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Googlers told to avoid words like ‘share’ and ‘bundle,’ US says
- archo 3y agohttps://archive.is/XsDSf https://archive.is/XsDSf
- adolph 3y agoThat memo and others from 2009 and 2011, the DOJ argued, made it clear that Google knew it needed "to be sensitive about antitrust considerations" and allegedly worked to hide any sketchy-sounding activity that could trigger antitrust scrutiny. It's kind of weird that the price of being successful is getting sued for monopolistic behavior. If Google had gone the way of Yahoo!, no lawsuit. If you think your company will make it big, then you have to be conscious about how lawyers will interpret your words many years after the fact.
- hotstickyballs 3y agoBeing successful is ok. Exploiting your success to prevent others from being successful is not
- adolph 3y ago> Being successful is ok. Exploiting your success to prevent others from being successful is not Any entity builds on previous successes to continue existing. Given that exclusivity agreements exist, how can a company be both successful and not monopolistic? It doesn't seem fair to say "lets look at what you did before you were successful, which was legal at the time, but becomes illegal if you are too good at it."
- gustavus 3y agoI don't think the problem is they were successful, I think the problem is more that they are using their success to effectively lock down the entire internet until only their approved platforms are allowed.
- adolph 3y agoTo what does the comment refer? Last I checked, Google has not "effectively lock[ed] down the entire internet until only their approved platforms are allowed."
- nonethewiser 3y agoDoesnt the title imply using words monopolists use is evidence of something? Surely thats not what defines a monopoly. You’d have to look at actual actions. Communications like this could arguably be about building culture, not evading antitrust allegations: > "We don't 'lock up' or 'lock in' our customers," and "we do not 'leverage' anything," Google told employees. But regardless, are they trapping customers and abusing some unique power that makes them a monopoly or not?
- marricks 3y agoI imagine a murder trial would be a lot easier if the person charged was quoted saying: "I'm going to murder this person" Compared to "I hope something bad happens to this person"
- nonethewiser 3y agoBut are you guilty of murder if you say “Im going to murder this person?”
- drdaeman 3y ago(IANAL) AFAIK, intent matters a lot in the criminal law, and if the statement is unambiguous it's significantly easier to prove the intent.
- leereeves 3y agoYeah, killing with intent is the very definition of murder. (Edit: Unlawfully) Killing someone without intent is manslaughter, with (generally) a much lighter punishment. But to answer GP's question, AIUI, merely saying "Im going to murder this person?" does not make someone guilty of murder or attempted murder, or (perhaps surprisingly) even conspiracy to commit murder. Conspiracy usually requires an overt act, like buying a weapon, in addition to the statement of intent. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/conspiracy https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/conspiracy
- quercusa 3y agoIs this not standard for BigCorps?
- searealist 3y agoIt is, every big company does this.
- aaomidi 3y ago_While being explicitly told not to do this_ To be fair, _every big company_ should probably be scared of future anti trust suits.
- searealist 3y agoNo one is telling them not to do this. The news just takes things out of context to push agendas.
- aaomidi 3y agoWhat's the agenda news is pushing?
- CBLT 3y agoYou said you work at Google, so open the docs for network QoS. Find the section explaining the difference between AF3 and AF4. Does it still use the "captive" verbiage? Or have they rewritten it to sugarcoat that some customers are locked in with Google products, and they cut costs when they recognize that?
- aaomidi 3y agoHow stupid do you think the judicial system is to see internal networking terminology as an anti competitive thing? How stupid do you think the defendants lawyers are to not show that’s absurd? Like, intent is a huge portion of the law. I swear half the time here on HN I feel like I’m talking to robots that ignore context.
- jsheller 3y agoFor things like this, Matt Levine is insightful: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/matt-levines-money-stuff-people-worry-about-the-basis-trade https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/matt-levines-mo... Summary is that not only can you not say things like "lock up" or "market share", you also can't tell employees not to say those things or you'll see headlines like the posted article and have the government claiming at trial that you're trying to hide evidence. This feels kind of odd and kind of unfair.
- dekhn 3y agoMy favorite part is the core guidance Google always told us was: "how would you feel if an email wrote showed up negatively on the front page of the New York Times". I lost count of the number of times that Google execs (and senior directors) emails showed up on the front page of the Times after that; one time I opened the Times to see my own manager's email advising the android team that it was fine to reverse engineer Java code from Sun into Android.
- TX81Z 3y agoWith the *really* sensitive stuff you aren’t even allowed to write a single thing down, everything is done verbally, totally off the books.
- TylerE 3y agohttps://youtu.be/7R3fqjCL4XY?si=0uOcKDgWZhuvlZbQ https://youtu.be/7R3fqjCL4XY?si=0uOcKDgWZhuvlZbQ (NSFW language warning)
- recursivecaveat 3y agoI thought for sure this would be a link to the end of this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc
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- andylynch 3y agoI thought this was fairly well known. I’m surprised Google et al. still don’t seem to have communications recording mandates for sensitive roles, like investment firms.
