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Interesting; I wonder if DOJ approaches on this stuff will continue (Vance has been clear he's a big tech skeptic), or if things will chill out a little. In th
by vessenes 2y ago
Interesting; I wonder if DOJ approaches on this stuff will continue (Vance has been clear he's a big tech skeptic), or if things will chill out a little.
In this case, the big complaint Apple has is that there was a really long trial, US v. Google, and one of the proposed remedies is a ban on a “contract between Google and Apple in which there would be anything exchanged of value.”
Apple is like "hold on a minute here, we weren't party to this trial."
When they asked to file some briefs, they were denied. Hence these motions, and also the PR push, I imagine.
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like any party named in an order should at least be allowed to show up and say some things. We'll see.
- miltonlost 2y ago[flagged]
- vessenes 2y agoI mean, he was there like two years, very junior. Maybe he's Thiel's shadow puppet baby, but my money is on him being smart and having his own plans.
- mlinhares 2y agoHis own plans for what? What could he do without the money? The moment the money disappears he'd disappear as well.
- youngNed 2y ago> my money is on him being smart No snark; based on what?
- zachthewf 2y agoHe went to Yale and worked at a prestigious VC firm. Most people with those credentials are at least reasonably smart.
- lern_too_spel 2y agoVance went to open admission Ohio State for undergrad and went to Yale Law school via DEI admission, on the strength of his mother's drug addiction.
- thesuitonym 2y agoIvy League schools are notorious for inflating grades to make their graduates look smarter. It seems the biggest factor for entry is money. Before you reply, let me be very clear: Yes, very smart people do go to Yale, and yes, people go to Yale without lots of money. A few specific instances does not negate the general case.
- miltonlost 2y agoWorking at a prestigious VC firm means you can schmooze, network, and lie.
- skywhopper 2y agoSo far his plans have been to kiss up to the worst people on the planet and say whatever horrifying lies will get him approval from them.
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago[flagged]
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoWell, if what Google was doing was against the law, then Apple really doesn't get a say. Google just has to stop, whether Apple likes it or not.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 2y agoThis is incorrect. First, some laws only carry fines which corporations can choose to pay instead of abiding. Second, in the US, you have the right to challenge laws, which is what's happening here. Third, my understanding is there is no "law" preventing this deal, only a pending lawsuit to cease the deal.
- shkkmo 2y agoThe law allegedly being broken is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act which prohibits the types of behavior Google is accused of.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoThat's not what this is about. When a court finds that there was a violation of law, they can impose remedies that go far beyond what the law normally requires, and Apple says in the filing that they're concerned about "an extreme remedy that targets Apple by name and would prohibit any commercial arrangement between Apple and Google for a decade". I don't know this case in enough detail to say whether that statement is fair, but if it is there's clearly no general law against making commercial arrangements with Apple.
- xp84 2y agoI wonder how many people agree with me that two unrepentant monopolists (and the two halves of a completely-indisputable duopoly) such as these justifiably shouldn't be allowed to make any financial deals with one another by default, in a fair and sane world. Or at minimum, any such deal should be illegal unless explicitly approved by a regulator as not harming competition.
- thinkingtoilet 2y ago[flagged]
- orochimaaru 2y agoTrump isn’t investing anything. That stargate deal is a bit of show business. Everything is unconfirmed and non-binding commitments by private players.
- madeofpalk 2y agoThis has always been a weird case because the propose remedies have more to do with Apple than Google, and impact Apple negatively just as much (or more!) than Google.
- echelon 2y agoThere would be so much opportunity in breaking up Apple and Google. And Amazon and Meta. Just think of all the new startups and money to be made by breaking up big tech. I think the valuation of a broken-up Google and Apple would exceed the monolithic conglomerates that they have become. So many of their business units and products don't even monetize because they're going for an intangible "platform value" that is only achievable at obscene scale. In this hulking form, they can reach into new markets and charge nothing, killing off all the incumbents, just so that they can grow their empires larger and tighten their grips on your attentions and wallets. Amazon gives away Hollywood movies for free because it keeps your eyeballs glued to them. And they're also a grocery store, for god's sake. A big tech breakup would provide much needed oxygen to the ecosystem, lift a bunch of impossible to beat barriers, and result in far more competition and money making. Imagine a web that isn't dominated by Google or a phone market that isn't controlled by a duopoly. Imagine if we could suddenly launch iPhone and Gmail and YouTube competitors. The energy barriers are too high today because the big players have consolidated every angle of attack. No wonder Peter Thiel and Vance want it. This would turn the big tech money siphons over to venture capital, entrepreneurs, and engineering ICs again. We should all be 100% for this.
