On May 15, 1911 Standard Oil was ordered to be broken up. Before May 15, 2018 will Google face a mandated great divide of its own?
On May 15, 1911 Standard Oil was ordered to be broken up. Before May 15, 2018 will Google face a mandated great divide of its own?
Before 1918? Probably not.
But if you meant to type 2018, there’s s a chance. When the EU went after Google I didn’t care. But Google firing Damore changed my views.
The tech giants as a group appear to be acting as a ‘monopoly’. Example: Apple is getting paid billions by google to have google the default search engine on Iphone. Yes, they should be broken up. I also would not be surprised if Apple and Google did something to encourage app developers to avoid Blackberry when BB10 came out and basically died in infancy.
If it’s going to be done, it better be done before the next election.
I wonder if companies using things like Google Cloud might be considering alternatives. Nice virtual machine you got there. Would be a shame if anything happened to it. I could see Google interfering with or just outright shutting down Cloud services for companies deemed to be insufficiently woke.
you people are anti-Semitic, and hate the owners of these tech-shitholes
I thought this was a free enterprise conservative website. I guess successful innovation and corporations can only be tolerated to a ‘limited’ degree.
Until they become agents of fascism.
Conservatism does not support monopolies and breaking up monopolies spurs cxompetition and innovation. im not a big fan of it but in rare cases such as this i agree.
google,netflix,youtube all join forces thats trillions of dollars they could literally buy and own 90% of all tech companies and developers and hold everyone ransome that they dont like.
They broke up ATT and then let it put itself back together again. I am much more tolerant of monopolies that develop by innovation and internal growth than I am by those that developed by mergers. Mergers, by their very nature, are a deliberate attempt to lessen competition. If a company like Google breaks trust with the people, turn it into bits.
Typical lefty response. Doesn’t require a lot of thought. Free enterprise implies the need for free and vigorous competition. When an oligopoly conspires to limit competition, it’s no longer free enterprise. Depending on exact circumstances, it MAY require intervention.
” . . . corporations can only be tolerated to a ‘limited’ degree.”
Corporations are ‘limited’ as a privilege granted by government. Unlike a partnership, it’s the only way they can even exist.
So, yeah.
Okay, NME666, I am a bit puzzled. To which people are you referring (“you people”) as being anti-Semitic, and to which comments are you referring that would indicate that bias? I want to know because you are painting a whole lot of unnamed people with a very wide brush and I don’t think that there is evidence in the current comments that give credence to your statement.
He doesn’t paint, he trolls, just ignore.
What, exactly, is capitalistic about monopolistic behavior? The “tech heads” I read here who defend Google’s and Amazon’s monopolies and illegal behaviour … were the same people SCREAMING for Microsoft’s head on a plate during the 1980’s when they monopolized operating systems by embedding Windows (among other programs) on every piece of hardware sold in America. Only a fledgling Apple, near bankruptcy and irrelevance before they rehired Steve Jobs, offered a viable option (on a completely different hardware platform). Under threat of Sherman Antitrust proceedings, Bill Gates agreed to a series of changes insisted upon by Bill Clinton’s Justice Dept.
https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact
These “tech-heads” repeatedly reminded the public that Linux was a far superior operating system that the public simply didn’t have access to … because of Intel (and others) collusion with MS. Google and Amazon are “classic” monopolies that are indeed … “evil” … despite slogans to the contrary. I sincerely hope that Mr Sessions has put his attorneys to work drafting Sherman Anti-trust and RICO statute proceedings against these two monopolies … and Facebook as well. Time to Bust their Trusts.
I thought this was Kate’s blog.
Don’t forget that Bill Gates all of a sudden created a social justice foundation and all the investigations in the US and Europe suddenly disappeared. I suspect there was a big shakedown behind the scenes.
As for Google, they own the operating system, the search engine, the platforms for content delivery, the distribution of apps, and control the monetization of content. They have clearly been manipulating the above for their own benefit and to the detriment of others and society.
AT&T was actually broken up over the choice of phones they offered customers. They did a bulk purchase of the old black bricks and had them in inventory when phone manufacturers started to add new colors, features, and form factors. AT&T refused to offer them to customers as an option until they had exhausted inventory of the black bricks, and that was sufficient proof of them unfairly stifling competition.
Not sure there is a case to be made against Amazon, despite how evil they may be. Probably a large factor in Bezos spending 250 million so he could lose tens of millions annually on the WaPo though.
I thought this was a free enterprise conservative website. I guess successful innovation and corporations can only be tolerated to a ‘limited’ degree.
Conservatives want limited government and limited corporations. It seems the left want big powerful government and the right want big powerful corporation.
