4 ms·

How is this any evidence that Google needs to be broken up? Google, like all companies, wants to maximize revenue. What about this is anti-competitive? Fooli

How is this any evidence that Google needs to be broken up? Google, like all companies, wants to maximize revenue. What about this is anti-competitive? Foolishness is not illegal.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Fortunately we have the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which does make this behavior illegal. Leveraging your monopoly in one area to advance your position in another area is illegal in the US, even if the company got to their monopoly position in the first area by just having the best product. This is basically exactly what Microsoft was found guilty of in the late 90s: abusing their monopoly power in operating systems to advance their position in the Internet by making IE the default browser and insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that "The browser must be an integral part of the OS!"
- fallingknife 3y ago
  How is the described behavior leveraging Google's monopoly status? Making a product shittier to raise revenue is not specific to monopolies and not illegal.
- lazide 3y ago
  That isn’t what the Sherman antitrust act says. It says doing it ‘unreasonably’ (or to an ‘unreasonable’ extent) is illegal (regarding trade). Attempting to monopolize (or actually doing so) is illegal, but leaning on a subsidiary to stop hurting revenue for the overall entity isn’t necessarily that (or illegal!). Monopolies based on actual quality are also generally considered okay (not illegal). If it was, any company with multiple divisions would be in violation. We’ll see what the court determines here. Happy to provide a reference to the law if you want. It’s pretty short. Edit: actually, FTC has a great write up - which also shows how difficult this case is when you look at other market participants and what Google was actually doing - 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...
  - nojito 3y ago
    It serves to show a pattern of behavior to protect a monopoly in ads. This examples show how they leveraged their monopoly of Chrome to protect their ads.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Except that change didn’t get made?
      - nojito 3y ago
        They changed how omnibar worked. It switched from history first to doing a google search first.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    To clarify, when I said "Fortunately we have the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which does make this behavior illegal" I was referring to the act and the century plus of case law around the act that solidified what it meant. With laws in the US it's pretty easy to point at any individual law and say "it doesn't actually say that" if you ignore all the jurisprudence that goes along with that law. E.g. The 1st amendment literally only applies to laws the US Congress can make, but centuries of following case law means that it now applies to essentially all governmental bodies in the US. I think the link you added is great in that it would seem trivial to rewrite that "Example: The Microsoft Case" and apply many of those exact same rationales to what Google has done. I am not saying the case is a total slam dunk, and I think it's fine to argue some of the finer points (e.g. I'm sure there will be a lot of debate along what is described in that "Market Power" section to determine if Google has sufficient market power in search, ads or browsers), but I do strongly push back against the statement I was replying to, "Google, like all companies, wants to maximize revenue. What about this is anti-competitive?" If you can't see how what Google was doing was anti-competitive (whether or not it meets the threshold of deserving of a severe governmental solution), I feel like that's just being willfully obtuse.
    - lazide 3y ago
- dataflow 3y ago
  > Leveraging your monopoly in one area to advance your position in another area Layman here but your phrasing feels way more broad and vague than how I've usually seen this phrased. The FTC's phrasing [1] is "use a monopoly in one market to attempt to monopolize another market." Namely, a market has to exist for both things, and that's what you have to be advancing (for a violation). What I find fascinating in this case (which might be just my ignorance on the topic; I'd love for someone to explain if so) is the notion of a "market" for a browser. Doesn't a market involve some kind of payment? What would that mean exactly, when browsers are free for everyone to download and use? [1] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/refusal-deal https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
- nodamage 3y ago
  > This is basically exactly what Microsoft was found guilty of in the late 90s: abusing their monopoly power in operating systems to advance their position in the Internet by making IE the default browser and insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that "The browser must be an integral part of the OS!" Except that ruling was overturned on appeal so this was never actually found to be illegal.
  - lmm 3y ago
    The ruling that ordering the breakup of Microsoft was an appropriate remedy was overturned. The finding that they were violating antitrust law was not.
    - nodamage 3y ago
      It's complicated as there were many different claims made against Microsoft in the lawsuit, some were upheld on appeal and some were overturned. But the specific claim I was replying to (that bundling Internet Explorer with Windows violated antitrust law) was one of the ones overturned by the appeals court.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  I think the spirit of the antitrust laws was to prevent the stifling of competition using monopoly power. Microsoft was definitely doing that when they threaten to charge OEMs more if they bundled Netscape Navigator - OEMs couldn’t say “no” to Microsoft due to their desktop OS monopoly; it would be the end of their business. In Google’s case, I find it hard to see how they are stifling the competition. Blowing your vast capital to improve your product is not anticompetitive - it’s unfair but it’s not anticompetitive. Designing your products to advantage your other products, again, it’s unfair but it isn’t anticompetitive IMHO - competition isn’t being stifled; must every company make sure their products benefit their competitors’s as much as their own before they are allowed to release it? The courts will have to be very careful. Their ruling in this case will set a precedent and in the future other companies can get hit by the same logic they use against Google if they convict. I don’t like Google’s de facto control of the web and their attempt to kill JPEGXL in favor of their own formats, AVIF and WebP. JPEGXL is the superior format and they should support it but they aren’t obligated to. It makes them a prick but being a prick isn’t illegal. We can still hate their guts though.

