4 ms·

If it is a business no one cares about, then why has Google been fighting this?

xp84 1mo ago
The money is nbd, but it's much more important to Google (same as it would be for any of the other tech giants) to keep a certain streak going - 42 years now and counting since the government forced a large or important company to do anything even resembling breaking up. A loss here would serve as precedent (either legally, or at minimum in people's emotions) that you CAN force a divestiture. If Google can be forced to divest this business, why not Chrome, YouTube, or Android? Why can't Apple be forced to divest the App Store business, or Amazon be forced to divest AWS?
- dylan604 1mo ago
  Microsoft got pretty close to getting broken up in 2000, but settled in time to avoid the split
  - johnnyanmac 1mo ago
    Hot take? But I think antitrust trials should not he subject to settlement. It only proves to reinforce the accusations when a company is big enough to pay off the government.
    - kmeisthax 1mo ago
      ...then how do you maintain an adversarial proceeding? Like, it's a pretty basic part of American law that courts only hear "cases and controversies" - that is to say, you need to have two parties who disagree before judges are allowed to do anything. If both parties no longer disagree, a settlement is how they call the lawsuit off. But if they're not allowed to settle... what happens? Are we going to force both parties into the court to argue positions they no longer hold? Like, what stops the government from just arguing the case really badly to intentionally lose? That would be worse: now, instead of a prosecution leading to a weak settlement, you have every weak case being carried to term, resulting in a miscarriage of justice as each judgment forms negative precedent against future antitrust action. This is a recipe for eroding antitrust faster. What you're thinking is that government lawyers are just there to extract the settlement, ergo if we force them to go for the kill, they will get more kills. The reality is that the current social class of lawyers and judges hate antitrust. They successfully recast it from an argument about market power to an argument about price controls, and well, most monopolies don't actually raise prices[0], so building a case against them is very difficult. Hell, in the Microsoft lawsuit, the reason why the government settled was because the initial judgement to break up Microsoft got thrown out, because the judge who issued it blabbed about it to the press. Keeping the case going would not have produced a better outcome than a negotiated settlement. Furthermore, while the current "monopoly is about prices" argument is new, the judicial contempt for antitrust is not new. It took three tries and FDR threatening to pack the courts before we got judges consistently applying antitrust law as anything more than a mere ban on unions. While courts are ostensibly neutral arbiters of law, they bend to the fiscal interests of the nation and are inherently political entities, because courts have no inherent power but what they are given by the state. Or, in other words, if you want more antitrust breakups you need Congress to start appointing more neo-Brandeis leaning judges. [0] Strictly speaking, there are lots of businesses where monopolies are economically efficient. A monopolist that raises prices is
      - johnnyanmac 1mo ago
        >how do you maintain an adversarial proceeding? It's the government as a prosecutor. If current teams are compromised, they find a different team. This isn't like some law firm with an interest to keep their own lights on. A government prosecution against a threat to labor and economic markets should be to close whatever loopholes lead up to this point. >The reality is that the current social class of lawyers and judges hate antitrust. They successfully recast it from an argument about market power to an argument about price controls, and well, most monopolies don't actually raise prices[0], so building a case against them is very difficult. Sounds like a compromised DoJ in that case. Which is definitely the case