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I've said it a couple of times. Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. It's not just t

I've said it a couple of times. Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. It's not just that they can penalize other companies, and competitors (wheter they have a "legitimate" reason or not). They can make people's ideas, political positions, etc. essentially disappear. A stupid example: If they wanted to oppress trade unions, they could penalize every page with information about unions when someone searches for "workers' rights". More likely, they could work with oppressive governments to remove certain unpleasant historical events from people's sight. I wonder why the European Union doesn't do anything... they used to be very strict about antitrust laws, privacy, etc.. Probably someone has to step up and sue Google for them to get active. I could think of a few things they could do here. - One is to force Google to make their rankings more transparent. - Google could have offer a kind of appeals process if a manual penalty is applied. - The EU could put a special tax on the market leader, which would fund a subsidy for promising competitors. (Google's European office is currently registered in a low tax haven in Ireland.) None of this is without precedent, but there would have to be the right political intent to get something like this started. And before someone says Google is not in the EU's jurisdiction: Europe is a huge market. They have already fought antitrust trials with Microsoft, and MS could have said "screw you guys" and stopped doing business here, but instead they paid their penalties, because anything else would have been crazy. And if the EU is not going to do it, there are very self-conscious governments in Brazil, China, and India that might put pressure on Google & co.. (OTOH, we know that Governments like monopolists like Google when they help them censor and surpress information, but that's a different topic.)