- tedd4u 2y ago>And they're also a grocery store, for god's sake. They're also your primary care doctor! Amazon OneMedical! https://health.amazon.com/onemedical https://health.amazon.com/onemedical Scroll down the page a bit.
- aurareturn 2y agoCounter point: Would breaking up Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft decrease the progress in AI since those major companies are forking over hundreds of billions to build out mega AI infraustructure?
- jonas21 2y agoThe lawsuit was initiated by the first Trump administration at the request of the attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas. So presumably, it will continue.
- lenerdenator 2y agoDepends on if he's figured out an angle on how to enrich himself or his cronies off of it by now. See: TikTok ban suddenly becoming negotiable after an act of Congress.
- xp84 2y agoDon't forget non-monetary 'enrichment,' too. I'm pretty convinced that the reason Trump switched sides on TikTok, after being one of the first to cast (justifiable imho) suspicion on it, simply because he looked around and saw that popular opinion was against the ban, especially among the influential Gen-Z demographic. (Obviously a President caring about popular opinion is a feature and not strictly a bug, but I think it's reasonable that a President should also care whether said popular opinion is ill-informed and wrong when it comes to national security.)
- moshun 2y agoDon’t forget that TikTok praised him personally to every single user and then donated $50K to his inauguration as well as hosting a huge party that cost well over $100k. ByteDance knows better than most how to deal with corrupt governments.
- j2kun 2y agoTrump is nothing if not a flip-flopper when he can get a deal out of it.
- nostromo 2y agoIt’s literally how negotiation works.
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoIt’s pretty chilling to think about the political weaponisation potential of a court case continuing or not at the whims of the current regime. Fall into line or be litigated out of existence…
- galangalalgol 2y agoOr "settle my personal civil suit against you and if the award is high enough I'll let your proposed merger go through". I know corrupt politicians aren't rare. But trying to hide it at least affirms to people that the rule of law should be a thing.
- Terr_ 2y agoYeah, there's an important difference between consistent and principled use of court cases to uphold actual laws-even bad laws--versus using them to extort for private gain or unofficial favors. It's kind of like the D&D alignment chart: Sure, Lawful-Evil might still be feeding orphans to the doomlord, but at least they are constrained by their own dang rules instead of a playing Calvinball.
- borski 2y agoThis has always been the case though. Not every court case gets pursued to completion. And some that do shouldn’t.
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoI can’t help but feel democracy needs a huge amount of separation between the legal and political systems to remain functional. As in attorney generals, judges etc. should be appointed by a non political process. I think any rebuttals of the form ‘the other side did it too’ just add weight to this viewpoint.
- nonameiguess 2y agoI think I probably agree on general principle, but everything's a tradeoff. Do this and you end up with what gets perceived (and potentially actually is) a "deep state" of entrenched bureaucrats that are not accountable to voters, even though they pursue real policy goals that are separate from partisan campaign considerations.
- scarface_74 2y agoIf you haven’t noticed, Vance has no power in the administration. It’s completely a Trump/Musk show and Tim Cook kisses the ring as well as any CEO. My bet is that Trump will have this whole thing dropped now that Apple is involved. You notice that during the first administration that Apple was never affected by the Chinese tarriffs
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoAnd google seems to have fallen in line with the current regime completely too.
- mistercheph 2y agoand before they were... fiercely independent? Ll0l
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Terr_ 2y agoRegardless of the subject's personality, these are fundamentally different kinds of relationship: 1. Try to look like you're following the law so that nothing happens. 2. Give personal favors and praise to a corrupt cop so that nothing happens.
- nostromo 2y agoThere’s plenty of evidence now that all of big tech was working with the Biden administration to censor their political opponents. We need a law or a court decision that says that the government isn’t allowed to restrict citizens speech by proxy by pressuring private organizations. Because this is going to keep getting worse if not.