These media companies used free enterprise to get started and are now censoring and banning conservatives to stop a political ideology that is “trumping” their leftist government they want in place. So they are now just an arm of a political party.
I find much of the thought process being used in this argument a bit of a stretch. Amazon has delivered huge value to shareholders and the buying public. It has reinvested earnings into further development. It is a huge disrupter in almost any industry it touches. Branded as a monopoly because of the capital they invested in their delivery system. Their sales are maybe 20% of Walmart’s and yet no cry for Walmart being broken up.
This all rings of greed and envy IMHO. You took your chances in developing your companies and now we want the freebie of using your innovations for free or at a deep discount. The fairer discussion would be that society has decided to expropriate your intellectual development. Let us sit down and discuss compensation. Who cares where that puts American investment over the long term.
This reeks of a trivialization of R & D and the accompanying risk. Are the attacks on big Pharma any different? After all we know that big Pharma are making huge profits and that their drugs should be automatically available. The idea that most drug research never ends up as a marketable product is irrelevant.
As for Google, they own the operating system
No, they don’t. Android is open source. That’s why you can buy cheap Chinese smartphones for $50. The barrier to entry for creating a smartphone is mostly due to the hardware R&D costs, not software development or licensing.
the search engine
No, they don’t. There are three major competitors. There is no artificial barrier to entry for creating your own search engine; Google does not control Internet service providers or data centers.
the platforms for content delivery
No, they don’t. Amazon Web Services is only the most notable competitor in the hosting and CDN market; there are literally dozens in the top tier, and thousands of mom and pop shops.
the distribution of apps
No, they don’t. Amazon has an Android app store, Apple has an app store on their own platform, and all you have to do is check one box on an Android phone to install apps the same way you do on a PC, by downloading the APK and tapping it.
and control the monetization of content.
No, they don’t. Google AdWords and AdSense are far from the only pay-per-view ad networks in existence. In response to YouTube changing their monetization rules, Steemit popped up almost literally overnight.
“I don’t understand how the magical wizard boxes work” is not a valid argument for government intervention in a private company’s operations. Google is not a monopoly, and is not operating in a monopolistic fashion. If they were exploiting their browser and search dominance to, say, make it impossible for you to search for “alternatives to Google” or download a different browser, or strongarm cell phone providers into only distributing a locked-down version of Google that could only install apps from the Play Store (psst, Apple already does that), then you might have a case for monopolistic practices.
But they aren’t doing that. At best, they’re doing the exact same thing a newspaper does: filtering the news in accordance with their editorial slant, and firing people who don’t hew to the corporate orthodoxy.
There is a new word for those in this category.
FAANG’s Stock Prices Can Continue To Climb Higher
“Until they become agents of fascism.”
Bingo!
It is; what’s your point? When has Kate espoused anti-semitic comments?
(Trust me, I’d have noticed and been long gone.)
Wow, were you mislead.
My comment was after reading this written by CT:
I thought this was a free enterprise conservative website. I guess successful innovation and corporations can only be tolerated to a ‘limited’ degree.
It got swallowed up in what followed afterwards.
God, in His Heaven, don’t toss me in with anything like that. My best friends were the Cohen family (all branches) when they lived in my small town. And to go further (like it’s getting to the point we have to begin saying “I’m not with them.”) my mother was the first person to have had black guests from Bermuda within a few thousand miles radius.
I think there’s a new T-shirt meme here somewhere. Something simple like:
“NOT ME”
Bezos is trying to control the government of the people through his ownership of the Washington Post which is being used as a hydraulic cannon spewing every vile lie that can be imagined to undermine and topple the duly elected President Of the US Donald Trump.
Every Republican should end every floor speech with ” …and Jeff Bezos must be destroyed.”
Government intervention is a cure that’s worse than the disease. Monopoly can only exist with government help, and any such “help” here can be twisted to bring the opposite result of what you want.
Google is not a monopoly, and is not operating in a monopolistic fashion
I stand corrected. I’ve just found out that Google dropped the Gab.ai app from the Play store on the claim that it promotes “hate speech”, which is transparent BS[1].
Google still doesn’t have a monopoly, and their social network is DOA, but excluding competitors’ products from a platform they have significant control over counts as “monopolistic behaviour” under US law and this needs to be reversed.
[1] One reason people need to stop shrieking “We need a conservative alternative to…” is that far too many countries have hate speech laws that can be used to shut down such a service on the flimsiest of pretexts, and potential shareholders know this. If you want to start “a conservative alternative to…” you’re going to have to do it in a country with Wild West communications laws, decent Internet infrastructure, and your own money. And be prepared to lose it all when the FBI seizes your domain.