CamperBob2 13y ago
I've said it a couple of times. Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. That's been obvious for the better part of a decade now. People will scream bloody murder, and not without good cause, but it's either going to happen, or there's no point in even pretending to regulate public utility monopolies.
- drone 13y ago
  Google is neither a public utility, nor a monopoly. You can always use one of dozens of other search engines. In fact, if you felt that Google was so bad, you can simply suggest others do so as well. Why does the government need to get in there and make Google the exact search engine you want, rather than the search engine that, clearly, the bulk of their customers want?
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    I'm not making the case for regulation. I'm just saying that it will be made, and when it is, it will be hard to argue against because of actions like this one. You can always use one of dozens of other search engines. That won't help Google any more than it helped Microsoft.
    - drone 13y ago
      > That won't help Google any more than it helped Microsoft. I'd love to see the comparison as to how Microsoft's strong-arming of VARs to sell only their products and Google's penalizing RG for attempting to subvert their search engine rankings relate.
    - chc 13y ago
      The issues you're raising around Google don't seem at all the ones that ultimately got Microsoft smacked down.
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure the EU is itching to start regulating Google in Europe, but to do that they'll need to find a point of leverage somewhere and so far that's been hard to find. Put another way: exactly what about Google could they (practically) regulate and will have sufficient public support? In essence the problem tis about Google being able to wield disproportionate power through it's rankings and our common sense telling us that they will eventually abuse this if left unchecked; but that they aren't abusing this too blatantly just yet. Not that that's of any help for people like my friend who ran a (handwritten) long tail content generation company which worked hard to stay within Google's guidelines yet had the company he and 3 friends had worked on for 4 years destroyed overnight just months ago when someone at Google decided they didn't like the content and penalized every single one of his clients.
itsprofitbaron 13y ago
Not going into all the regulation talk (partly because don't believe that Google needs regulation as another search engine is just an address bar/couple of clicks away) but with regards to: "One is to force Google to make their rankings more transparent." Google does not care about SEO; they care about bad SEO. You can see this from their Webmaster Help Videos[1] to saying how they 'serve' the results[2] to explaining how their search engine works[3]. It also becomes more apparent within their Webmaster Guidelines[4] that, they do not like bad SEO. You can easily use all of that knowledge to figure it out. "Google could have offer a kind of appeals process if a manual penalty is applied" They do. It's called a reconsideration request[5] "The EU could put a special tax on the market leader, which would fund a subsidy for promising competitors. (Google's European office is currently registered in a low tax haven in Ireland.)" That would actually discourage anyone from making a decent product. Why? Well if you make a good one people will use it, you will become market leader and you will receive a special tax. [1] http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp [2] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en#3 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en#3 [3] https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchworks/index.html https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchwork... [4] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en [5] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Google does not care about SEO; they care about bad SEO. They should care about delivering the best quality search results to their users, and nothing else. As a user, I don't give a crap about SEO or link farming ethics or anything else. That stuff is Google's problem. By penalizing what is (reportedly) the best lyrics site, Google has made their problem my problem. A fair page ranking system would be entirely transparent, rigidly enforced, and not "punitive." Should they delist RapGenius for breaking the rules? Sure, if the rules themselves provide for that outcome. But the second the infraction is corrected, the penalty should end, and the site should be restored to its proper rank. Google is not a government agency. The more they act like one, the more people will treat them like one. Believe me, they aren't going to like where that road goes.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nknighthb 13y ago
There's precedent for forcing companies to speak with the government's voice? Does it come from democratic countries, and if so, has it survived confrontation with courts, revolution, or war?
27182818284 13y ago
> its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. What? That's silly. Then a competitor offering not that would start to take a foothold the way Google took its foothold from the existing giants....In fact, it is happening right now with things like http://leap2.com/ http://leap2.com/ or https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/. If you're concerned about the size of that competition, then I'd remind you that Google didn't exist even 16 years ago. Which means there is plenty of chance for a small company to come up and start eating Google's lunch in areas they've lost their way. (I think search is actually one of the big ones)
- EGreg 13y ago
  I'm sorry but this is what bothers me the most about unregulated capitalism. You are discounting the massive advantage Google and other corporations have which they have accumulated over the years in the form of: * IP and patents * Actual employees and knowledge capital * Actual working designs and infrastructure * Brand recognition * Amount of businesses that rely on them If you say that a new startup can just start building a computer to rival the iMac, for example, you're missing the 1000 little things that go into it. Sure, your competitor might have a more open operating system, say. But it won't have the agreements with chip manufacturers. It won't have the "retina" displays, or other technology that Apple has accumulated over the years. At some point, the giant corporations just have too much for a startup to defeat. That's why most startups are basically picking off one little part and then the corporations buy them. It used to be that NEW technology was where startups were able to expand while old players couldn't adapt fast enough. For example, Microsoft was still small when the PC software revolution came about. However, now with "moonshots" and ambitious VC activity, the corporations have set up quite a few obstacles to that happening anymore.
  - drivingmissm 13y ago
    IP and patents are not "unregulated capitalism" they are actually political creations enforced by a legal regime.
    - 13y ago
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
The EU (and individual member states) is doing something, both on the privacy and the anti-trust front. In fact, several agencies have already given Google a "final" warning. If Google persists in it's arrogant "fuck you, we are the great untouchable Google" attitude, the gloves are going to come off soon enough. It will still be slow process that could take many years though.
- justin66 13y ago
  > If Google persists in it's arrogant "fuck you, we are the great untouchable Google" attitude I don't find Larry Page or Sergey Brin likable but I've certainly never gotten that vibe from them.
mwfunk 13y ago
Apple does not have anywhere near 50%+ market share in any business that they're in (more like 5-20%, depending on the product category), so I don't think they belong in the "regulated infrastructure" category. They're not the biggest player in any market, and therefore have no monopoly power to abuse. One big reason why they're so successful is that they don't try to be everything to everyone, but this has a side effect of ensuring that they can never attain even majority market share in any one product category (in the long term, at least), which appears to be fine by them. The one exception may be dedicated MP3 players but I'm not sure that that market has been really meaningful for the last 5 years at least.
nl 13y ago
Size alone doesn't make something "essential infrastructure". A lack of alternatives does.
- pmiller2 13y ago
  Right. Anything that would materially affect your life if it were closed or shut off on Christmas is "essential infrastructure."
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    Anything... like HN? Should this be regulated?
  - Crito 13y ago
    So... Walmart? (I'm a last minute kind of guy!) Plenty of things materially affect my life that are not essential infrastructure.
Lazare 13y ago
> Google [...] is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. Not sure I agree, but let's see why you think it's necessary: > More likely, they could work with oppressive governments to remove certain unpleasant historical events from people's sight. ...um, that's an example of government regulation of Google. You can't use preventing X as a reason for implementing X. That's like saying you should smoke cigarettes to make sure you don't get cancer. >.< What you seem to be saying is "I trust the EU, and I wish they would regulate Google AND their regulations would trump the regulations of all the other governments I don't trust". Unfortunately, that's not how the world works.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
xwowsersx 13y ago
Am I missing something basic or are comments like this reflective of a level of trust in government that borders on religious faith? Let me get this straight: Google search has risen to the level of infrastructure and, because of the ability for them to "make people's ideas, political positions, etc. essentially disappear.", we should have the government regulate internet search. Did I get that right? Yeah, 'cuz the government has no motivation in silencing unwanted political speech. Oh, and it also has a great track record of ensuring the free exchange of ideas, etc.
cheald 13y ago
> Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. Maybe I'm out in left field here, but I thought that one of the hallmarks of infrastructure was a monopoly due to geographical concerns - it wouldn't make sense to run twelve different parallel power grids all over town. There is no such constraint here. Google, Facebook, etc are all big, but there's no lack of place to run power lines in play to stop a competitor from competing in their space (See DuckDuckGo, for example).