- Terr_ 2y ago> plenty of evidence now What's the best concrete example?
- meta_x_ai 2y ago[dead]
- Jaepa 2y agoMaybe; They should have still been able to file amicus curiae but likely they would have to appeal the remedy instead of attempting to become a co-defendant. The case was Google illegally using it monopoly power. The Remedy was to prevent some of the anti-compitive actions. If the agreement was to split up Google, or for it to sell off chrome it wouldn't make sense for Apple to be a co-defendent.
- wbl 2y agoIANAL but AFAIK amicus curiae is not for "my interests will be impacted in this case because I have a claim that's involved". It's more for things like "hey, we do a lot in this area of law and here's something neither party has thought of that your decision might impact".
- NotPractical 2y agoApple donated $1 million to Trump. So did all the other big tech CEOs, who were also invited as distinguished guests to his inauguration. Conservatives like Trump generally favor big business and deregulation. Your faith in Trump doing anything meaningful about big tech is likely misplaced.
- kristopolous 2y agoif he can do options and hedge trading against it to personally enrich himself I'm sure he'd be game.
- mattnewton 2y agoThat’s too complicated. Just extort them until they buy $TRUMP coin and open a “factory” in the US for a photo op.
- blibble 2y agothey were invited to be a display of his power over them, and to display this to the world not to be distinguished guests
- myvoiceismypass 2y agoIt’s kinda cute that Vance is a big tech skeptic when his entire political career was funded by Peter Thiel and Vance got rich living in Silicon Valley. Amazing.
- Kerrick 2y agoHe's a (big tech) skeptic, not a big (tech skeptic). Thiel and other VCs stand to gain when competition from startups they would invest in have a chance to unseat the big tech conglomerates.
- scarface_74 2y agoThey have no desire to unseat BigTech, they want to be acquired by them. In no world is a startup going to unseat Apple, Amazon, or Microsoft. Google and Facebook maybe. VCs don’t want to touch hardware with a ten foot pole (Apple), competing with Amazon would be a money sink to duplicate all of the infrastructure as would Microsoft (who cares about desktop operating systems and the enterprise will never leave MS).
- webmaven 2y agoThat's the same thing, the credible "chance to unseat" becomes "motivation to acquire", leading to a much faster and more certain exit. Of course, that's exactly the pattern of behavior that is seen as problematic.
- sangnoir 2y ago> They have no desire to unseat BigTech, they want to be acquired by them. Acquisitions are one way to make money off big tech. Breaking them up and buying parts of them for cents on the dollar are another, especially if you can issue barely veiled threats of government-backed retaliation if they refuse to come to the table with your allies/fronts. With a "loosened regulations" regime, IPOs may be even more profitable than acquisitions.
- scarface_74 2y ago
- healsdata 2y ago> Interesting; I wonder if DOJ approaches on this stuff will continue It will, but the remedy for all the cases will be to donate $25 million to the president's library. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/meta-agrees-pay-25-million-settle-lawsuit-president/story?id=118242529 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/meta-agrees-pay-25-million-s...
- kabdib 2y agothat's a lot of crayons
- haliskerbas 2y agoMy dumb American brain is surprised these things are allowed. :shrug:
- williamcotton 2y agoSure, during the 2018 election, candidates, parties, PACs, and outsiders combined spent about $5 billion – $2.5 billion on Democrats, $2 billion on Republicans, and $0.5 billion on third parties. And although that sounds like a lot of money to you or me, on the national scale, it’s puny. The US almond industry earns $12 billion per year. Americans spent about 2.5x as much on almonds as on candidates last year. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...
- timeon 2y agoNot sure how is paying for food relevant to paying for politician. In many countries there is absolute cap per campaign to make it fair. Making it 'fair' is maybe not that relevant in two party system but still that amount of money from single entity is corruption.
- cogman10 2y agoYup, it distorts what a politician will say and what bills they'll sponsor if they're elected. The most dangerous thing the $12 billion in almond money will do is buy a politician to allow them to skirt worker protections and environmental protections to continue maximizing almond money. That puts the interests of the politician not with the general population who wants clean water and safe non-abusive jobs but rather the few almond farm owners who want to maximize almond production while minimizing worker costs (and perhaps locking out new almond farmers from the industry). This sort of kleptocracy is the problem with American politics. Bribery laws are so laughably bad that you have to literally stuff gold bars in your suit pockets before you run the risk of being prosecuted. You have to be a grade A moron to get caught.