in the modern day. But the monopoly argument doesn't hold weight. Some aspects of life are best run as monopolies. But such businesses are highly, highly regulated to prevent the downsides of unbridled capitalism. Big tech is not regulated at all in terms of pricings. And thus we're seeing the results of that in real time. >While courts are ostensibly neutral arbiters of law, they bend to the fiscal interests of the nation and are inherently political entities, because courts have no inherent power but what they are given by the state. Sounds like a fancy way to say "big companies always bribed the courts". It's in economic best interest to have a free flow of competition. But it's in individuals' best interests to have good relationships with the biggest winners. The claim of 'interests of the nation' contradicts the fact that being soft on anti-trust betrays such interests.
      - lelanthran 1mo ago
        > If both parties no longer disagree, a settlement is how they call the lawsuit off. But if they're not allowed to settle... what happens? As someone who's been in court quite a lot, personally involved, in the cases, etc, I can guarantee you that legislation fixes this. Just about your entire argument falls apart if legislation enforcing a spirit of "Antitrust against a party can only be settled by a division of the the party". You wanna settle? Sure, but it means you gotta divide in a way that we agree to . You're claiming you're not guilty of antitrust? Okay, lets take it before a court. This way there will never be a "settlement" whereby the monopolist gets to pay a cost of doing business and then continue doing business in the same way.
      - MikeTheGreat 1mo ago
        Citation? I apologize - I know that the "Citation needed" meme is mostly a way to say "I disagree" but in this case you literally left out your citation :) You make a claim ("most monopolies don't actually raise prices") you use the end-note citation format ( "[0]" ), but then the end-note is a parenthetical comment that starts to restart your claim and then trails off. In all seriousness: If you or anyone else can list examples of efficient monopolies I'd be curious to know. Off the top of my head: local utilities are often given local monopolies. Telecom seems to often be a local monopoly (I've got one option for Internet access, and that's reasonably common here in the US, especially outside of metro areas). I feel like the utilities are reasonably efficient but the telecoms aren't, but I don't have any specific data to back that up.
  - xp84 1mo ago
    I won’t lie, I asked Copilot (of all things) first, in order to be more confident I wasn’t forgetting even one breakup, and it also pointed out that “almost” one.
    - alt227 1mo ago
      You dont have to tell people when your not lying.
  - adestefan 1mo ago
    It was GW Bush winning the election that allowed Microsoft to a settlement.
    - BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
      ... for those who think that Trump is an outlier. No, just a slight acceleration to a very much established trend.
      - dylan604 1mo ago
        People used to joke that W was the bottom of the barrel, then the GOP did a hold my beer and dug a little deeper.
        pocksuppet 1mo ago
        Crazy to think there were no GOP presidents between Bush and Trump. I first interpreted this as the new record low is lower than the old record low. But no, Trump was the very next one.
        leptons 1mo ago
        Kid Rock is probably next, or worse.
        sawjet 1mo ago
        Crazy to think that, despite trump existing, the Democrats still lost two elections to him.
        eastbound 1mo ago
        [flagged]
        villish 1mo ago
        Yeah and how was it done? Why did all (60?) of the trump campaigns lawsuits get thrown out due to lack of evidence? Why did the democrats just simply forget to do it again? How many hoops will you have to jump through to answer these questions?
hammock 1mo ago
Great question. The adtech is what rigs the auctions for their moneymaker, the ads. If they no longer own the adtech then their ad revenue suffers greatly.

