0.1% of revenue leads to the same penalty as breaking the rules to earn 100% of revenue, the company might as well maximize the scale of each rule broken to improve the risk-adjusted return. More reasonably, a fine should be proportional to the amount of incremental revenue that the company obtained by engaging in the illegal conduct, and that should be multiplied by the odds of getting caught (so the fine can’t be amortized as a cost of doing business). I think this rhetoric claiming that fines are just a slap on the wrist made sense at some point when we were talking about million-dollar settlements, but now we’re talking billions, and in some cases it’s so much money that the company certainly didn’t increase their revenue by that much by breaking the rules. I feel like people are just repeating the same old argument and they aren’t thinking critically about the numbers. Companies do, in fact, care about being fined billions of dollars! It’s a big deal! That kind of money really does drive corporate strategy! Try asking your CEO for a billion dollars to build a new product if you don’t believe me.
kreeben 5y ago
It's almost as if they realized the cost of abusing their market dominance is minuscule compared to the monetary gains that follow.
- skohan 5y ago
  That's exactly the cost-benefit equation which anti-trust regulation is supposed to correct. That's why it's a shame it's not currently working.
- bsenftner 5y ago
  We feared communists, and socialism, while creating the corporate demigods that puppet our governments, control our communications and by extension control everything anyone can aspire or achieve.
- pmontra 5y ago
  Yes. Basically they give up a few billions here and there but keep operating without competitors in their core business.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  When Google gets a fine they will spend 15 years in court fighting it. They are not concerned.
jeroenhd 5y ago
As long as Apple can get away with the way they treat iOS, I don't think Microsoft will be in any trouble. Android has fewer issues around the browser engine, but with Google Chrome handling clicks to URLs inside apps instead of opening the default browser, I don't think Microsoft is any worse than Android either. I hope someone will take action against all these three companies but I don't think the laws have been written to deal with this.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  > As long as Apple can get away with the way they treat iOS, I don't think Microsoft will be in any trouble. Would "but Apple is doing worse" really work as a valid defense in court? Wouldn't it just provoke another litigation against Apple (if the court decided smartphones should be treated in the same way as personal computers)?
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    It's not a defence, for sure. I just think that until the much worse mobile market gets prosecuted for antitrust violations, there's little chance people will go after Microsoft.
- sciurus 5y ago
  > with Google Chrome handling clicks to URLs inside apps instead of opening the default browser Are you sure about that? On Android my default browser is Firefox. If I email myself https://detectmybrowser.com/ https://detectmybrowser.com/ and then open it in the Fastmail app on Android, it says I'm using Firefox.
  - throwaway744678 5y ago
    I believe it is a choice of each app developper (open web links in a WebView or in the external default browser)
  - rtpg 5y ago
    Gmail will often try to prompt you to use Chrome _on iOS_. It's extremely agressive and just like... why......
yuliyp 5y ago
Interesting, I went back and read the settlement, and definitely did not realize at the time that all of the terms of the settlement have long since expired: https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/503526/download https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/503526/downlo... What's amazing to me is how much platformization has happened since then, especially in mobile, where even though no one company is a monopoly, Google, Microsoft, and Apple are definitely flexing their "we own the platform" muscles quite as strongly as Microsoft did in the late 90s (or stronger), to the detriment of both users and developers.

by skohan 5y ago

Ygg2 5y ago

Judging at the current state of Internet, anti-trust is not just dead, but cremated, and thrown into the sea.

