Google Antitrust Notes(tbray.org)
tbray.org
Google Antitrust Notes
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/10/20/Google-Antitrust
224 comments
Off topic- but what podcasts would you recommend?
I've been a fan of "Opening Arguments" for awhile (https://openargs.com/). The co-hosts are the first to clarify that Mr. Torrez is in mostly corporate patent law, so he doesn't know the entire field... But he passed the Bar, so he has a lawyer's viewpoint on topics.
The most educational aspect has been their dives into the point of the law itself, i.e. the underlying theory of why we approach guilt, innocence, findings of fact, etc. the way we do.
The most educational aspect has been their dives into the point of the law itself, i.e. the underlying theory of why we approach guilt, innocence, findings of fact, etc. the way we do.
Strict Scrutiny is specifically a Supreme Court focused podcast, but in my opinion quite interesting.
Also interested
Your post was excellent. Thanks!
In other words, ask to fix the problem, not implement a specific solution. Because in the end, fixing the problem is all that matters.
If the team people dedicated to studying the problem think that the judge thrown at the case will single-handedly decide better relief than they could even brainstorm, they mustn't be very good at studying the case at all.
What happens when the plaintiffs have 5 secret ideas in mind and the judge comes up with the worst one in his independent process?
How often has a judge given a longer sentence or larger layout than a plaintiff asked for?
What happens when the plaintiffs have 5 secret ideas in mind and the judge comes up with the worst one in his independent process?
How often has a judge given a longer sentence or larger layout than a plaintiff asked for?
>Speaking as a person who spent some years if his career working on full-text search, I doubt that there’s much left in the way of low-hanging fruit.
Maybe so, but judging by my search results most of the fruit is still on the tree. Natural language understanding is an active field of research.
Turning Google into a search utility is a bad idea. Splitting off the crawling part and turning that into a utility would be a lot more interesting. It would allow search engines to compete on search quality while sharing the capex required for crawling.
Maybe so, but judging by my search results most of the fruit is still on the tree. Natural language understanding is an active field of research.
Turning Google into a search utility is a bad idea. Splitting off the crawling part and turning that into a utility would be a lot more interesting. It would allow search engines to compete on search quality while sharing the capex required for crawling.
I honestly think discussing search quality with relation to Google these days is almost irrelevant: Nobody is looking at the organic results. Nobody.
On a given Google search, you have one to four ads, maybe an AMP carousel, and a knowledge graph box. Somewhere is the end of what fits on your device screen. Past that is the first real search result.
Google is making money because everyone thinks the first ad is the first search result (They're nearly indistinguishable, visually, and studies have demonstrated non-technical users can't tell them apart) and then everything below the ads that fits on screen is packed with links to other Google properties.
We are at the point where organic search results are nearly the "page three" of Google Search: Somewhere nobody goes anymore.
On a given Google search, you have one to four ads, maybe an AMP carousel, and a knowledge graph box. Somewhere is the end of what fits on your device screen. Past that is the first real search result.
Google is making money because everyone thinks the first ad is the first search result (They're nearly indistinguishable, visually, and studies have demonstrated non-technical users can't tell them apart) and then everything below the ads that fits on screen is packed with links to other Google properties.
We are at the point where organic search results are nearly the "page three" of Google Search: Somewhere nobody goes anymore.
That's sad to hear. I'm so used to auto scrolling down to hit the real results.
I think this is an important piece that is often overlooked when discussing search. I wonder if all the ads magically disappeared one day if people would view it as a positive or negative change in what they perceive as relevant?
DuckDuckGo's organic results are just as good and the 0-2 native ads above the organic results can be permanently disabled with 3 clicks on their own site: 'Settings > Advertising > Disable Ads' and intentionally made easily identifiable to respect ad blockers.
Meanwhile, Google search traps me in a loop of the top ~5 ad spenders in a given industry VERY frequently.
Used the phrase "public records" anywhere in your search query? Now the first page is all click funnel blog posts by the same 5 background check companies and ancestry.com.
Mentioned the term "VPN" somewhere in your 10 word query? Clearly you wanted a page full of sales funnel blog posts by the same 5 consumer VPN providers with big marketing budgets.
Want to disable Google Search ads? You can't. You can only make them less targeted, until the ToS changes in a month, and only if you log into a phone verified Google Account.
Want to use an ad blocker on Google Search? Too bad. Google's native ads continuously define the state of the art in evasion of end-user controls through endless evolution and complex adversarial misdirection even within the same browsing session.
Just use DuckDuckGo, and disable ads, and donate. It's a much better user experience (even with ads).
Meanwhile, Google search traps me in a loop of the top ~5 ad spenders in a given industry VERY frequently.
Used the phrase "public records" anywhere in your search query? Now the first page is all click funnel blog posts by the same 5 background check companies and ancestry.com.
Mentioned the term "VPN" somewhere in your 10 word query? Clearly you wanted a page full of sales funnel blog posts by the same 5 consumer VPN providers with big marketing budgets.
Want to disable Google Search ads? You can't. You can only make them less targeted, until the ToS changes in a month, and only if you log into a phone verified Google Account.
Want to use an ad blocker on Google Search? Too bad. Google's native ads continuously define the state of the art in evasion of end-user controls through endless evolution and complex adversarial misdirection even within the same browsing session.
Just use DuckDuckGo, and disable ads, and donate. It's a much better user experience (even with ads).
I guess one could argue that is the actual ranking algorithm. Descending order of how much they are willing to pay. If you aren't paying, you are tied for last.
Even within Google, BERT was released recently which was a massive improvement to their semantic search capabilities. There's a lot of active research going on.
What about https://commoncrawl.org/ ?
Having used it in some early work on our search engine, CC does not update near often enough or crawl a big enough portion of the web to be competitive with commercial crawling solutions. It's a great thing that exists, don't get me wrong, but it's better for researchers looking to amass a dataset versus competing in search.
I don't think a search engine based on Commoncrawl would be able to compete with Google.
They're not crawling the web frequently enough. They don't execute JavaScript (as far as I know) and I'm not sure they have access to everything that Google has access to (such as paywalled sites).
I could be wrong though as I'm not following the project very closely.
They're not crawling the web frequently enough. They don't execute JavaScript (as far as I know) and I'm not sure they have access to everything that Google has access to (such as paywalled sites).
I could be wrong though as I'm not following the project very closely.
> and I'm not sure they have access to everything that Google has access to (such as paywalled sites).
Which, by the way, is another hindrance for potential competitors.
Which, by the way, is another hindrance for potential competitors.
Depends how you look at it. If you want to build a search engine that avoids annoyance like paywalls and JavaScript-only sites, then this isn’t so much of a hindrance.
Could Google give it some money à la firefox so that hey, it's an competitive market !
> most of the fruit is still on the tree
Case in point: image search for "shirt without stripes":
https://github.com/elsamuko/Shirt-without-Stripes
HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22925087
Case in point: image search for "shirt without stripes":
https://github.com/elsamuko/Shirt-without-Stripes
HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22925087
This example is ruined, because now the search for "shirt without stripes" gives you that GitHub repository and the threads of comments about it...
General search is ruined, but image and product search contains very few items about the repository and comments.
And it's easy to create similar examples. "Jacket without stripes". "Pan without non-stick coating". Anything of the form "X without Y" tends to trip up Google.
General search being ruined is a consequence of how Google has chosen to rank results and not an indictment against search in general though.
I’d like to believe that, but surely even if Google was a non-profit which gave away its index and showed no adverts anywhere, placement in search results would still be a valuable commodity and SEO would be pretty much the same as it is today.
I wasn't even attacking their positioning of advertisements among results. I was more saying that I think one of their larger signals (that we know of) PageRank has some consequences in terms of presenting things like a well linked and referenced GitHub result as a top result instead of an actual striped shirt. They do a really good job of filtering out garbage but in terms of contextual relevance it doesn't work out so well.
Edit: I'll also point out that it may not even be a modern PageRank fault but a consequence of learning to rank or some other major signal but it's in line with what I would suppose to be the culprit.
Edit: I'll also point out that it may not even be a modern PageRank fault but a consequence of learning to rank or some other major signal but it's in line with what I would suppose to be the culprit.
I agree: apart from "without", search engines don't handle logical quantifications properly (i.e. ∀ and ∃).
NLP isn't something I would call low hanging fruit.
I think we are at a point where a distributed index becomes an attractive idea. Compute nodes are cheap and every website could devote resources to support it. Considering how exclusionary google has become, web companies might have an incentive there to support a distributed solution. I don't know how developed those solutiosn are, though.
Apparently there is some effort in Distributed SE coordinated by blockhains. I think this comes close to the idea of "Google as an utility".
https://hackernoon.com/is-the-concept-of-a-distributed-searc...
Apparently there is some effort in Distributed SE coordinated by blockhains. I think this comes close to the idea of "Google as an utility".
https://hackernoon.com/is-the-concept-of-a-distributed-searc...
Sooo... every time blockchain is mentioned I get cautious. Same for "distributed" search. From the link you posted -
"...does away with every form of a single point control in all of the tasks relating to indexing, querying, data mining, and crawling."
Yeah mostly that's distribution. How, though, will something that does indexing in 10 different locations ensure that I get results including something that was indexed in Japan 5 minutes ago?
And Blockchain. I get that one might like to mitigate fake search entries (as that post notes). How though, using a blockchain, does one manage someone's right to be forgotten, when the blockchain's sole raison d'etre is to make all the things indelible?
"...does away with every form of a single point control in all of the tasks relating to indexing, querying, data mining, and crawling."
Yeah mostly that's distribution. How, though, will something that does indexing in 10 different locations ensure that I get results including something that was indexed in Japan 5 minutes ago?
And Blockchain. I get that one might like to mitigate fake search entries (as that post notes). How though, using a blockchain, does one manage someone's right to be forgotten, when the blockchain's sole raison d'etre is to make all the things indelible?
unlike bittorrent, there needs to be some proof of work (e.g. that the document was indexed properly) which would require multiple confirmations. Right to be forgotten would be also possible if there was one blockchain, and a mechanism to verify that the request to be forgotten is legit. Having a blockchain also means there will be one development team of "Wise people" who are going to be developing the search algorithm for everyone.
Such a blockchain would not be good for current news, obviously. But even google takes days to update the average blog.
Such a blockchain would not be good for current news, obviously. But even google takes days to update the average blog.
That’s the usual level of magical thinking about blockchains but we’re talking technology and economics, not magic.
Right to be forgotten requires the ability to edit a blockchain, which is contrary to the entire point. A judge is unlikely to say you’re compliant with a voluntary flag on a distributed network so you’re either editing history or restricting it to trusted parties with legal obligations, at which point you’ve just invented a centralized system with more overhead.
Similarly, that hypothetical team of genius developers working to solve all of the hard problems hasn’t shown up on cryptocurrencies in the last decade despite enormous amounts of money being plowed into the field, and this would have orders of magnitude less funding. Basic economics suggests that you’re far more likely to see a few ideologically committed people drowned out by the SEO types (who have far more money) trying to manipulate things to their advantage.
The underlying problem is that almost nobody thinks they should pay for search and the minimum quality bar is quite high if you want people to switch from Google.