CamperBob2 13y ago

I've said it a couple of times. Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. That's been obvious for the better part of a decade now. People will scream bloody murder, and not without good cause, but it's either going to happen, or there's no point in even pretending to regulate public utility monopolies.

drone 13y ago
Google is neither a public utility, nor a monopoly. You can always use one of dozens of other search engines. In fact, if you felt that Google was so bad, you can simply suggest others do so as well. Why does the government need to get in there and make Google the exact search engine you want, rather than the search engine that, clearly, the bulk of their customers want?
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  I'm not making the case for regulation. I'm just saying that it will be made, and when it is, it will be hard to argue against because of actions like this one. You can always use one of dozens of other search engines. That won't help Google any more than it helped Microsoft.
  - drone 13y ago
    > That won't help Google any more than it helped Microsoft. I'd love to see the comparison as to how Microsoft's strong-arming of VARs to sell only their products and Google's penalizing RG for attempting to subvert their search engine rankings relate.
  - chc 13y ago
    The issues you're raising around Google don't seem at all the ones that ultimately got Microsoft smacked down.
mtrimpe 13y ago
I'm pretty sure the EU is itching to start regulating Google in Europe, but to do that they'll need to find a point of leverage somewhere and so far that's been hard to find. Put another way: exactly what about Google could they (practically) regulate and will have sufficient public support? In essence the problem tis about Google being able to wield disproportionate power through it's rankings and our common sense telling us that they will eventually abuse this if left unchecked; but that they aren't abusing this too blatantly just yet. Not that that's of any help for people like my friend who ran a (handwritten) long tail content generation company which worked hard to stay within Google's guidelines yet had the company he and 3 friends had worked on for 4 years destroyed overnight just months ago when someone at Google decided they didn't like the content and penalized every single one of his clients.

itsprofitbaron 13y ago

Not going into all the regulation talk (partly because don't believe that Google needs regulation as another search engine is just an address bar/couple of clicks away) but with regards to: "One is to force Google to make their rankings more transparent." Google does not care about SEO; they care about bad SEO. You can see this from their Webmaster Help Videos[1] to saying how they 'serve' the results[2] to explaining how their search engine works[3]. It also becomes more apparent within their Webmaster Guidelines[4] that, they do not like bad SEO. You can easily use all of that knowledge to figure it out. "Google could have offer a kind of appeals process if a manual penalty is applied" They do. It's called a reconsideration request[5] "The EU could put a special tax on the market leader, which would fund a subsidy for promising competitors. (Google's European office is currently registered in a low tax haven in Ireland.)" That would actually discourage anyone from making a decent product. Why? Well if you make a good one people will use it, you will become market leader and you will receive a special tax. [1] http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp [2] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en#3 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en#3 [3] https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchworks/index.html https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchwork... [4] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en [5] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en

CamperBob2 13y ago
Google does not care about SEO; they care about bad SEO. They should care about delivering the best quality search results to their users, and nothing else. As a user, I don't give a crap about SEO or link farming ethics or anything else. That stuff is Google's problem. By penalizing what is (reportedly) the best lyrics site, Google has made their problem my problem. A fair page ranking system would be entirely transparent, rigidly enforced, and not "punitive." Should they delist RapGenius for breaking the rules? Sure, if the rules themselves provide for that outcome. But the second the infraction is corrected, the penalty should end, and the site should be restored to its proper rank. Google is not a government agency. The more they act like one, the more people will treat them like one. Believe me, they aren't going to like where that road goes.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nknighthb 13y ago

There's precedent for forcing companies to speak with the government's voice? Does it come from democratic countries, and if so, has it survived confrontation with courts, revolution, or war?