xp84 1mo ago

The money is nbd, but it's much more important to Google (same as it would be for any of the other tech giants) to keep a certain streak going - 42 years now and counting since the government forced a large or important company to do anything even resembling breaking up. A loss here would serve as precedent (either legally, or at minimum in people's emotions) that you CAN force a divestiture. If Google can be forced to divest this business, why not Chrome, YouTube, or Android? Why can't Apple be forced to divest the App Store business, or Amazon be forced to divest AWS?

dylan604 1mo ago
Microsoft got pretty close to getting broken up in 2000, but settled in time to avoid the split
- johnnyanmac 1mo ago
  Hot take? But I think antitrust trials should not he subject to settlement. It only proves to reinforce the accusations when a company is big enough to pay off the government.
  - kmeisthax 1mo ago
    ...then how do you maintain an adversarial proceeding? Like, it's a pretty basic part of American law that courts only hear "cases and controversies" - that is to say, you need to have two parties who disagree before judges are allowed to do anything. If both parties no longer disagree, a settlement is how they call the lawsuit off. But if they're not allowed to settle... what happens? Are we going to force both parties into the court to argue positions they no longer hold? Like, what stops the government from just arguing the case really badly to intentionally lose? That would be worse: now, instead of a prosecution leading to a weak settlement, you have every weak case being carried to term, resulting in a miscarriage of justice as each judgment forms negative precedent against future antitrust action. This is a recipe for eroding antitrust faster. What you're thinking is that government lawyers are just there to extract the settlement, ergo if we force them to go for the kill, they will get more kills. The reality is that the current social class of lawyers and judges hate antitrust. They successfully recast it from an argument about market power to an argument about price controls, and well, most monopolies don't actually raise prices[0], so building a case against them is very difficult. Hell, in the Microsoft lawsuit, the reason why the government settled was because the initial judgement to break up Microsoft got thrown out, because the judge who issued it blabbed about it to the press. Keeping the case going would not have produced a better outcome than a negotiated settlement. Furthermore, while the current "monopoly is about prices" argument is new, the judicial contempt for antitrust is not new. It took three tries and FDR threatening to pack the courts before we got judges consistently applying antitrust law as anything more than a mere ban on unions. While courts are ostensibly neutral arbiters of law, they bend to the fiscal interests of the nation and are inherently political entities, because courts have no inherent power but what they are given by the state. Or, in other words, if you want more antitrust breakups you need Congress to start appointing more neo-Brandeis leaning judges. [0] Strictly speaking, there are lots of businesses where monopolies are economically efficient. A monopolist that raises prices is
    - johnnyanmac 1mo ago
      >how do you maintain an adversarial proceeding? It's the government as a prosecutor. If current teams are compromised, they find a different team. This isn't like some law firm with an interest to keep their own lights on. A government prosecution against a threat to labor and economic markets should be to close whatever loopholes lead up to this point. >The reality is that the current social class of lawyers and judges hate antitrust. They successfully recast it from an argument about market power to an argument about price controls, and well, most monopolies don't actually raise prices[0], so building a case against them is very difficult. Sounds like a compromised DoJ in that case. Which is definitely the case in the modern day. But the monopoly argument doesn't hold weight. Some aspects of life are best run as monopolies. But such businesses are highly, highly regulated to prevent the downsides of unbridled capitalism. Big tech is not regulated at all in terms of pricings. And thus we're seeing the results of that in real time. >While courts are ostensibly neutral arbiters of law, they bend to the fiscal interests of the nation and are inherently political entities, because courts have no inherent power but what they are given by the state. Sounds like a fancy way to say "big companies always bribed the courts". It's in economic best interest to have a free flow of competition. But it's in individuals' best interests to have good relationships with the biggest winners. The claim of 'interests of the nation' contradicts the fact that being soft on anti-trust betrays such interests.
    - lelanthran 1mo ago
      > If both parties no longer disagree, a settlement is how they call the lawsuit off. But if they're not allowed to settle... what happens? As someone who's been in court quite a lot, personally involved, in the cases, etc, I can guarantee you that legislation fixes this. Just about your entire argument falls apart if legislation enforcing a spirit of "Antitrust against a party can only be settled by a division of the the party". You wanna settle? Sure, but it means you gotta divide in a way that we agree to . You're claiming you're not guilty of antitrust? Okay, lets take it before a court. This way there will never be a "settlement" whereby the monopolist gets to pay a cost of doing business and then continue doing business in the same way.
    - MikeTheGreat 1mo ago
      Citation? I apologize - I know that the "Citation needed" meme is mostly a way to say "I disagree" but in this case you literally left out your citation :) You make a claim ("most monopolies don't actually raise prices") you use the end-note citation format ( "[0]" ), but then the end-note is a parenthetical comment that starts to restart your claim and then trails off. In all seriousness: If you or anyone else can list examples of efficient monopolies I'd be curious to know. Off the top of my head: local utilities are often given local monopolies. Telecom seems to often be a local monopoly (I've got one option for Internet access, and that's reasonably common here in the US, especially outside of metro areas). I feel like the utilities are reasonably efficient but the telecoms aren't, but I don't have any specific data to back that up.
- xp84 1mo ago
  I won’t lie, I asked Copilot (of all things) first, in order to be more confident I wasn’t forgetting even one breakup, and it also pointed out that “almost” one.
  - alt227 1mo ago
    You dont have to tell people when your not lying.
- adestefan 1mo ago
  It was GW Bush winning the election that allowed Microsoft to a settlement.
  - BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
    ... for those who think that Trump is an outlier. No, just a slight acceleration to a very much established trend.
    - dylan604 1mo ago
      People used to joke that W was the bottom of the barrel, then the GOP did a hold my beer and dug a little deeper.
      - pocksuppet 1mo ago
        Crazy to think there were no GOP presidents between Bush and Trump. I first interpreted this as the new record low is lower than the old record low. But no, Trump was the very next one.
        leptons 1mo ago
        Kid Rock is probably next, or worse.
      - sawjet 1mo ago
        Crazy to think that, despite trump existing, the Democrats still lost two elections to him.
        eastbound 1mo ago
        [flagged]
        villish 1mo ago
        Yeah and how was it done? Why did all (60?) of the trump campaigns lawsuits get thrown out due to lack of evidence? Why did the democrats just simply forget to do it again? How many hoops will you have to jump through to answer these questions?

hammock 1mo ago

Great question. The adtech is what rigs the auctions for their moneymaker, the ads. If they no longer own the adtech then their ad revenue suffers greatly.