Right to be forgotten requires the ability to edit a blockchain, which is contrary to the entire point. A judge is unlikely to say you’re compliant with a voluntary flag on a distributed network so you’re either editing history or restricting it to trusted parties with legal obligations, at which point you’ve just invented a centralized system with more overhead.
Similarly, that hypothetical team of genius developers working to solve all of the hard problems hasn’t shown up on cryptocurrencies in the last decade despite enormous amounts of money being plowed into the field, and this would have orders of magnitude less funding. Basic economics suggests that you’re far more likely to see a few ideologically committed people drowned out by the SEO types (who have far more money) trying to manipulate things to their advantage.
The underlying problem is that almost nobody thinks they should pay for search and the minimum quality bar is quite high if you want people to switch from Google.
My understanding is that the superior quality of Google searches has less to do with indexing and speech analysis and more to do with how they contextualize a user's searches against their treasure trove of data on said user - data which is harvested from the huge variety of products and services they offer across their whole business.
Google's search results were great even before they knew your every move on the web. Some would argue it got worse.
They are definitely worse, but I have attributed that to the prevalence of SEO spam.
Most top results for my searches are quite literally gibberish.
Most top results for my searches are quite literally gibberish.
Frequently enough, you have to scroll down a full page to see the first organic results. While SEO spam is definitely a problem, that problem is very similar to search advertising to me.
They would be a lot better if they took the damn search query into account instead.
or maybe that just makes it easier to target adverts at you.
Crawling the web is the easy part compared to human labour needed for search quality algorithms.
thanks partially to google, NLP is now more of a problem of (moderate) scale
What? This is not remotely true.
Applications built on pretrained bert don't necessarily need huge scale
Maybe so, but judging by my search results most of the fruit is still on the tree.
So is the Stratechery guy right? Is dis-aggregation the only solution?
So is the Stratechery guy right? Is dis-aggregation the only solution?
Yeah, famous last words.
The lawyers were right not to talk about remedies. Really, just getting the court to agree that google is abusing it's power is enough to stop them. Fool me once, as they say.
That said, something has to be done about pushing more advertising rev and therefore power/influence back to alternative publishers (wpost/wsj/nyt are alt publishers now). This monopoly/duopoly on 'thought' is insane and could very well be driving a great deal of ignorance / conspiratorial thought / etc in society. Trump loves twitter!
Trump is crazy, but crazy is what you need to get your message out these days. Just look at Obama and his tirade yesterday. I think it was ill-advised, the value prop of biden is dialing down the crazy, but that could just be the world we have now without more long form / substantive dialogue.
The lawyers were right not to talk about remedies. Really, just getting the court to agree that google is abusing it's power is enough to stop them. Fool me once, as they say.
That said, something has to be done about pushing more advertising rev and therefore power/influence back to alternative publishers (wpost/wsj/nyt are alt publishers now). This monopoly/duopoly on 'thought' is insane and could very well be driving a great deal of ignorance / conspiratorial thought / etc in society. Trump loves twitter!
Trump is crazy, but crazy is what you need to get your message out these days. Just look at Obama and his tirade yesterday. I think it was ill-advised, the value prop of biden is dialing down the crazy, but that could just be the world we have now without more long form / substantive dialogue.
One angle of this case which is often missed is the impact on browsers. If Google is forbidden from paying browser vendors for being the default search engine, bye bye, Firefox.
A significant part of Mozilla's revenue comes from their deal with Google. I don't think a project as big as a browser could survive without that revenue.
If Google wins, Google has a search monopoly. If Google loses, they will have a slightly smaller search monopoly and a browser monopoly.
A significant part of Mozilla's revenue comes from their deal with Google. I don't think a project as big as a browser could survive without that revenue.
If Google wins, Google has a search monopoly. If Google loses, they will have a slightly smaller search monopoly and a browser monopoly.
Maybe another outlook is that firefox has been captured, put in a box and fed just enough to keep it alive.
on mobile the complaint says:
"The six “core” apps are Google Play, Chrome, Google’s search app, Gmail, Maps, and YouTube. Manufacturers must preinstall the core apps in a manner that prevents the consumer from deleting them, regardless of whether the consumer wants them. These preinstallation agreements cover almost all Android devices sold in the United States."
So chrome must be installed, prominently, and is not able to be deleted by the device manufacturers.
In absence of this, would device manufacturers install firefox and send them some support?
on mobile the complaint says:
"The six “core” apps are Google Play, Chrome, Google’s search app, Gmail, Maps, and YouTube. Manufacturers must preinstall the core apps in a manner that prevents the consumer from deleting them, regardless of whether the consumer wants them. These preinstallation agreements cover almost all Android devices sold in the United States."
So chrome must be installed, prominently, and is not able to be deleted by the device manufacturers.
In absence of this, would device manufacturers install firefox and send them some support?
FWIW they can be "disabled" on my Samsung phone. Which is effectively the same thing, afaik, except I don't get the disk space back (meh)
Warning: if you disable this system application your phone may not function correctly. Continue?
Dark pattern to scare users away from switching browsers.
Dark pattern to scare users away from switching browsers.
> So chrome must be installed, prominently, and is not able to be deleted by the device manufacturers.
Reread the relevant section: Chrome cannot be deleted by the device's user either.
Allowing users to delete "core apps" (and ensuring that doing so doesn't brick the phone) would go some way to leveling the playing field even if device makers were still required to preinstall them. It would either force many of the capabilities that have been migrated out of Android back into it, or would force releasing Play Store as open source to provide alternative implementations of those APIs. Maybe a bit of both.
This would undoubtedly complicate security and permissions, but it would be worth it.
There ought to be an exception, BTW: locking things down to prevent uninstallation should be acceptable in some contexts in return for restricting advertising and targeting, for example, on kids' phones.
Reread the relevant section: Chrome cannot be deleted by the device's user either.
Allowing users to delete "core apps" (and ensuring that doing so doesn't brick the phone) would go some way to leveling the playing field even if device makers were still required to preinstall them. It would either force many of the capabilities that have been migrated out of Android back into it, or would force releasing Play Store as open source to provide alternative implementations of those APIs. Maybe a bit of both.
This would undoubtedly complicate security and permissions, but it would be worth it.
There ought to be an exception, BTW: locking things down to prevent uninstallation should be acceptable in some contexts in return for restricting advertising and targeting, for example, on kids' phones.
Core apps can be disabled, which for all practical purposes is the same as deletion. 200MB on a 16GB-128GB SD card does not make a Federal case.
The UI pretty strongly warns you against disabling things that can't be uninstalled. I'm pretty sure that's the whole point of even having "disable" as an option (aside from ensuring you can reenable things when you've broken your phone).
I'm a fairly savvy user, and I am uncomfortable disabling anything that isn't very obviously carrier-added adware/bloatware.
I'm a fairly savvy user, and I am uncomfortable disabling anything that isn't very obviously carrier-added adware/bloatware.
Isn't the same true of Safari? It seems most of the complaints leveled at Google around Android are as bad in the Apple ecosystem.
Not only that, but other browser engines are not allowed on iOS at all. Even Firefox is just a skin over Safari's WebKit on iOS.
I hope that the actions against google will also be leveled at apple as well.
For example, apple has built deep linking into their browsing pipeline (allowing phone applications to snoop and intercept registered URLs). For example, if the amazon app is loaded, any web/email/imessage activity to an amazon url gets sent to the app.
For example, apple has built deep linking into their browsing pipeline (allowing phone applications to snoop and intercept registered URLs). For example, if the amazon app is loaded, any web/email/imessage activity to an amazon url gets sent to the app.
It's the preinstalled default but you've been able to remove Safari from iOS for a couple years now.
Not really, only iOS 14 allows the user to select a different browser as the default - and it does so in some severely limiting ways:
- It isn't actually that browser rendering anything, it's Safari under the covers (though Chrome does replace the networking stack with its own) - Every attempt to launch a browser other than Safari requires an extra selection on the user's part to approve it. Every time.
- It isn't actually that browser rendering anything, it's Safari under the covers (though Chrome does replace the networking stack with its own) - Every attempt to launch a browser other than Safari requires an extra selection on the user's part to approve it. Every time.
Apple probably gets more leeway because they don’t force manufacturers to do anything — they are the manufacturer.
Yes, but what’s not true about Apple/Safari is that Apple hasn’t raised the ire of the administration for being “unfair to conservatives”.
Don’t you find it a little strange that pro-business/anti-regulation conservatives are going after “big business”?
Don’t you find it a little strange that pro-business/anti-regulation conservatives are going after “big business”?
I don't find it strange actually, it's what I expect out of the current crop of conservatives in the US. It's frightening but it is where we are.
"If Google loses, they will have a slightly smaller search monopoly and a browser monopoly."
It's my understanding that this case will continue to evolve as it goes forward and so will the possible remedies. I think you are assuming the best case scenario in a loss for Google.
Mozilla doesn't factor into this for me. They have been making missteps for years. The fact that they have become totally dependent on Google rather than finding other partners and business models is on them. Live by Google, die by Google.
While Mozilla has made some progress on the browser quality, the reason they are loosing the browser market is 1) the browser just isn't as good as Chrome (I've tried to love Firefox) and 2) Google is spamming Chrome on all its platforms. This lawsuit may resolve #2, but only Mozilla can resolve #1.
It's my understanding that this case will continue to evolve as it goes forward and so will the possible remedies. I think you are assuming the best case scenario in a loss for Google.
Mozilla doesn't factor into this for me. They have been making missteps for years. The fact that they have become totally dependent on Google rather than finding other partners and business models is on them. Live by Google, die by Google.
While Mozilla has made some progress on the browser quality, the reason they are loosing the browser market is 1) the browser just isn't as good as Chrome (I've tried to love Firefox) and 2) Google is spamming Chrome on all its platforms. This lawsuit may resolve #2, but only Mozilla can resolve #1.
> the browser just isn't as good as Chrome
How do you figure? Firefox is my browser of choice on both desktop and mobile.
How do you figure? Firefox is my browser of choice on both desktop and mobile.
Well for one, FireFox frequently breaks on non-standards compliant tech industry standard business critical Google web apps.
Outside the work context, leisure time is regularly frustrated by FireFox struggling to render pages or load videos on Google owned YouTube.com as well as they do in Chrome. This seems to happen a few days each month for the past 8 years or so.
Therefore Chrome is clearly the better browser. /s
Outside the work context, leisure time is regularly frustrated by FireFox struggling to render pages or load videos on Google owned YouTube.com as well as they do in Chrome. This seems to happen a few days each month for the past 8 years or so.
Therefore Chrome is clearly the better browser. /s
#3. Most people are browsing on mobile and Chrome is the default browser on Android and Safari (or at least the engine) is the only one allowed on iOS devices.
1). is very subjective and I think depends quite heavily on what platform you are using it on. FF is my daily driver on Windows and I much prefer it over Chrome (which I also use frequently).
That's not a big deal. The main appeal of Firefox today is that it's not owned by Google and doesn't violate your privacy (as much, anyways). The browser itself is great, I use it all the time, and I vastly prefer the UI over Chrome.