- bagels 3y agoContext matters: Don't use these words because it might let others know that we're monopolists. Don't use these words because we don't want to become monopolists, and if you use these words, it indicates that you might be doing something monopolistic.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoYour second context is a bad idea. If you truly want to avoid monopolistic behavior, then you want to encourage your employees to talk about that behavior plainly; so that when they do attempt something monopolistic, you will know about it and react.
- bagels 3y agoMaybe ineffective, but it seems like simply asking people not to use these words isn't necessarily a sign of covering up crimes.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoIt's not like this is where the whole case started: the context is that Google is being sued for monopolistic behavior!
- LikelyABurner 3y agoI fiercely despise Google and want them to go out of business legitimately, but this argument is right up there with “the defendant used encryption, that proves they must have child porn on their computer Your Honor!” It is not the responsibility of any company to make it easier for prosecutors to CTRL-F their emails to indict them, especially given how prosecutors can and will go on fishing expeditions.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- YurgenJurgensen 3y agoUsing encryption is not uncommon. This particular use of language may be uncommon (I don't know if it is, that's something for the prosecution to demonstrate). So if it is, the equivalent metaphor would be some extraordinary lengths taken to conceal data, like perhaps "The police found empty bags that once contained powdered iron oxide and aluminium in the defendant's house, their desktop computer was found to have recently been moved and contained more SATA connectors than necessary for the components it contained, and there was a suspicious number of melted computer parts and HDD caddy screws in their garbage."
- dekhn 3y agoI think it's wise not to discuss some things in a discoverable media because that media often ends up... getting discovered, and then all-too-often abused by lawyers, then tried in the court of public opinion. Very frequently there is missing context that leads to angry mobs over something somebody said in their email. (I do accept that some people email things that are promoting something illegal, and those folks also learned to move to other media types)
- rdtsc 3y ago> His goal was to help Google “maximize the opportunity” of rapid smartphone advancement [...] during a 2011 training called "Antitrust Basics for Search Team," Google also directed employees to "avoid metaphors involving wars or sports, winning, or losing." Ah yes, "maximize the opportunity". I was wondering how all this wishy-washy generalized corporate-speak language starts, it's actively being taught. > "We don't 'lock up' or 'lock in' our customers," and "we do not 'leverage' anything," Google told employees. Eventually "maximize the opportunity" will be added to the list of banned phrases. What's next, invent completely new terms, resort to latin or other languages? Criminal groups often invent new jargon so that the authorities, or strangers in general, can't understand what they are saying. So why shouldn't corporations do that? They can all learn something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenya and go from there. Prosecutors will never figure it out!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lainga 3y ago>What's next, invent completely new terms, resort to latin or other languages? Worked for Pepys -- > Pepys was surprised by his wife as he embraced Deb Willet; he writes that his wife "coming up suddenly, did find me imbracing the girl con [with] my hand sub [under] su [her] coats..."
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- fortran77 3y agoI’ve been advised to use certain language in every company I’ve worked at. For example, I shouldn’t say a product “dominates” a market, it has a “competitive edge” or it “leads”. I’m not sure this is hiding evidence.
- danaris 3y agoIt's also possible you've only ever worked at companies that have been trying to obtain or abuse a dominant market position, rather than trying to compete fairly in the market...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fortran77 3y agoMaybe. I've gotten directed to use specific language at Adobe, Apple, and Disney.
- asoneth 3y agoI agree with others that this sort of guidance is in no way proof of malfeasance but I can also see why it might arouse suspicion. If a suspected mob boss is recorded telling members of their organization stop using words like "murder", "assassinate", and "intimidate" that would not be proof of a crime, maybe they are an upstanding business owner who simply wants their employees to stop using violent metaphors. But it would be suspicious and seems reasonable for a prosecutor to bring up in court.
- MAGZine 3y agoIs anyone surprised by this? I'm reminded of two emails zuck was famous for sending. The first email incorporated the use of such banned verbiage. The second email, sent just a handful of minute later, seemed to speak to an imaginary jury, explaining why his last email was not anti-competitive nature. I can only imagine some lawyer freaking out, dialing up zuck immediately, and dictating the followup email to write.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoI mean, intention usually matters. People can and do regularly misspeak. If you send a follow-up letter right after the first - it's hard to know if you're covering your ass or you realize you messed up. And if you have good enough lawyers and you're not on trial for something like murder - you can usually get away with stuff like that. As I think we should. If I could go to jail for every time I said something dumb on accident - I'd have been locked up for life before I turned 20.