saiya-jin 5y ago
I wouldn't be so sure, here across the pond we tend to slap these arrogant giants from time to time with few billions fine. Still just cost of doing their often amoral business, but often a big one.
- zwaps 5y ago
  As a European, I am pretty sure. These cases are fought for years, and theorized over for decades. In the meantime, the companies have gained or lost market share, profits and future revenues move in whatever direction, and the court ruling and the fine have little importance. This may have been different some time ago. Nowadays, however, rest assured that no internet company will be deterred by pesky things such as laws, morality or ethics. If market share is at stake, that is. This goes for Microsoft as much as for Google and Facebook. Google settles important cases (data related) to not have any legislative interference, and will pay the fine for everything else. Microsoft would be foolish to do anything else. The companies are more powerful than the legal systems in the EU. Not the EU, mind you - if the will was there. But it isn't. Look at the fines, look at the dollars actually being paid. And then look at the prospect of gaining 30,40 maybe 50% market share in the browser market - now that all bets are off and Microsoft has gone back to just siphoning off all data without even giving normal users a choice. Yeah. Don't be naive.
- aspaceman 5y ago
  Lol "slap".
- bussierem 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google > To date, Google has been found guilty of antitrust behavior in the cases related to Google AdSense and Android, and has been fined over €8 billion (~$9 billion) https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-global-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-gl... > In the most recently reported fiscal year, Google's revenue amounted to 181.69 billion US dollars. So over the course of a decade so far and ~4-5 different cases, the EU has fined Google for approximately 4% of their revenue of a single fiscal year. Truly "slapping the giant". *Edit: Conversion to dollars*
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    Isn’t that literally the max that they can be hit with in a single case for the GDPR? I’ve called the GDPR fines great because they’re finally actually hitting with real numbers.
    - skohan 5y ago
      Wouldn't the other poster's point be that these are not "real numbers" relative go Google's revenue? Fines actually have to affect the bottom line to act as an incentive to change.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
    I don’t think comparing the fine to the company’s entire revenue makes any sense. It should be compared to the magnitude of the conduct they are being fined for. If you base the fine for a specific action on the company’s entire revenue, it creates some perverse incentives around corporate structure and leads to all sorts of absurd results. For example, if breaking the rules to earn 0.1% of revenue leads to the same penalty as breaking the rules to earn 100% of revenue, the company might as well maximize the scale of each rule broken to improve the risk-adjusted return. More reasonably, a fine should be proportional to the amount of incremental revenue that the company obtained by engaging in the illegal conduct, and that should be multiplied by the odds of getting caught (so the fine can’t be amortized as a cost of doing business). I think this rhetoric claiming that fines are just a slap on the wrist made sense at some point when we were talking about million-dollar settlements, but now we’re talking billions, and in some cases it’s so much money that the company certainly didn’t increase their revenue by that much by breaking the rules. I feel like people are just repeating the same old argument and they aren’t thinking critically about the numbers. Companies do, in fact, care about being fined billions of dollars! It’s a big deal! That kind of money really does drive corporate strategy! Try asking your CEO for a billion dollars to build a new product if you don’t believe me.

kreeben 5y ago

It's almost as if they realized the cost of abusing their market dominance is minuscule compared to the monetary gains that follow.

skohan 5y ago
That's exactly the cost-benefit equation which anti-trust regulation is supposed to correct. That's why it's a shame it's not currently working.
bsenftner 5y ago
We feared communists, and socialism, while creating the corporate demigods that puppet our governments, control our communications and by extension control everything anyone can aspire or achieve.
pmontra 5y ago
Yes. Basically they give up a few billions here and there but keep operating without competitors in their core business.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
When Google gets a fine they will spend 15 years in court fighting it. They are not concerned.

jeroenhd 5y ago

As long as Apple can get away with the way they treat iOS, I don't think Microsoft will be in any trouble. Android has fewer issues around the browser engine, but with Google Chrome handling clicks to URLs inside apps instead of opening the default browser, I don't think Microsoft is any worse than Android either. I hope someone will take action against all these three companies but I don't think the laws have been written to deal with this.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> As long as Apple can get away with the way they treat iOS, I don't think Microsoft will be in any trouble. Would "but Apple is doing worse" really work as a valid defense in court? Wouldn't it just provoke another litigation against Apple (if the court decided smartphones should be treated in the same way as personal computers)?
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  It's not a defence, for sure. I just think that until the much worse mobile market gets prosecuted for antitrust violations, there's little chance people will go after Microsoft.
sciurus 5y ago
> with Google Chrome handling clicks to URLs inside apps instead of opening the default browser Are you sure about that? On Android my default browser is Firefox. If I email myself https://detectmybrowser.com/ https://detectmybrowser.com/ and then open it in the Fastmail app on Android, it says I'm using Firefox.
- throwaway744678 5y ago
  I believe it is a choice of each app developper (open web links in a WebView or in the external default browser)
- rtpg 5y ago
  Gmail will often try to prompt you to use Chrome _on iOS_. It's extremely agressive and just like... why......

yuliyp 5y ago

Interesting, I went back and read the settlement, and definitely did not realize at the time that all of the terms of the settlement have long since expired: https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/503526/download https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/503526/downlo... What's amazing to me is how much platformization has happened since then, especially in mobile, where even though no one company is a monopoly, Google, Microsoft, and Apple are definitely flexing their "we own the platform" muscles quite as strongly as Microsoft did in the late 90s (or stronger), to the detriment of both users and developers.