However, I don't think many would care if the world ends up on a single common browser as long as it doesn't consolidate power to a single entity. Microsoft has their own fork of Chromium, and if the possibility of building a browser business makes a comeback (thanks to any changes in Google), I'm sure many other companies will follow suit.
Of course, this all depends on what actually happens to Google as a result of this lawsuit. So we'll have to wait and see.
However, I don't think many would care if the world ends up on a single common browser as long as it doesn't consolidate power to a single entity. Microsoft has their own fork of Chromium, and if the possibility of building a browser business makes a comeback (thanks to any changes in Google), I'm sure many other companies will follow suit.
Of course, this all depends on what actually happens to Google as a result of this lawsuit. So we'll have to wait and see.
Multiple rendering engines are probably a good thing in the long term for the web, and arguably losing other technology that Mozilla has worked on like Rust would be a big loss if Mozilla couldn't be as competitive as it has been.
I'm not so sure weaponizing privacy against Google by breaking a good amount of websites embedding Youtube videos is really the best way to get market share though, so by that metric, Google losing would hopefully mean Mozilla could work just as well as other browsers by default and actually gain market share.
I'm not so sure weaponizing privacy against Google by breaking a good amount of websites embedding Youtube videos is really the best way to get market share though, so by that metric, Google losing would hopefully mean Mozilla could work just as well as other browsers by default and actually gain market share.
>Multiple rendering engines are probably a good thing in the long term for the web,
I think people forget how terrible browser compatability used to be. You had to use jQuery and worry about what you could and couldn't use. Pax Chromana in comparison is a dream.
It's possible that chrome stagnates like IE did. But I don't think so. Google is primarily a web company and so it's in their interest to keep innovating on the browser to make their websites better.
I think people forget how terrible browser compatability used to be. You had to use jQuery and worry about what you could and couldn't use. Pax Chromana in comparison is a dream.
It's possible that chrome stagnates like IE did. But I don't think so. Google is primarily a web company and so it's in their interest to keep innovating on the browser to make their websites better.
Browser compat issues arose precisely because a dominant browser maker gave zero shit about standards, and what you call "pax chromana" is a repetition of that, with many webapps targeting only chrome. I understand that having the main browser actually decent is an improvement from the IE days, but for those of us that don't use chrome, the increasing tendency to only target one browser feels like a step back.
It’s also that Chrome is derived from an open source core which allows companies like Microsoft to use their engine to compete with them. So it is better than the IE days in that way.
Much good that "open source" will do you if you can't get a Widevine license from Google.
https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked...
And this bullshit even before "Pax Chromana". Imagine the things to come. It's like we've learned nothing.
https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked...
And this bullshit even before "Pax Chromana". Imagine the things to come. It's like we've learned nothing.
Widevine is DRM so there's no reason for a freedom activist to want it.
This has nothing to do with "freedom activists".
Besides, "freedom activists" don't need to watch news clips or youtube?
Or are they so short-sighted they think DRM will remain limited to entertainment services like Netflix and Hulu?
Do "freedom activists" want to live in a world where you need Google's permission to compete with their browser? Is that the kind of freedom they're activisming about? Freedom from the tyranny of non-Google choices?
Besides, "freedom activists" don't need to watch news clips or youtube?
Or are they so short-sighted they think DRM will remain limited to entertainment services like Netflix and Hulu?
Do "freedom activists" want to live in a world where you need Google's permission to compete with their browser? Is that the kind of freedom they're activisming about? Freedom from the tyranny of non-Google choices?
>for those of us that don't use chrome,
Sure, but that's like being one of the tribes of Europe before the Romans. When the tribes got crushed and everyone became Roman peace and prosperity (mostly) reigned. Having to use chrome if you don't want to sucks, but it makes things way easier for developers to have one browser to target.
Sure, but that's like being one of the tribes of Europe before the Romans. When the tribes got crushed and everyone became Roman peace and prosperity (mostly) reigned. Having to use chrome if you don't want to sucks, but it makes things way easier for developers to have one browser to target.
> When the tribes got crushed and everyone became Roman peace and prosperity (mostly) reigned.
Well, it didn't really go well for the tribes. About half of the gallic population was killed or enslaved. As for the romans, that war was started to reinforce the personal power of Caesar, and the power imbalance it generated led to the fall of the republic. I'm not sure your historic analogy makes a great case for your point.
> it makes things way easier for developers to have one browser to target.
What makes things easier for developers is standards. As for targetting one product present in a walled garden, it may be pleasant in the short term, but we have many cautionary tales about it, and Google is responsible for more than their fair share of them.
Well, it didn't really go well for the tribes. About half of the gallic population was killed or enslaved. As for the romans, that war was started to reinforce the personal power of Caesar, and the power imbalance it generated led to the fall of the republic. I'm not sure your historic analogy makes a great case for your point.
> it makes things way easier for developers to have one browser to target.
What makes things easier for developers is standards. As for targetting one product present in a walled garden, it may be pleasant in the short term, but we have many cautionary tales about it, and Google is responsible for more than their fair share of them.
I agree that Google will keep the basic end user functionality working well once they have a full monopoly. But I expect them to accelerate their attacks on ad blocking and tracking protection. A browser that is great at rendering websites but makes it extremely difficult to block ads and trackers is probably Google's ideal goal.
I am not too concerned. I think Mozilla will simply have to switch to a donation based system (like Wikimedia Foundation), with relevant restructuring to a non-profit. And I think they will be able to raise 10s of millions of dollars.
We'll see if Mozilla will be able to achieve that. I hope so. I want it to succeed, but according to Mozilla that donation based structure would be impossible.
While you could be cynical, I think people using Wikipedia are way more numerous than people using Firefox.
I think it's inevitable that the future will be dominated by a Blink based browser. It's omnipresent on mobile and the desktop will probably just be Edge (a Blink derivative).
While you could be cynical, I think people using Wikipedia are way more numerous than people using Firefox.
I think it's inevitable that the future will be dominated by a Blink based browser. It's omnipresent on mobile and the desktop will probably just be Edge (a Blink derivative).
If they crash and burn someone can just fork the project from their ashes. I think some group will take it on because it's important to have another rendering engine that's not Konqueror-derived.
That is simply not true, if we take the fact that 60% of search traffic in USA comes from iOS that is all from WebKit and not Blink. Even Chrome and Firefox on iOS uses WebKit.
And if they didn't excessively pay their high execs stupid amount of money.
I think this could actually be one of the best outcome for Google.
Google save $10B per year paying to Apple for the default search engine spot. User continue to use Google anyway as 98% of user simply dont go anywhere else. Their Chrome remain dominant and Firefox is dead.
The only possibility this is actually worst would be the incentive of Apple creating its own Search Engine. Likely without porn or whatever content they deem unfit and enter Web Curation. Of course they would be highly unlikely given the current Anti-Trust issues.
Google save $10B per year paying to Apple for the default search engine spot. User continue to use Google anyway as 98% of user simply dont go anywhere else. Their Chrome remain dominant and Firefox is dead.
The only possibility this is actually worst would be the incentive of Apple creating its own Search Engine. Likely without porn or whatever content they deem unfit and enter Web Curation. Of course they would be highly unlikely given the current Anti-Trust issues.
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Luckily, I don’t think Red Hat would let Firefox die because it’s the default browser they ship for RHEL and Fedora. I imagine development would slow to a crawl but it would still be around.
Nothing is "often missed" about this.
Mozilla has already written a blog post asking the court not to go after Google on this issue because it might hurt them. I am sure Google is all too happy to promote this angle, suggesting we should protect Chrome out of some misguided attempt to protect Firefox.
If Google is stripped of Chrome or prohibited from using various tactics to promote Chrome over alternatives, Firefox will benefit, massively. Revenue may drop in the short term, so it may not look great for Mozilla-the-company, but Firefox usage will soar, and revenue-generating strategies will follow thereafter.
It's sad Mozilla is hurting themselves here by coming to Google's defense, but that's how whipped Google has them right now.
Mozilla has already written a blog post asking the court not to go after Google on this issue because it might hurt them. I am sure Google is all too happy to promote this angle, suggesting we should protect Chrome out of some misguided attempt to protect Firefox.
If Google is stripped of Chrome or prohibited from using various tactics to promote Chrome over alternatives, Firefox will benefit, massively. Revenue may drop in the short term, so it may not look great for Mozilla-the-company, but Firefox usage will soar, and revenue-generating strategies will follow thereafter.
It's sad Mozilla is hurting themselves here by coming to Google's defense, but that's how whipped Google has them right now.
> To my surprise, a few members of my tribe were pushing back against this lawsuit.
Personally I think there's plenty Google is doing that's wrong † but I'm just disappointed the antitrust complaint seems to be all about the advertising industry.
As far as I'm concerned, the online advertising industry is already doomed. The first time there was a drive-by malware installation from an advert on a reputable website, the industry's fate was sealed.
When I heard there would be antitrust action, I was hoping there would be more attention to all the other problems, so hearing it's all about competition in a dead industry is a disappointment.
† Nonexistent support, low-privacy defaults in Chrome, perpetual "oopsies" breaking firefox support, over-enthusiastic anti-spam features forcing e-mail centralisation, iOS gmail constantly "forgetting" that I didn't want to install Chrome, reCapcha and DoH and AMP and GA all having the potential to act as centralised tracking, reCapcha being deliberately slow and difficult for people who disable browser fingerprinting, opaque and capricious treatment of youtube creators and android app developers, pushing sketchy browser "features" like "signed exchange" that badly solve problems of Google's own creation...
Personally I think there's plenty Google is doing that's wrong † but I'm just disappointed the antitrust complaint seems to be all about the advertising industry.
As far as I'm concerned, the online advertising industry is already doomed. The first time there was a drive-by malware installation from an advert on a reputable website, the industry's fate was sealed.
When I heard there would be antitrust action, I was hoping there would be more attention to all the other problems, so hearing it's all about competition in a dead industry is a disappointment.
† Nonexistent support, low-privacy defaults in Chrome, perpetual "oopsies" breaking firefox support, over-enthusiastic anti-spam features forcing e-mail centralisation, iOS gmail constantly "forgetting" that I didn't want to install Chrome, reCapcha and DoH and AMP and GA all having the potential to act as centralised tracking, reCapcha being deliberately slow and difficult for people who disable browser fingerprinting, opaque and capricious treatment of youtube creators and android app developers, pushing sketchy browser "features" like "signed exchange" that badly solve problems of Google's own creation...
> I'm just disappointed the antitrust complaint seems to be all about the advertising industry
The DoJ focussed on search. Specifically, Google paying for the default slot.
The DoubleClick/ad business is not directly addressed. The harms in the complaint are more widely discussed than in this article.
The DoJ focussed on search. Specifically, Google paying for the default slot.
The DoubleClick/ad business is not directly addressed. The harms in the complaint are more widely discussed than in this article.
> in a dead industry
That “dead industry” is worth many $100s of Billions. What are you on about?
That “dead industry” is worth many $100s of Billions. What are you on about?
Bear in mind, Google is somewhere near 90% advertising revenue. There are other things Google is doing wrong, but they all exist to feed into the ad industry. Search and Chrome and Play Services and everything are about protecting their ad revenue.