- MAGZine 3y agoI don't think anybody is saying that you should have to go to jail for everytime you said something dumb! But if you are going to be acting anticompetitively, it sure is a dumb idea to send a memo about it--followup email or not.
- refurb 3y agoI had that happen at a company. Somebody sent an email about an idea that violated an obscured federal law (the person who had the idea had no idea). The legal team basically dictated the reply to the email and actually copy-pasted the law as a response. "We can not implement this idea as it violated federal law ....."
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoGoogle said “We do not lock up our customers” and not “We do lock them up but we can’t say that” or even “Just don’t use those words”. Reasonably the training instructed employees to “not lock up customers”.
- chmod600 3y agoWe've shifted too much in the direction of punishing based on words rather than actions. Punishments should be driven primarily from actions and harms, and words should just be used to show intent and involvement. It seems weird to me that the question of whether company X did something wrong is answered by its own employees' statements (based on their narrow perspective) rather than some objective criteria that something bad happened.
- corethree 3y agoI get where your coming from especially with this whole pronoun fiasco. But on the other side of the coin very real bullying can come from just words. Unfortunately what is real bullying and just harmless talk exists actually exists on a gradient so we can't really codify it into anything that seems reasonable. Most good judgements are arrived at by just intuition.
- chmod600 3y agoThat would be interesting to discuss but it's not where I was going and it's a bit off topic. Investigations should start with the crime and work backwards to find the criminal. If you have to find incriminating statements to tell if a crime has even happened, that is really a different thing.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago>If you have to find incriminating statements to tell if a crime has even happened, that is really a different thing. That's what it sounds like: >Alphabet Inc.’s Google is on trial in Washington DC over US allegations that it illegally maintained a monopoly in the online search business. They aren't 100% sure so they are finding statements and actions to prove that Google is engaging in anti-competitive behavior.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoOn the contrary: this case it's punishing the very behavior you are complaining about. People who tried to defend themselves with vain word choice now have that very act of defence used as a tool for their prosecution.
- more_corn 3y agoI’m no google apologist but sometimes words are action. I remember them saying “we aren’t going to destroy our competition, we’re going to compete vigorously” words describe a plan, plans dictate actions. If you’re directing people to the language of competition you’re already better off than most monopolies.
- wnoise 3y agoThis strongly reminds me of a scene from season 3 of The Wire. A bunch of gang leaders are making plans together -- by way of a meeting trying to be run by Robert's Rules of Order. A subordinate is taking notes -- have to have minutes according to the rules. Eventually the leader notices and asks "is you takin' notes on a criminal fuckin' conspiracy?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc
- Graziano_M 3y agoOne of the all-time best quotes from the series.
- rg111 3y agoIt was a nice cooooop for as long as it was operational. Bi'ness was abooming without any bloodshed. --- On a more serious note, it is quite baffling to me that even after the tech sector embracing the corporate culture fully, and tons of documents generated every hour, prosecutors still have to scrape for such documents.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoI’m a broken record at this point but… As arguably THE community leading the zeitgeist, we need to be having serious and sober conversations about the limits of capitalism. How are we ensuring a healthy long lasting multi century society? We need to start implementing alternatives because even what were supposed to be the “good guys” are just another set of idealists and optimists ground into cynical dust. It’s nearly deterministic that a “successful” venture > ipo > investor focused corporate trajectory has no conclusion other than to eventually consume itself and harm people as they chase margins for investors as THE core goal. These are the cold sores of the antisocial margin chasing greed embedded in the structure of commerce and politics in which we live. Who else wants to help turn this ship? This is unsustainable
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gjvc 3y agoI like to avoid the word "share"
- cratermoon 3y agoMore succinctly, "avoid words monopolists use" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/google-hid-evidence-by-training-workers-to-avoid-words-monopolists-use-doj-says/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/google-hid-evide...
- septillianator 3y agoThis case seems like a joke. Seems very "damn if you do and damn if you dont" across the board. DOJ states that Google trains to not use monopolistic language for the very same reason as to what they are trying to be held liable of doing. Seems like it would be a recipe for disaster to save the chats between employees and execs. Holding people accountable word for word that they have in the midst of conversation seems unjust to begin with. . People say things without thinking entirely through- its chat! And the huge bids to be the default browser on phone is the nature of business set forth by the likes of the phone manufactures to begin with. The idea of their being a default search to begin with is the problem. GOOGLE is just playing the game. It shoudl be required that the search engine should be picked at the time of the unboxing of the phone and this rule probably should have been made 15 years ago. The whole case seems like a huge waste of time to me and is another example of the government demonstrating their incompetence with regards to big tech.
- jdjdjdjdjduuuu 3y agoNot even sure why they need communications to determine whether its a monopoly or not.... Couldn't they just look at the situation?