27182818284 13y ago

> its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. What? That's silly. Then a competitor offering not that would start to take a foothold the way Google took its foothold from the existing giants....In fact, it is happening right now with things like http://leap2.com/ http://leap2.com/ or https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/. If you're concerned about the size of that competition, then I'd remind you that Google didn't exist even 16 years ago. Which means there is plenty of chance for a small company to come up and start eating Google's lunch in areas they've lost their way. (I think search is actually one of the big ones)

EGreg 13y ago
I'm sorry but this is what bothers me the most about unregulated capitalism. You are discounting the massive advantage Google and other corporations have which they have accumulated over the years in the form of: * IP and patents * Actual employees and knowledge capital * Actual working designs and infrastructure * Brand recognition * Amount of businesses that rely on them If you say that a new startup can just start building a computer to rival the iMac, for example, you're missing the 1000 little things that go into it. Sure, your competitor might have a more open operating system, say. But it won't have the agreements with chip manufacturers. It won't have the "retina" displays, or other technology that Apple has accumulated over the years. At some point, the giant corporations just have too much for a startup to defeat. That's why most startups are basically picking off one little part and then the corporations buy them. It used to be that NEW technology was where startups were able to expand while old players couldn't adapt fast enough. For example, Microsoft was still small when the PC software revolution came about. However, now with "moonshots" and ambitious VC activity, the corporations have set up quite a few obstacles to that happening anymore.
- drivingmissm 13y ago
  IP and patents are not "unregulated capitalism" they are actually political creations enforced by a legal regime.
  - 13y ago

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

The EU (and individual member states) is doing something, both on the privacy and the anti-trust front. In fact, several agencies have already given Google a "final" warning. If Google persists in it's arrogant "fuck you, we are the great untouchable Google" attitude, the gloves are going to come off soon enough. It will still be slow process that could take many years though.

justin66 13y ago
> If Google persists in it's arrogant "fuck you, we are the great untouchable Google" attitude I don't find Larry Page or Sergey Brin likable but I've certainly never gotten that vibe from them.

mwfunk 13y ago

Apple does not have anywhere near 50%+ market share in any business that they're in (more like 5-20%, depending on the product category), so I don't think they belong in the "regulated infrastructure" category. They're not the biggest player in any market, and therefore have no monopoly power to abuse. One big reason why they're so successful is that they don't try to be everything to everyone, but this has a side effect of ensuring that they can never attain even majority market share in any one product category (in the long term, at least), which appears to be fine by them. The one exception may be dedicated MP3 players but I'm not sure that that market has been really meaningful for the last 5 years at least.

nl 13y ago

Size alone doesn't make something "essential infrastructure". A lack of alternatives does.

pmiller2 13y ago
Right. Anything that would materially affect your life if it were closed or shut off on Christmas is "essential infrastructure."
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Anything... like HN? Should this be regulated?
- Crito 13y ago
  So... Walmart? (I'm a last minute kind of guy!) Plenty of things materially affect my life that are not essential infrastructure.

Lazare 13y ago

> Google [...] is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. Not sure I agree, but let's see why you think it's necessary: > More likely, they could work with oppressive governments to remove certain unpleasant historical events from people's sight. ...um, that's an example of government regulation of Google. You can't use preventing X as a reason for implementing X. That's like saying you should smoke cigarettes to make sure you don't get cancer. >.< What you seem to be saying is "I trust the EU, and I wish they would regulate Google AND their regulations would trump the regulations of all the other governments I don't trust". Unfortunately, that's not how the world works.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

xwowsersx 13y ago

Am I missing something basic or are comments like this reflective of a level of trust in government that borders on religious faith? Let me get this straight: Google search has risen to the level of infrastructure and, because of the ability for them to "make people's ideas, political positions, etc. essentially disappear.", we should have the government regulate internet search. Did I get that right? Yeah, 'cuz the government has no motivation in silencing unwanted political speech. Oh, and it also has a great track record of ensuring the free exchange of ideas, etc.

cheald 13y ago

> Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. Maybe I'm out in left field here, but I thought that one of the hallmarks of infrastructure was a monopoly due to geographical concerns - it wouldn't make sense to run twelve different parallel power grids all over town. There is no such constraint here. Google, Facebook, etc are all big, but there's no lack of place to run power lines in play to stop a competitor from competing in their space (See DuckDuckGo, for example).