You may feel like ads are a dead industry, but remember that via Google's Chrome monopoly, Google can harm ad blockers (Manifest V3) and protect their ability to track and monetize users ("privacy budget"), and that their decisions as such affect the vast majority of users on the planet. Everyone else might be stripping out advertising and tracking, but as long as Google's browsers are protecting it, it'll do just fine.
Breaking the back of Google's monopoly is going to take going after them in many angles, and their browser monopoly and search monopoly are very important pillars of that. But all those pillars are upholding one thing: Ads.
You may feel like ads are a dead industry, but remember that via Google's Chrome monopoly, Google can harm ad blockers (Manifest V3) and protect their ability to track and monetize users ("privacy budget"), and that their decisions as such affect the vast majority of users on the planet. Everyone else might be stripping out advertising and tracking, but as long as Google's browsers are protecting it, it'll do just fine.
Breaking the back of Google's monopoly is going to take going after them in many angles, and their browser monopoly and search monopoly are very important pillars of that. But all those pillars are upholding one thing: Ads.
> There are other things Google is doing wrong, but they all exist to feed into the ad industry.
Do they now? You seem to know a lot about them.
YouTube Premium, Docs, entire GCP suite etc kind of hint that they don't have the same vision about their company as you seem to have about them.
> Search and Chrome and Play Services and everything are about protecting their ad revenue.
I might be mistaken but reading comments on HN from googlers, I remember Chrome being a docs outcome as a better browser can support web productivity software well.
Do they now? You seem to know a lot about them.
YouTube Premium, Docs, entire GCP suite etc kind of hint that they don't have the same vision about their company as you seem to have about them.
> Search and Chrome and Play Services and everything are about protecting their ad revenue.
I might be mistaken but reading comments on HN from googlers, I remember Chrome being a docs outcome as a better browser can support web productivity software well.
> I might be mistaken but reading comments on HN from googlers, I remember Chrome being a docs outcome as a better browser can support web productivity software well.
A narrative Googlers might tell you, sure. But that has no historical reality. Chrome, is, of course, the brainchild of Sundar Pichai, prior to which was in charge of the Google Toolbar, a pack-in that Google paid Adobe and other companies to inject into their software installers to change the search provider on IE to Google.
Chrome was developed out of a (not unfounded) fear that Microsoft would intervene and block the Google Toolbar from IE. (Microsoft hesitated solely because they themselves were pretty scared of getting hit with antitrust violations again.)
The Google Toolbar, and it's direct successor, Chrome, came explicitly and exclusively out of a desire to set people's search provider to Google and to enable collecting user browsing data, which of course, leads to ads. Glowing biographies of Sundar Pichai that came out around when he became CEO all testify to this.
An example is https://marketrealist.com/2019/12/a-history-of-googles-visio...
A narrative Googlers might tell you, sure. But that has no historical reality. Chrome, is, of course, the brainchild of Sundar Pichai, prior to which was in charge of the Google Toolbar, a pack-in that Google paid Adobe and other companies to inject into their software installers to change the search provider on IE to Google.
Chrome was developed out of a (not unfounded) fear that Microsoft would intervene and block the Google Toolbar from IE. (Microsoft hesitated solely because they themselves were pretty scared of getting hit with antitrust violations again.)
The Google Toolbar, and it's direct successor, Chrome, came explicitly and exclusively out of a desire to set people's search provider to Google and to enable collecting user browsing data, which of course, leads to ads. Glowing biographies of Sundar Pichai that came out around when he became CEO all testify to this.
An example is https://marketrealist.com/2019/12/a-history-of-googles-visio...
> A narrative Googlers might tell you, sure. But that has no historical reality.
There is a historical account of Google devs submitting improvements to Firefox which were delayed or not merged and that led to the desire to just create a new browser.
I will need to search for the Firefox PRs if they exist to verify that story.
Chrome really set the benchmark for browser performance and reliability when it came out.
There is a historical account of Google devs submitting improvements to Firefox which were delayed or not merged and that led to the desire to just create a new browser.
I will need to search for the Firefox PRs if they exist to verify that story.
Chrome really set the benchmark for browser performance and reliability when it came out.
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† None of those would matter if Google had competition.
It surprises me not to hear more concerns about strangling U.S. based tech giants at a time that China and the rest of the world is catching up.
I'm not sure I buy that line of argument myself, but I did expect it to come up more prominently.
I'm not sure I buy that line of argument myself, but I did expect it to come up more prominently.
From half a world away the US tech industry has looked more "strangled" in the last 6-8 years compared to the 2005-2012 period (to give just an example), one could say that happened because of the concentration at the top (of talent and money, mostly, or of money keeping that talent in golden hand-cuffs).
During that 2005-2012 timeframe you had a US search engine becoming really global, a US online retailer almost single-handedly inventing a new industry (cloud computing) and a US social-web company crushing almost all foreign competition on its own home-turf (and which could only be stopped by explicit Government intervention, as was the case with China explicitly blocking FB and with Russia directly taking control of VKontakte as a better way to counter FB).
During that 2005-2012 timeframe you had a US search engine becoming really global, a US online retailer almost single-handedly inventing a new industry (cloud computing) and a US social-web company crushing almost all foreign competition on its own home-turf (and which could only be stopped by explicit Government intervention, as was the case with China explicitly blocking FB and with Russia directly taking control of VKontakte as a better way to counter FB).
cloud computing was invented by shared mainframes in the 70s and 80s and charges per MIPS.
Amazon applied open source software to the hosting and specifically the network stack and security stack. The model was already there.
Amazon applied open source software to the hosting and specifically the network stack and security stack. The model was already there.
I would think that the correct strategy for competing with enormous Asian tech companies is to have fierce competition and antitrust regulation in the US. It seems unlikely that a US company can do big better than a Chinese/Asian company. And at any rate, it’s certainly better for US consumers to have competition, and that’s ultimately what matters, not any notional ideas of “winning” against China.
I agree with all of this except the last sentence.
“Winning” against China isn’t just some notional idea. Like it or not, being globally competitive matters for the overall health of the US economy.
“Winning” against China isn’t just some notional idea. Like it or not, being globally competitive matters for the overall health of the US economy.
Maybe as a country the US is more powerful with healthy competition among strong tech companies than with monopolies. Look at Intel and AMD.
I think the argument is that Big tech is strangling itself with monopolies, which stifle innovation and leave the US behind. It's already behind in phones, payments, de-fi, some social media, IoT etc, and arguably the monopolies are to blame. E.g. where is the advertising innovation? it's as if the industry is dead. The iphone has not been the best-tech phone for a long time.
I don't know how you can look at phones and conclude that the US is behind. They make the only two OS that matter and Apple is #1 in mobile chip and phone design.
Apart from the OS, the phones from samsung, xiaomi and huawei are pretty great with regards to speed, cameras, screens. Apple d overall package gets high mark but thats often due to the OS, not the phone tech.
Also consider that mainstream androids are significantly cheaper.
I wont go into further comparisons, but just check out the p30 camera
Also consider that mainstream androids are significantly cheaper.
I wont go into further comparisons, but just check out the p30 camera
The iPhone is not the best tech in what objective measure? Their processors are two or three years ahead of anything Android has. The $399 iPhone SE is faster than any Android at any price.
Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat, Linkedin and Facebook are all very relevant. The only non-American company I can think of is Tik Tok. Anything major I'm missing?
What better way to compete with the rest of the world than to dismantle the monopolies that are stifling innovation in the US?
It's for the simple reason that many, many Americans would rather get (unknowingly) fucked by corporations for all eternity rather than the government attempt any sort of solution. In many respects, you can't blame them given how insanely wasteful the federal government is. However, corporations don't give a shit about you and never will. It's this point that people can't understand.
Because nothing is getting strangled.
In the end, if any of these companies are forced to change some policies or split from an acquisition or two, they'll still be massive institutions.
In the end, if any of these companies are forced to change some policies or split from an acquisition or two, they'll still be massive institutions.
See also: Microsoft.
How are those connected in a way?
Should you not prosecute murderers because birth rates are down?
Should you not prosecute murderers because birth rates are down?
The part that I don't get is: why would end users switch their search engine to an inferior one just because advertisers are harmed by Googles monopoly? As a user, I like ads being super expensive because that means there will be fewer of them.
I switched to DuckDuckGo and FireFox because I disapprove of Google's footprint and the way that they're trying to watch everything I do.
When I switched, about 2 years ago, DuckDuckGo was clearly worse. Now I feel like DuckDuckGo has gotten a little bit better but Google Search has definitely gotten worse.
I'm now using Pocket and Pinboard a lot more because I can't count on search being able to bring up something I saw a couple of months ago.
When I switched, about 2 years ago, DuckDuckGo was clearly worse. Now I feel like DuckDuckGo has gotten a little bit better but Google Search has definitely gotten worse.
I'm now using Pocket and Pinboard a lot more because I can't count on search being able to bring up something I saw a couple of months ago.
There don't actually seem to be fewer adds though. In face, more and more real estate seems devoted to then. And their auction system would result in the same number of adds not matter the price because there will always be a highest bidder, and unless there are fewer bidders that ad placements, all placements will be filled. That will pretty much always be the case for and keywords of even moderate popularity/demand.
Google is alleged in the lawsuit to artificially inflate prices.
Yes, I'm saying that I don't think that reduces the number of adds actually displayed though. Not unless there are fewer buyer for spaces than there are spaces, and any moderately popular keyword will have ample demand. That doesn't mean Google is not a a monopoly, but I was just responding to the part of the comment that indicated more expensive adds would mean fewer adds. It hasn't so far, as I now sometimes have to scroll down below the first screen to actually get to real results instead of ads.
Maybe because most end users are also consumers of other products (e.g., foods, housing, electronics) who eventually pay for ads via purchases?
> You’d require that the monopoly offer a straightforward full-text-based document retrieval API that implements several different ranking algorithms and bills per search. You’d forbid it from engaging in any advertising businesses. Then you’d free up people to build consumer-facing search interfaces and compete to sell advertising on them.
What does selling ads look like if search is not a monopoly? As an advertiser in the new world, I'd have to go around and buy ads on all the new search front-ends. I probably want to pay them proportionally to how much traffic they get (well, conversions, but let's say traffic). If there's a small number of large front-ends then maybe I go to each of them directly, but if there's a long tail of front-ends then probably there'd be a search middleman who the various front-ends contract with... I guess there's still Google Search, and Google AdSense, but now AdSense also sells ads on other front-ends, and Google Search works with other brokers besides AdSense?
What does selling ads look like if search is not a monopoly? As an advertiser in the new world, I'd have to go around and buy ads on all the new search front-ends. I probably want to pay them proportionally to how much traffic they get (well, conversions, but let's say traffic). If there's a small number of large front-ends then maybe I go to each of them directly, but if there's a long tail of front-ends then probably there'd be a search middleman who the various front-ends contract with... I guess there's still Google Search, and Google AdSense, but now AdSense also sells ads on other front-ends, and Google Search works with other brokers besides AdSense?
If Google had competition they would have to lower their prices and provide better quality ads and ad tracking.