- monksy 3y agoI need to be hired by Google so I can start the first Google Monopoly board game club
- mabbo 3y agoI feel like large companies no longer have any excuse for not storing all text communications for a decade or longer. Text is small. Storage is cheap. The idea that you just can't keep all these text messages is absurd. A recent criminal case in Canada was thrown out because the police decided to turn off their body cam mics while they had a conversation of what they were going to do during their arrest of the accused. The judge decided it was suppression of evidence by the police. (I agree with the decision). A CEO choosing not to record certain conversations is, in my view, not that far from different. It's taking active action to ensure there's no record when it would have been easier to have the record: a clear sign that they don't want someone to know that was said.
- sirspacey 3y agoIn an adversarial case like this, that seems to make sense. The issue is that there are many, many groups that would happily sue a company to achieve a hostile objective (get access to proprietary insights, change public opinion, etc.) irrespective of the merits of their argument. Accountability matters, but 100% observability and transparency do not automatically deliver it. As a startup founder I tried, As many other founders have. In my circle we all learned the same lesson. Self-interested observers could pollute “the commons” very quickly and break the company culture.
- twobitshifter 3y agoExactly, these companies spoiled just train these employees on not to break the law. It’s the drive to find an edge over competitors that’s making employees take these unethical behaviors. When they realize nobody’s watching, they’re more likely to act unethically. A good comparison is the outrage that arises at speed cameras. People can’t believe that a camera could write a ticket for them. They’ll spoof and obscure license plates, take alternate routes, and try all sorts of things to avoid following the law. Just don’t speed and you’ll be ok. Don’t act unethically in business and you’ll be ok too.
- BitwiseFool 3y ago>"Don’t act unethically in business and you’ll be ok too." Easy to say, but the real world is full of grey areas, judgement calls, and interpretations. We don't have a law that says "don't act unethically" because it is way too broad. Regardless, you would still need a judge or a jury in order to make a verdict that unethical actions were taken.
- alberth 3y ago> "As far back as 2003, Google managers circulated unambiguous instructions on phrases to avoid to ensure they don’t come across like monopolists. ... Another internal presentation from March 2011, titled 'Antitrust Basics for Search Team,' tells employees:..." This is an odd article from Bloomberg since they are reporting on events that happened 20-years ago.
- AlbertCory 3y agoTurning history off is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I personally remember a Google Legal executive saying that you just should not say some things electronically at all.
- nwbort 3y agoMany of these words are terms of art in antitrust economics that also have common meanings (eg, 'bundle'). It seems uncontroversial to me that a company would want their employees to avoid using those terms.
- bogwog 3y agoThis site spends a significant amount of bandwidth complaining about the problems of big tech, yet when people are actually trying to do something about it, the benefit of the doubt goes to the big tech companies.
- turquoisevar 3y agoYep, that’s how it always goes. In part because the prestige and “coolness factor” of these companies getting the better of people and in part because owning or using shit made by these companies evokes some weird sense of tribalism. Also don’t underestimate the proliferation of the predominant American culture of capitalism in which very little is done to curb corporate free-for-alls. This leads many to a mindset in which almost anything goes, especially when the harm is abstracted away due to complex economical forces. Don’t worry, you’ll see most people here jump on the next thread complaining about the enshittifcation of services or the next price increase of their favorite product/service despite a lack of value add.
- GreedClarifies 3y agoWho did Google forget to pay off?
- Mechanical9 3y agoI feel like the single words referenced in the title are taken way out of context. The actual texts of these trainings unambiguously tell workers to not break the law, why the law is important, and what Google's philosophy is instead. That that includes not miscommunicating those intentions isn't a bad thing. None of this is ambiguous to anyone who has taken the actual trainings.
- bartwr 3y agoI worked at Google and I didn't get that impression. At no training I was told to not try to overtake the market, at many meetings PMs and directors were strategizing how to overtake the market, but the trainings were all about avoiding words (especially in writing) that could be seen as trying to establish the market dominance.
- hn72774 3y agoAmazon trains employees on this too. It's all about customer obsession, not the competition.
- bluedays 3y agoHey look at that Sundar Pichai fucked up again. How is this guy still CEO?
- orochimaaru 3y agoNot saying google doesn’t need breaking up. But if justice department cues for anti-trust are words in marketing and pricing documents it’s a rather bad practice. I don’t think there is anything illegal not using the words if you know the justice department is going to come after you.
- ftxbro 3y agoI heard this is also why people started saying 'space' instead of 'market'
- hknmtt 3y agoGoogle used to have their slogan proudly displayed in their products. Ever since they removed it, they went to sh... I wonder why.
- charancharan 3y ago[dead]
- say_it_as_it_is 3y agoThe article is published by Bloomberg, who uses their terminal licensing as leverage over customers' use of competing trading systems. If you want the terminal, you need to use their trading systems. Where are the stories about that?