- ActionHank 2y agoVance came from big tech, he's not a skeptic, it's an act. He says things that make it seem like the leadership are against the big bad and for the average Joe. Apple is piling on this one so that both can get a win at the same time.
- mattmaroon 2y agoCame here to say this. He brought all the tech industry with him.
- mightyham 2y agoVance did not come from big tech, he comes from VC circles in silicon valley which is an important distinction. The people he runs with quite literally call themselves "little tech" [1], and they have an agenda that does not necessarily align with the objectives of big 5 tech firms. However, I'm not at all trying to disagree with you on the fact that much of what he says and does is performative and has ulterior motives. [1] https://a16z.com/the-little-tech-agenda/ https://a16z.com/the-little-tech-agenda/
- danudey 2y agoI mean, Vance's first job in VC was becoming a partner at Thiel's Mithril Capital in 2015, then he moved to Revolution LLC which was founded by Steve Case (of AOL fame), then he co-founded a VC firm with a former colleague from Mithril and funding from Peter Thiel. So I mean, he's not "big tech" in the sense of working with or for the few huge corporations that control what we see and read and how we do it, but he's "big tech" in the way of being highly influenced by Silicon Valley billionaires and their "government just gets in the way, down with regulations and laws so I can get more wealth and power" ethos.
- sangnoir 2y agoIMO, the SV mindset, VC and big tech aren't interchangeable in that way. Sequoia Capital, the 900 lb gorilla of VCs reportedly had $102B in funds/assets in 2024. Apple just had $124B as first quarter revenue and had over $200B in cash reserves after a $30B stock buyback. I don't know the size of the funds Vance oversaw, but I bet dollars to donuts, the scale is far bigger at big tech.
- cyberlurker 2y agoI think it needs to be stated as a matter of fact that Vance has demonstrated he doesn’t hold a position if it isn’t advantageous to him. Which is normal for politicians, but in his case very extreme. So not to take anything away from the rest of your comment but that part of it should be disregarded.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- DannyBee 2y agoLawyer here: As a general rule, you can't bind non-parties with injunctions. Courts have no authority to enforce such injunctions either. A very recent example: https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/24/google-as-non-party-not-subject-to-injunction-that-expressly-ordered-it-to-take-down-youtube-posts/ https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/24/google-as-non-party-not...
- masfuerte 2y agoIdiot here. So the court can't ban Apple from doing business with Google but they can ban Google from doing business with Apple?
- DannyBee 2y agoGenerally no, actually. Not without apple being a party. Now, over the past few decades this has been slowly relaxed in practice (IE courts willing to try to do it), but the underlying precedent has not actually changed on this. Hence my comment elsewhere that the supreme court has been looking for a case in which to reassert this precedent (They have). Where it starts to get weird is when you ask the more generic variations of this question: Can a court ban Google from doing business with companies with market cap more than 1 trillion? Can a court order Google to have an independent master approve any contracts it enters into? etc Generally the remedies are limited by applicable law, and in turn by congress's authority in the first place (in the case of federal lawsuits like this). Trying to enjoin apple when they are a non-party runs into the latter more than the former. Trying to say who Google can contract with runs more into the former than the latter. Keep in mind civil remedies are also much less expansive than criminal ones because of constitutional limitations. Unfortunately, for any mildly novel remedy, it's hard to predict what will happen - they are just uncommon enough that without running it through appeals/etc, you just don't know what will happen. It's total guesswork in practice. Even things that were once considered not novel have changed - for a long time, the FTC sought money damages in antitrust cases and unfair competition cases, but that was ruled "not okay" 5 years ago. Whatever one may think of the court, this was actually quite right, as the statute goes - they were abusing a statutory provision that granted them the ability to get injunctions to basically "enjoin" companies into paying them fines. This was clearly ridiculous. But it went on quite a while.
- cma 2y ago> Vance has been clear he's a big tech skeptic I'm sure he's extremely skeptical of Palantir and Oracle.
- otterley 2y agoThe motion was denied, and has since been appealed. See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1157.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223...