Click fraud is pretty real and I’ve had contacts say it’s 30-50% of actual ad revenue. Currently, this is just “factored in” but how neat would it be if this could be prevented. Google has no incentive to fix this as click fraud is profitable for them.
For ad auditing, Google frequently shows ads to people outside my geolocation and doesn’t audit how they do this. Would be nice to fix this as it’s a decent number of botched customer interactions.
Finally, pricing could be so much lower. I’ve advertised for low frequency terms where the minimum bid is $1 even though there’s only 1 or zero current advertisers. So the “auction” is against a floor set by google, not the market.
If no one else is buying a keyword, the minimum should be very low and climb as multiple ad buyers drive the price up. This is probably the most annoying as it would save businesses so much money.
Click fraud is pretty real and I’ve had contacts say it’s 30-50% of actual ad revenue. Currently, this is just “factored in” but how neat would it be if this could be prevented. Google has no incentive to fix this as click fraud is profitable for them.
For ad auditing, Google frequently shows ads to people outside my geolocation and doesn’t audit how they do this. Would be nice to fix this as it’s a decent number of botched customer interactions.
Finally, pricing could be so much lower. I’ve advertised for low frequency terms where the minimum bid is $1 even though there’s only 1 or zero current advertisers. So the “auction” is against a floor set by google, not the market.
If no one else is buying a keyword, the minimum should be very low and climb as multiple ad buyers drive the price up. This is probably the most annoying as it would save businesses so much money.
One of Google's greatest strength was in the pre 2010 period was they were the only advertising sources that sold high quality traffic in massive volume and fraud was almost a non-issue. Go back to 2007 and try to run an ad campaign anywhere else online and it was a nightmare.
Things have changed. Google repeatedly has modified the delivery settings of their ads for active campaigns, just as you complain about the geolocation issue. My guess is that if someone did a proper investigation Google would have to back pay advertisers many billions of dollars. This is fraud anyway you cut it. They have done the same thing with mobile ads. You disable the mobile app inventory and they modify the UI and re-enable it.
Things have changed. Google repeatedly has modified the delivery settings of their ads for active campaigns, just as you complain about the geolocation issue. My guess is that if someone did a proper investigation Google would have to back pay advertisers many billions of dollars. This is fraud anyway you cut it. They have done the same thing with mobile ads. You disable the mobile app inventory and they modify the UI and re-enable it.
> I’ve advertised for low frequency terms where the minimum bid is $1 even though there’s only 1 or zero current advertisers. So the “auction” is against a floor set by google, not the market.
Showing excessive ads wastes users' attention and teaches them not to pay attention to other higher value ads. A price floor seems like a very reasonable way to handle this?
(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
Showing excessive ads wastes users' attention and teaches them not to pay attention to other higher value ads. A price floor seems like a very reasonable way to handle this?
(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
First, it’s funny that you think Google cares about wasting user attention. Have you seen the search interface.
Second, when there’s a single ad shown and the floor is $1 or $2 or $3 even that makes no sense. Having no bidders with a floor and a single ad vs 2 or 3 is done for a single reason- revenue. Any customer benefit from missed ads is wiped out by wasted costs. It’s rent seeking because Google has a search monopoly.
Second, when there’s a single ad shown and the floor is $1 or $2 or $3 even that makes no sense. Having no bidders with a floor and a single ad vs 2 or 3 is done for a single reason- revenue. Any customer benefit from missed ads is wiped out by wasted costs. It’s rent seeking because Google has a search monopoly.
> when there’s a single ad shown and the floor is $1 or $2 or $3 even that makes no sense. Having no bidders with a floor and a single ad vs 2 or 3 is done for a single reason- revenue. Any customer benefit from missed ads is wiped out by wasted costs. It’s rent seeking because Google has a search monopoly.
I'm not sure I understand what your objection is. It sounds like you're saying that you'd like Google to remove price floors and show many more ads? Is that right?
What do you mean by "wasted costs"?
I'm not sure I understand what your objection is. It sounds like you're saying that you'd like Google to remove price floors and show many more ads? Is that right?
What do you mean by "wasted costs"?
Every single search I run has ads. I’m not sure how Google can run more.
But what I’m saying is that if there’s only a single ad and they are paying $3 because google set that limit, they could lower that to what the market will bear and start at .05 or something.
If they are worried about ad space they can limit to 1-2 ads and let people bid on them. They already do this as there’s not an infinite scroll of ads, they only show 1-3 and then more on the next page. Setting floors on ads doesn’t reduce the number of ads I see, it just makes more money for Google.
This is only possible as they are a monopoly.
But what I’m saying is that if there’s only a single ad and they are paying $3 because google set that limit, they could lower that to what the market will bear and start at .05 or something.
If they are worried about ad space they can limit to 1-2 ads and let people bid on them. They already do this as there’s not an infinite scroll of ads, they only show 1-3 and then more on the next page. Setting floors on ads doesn’t reduce the number of ads I see, it just makes more money for Google.
This is only possible as they are a monopoly.
> Every single search I run has ads.
Really? If you go to https://myactivity.google.com/item?product=19 you should be able to see all your recent google searches. Here are my queries today:
* myactivity
* somerville trick or treating 2020
* Lilywise dinner
* jefftk mask usage
* How far around the world is it at the longitude of NYC
* wbz coverage map
* wbur coverage map
* wbz frequency
* radio station coverage area
* us radio station map
* time zones
* telegraph
* atlas of the historical geography of the united states
* isochrone
* travel time from dc to nyc historically
* nyc longitude and latitude
* philly longitude and latitude
* dc longitude and latitude
* wikipedia time zones
* wikipedia solar time
* fivethirtyeight
* who won the debate
Going back and searching these again, only "atlas of the historical geography of the united states" showed ads.
> I’m saying is that if there’s only a single ad and they are paying $3 because google set that limit, they could lower that to what the market will bear and start at .05 or something.
If they did that, then every query would have an ad at the top, generally a pretty irrelevant one. People would learn to ignore the ads. This would then make ads on searches like "buy insurance" much less valuable.
> Setting floors on ads doesn’t reduce the number of ads I see
Huh? Of course it does. If you set a floor, some bids are going to be below the floor. For some queries, in my experience a large majority, all bids are going to be below the floor and you see no ads.
> This is only possible as they are a monopoly.
This has nothing to do with whether Google is or isn't a monopoly. Even a very small search engine would make this kind of tradeoff, choosing not to annoy users with low value ads.
Similarly, if you try these searches on Bing or DDG (which both show ads from Microsoft Ads) you will see they are using the same approach, with many ads on highly commercial queries and no ads on most queries. They even published a paper about it: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
Really? If you go to https://myactivity.google.com/item?product=19 you should be able to see all your recent google searches. Here are my queries today:
* myactivity
* somerville trick or treating 2020
* Lilywise dinner
* jefftk mask usage
* How far around the world is it at the longitude of NYC
* wbz coverage map
* wbur coverage map
* wbz frequency
* radio station coverage area
* us radio station map
* time zones
* telegraph
* atlas of the historical geography of the united states
* isochrone
* travel time from dc to nyc historically
* nyc longitude and latitude
* philly longitude and latitude
* dc longitude and latitude
* wikipedia time zones
* wikipedia solar time
* fivethirtyeight
* who won the debate
Going back and searching these again, only "atlas of the historical geography of the united states" showed ads.
> I’m saying is that if there’s only a single ad and they are paying $3 because google set that limit, they could lower that to what the market will bear and start at .05 or something.
If they did that, then every query would have an ad at the top, generally a pretty irrelevant one. People would learn to ignore the ads. This would then make ads on searches like "buy insurance" much less valuable.
> Setting floors on ads doesn’t reduce the number of ads I see
Huh? Of course it does. If you set a floor, some bids are going to be below the floor. For some queries, in my experience a large majority, all bids are going to be below the floor and you see no ads.
> This is only possible as they are a monopoly.
This has nothing to do with whether Google is or isn't a monopoly. Even a very small search engine would make this kind of tradeoff, choosing not to annoy users with low value ads.
Similarly, if you try these searches on Bing or DDG (which both show ads from Microsoft Ads) you will see they are using the same approach, with many ads on highly commercial queries and no ads on most queries. They even published a paper about it: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
If there were no reserve price there would be eight ads on every single search no matter how abstruse the search and irrelevant the ads were to it. Especially since currently only a small percent of searches have ads, Google could actually make more money that way, but everyone wound find it really annoying.
They wouldn't even necessarily make more money that way, after user learning effects, if people found it annoying enough that they would use Google less or get in the habit of quickly scrolling past the ads.
very possible. it could be a lose-lose-lose. but in any event it's more complicated than just trying to juice auction prices as a cash grab.
They did this with the gas company where I live. Instead of buying gas from the gas company you contract with any number of 3rd parties and they turn around and pay the gas company to deliver it.
It's not clear how this is better. The gas company still exists and takes the bulk of my payment. The 3rd parties tack on their service fee. And they basically all run a bait and switch where you sign a contract for a fix term and then the price gets jacked up if you forget to sign a new one.
It's the worst of both worlds. The gas company still has a delivery monopoly. And now we've got a bunch of scummy 3rd parties running what are basically scams.
It's not clear how this is better. The gas company still exists and takes the bulk of my payment. The 3rd parties tack on their service fee. And they basically all run a bait and switch where you sign a contract for a fix term and then the price gets jacked up if you forget to sign a new one.
It's the worst of both worlds. The gas company still has a delivery monopoly. And now we've got a bunch of scummy 3rd parties running what are basically scams.
There would probably be more actually good adnetworks without Google Ads. No need to sign up with each search frontend or site.
Today other adnetworks mostly serve sites that are shady, controversial or too small for Adsense since they can't compete.
Today other adnetworks mostly serve sites that are shady, controversial or too small for Adsense since they can't compete.
Third parties providing a nicely packaged solution to schedule ads on multiple networks would be created a short moment after the split starts. On the more technical side, common APIs would be created.
It's basically the case of skyscanner, kayak, etc. and the air travel companies.
It's basically the case of skyscanner, kayak, etc. and the air travel companies.
Is this actually the most likely scenario though? I agree it's hard to compete and have a search service completely indexing the entire internet. Is breaking up the front end the most likely?
> As an advertiser in the new world, I'd have to go around and buy ads on all the new search front-ends.
And site operators presumably have to deal with many more ad platforms, which is likely to be a complication for them. Theres a certain logic to the way it works now, even if it is (arguably) anti-competitive and undesirable.
And site operators presumably have to deal with many more ad platforms, which is likely to be a complication for them. Theres a certain logic to the way it works now, even if it is (arguably) anti-competitive and undesirable.
If someone would really want to break the Google search monopoly, they would seperate:
- Crawling and document parsing. Imagine something like archive.org where all search engines would get the content from. This could also be used to enforce copyright legislation (e.g. deletions of documents, etc...). Today, it's nearly impossible to collect the data as google does, because most website owners won't even allow that you crawl them (e.g. distill networks anti bot protection, etc...)
- Metrics (e.g. data from google analytics, dns resolvers, browser toolbards, browser statistics, etc...). Again this data should be available to everyone from a central authority.