How is this any evidence that Google needs to be broken up? Google, like all companies, wants to maximize revenue. What about this is anti-competitive? Foolishness is not illegal.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Fortunately we have the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which does make this behavior illegal. Leveraging your monopoly in one area to advance your position in another area is illegal in the US, even if the company got to their monopoly position in the first area by just having the best product. This is basically exactly what Microsoft was found guilty of in the late 90s: abusing their monopoly power in operating systems to advance their position in the Internet by making IE the default browser and insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that "The browser must be an integral part of the OS!"

fallingknife 3y ago
How is the described behavior leveraging Google's monopoly status? Making a product shittier to raise revenue is not specific to monopolies and not illegal.
lazide 3y ago
That isn’t what the Sherman antitrust act says. It says doing it ‘unreasonably’ (or to an ‘unreasonable’ extent) is illegal (regarding trade). Attempting to monopolize (or actually doing so) is illegal, but leaning on a subsidiary to stop hurting revenue for the overall entity isn’t necessarily that (or illegal!). Monopolies based on actual quality are also generally considered okay (not illegal). If it was, any company with multiple divisions would be in violation. We’ll see what the court determines here. Happy to provide a reference to the law if you want. It’s pretty short. Edit: actually, FTC has a great write up - which also shows how difficult this case is when you look at other market participants and what Google was actually doing - 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...
- nojito 3y ago
  It serves to show a pattern of behavior to protect a monopoly in ads. This examples show how they leveraged their monopoly of Chrome to protect their ads.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Except that change didn’t get made?
    - nojito 3y ago
      They changed how omnibar worked. It switched from history first to doing a google search first.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  To clarify, when I said "Fortunately we have the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which does make this behavior illegal" I was referring to the act and the century plus of case law around the act that solidified what it meant. With laws in the US it's pretty easy to point at any individual law and say "it doesn't actually say that" if you ignore all the jurisprudence that goes along with that law. E.g. The 1st amendment literally only applies to laws the US Congress can make, but centuries of following case law means that it now applies to essentially all governmental bodies in the US. I think the link you added is great in that it would seem trivial to rewrite that "Example: The Microsoft Case" and apply many of those exact same rationales to what Google has done. I am not saying the case is a total slam dunk, and I think it's fine to argue some of the finer points (e.g. I'm sure there will be a lot of debate along what is described in that "Market Power" section to determine if Google has sufficient market power in search, ads or browsers), but I do strongly push back against the statement I was replying to, "Google, like all companies, wants to maximize revenue. What about this is anti-competitive?" If you can't see how what Google was doing was anti-competitive (whether or not it meets the threshold of deserving of a severe governmental solution), I feel like that's just being willfully obtuse.
  - lazide 3y ago
dataflow 3y ago
> Leveraging your monopoly in one area to advance your position in another area Layman here but your phrasing feels way more broad and vague than how I've usually seen this phrased. The FTC's phrasing [1] is "use a monopoly in one market to attempt to monopolize another market." Namely, a market has to exist for both things, and that's what you have to be advancing (for a violation). What I find fascinating in this case (which might be just my ignorance on the topic; I'd love for someone to explain if so) is the notion of a "market" for a browser. Doesn't a market involve some kind of payment? What would that mean exactly, when browsers are free for everyone to download and use? [1] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/refusal-deal https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
nodamage 3y ago
> This is basically exactly what Microsoft was found guilty of in the late 90s: abusing their monopoly power in operating systems to advance their position in the Internet by making IE the default browser and insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that "The browser must be an integral part of the OS!" Except that ruling was overturned on appeal so this was never actually found to be illegal.
- lmm 3y ago
  The ruling that ordering the breakup of Microsoft was an appropriate remedy was overturned. The finding that they were violating antitrust law was not.
  - nodamage 3y ago
    It's complicated as there were many different claims made against Microsoft in the lawsuit, some were upheld on appeal and some were overturned. But the specific claim I was replying to (that bundling Internet Explorer with Windows violated antitrust law) was one of the ones overturned by the appeals court.
TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
I think the spirit of the antitrust laws was to prevent the stifling of competition using monopoly power. Microsoft was definitely doing that when they threaten to charge OEMs more if they bundled Netscape Navigator - OEMs couldn’t say “no” to Microsoft due to their desktop OS monopoly; it would be the end of their business. In Google’s case, I find it hard to see how they are stifling the competition. Blowing your vast capital to improve your product is not anticompetitive - it’s unfair but it’s not anticompetitive. Designing your products to advantage your other products, again, it’s unfair but it isn’t anticompetitive IMHO - competition isn’t being stifled; must every company make sure their products benefit their competitors’s as much as their own before they are allowed to release it? The courts will have to be very careful. Their ruling in this case will set a precedent and in the future other companies can get hit by the same logic they use against Google if they convict. I don’t like Google’s de facto control of the web and their attempt to kill JPEGXL in favor of their own formats, AVIF and WebP. JPEGXL is the superior format and they should support it but they aren’t obligated to. It makes them a prick but being a prick isn’t illegal. We can still hate their guts though.