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This rebuttal is incredibly shallow. To summarize and address 6 points: > 1) US has been accepting philanthropic funding for staffing for 25 years. Does not d
by systemvoltage 5y ago
This rebuttal is incredibly shallow.
To summarize and address 6 points:
> 1) US has been accepting philanthropic funding for staffing for 25 years.
Does not discuss the scale, impact or % of Schmidt's influence.
> 2) We are experts at technology and with rapidly changing landscape, we can contribute.
Yes, this is precisly the problem. Google has enormous monopoly power and you, Mr. Schmidt, are the beneficiary of that power. There is a conflict of interest here, need not be spelled out.
> 3) We love helping US Gov because of 1971 IPA act of "tours of duty".
Of course, Mr. Schmidt.
> 4) We don't have any influence. We are one of the 20 orgs. Funding is administered by neutral party.
There is a specific assertion in Politico article. Schdmidt Futures are not directly paying people's salaries, but quoting the Politico article:
> Schmidt maintained a close relationship with the president’s former science adviser, Eric Lander, and other Biden appointees. And his charity arm, Schmidt Futures, indirectly paid the salaries of two science-office employees, including, for six weeks, that of the current chief of staff, Marc Aidinoff, who is now one of the most senior officials in the office following Lander’s resignation in February.
Schmidt's rebuttal completely glosses over the details.
> 5) Schmidt Futures staff had no authority to make any policy decisions and did not do so through OSTP, and the story presents no evidence or examples to the contrary.
Schmidt Futures has no direct authority, that's correct. Politico article explicitly sources indirect authority of Schmidt Futures.
> 6) OSTP has always had and continues to retain full discretion and ownership over appointments, hires and policy decisions.
Mr. Schmidt, we can see the Front door. Clearly, it is locked with US Gov™ seal. You are not addressing Back door claims in the article.
What a fucking joke.
- chrisseaton 5y agoWhat does Google have a monopoly on? I think Google has repeatedly failed to gain or exploit any monopoly power. For example social.
- systemvoltage 5y agoGoogle literally is the poster child of Big Tech monopoly masquerading as a “Technology company” which is a false broad characterization of what it does. Revenues are overwhelmingly from search ads. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you should be familiar with a decade long fight it has put up to fight off its monopoly status. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/google-monopoly-regulation-antitrust.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/google-monopoly-r...
- stonogo 5y agoAllow me to introduce you to Chrome, the software funnel through which Google absolutely dominates the internet advertising market.
- simulate-me 5y agoInternet search? They have almost 92% market share.
- dodobirdlord 5y agoMarket share does not a monopoly make. Do you really consider Bing to be so bad that you don't even count it as a competing product in the same product category as Google Search? The cost to switch is literally nothing.
- sli 5y agoYou aren't wrong in theory, but in practice it's silly to pretend like the average person knows anything but Google. There comes a point where inertia and market share need to be considered and for some products (like Google, but especially Android) it really feels like we're beyond that. Antitrust and monopoly laws are almost always going to lag behind the needs of reality.
- Clubber 5y agoLaws don't require a literal monopoly, but significant market powers so yes, market share does a monopoly make via the power of that share in most circumstances. Of course being a monopoly in the legal sense isn't in and of itself illegal, it's leveraging that power to self serving, uncompetitive purposes. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages. In addition, that leading position must be sustainable over time: if competitive forces or the entry of new firms could discipline the conduct of the leading firm, courts are unlikely to find that the firm has lasting market power.