Then there could be more independent search engines building on top of that data. If that doesn't happen, then there will never be any competition. Todays copyright and data privacy laws even further strengthen a monopoly position, as smaller players will not even get access to some data (or at different pricing then google does)
- Crawling and document parsing. Imagine something like archive.org where all search engines would get the content from. This could also be used to enforce copyright legislation (e.g. deletions of documents, etc...). Today, it's nearly impossible to collect the data as google does, because most website owners won't even allow that you crawl them (e.g. distill networks anti bot protection, etc...)
- Metrics (e.g. data from google analytics, dns resolvers, browser toolbards, browser statistics, etc...). Again this data should be available to everyone from a central authority.
Then there could be more independent search engines building on top of that data. If that doesn't happen, then there will never be any competition. Todays copyright and data privacy laws even further strengthen a monopoly position, as smaller players will not even get access to some data (or at different pricing then google does)
Having one crawler would not be desirable as it'd involve choosing which pages get crawled and how often for freshness. Point taken about sites being less available to crawl due to the bot whitelist approach but it is not a huge issue, though some large sites like Facebook go for a whitelist only approach.
Regarding those other data sources, the more privacy conscious engines would perhaps object to particular kinds of data but agreed that the kind of scale and various sources that Google has at its disposal, does give it an advantage when it comes to search.
There are alternatives beyond Google and Bing who do index the web albeit at the moment are smaller in scale, and likely outnumbered by all the Bing clones. There is a high barrier to entry wrt cost but the technical/capital hurdles of crawling are not so high as compared to ranking and indexing.
Regarding those other data sources, the more privacy conscious engines would perhaps object to particular kinds of data but agreed that the kind of scale and various sources that Google has at its disposal, does give it an advantage when it comes to search.
There are alternatives beyond Google and Bing who do index the web albeit at the moment are smaller in scale, and likely outnumbered by all the Bing clones. There is a high barrier to entry wrt cost but the technical/capital hurdles of crawling are not so high as compared to ranking and indexing.
You can make a case that Web search is a natural monopoly. Running the crawlers and indexers and servers is freaking expensive, requiring monster capex and operational expenditure. It’s not obvious to me that the world needs more than one.
I wonder how true this is these days?
I understand that the "long tail" of web queries is very important, but if you were to skip that for version 1, and concentrate on crawling the top 1M English language sites how much would it really cost?
I wonder how true this is these days?
I understand that the "long tail" of web queries is very important, but if you were to skip that for version 1, and concentrate on crawling the top 1M English language sites how much would it really cost?
I'm not familiar with the mechanics of web crawlers, so hopefully somebody can shed some light.
Would there be value in a search engines for specific topics? For example, movie reviews and blogs. Assuming you had a way to determine if a page is a review or blog, would it make indexing easier to ignore the rest? Could a tailored search engine be tweaked to give better results?
I kind of think it would be useful, because some websites I use have really great search tools (e.g. ones with tags). But those are only for the website itself, so there's no crawling.
Would there be value in a search engines for specific topics? For example, movie reviews and blogs. Assuming you had a way to determine if a page is a review or blog, would it make indexing easier to ignore the rest? Could a tailored search engine be tweaked to give better results?
I kind of think it would be useful, because some websites I use have really great search tools (e.g. ones with tags). But those are only for the website itself, so there's no crawling.
English is the language that needs the most resources, and where Google put the most effort. Actually any other language would be a smaller crawling/indexing investment, if really that was the hardest part. I don't know the current situation, but Yandex was better in Russia than Google a few years ago.
> The Complaint says that mobile traffic in the US is 60% iOS vs 40% Android, which I hadn’t known. Apple routes all the search traffic to Google, which in return routes billions of dollars to Apple. The arrangement works great for both of them.
Actually it doesn't.
That's why Apple has been building out their search engine for the last few years.
Just like with Maps at some point it will be good enough and they will push an update to Safari to use it as the default.
Actually it doesn't.
That's why Apple has been building out their search engine for the last few years.
Just like with Maps at some point it will be good enough and they will push an update to Safari to use it as the default.
Apple has a search engine? So they basically scrape the web themselves and serve the results via Spotlight & Siri, it just lacks a web frontend? Is there any additional information on that? I haven't heard of a Apple crawler user agent yet, but I could've just missed that. I always thought they'd be using Bing or DDG for that data. If Apple wanted to go into the search engine business, I'd have expected them to just aquire DDG, tbh.
DDG is using Bing behind the scenes so acquiring them wouldn't give them any index or actual search engine.
This sums up essentially all I can dig up.
https://www.coywolf.news/seo/apple-search-engine/
https://www.coywolf.news/seo/apple-search-engine/
I'm not sure, I know they do crawl web sites and use that to generate data sets for Siri. However they also seem to have a relationship with DDG, for example DDG's new route directions feature is powered by Apple Maps, so maybe DDG is their backup plan.
DDG search is mostly powered by Bing.
Even apart from that Google may be the default search engine on mobile Safari but you can change it (I'm set to use DDG) so Apple may send the vast majority of searches to Google - but not all.
[deleted]
Apple cares more about control than money. This is why they will throw away that income for their own search engine.
Getting a big share of search volume would be worth more than their contract with Google.
The best part:
"I recommend reading it; It’s not that long and I certainly learned a few things about the shape of the search and advertising business, and you probably would too."
"I recommend reading it; It’s not that long and I certainly learned a few things about the shape of the search and advertising business, and you probably would too."
> I’m disappointed. Maybe this is a symptom of me not being an antitrust lawyer, but I’d have hoped for some specific, creative ideas on how to accomplish these good things.
Maybe it is too early in the procedure to ask for specific measures? I know that in criminal law, the state doesn't suggest specific punishment until after the verdict; and in civil law in many countries, you may ask for some specific relief to begin with, but it is very customary for the scope, nature and extent of that relief to change and be fleshed out as the procedure approaches its conclusion.
Maybe it is too early in the procedure to ask for specific measures? I know that in criminal law, the state doesn't suggest specific punishment until after the verdict; and in civil law in many countries, you may ask for some specific relief to begin with, but it is very customary for the scope, nature and extent of that relief to change and be fleshed out as the procedure approaches its conclusion.
The Stratachery article posted yesterday was way more interesting and less filled with perjorative attacks.
An alternative approach to regulating google's search monopoly would be to require google to either compensate users for harvesting their metadata, or prohibit google from harvesting metadata.
This approach would have different consequences to the DOJ's approach. It would leave intact google's ability to provide useful services that Tim Bray and others like, whilst redressing the economic tidal wave that flows google's way, for the better.
How would this work? There are many possibilities. Here are just 2, one of them individualistic and consumer oriented, the other social and community oriented:
1. Google gives coupons to users as compensation for harvesting their metadata. So if a user performs say 5000 google searches per year, google gives them coupons for say $500 which they can redeem on purchases made with vendors who advertise through google.
2. Google funds journalism by paying the metadata harvesting fee into a trust administered by an independent org that facilitates journalism. Like PBS or the BBC but not owned by the British Government, owned independently by a worldwide org that is affiliated with journalists associations.
The logic behind #2 is that pre-google, advertising revenue funded the news business. Post-google, the news business has shrunk by more than 50% of journalists and so the quality of the 4th estate has suffered.
This approach would have different consequences to the DOJ's approach. It would leave intact google's ability to provide useful services that Tim Bray and others like, whilst redressing the economic tidal wave that flows google's way, for the better.
How would this work? There are many possibilities. Here are just 2, one of them individualistic and consumer oriented, the other social and community oriented:
1. Google gives coupons to users as compensation for harvesting their metadata. So if a user performs say 5000 google searches per year, google gives them coupons for say $500 which they can redeem on purchases made with vendors who advertise through google.
2. Google funds journalism by paying the metadata harvesting fee into a trust administered by an independent org that facilitates journalism. Like PBS or the BBC but not owned by the British Government, owned independently by a worldwide org that is affiliated with journalists associations.
The logic behind #2 is that pre-google, advertising revenue funded the news business. Post-google, the news business has shrunk by more than 50% of journalists and so the quality of the 4th estate has suffered.
I don’t like 1 because then it creates the issue of price negotiations. How can you put a standard price on privacy? Also, privacy isn’t really the focus of this lawsuit.
And I don’t like 2 because the news isn’t the only industry being negatively affected by Google’s monopoly.
And I don’t like 2 because the news isn’t the only industry being negatively affected by Google’s monopoly.
> How can you put a standard price on privacy?
Interesting question, with a lot of scope for answers. Different people have different feelings about privacy. The Nobel prize for economics this year was awarded for auction theory.
Google's ad revenue model implements a form of Vickrey-Grove auction.
https://www.adviso.ca/blog/tech/google-adwords-what-kind-of-...
One possibility for "pricing privacy" is for google to compensate users for their metadata using a price that is derived from the commercial gain yielded from harvesting the metadata. Google already has a vast IT infrastructure for managing every individual's metadata history. The price dividend could simply be an output of that IT infrastructure, paid to users in some form.
Interesting question, with a lot of scope for answers. Different people have different feelings about privacy. The Nobel prize for economics this year was awarded for auction theory.
Google's ad revenue model implements a form of Vickrey-Grove auction.
https://www.adviso.ca/blog/tech/google-adwords-what-kind-of-...
One possibility for "pricing privacy" is for google to compensate users for their metadata using a price that is derived from the commercial gain yielded from harvesting the metadata. Google already has a vast IT infrastructure for managing every individual's metadata history. The price dividend could simply be an output of that IT infrastructure, paid to users in some form.
> is for google to compensate users for their metadata using a price that is derived from the commercial gain yielded from harvesting the metadata
But then the compensation users receive depends on whether Google gets a good deal or not, and it still leaves Google with immense power and control.
And what about the users who value their privacy higher? They might decide not to use Google, but that's only useful if there is an alternative that can actually compete with Google. Maybe the compensation thing will increase Google's costs and make it easier for others to compete, but that seems unfair; why should Google have to compensate users, but not others? Any ruling would have to apply to everyone, because that's how common law systems work. So if everyone has to compensate users, then no one will gain an advantage over Google. So the end result is just that Google makes less money while still maintaining their monopoly, and innovation doesn't happen.
But then the compensation users receive depends on whether Google gets a good deal or not, and it still leaves Google with immense power and control.
And what about the users who value their privacy higher? They might decide not to use Google, but that's only useful if there is an alternative that can actually compete with Google. Maybe the compensation thing will increase Google's costs and make it easier for others to compete, but that seems unfair; why should Google have to compensate users, but not others? Any ruling would have to apply to everyone, because that's how common law systems work. So if everyone has to compensate users, then no one will gain an advantage over Google. So the end result is just that Google makes less money while still maintaining their monopoly, and innovation doesn't happen.
As a user, I consider myself compensated for my metadata harvesting by the fusion of that data into products I use.
Assistant knows a hell of a lot about me and does a pretty decent job keeping up with what I ask of it.
Assistant knows a hell of a lot about me and does a pretty decent job keeping up with what I ask of it.
The human right to privacy, like other human rights, should not be saleable.
It's not commonly one of the inalienable rights. In fact some degree of un-privacy is required in order to be a citizen anywhere. And if some private property like your metadata is not sellable, is it really yours?
