4 ms·

I interpreted coffeefirst as referring to the current antitrust action against Google, and saying that I expect more information will come out as it progresses.

• kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  There will never be a smoking gun because the people cooking up these dark pattern schemes are generally smart enough to not document them. The problem they want solved gets broken up into pieces that are given credible cover stories and then when it is all integrated together the intended outcome happens without it ever being explicitly written down in an incriminating email.
  • ineedasername 5y ago
    Yes-- while never on a criminal level, I have seen it happen in places where I have worked before.
• ineedasername 5y ago
  Good point, that may be what they meant. Although I would not count on all of those details coming out: for years Google has been warning employees against using certain types of language that could in someway look bad from an antitrust/anticompetitive point of view. So I would expect that a lot of documentation, emails, etc will look anodine on the surface through self-censorship. I don't expect anything that comes right out and says something like "we must implement AMP to as a strategy to remove competition from header bidding". Instead it will mostly be just the standard talking points about user experience and load times. I could be wrong though: plenty of things have been revealed in things like text messages where people don't think of them as being part of an official record.