I disagree strongly. Look at the 3rd and 4th amendments. They are rooted in privacy. The problem is at the time such rights were being enumerated, such as done by the founding fathers in America, they never imagined a world in which a third party would read every letter you send to another party, a world where a man who chooses not to identify himself in a city he's never been to would be tracked with cameras and facial recognition, a world where camera automatons automatically catalog his whereabouts based on cameras & license plates, a world where he has on him at essentially all times in order to function in society a tracker that records his location data to be sent off to a powerful third party with ties to government intelligence agencies for analysis.
I find it greatly detached from the reality of what is known about the historical personalities that framed the constitution to imagine anything other than them being absolutely horrified.
Privacy has been an assumed right for a LONG time. And if you, right now, went up to someone on the street and offered them $20 to learn their GPS whereabouts for a day, to learn what their voice sounds like and record it, to learn what their face looks like and be able to search it in photos, to learn when they are menstruating, what kind of condoms they like to buy, who all their friends are, who they hook up with, and where they live, hiw many kids they have and where they go to school, I assert that you would find the vast majority of the population would be deeply offended you even had the audacity to ask such a thing, and a few might even call the police.
Privacy is deeply ingrained in our basic social interactions and assumed by most. I think most people just don't have a clue how much it's being invaded because the collectors of such information are careful to hide it behind free gifts, and bury the truth in long, overly broad, complex, highly veiled and obscured EULA's. Then they are more careful still to try and never quite reach the level of using that information in a way that creeps people out by carefully hiding relevant advertisements in enough noise so you won't notice, trading and selling all that information in secret, all while carefully trying to systematically normalize ever more collection and otherwise creepy uses of that data.
I find it greatly detached from the reality of what is known about the historical personalities that framed the constitution to imagine anything other than them being absolutely horrified.
Privacy has been an assumed right for a LONG time. And if you, right now, went up to someone on the street and offered them $20 to learn their GPS whereabouts for a day, to learn what their voice sounds like and record it, to learn what their face looks like and be able to search it in photos, to learn when they are menstruating, what kind of condoms they like to buy, who all their friends are, who they hook up with, and where they live, hiw many kids they have and where they go to school, I assert that you would find the vast majority of the population would be deeply offended you even had the audacity to ask such a thing, and a few might even call the police.
Privacy is deeply ingrained in our basic social interactions and assumed by most. I think most people just don't have a clue how much it's being invaded because the collectors of such information are careful to hide it behind free gifts, and bury the truth in long, overly broad, complex, highly veiled and obscured EULA's. Then they are more careful still to try and never quite reach the level of using that information in a way that creeps people out by carefully hiding relevant advertisements in enough noise so you won't notice, trading and selling all that information in secret, all while carefully trying to systematically normalize ever more collection and otherwise creepy uses of that data.
>Look at the 3rd and 4th amendments. They are rooted in privacy.
Eh, I don't think that's a reasonable take. They're much more rooted in property rights. I guess you could argue they're just restatements of each other. Privacy applies to your person, while property rights apply to your stuff.
But notice the 3rd amendment specifically says "owner", not resident or something similar. For example, if a apartment building owner wanted to allow a soldier to live in your apartment, you couldn't stop them. Obviously any sane lease wouldn't allow that but my point is you couldn't make a constitutional argument against the government saying it's a violation of your rights.
Also, SCOTUS didn't extend the 4th amendment to imply privacy until 1967. Before then it only applied to property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States
Eh, I don't think that's a reasonable take. They're much more rooted in property rights. I guess you could argue they're just restatements of each other. Privacy applies to your person, while property rights apply to your stuff.
But notice the 3rd amendment specifically says "owner", not resident or something similar. For example, if a apartment building owner wanted to allow a soldier to live in your apartment, you couldn't stop them. Obviously any sane lease wouldn't allow that but my point is you couldn't make a constitutional argument against the government saying it's a violation of your rights.
Also, SCOTUS didn't extend the 4th amendment to imply privacy until 1967. Before then it only applied to property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States
I think you raise a valid objection to the interpretation, but I counter that in context, privacy and property rights were one and the same in many ways.
Obviously we are not talking about extremes nor abdolutes. Privacy is already sold, we can't pretend it isnt happening. But regulation can set limits which will move the market out of the grey area
I agree that we need to discuss how inalienable is the right to privacy, especially digital privacy.
But note that you can not sell your organs, because that will (and does on the black market) quickly create highly coercive contracts between individuals, or worse organ robbery. You can, however, donate your organs.
I would see a similar scheme for your digital data. That, most of it cannot be sold [1]. It can be donated by your positive assent, but the receiver (businesses and such) are highly regulated to ensure they don't exploit you or society using that data.
[1] I concede that there might be certain types of data that could be sold, though I cannot think of an example.
But note that you can not sell your organs, because that will (and does on the black market) quickly create highly coercive contracts between individuals, or worse organ robbery. You can, however, donate your organs.
I would see a similar scheme for your digital data. That, most of it cannot be sold [1]. It can be donated by your positive assent, but the receiver (businesses and such) are highly regulated to ensure they don't exploit you or society using that data.
[1] I concede that there might be certain types of data that could be sold, though I cannot think of an example.
I strongly disagree - it is my data and I should be able to do whatever I, not you, want with it - even if it's something extremely stupid like publish my SSN to the internet. I would never use that right, but I will still fight for it.
(needless to say, I completely approve of the idea of government controls on what other companies can do with my data without my consent)
(needless to say, I completely approve of the idea of government controls on what other companies can do with my data without my consent)
This is kind of like saying “it’s my kidney, and I should be able to do whatever I, not you, want with it”. At some point we just have to draw the line and say we can’t in good conscience commoditize this.
You have reality stars selling a 24/7 video feed of their life, it is pretty hard to argue that the relatively small amount of data I sell to tech giants should be illegal for me to sell.
That's an interesting point. However, reality TV is no different from biographies, which people have been commissioning since time immemorial. The reason why people don't want to ban biographies is that this market has rarely resulted in systematic exploitation of people or harm to society [1]. Moreover, what is being sold is not usually easily processable data about the star, but a persona whose main value comes from how popular the star is, rather than it being an entry in a database.
On the other hand, the main value of your meta data and social media content comes not on it's own, but as part of the larger database. Each individual person could be locally happy with the sale of data (as are sellers of organs on the black market), but globally, you quickly land in a very suboptimal nash equilibrium, which is plagued by coercive relations.
[1] Though recent trends in the reality tv market or adult streaming market are worrying.
On the other hand, the main value of your meta data and social media content comes not on it's own, but as part of the larger database. Each individual person could be locally happy with the sale of data (as are sellers of organs on the black market), but globally, you quickly land in a very suboptimal nash equilibrium, which is plagued by coercive relations.
[1] Though recent trends in the reality tv market or adult streaming market are worrying.
If someone wants to sell their kidney for money, why should anybody step in to stop them? Advise them of the short-term benefits and the long-term drawbacks and let them make the decision.
Because we should try to protect people from being exploited. You can use this exact same logic to argue against minimum wage, consumer protection laws, building codes, etc.
If someone can point to tangible harm from Google having your data, comparable to subsistence wages or exploding batteries or subsistence wages, or losing an irreplaceable kidney, that would be relevant.
Because it is obviously an unconscionable incentive that would harm the poor and the desperate for the benefit of those with more money.
The difference is in Google is getting our kidneys for free.
There’s a strong argument that is currently is, just sold for $0. (Or negative money if you consider ads)
These sorts of things remind me of standardized tables for insurance payouts for say an eye vs an arm or leg.
Agreed. I also have the feeling that “selling your privacy” as a commodity is not worth whatever measly dividends that could come of it.
So if I write a diary, I can't decide to publish it later, because I would be violating my own privacy?
funny enough bing does offer coupons for searches and possible redemption prizes such as skype credits, xbox and other stuff... too bad bing sucks
This seems a cure to privacy, not necessarily to antitrust. I think most technologists here believe that the current regulatory and legal environment is wholly inadequate in the face of surveillance capitalism and something like your approach is needed to solve it, but it doesn’t seem to pertain to the DOJ’s antitrust complaint.
Lots of businesses have shrunk in the last 20 years. Forcing a big donation to a specific industry seems odd. And can you imagine the whinging if conservatives view the funding as going to left leaning outlets?
Lots of businesses that were direct competitors to the internet.
It makes 0 sense for journalism to shrivel in the age of the internet, it's just dying because its revenue (selling ads, newspaper prices were never what covered expenses) was disconnected from the value it provides.
It's a public service, we should have a way to fund it somehow.
It makes 0 sense for journalism to shrivel in the age of the internet, it's just dying because its revenue (selling ads, newspaper prices were never what covered expenses) was disconnected from the value it provides.
It's a public service, we should have a way to fund it somehow.
I can agree that funding journalism is important. I'd love more government funded work like PBS and NPR. I just see it as independent of this context.
Journalism is also the only main thing that holds lawmakers to account. Lawmakers are what set the rules by which google et al operate.
?? According to TFA, the complaint does not hinge on user metadata harvesting.
Who evaluates the value of metadata?
> Who evaluates the value of metadata?
Currently, users give it away for free, or else they can't access google's services.
Google uses the metadata to supercharge its advertising business, which outperforms all other forms of advertising previously invented, because google knows that ads users will click on as a result of analysing their metadata. William Randolph Hearst, Lord Northcliffe, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and all the other media barons who went before google could only ever dream of this sort of control.
Google's advertising revenue is in the order of $162 billion per year.
Currently, users give it away for free, or else they can't access google's services.
Google uses the metadata to supercharge its advertising business, which outperforms all other forms of advertising previously invented, because google knows that ads users will click on as a result of analysing their metadata. William Randolph Hearst, Lord Northcliffe, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and all the other media barons who went before google could only ever dream of this sort of control.
Google's advertising revenue is in the order of $162 billion per year.
>Currently, users give it away for free, or else they can't access google's services.
More accurate to say that users give it away in exchange for Google's services.
More accurate to say that users give it away in exchange for Google's services.
I think your solution is better than what we currently have, but the real question is whether or not it's better than the DOJ's solution. To compare the two, it is necessary to understand what constitutes metadata and how the monetary value of that metadata would be determined.
> require google to either compensate users for harvesting their metadata
This. Youtubers get compensated, why not ordinary users. Search, shopping and social media is work... It's the current year and billions are stuck home , many without even jobs.
> How would this work?
First you need a legal framework that allows users to sell their metadata. GDPR makes it illegal, but that's wrong. If this data has value (apparently it has a lot of value) , it should be tradeable for services.
Incidentally, i think one of the benefits of the DoJ action is that it gets people talking about solutions that people called 'crazy' until yesterday.
This. Youtubers get compensated, why not ordinary users. Search, shopping and social media is work... It's the current year and billions are stuck home , many without even jobs.
> How would this work?
First you need a legal framework that allows users to sell their metadata. GDPR makes it illegal, but that's wrong. If this data has value (apparently it has a lot of value) , it should be tradeable for services.
Incidentally, i think one of the benefits of the DoJ action is that it gets people talking about solutions that people called 'crazy' until yesterday.
> GDPR makes it illegal, but that's wrong.
Where does the GDPR make that illegal?
Where does the GDPR make that illegal?
Because a business cannot ask for private data in exchange for an unrelated service. The service has to be rendered even in the user does not give them. It can only be part of a contract for which they are necessary
[deleted]
GDPR does not ban selling data. It bans using data as currency.
> The problem is (to steal a phrase from the Complaint) “monopoly rents from advertisers”. Search advertising is a context where you know exactly what the user is looking for, and it’s amazingly effective, and Google enjoys a monopoly, which means they can charge what the market will bear, and they do.
Seems that way. I pay around $0.30/click on keywords with no competitive bids. When I switched to paying per conversion value, I might get days with good value followed by days with terrible value, so that monthly it balances out to maximize my cost/conversion.
Seems that way. I pay around $0.30/click on keywords with no competitive bids. When I switched to paying per conversion value, I might get days with good value followed by days with terrible value, so that monthly it balances out to maximize my cost/conversion.
Asking for relief in a vague generalized form is the general practice in larger complex cases where the relief the claimant would be entitled to depends on the outcome of and findings associated with various claims made. As these become known, parties will be given an opportunity to be more specific about the relief they think is appropriate.
> You can make a case that Web search is a natural monopoly.
Thoughtful article, great writing but help me here: How can a natural monopoly (what ever that means) ever be a good thing?
Imagine if we'd let one company extract, refine and distribute all oil. Or even a monopoly for any one of those three.
Thoughtful article, great writing but help me here: How can a natural monopoly (what ever that means) ever be a good thing?
Imagine if we'd let one company extract, refine and distribute all oil. Or even a monopoly for any one of those three.
> (what ever that means)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
> How can a natural monopoly (what ever that means) ever be a good thing?
Regulating the local phone company responsible for "last mile" wiring as a natural monopoly is why telephone poles no longer look like this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/a8/84/eaa884f82bb111c77c4b...
Also, you probably don't want construction crews digging up your street every time a neighbor decides to switch to a competing water/sewer service.
edit: grammar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
> How can a natural monopoly (what ever that means) ever be a good thing?
Regulating the local phone company responsible for "last mile" wiring as a natural monopoly is why telephone poles no longer look like this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/a8/84/eaa884f82bb111c77c4b...
Also, you probably don't want construction crews digging up your street every time a neighbor decides to switch to a competing water/sewer service.
edit: grammar
Thanks for the Wikipedia link; should've have Googled/Binged/Mojeeked it!
We can have an interesting debate about whether "capital costs predominate". Many have said here they do for crawling/indexing. I don't think that's so clear
We can have an interesting debate about whether "capital costs predominate". Many have said here they do for crawling/indexing. I don't think that's so clear
Colin - a natural monopoly is a pretty well-known economic concept. Essentially, you’re able to form a monopolistic business just by the nature of the business itself - you don’t have to conduct anti-competitive practices or buy out your competitors. For Search it’s straightforward. The more people who search on your platform, the better the results get. Eventually competitors can’t really emerge because the product is too good. This also happens with low costs as well at certain economies of scale.
My argument against breaking up Google would be they face search competition via Amazon, Facebook, and even Apple. But I can see both sides here. That’s what makes it an interesting case!
My argument against breaking up Google would be they face search competition via Amazon, Facebook, and even Apple. But I can see both sides here. That’s what makes it an interesting case!
That's not really what a natural monopoly is. In a natural monopoly, the high barrier to entry means it's essentially wasteful to encourage competition.
For example, imagine operating the first power plant in a desert region. If it's expensive to set up power plants, then there won't be much point in encouraging competition; no one else will want to set up one. The operators of the power plant have a natural monopoly.
It would be better to spend the resources required for a second power plant on servicing customers elsewhere instead of fighting over the same territory — so the monopoly is "good" in the sense that it disincentivizes a bad allocation of capital.
Generally, natural monopolies get regulated (e.g. a power authority blessed by the local government operates the power plant instead of a private firm).
For example, imagine operating the first power plant in a desert region. If it's expensive to set up power plants, then there won't be much point in encouraging competition; no one else will want to set up one. The operators of the power plant have a natural monopoly.
It would be better to spend the resources required for a second power plant on servicing customers elsewhere instead of fighting over the same territory — so the monopoly is "good" in the sense that it disincentivizes a bad allocation of capital.
Generally, natural monopolies get regulated (e.g. a power authority blessed by the local government operates the power plant instead of a private firm).
I disagree with multiple things he said here under the natural monopoly paragraph in terms of cost and capex. Clearly that is a lower barrier today than it was 20 years ago. Bing, Yandex, Duckduckgo* do as good of a job and in some cases much better as Google hamstrings their results. There are vertical markets where other search engines have been doing a better job for over a decade, such as Indeed. (In which case Google leveraging themselves in to those verticals and destroying those businesses for a few extra dollars in very egregious.)
The bigger issue, I believe, is that Google, in its present form in 2020, is not a search engine. It is an ad delivery engine supplemented by organic results which they really do not want users clicking on. The bulk of the searches normal users perform are served ads and those users click on those ads.
Really no analogy here close to something like power lines, a sewer system, or roads.
The bigger issue, I believe, is that Google, in its present form in 2020, is not a search engine. It is an ad delivery engine supplemented by organic results which they really do not want users clicking on. The bulk of the searches normal users perform are served ads and those users click on those ads.
Really no analogy here close to something like power lines, a sewer system, or roads.
How can a natural monopoly (what ever that means) ever be a good thing?
Fair point. The Sherman Act should deal with such control. We'll see!
> The second pushback is along the lines of “... Google is a damn good search engine ... ” ... I agree:
Well, I disagree.
1. It is quite difficult to determine whether a search engine is good or not - without massive resources for surveying. Also, remember that even if one likes the results - they typically don't know which potential results they are _not_ seeing, to compare against.
2. Google is known to suppress search results on political grounds. Specifically, Socialist and anti-Imperialist news and commentary is partially suppressed. This was covered here on HN a few times already, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14975338 ; Google officials mostly keep quiet about this of course, so the breadth and scope are not entirely clear. There's also an NYT story about this and other issues, but it's paywalled: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/technology/google-search-... . I would not at all be surprised if other non-mainstream political views are being suppressed as well.
3. Inherent, over-arcing Biases in Google's ranking: This is a different issue than direct suppression or blocking. Here's I myself am being very anecdotal and speculative, but I have the distinct sense that larger websites get ranked higher by Google, so that for most of a typical person's searches they are likely to stay within a the sphere of, oh, I don't know, a few thousands or tens of thousands of larger sites. Again, anecdotally, when I search duckduckgo I seem to get into the "tail" in terms of site size faster. I may be totally wrong about this but as I said in (1.) we can't really know.
Well, I disagree.
1. It is quite difficult to determine whether a search engine is good or not - without massive resources for surveying. Also, remember that even if one likes the results - they typically don't know which potential results they are _not_ seeing, to compare against.
2. Google is known to suppress search results on political grounds. Specifically, Socialist and anti-Imperialist news and commentary is partially suppressed. This was covered here on HN a few times already, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14975338 ; Google officials mostly keep quiet about this of course, so the breadth and scope are not entirely clear. There's also an NYT story about this and other issues, but it's paywalled: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/technology/google-search-... . I would not at all be surprised if other non-mainstream political views are being suppressed as well.
3. Inherent, over-arcing Biases in Google's ranking: This is a different issue than direct suppression or blocking. Here's I myself am being very anecdotal and speculative, but I have the distinct sense that larger websites get ranked higher by Google, so that for most of a typical person's searches they are likely to stay within a the sphere of, oh, I don't know, a few thousands or tens of thousands of larger sites. Again, anecdotally, when I search duckduckgo I seem to get into the "tail" in terms of site size faster. I may be totally wrong about this but as I said in (1.) we can't really know.
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Abolish antitrust laws. It does nothing but create monopolies.
Milton Friedman on Anti-Trust and Tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlwxdyLnMXM
Milton Friedman on Anti-Trust and Tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlwxdyLnMXM
The world can't wait for this process to take several years. Nor can it gamble on US partisanship in antitrust matters. By the time any antitrust process can have results, the internet economy is destroyed and just serves FAANG, even more than it does already. Maybe the EU is waiting until after US elections, but they absolutely shouldn't put any hope in another administration (who are, after all, partly responsible for this monopolistic situation, and taking money from Google). Just as the digital tax initiative is going nowhere, so will this antitrust process.
It would be worse to do it quick, fuck up and make Google even stronger via regulatory capture or something similar.
And going in second time around would be even more difficult
And going in second time around would be even more difficult
Yes, but a big part of the problem is a lack of agreement about what regulators are actually trying to achieve, and there being a lose coalition of political forces on tech regulation who actually have mutually contradictory goals and just agree on the mechanism.
That is likely to cause significant issues in this process. For example, there is absolutely a political element that seeks to attack the market power of large technology companies because they want to force more control on public speech, and some who want to attack the power in order to explicitly prevent that.
That is likely to cause significant issues in this process. For example, there is absolutely a political element that seeks to attack the market power of large technology companies because they want to force more control on public speech, and some who want to attack the power in order to explicitly prevent that.
In EU, telcos (and energy, etc.) are regulated. I don't see a reason why IT services shouldn't, given that the market is in a dead-end situation. Regulation can cover professional IT services (VMs/pods) as well as social (portability of social accounts, similar to mobile number portability), in addition to DNS, mail-, and web-spaces which are already de-facto regulated. Goal, among other things, is to break verticals, platforms, network effects, similar to net neutrality principles.
You will never be able to convince the American public that the government should control their email, web, social acconts etc. And unfortunately all of these companies are US based and can out fund the EUs lawyers
Maybe I've misunderstood, but regulation doesn't mean gov "controls" email or other accounts. Just means these services must be offered unbundled and non-subsidied (eg without gmail scanning your mails for ad targetting), and be portable among providers, etc.
Can you trust them to not put in unconstitutional bullshit requirements? Forget demanding 24-7 access to them they would probably have fundies putting in filters on "immoral" content knowing it would get struck down by the "godless courts".
I don't want tech regulation because I don't want to be ruled over by complete fucking idiots on subjects they don't understand.
I don't want tech regulation because I don't want to be ruled over by complete fucking idiots on subjects they don't understand.
Also not a lawyer, but I listen to enough law podcasts to make a wild guess: if the lawyers ask for specific structural relief, they constrain what the judge is allowed to do. For example, let's assume they ask for Google to be broken up... If they can't build a case strong enough for that to happen, they get no relief and they wasted the case. Or if they don't ask for Google to be broken up, but they make a strong enough case that a judge could decide that's appropriate, it doesn't matter; plaintiff asked for something else, therefore plaintiff believes that something else makes them whole, therefore that's all the judge can and should do to resolve the case. Remember, the whole point of courts is to keep society humming along by exploring how people have been wronged and righting that wrong, and the plaintiff telling you something rights their wrong is a good primary source.
Asking for "Structural relief as needed to cure any anticompetitive harm" leaves it in the judge's court and grants the saddle-point of maximum potential for disruption to Google and maximum potential for some positive outcome.