The Antitrust Showdown - U.S. Government v. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, et al.

[Admin]

Let's not start a flame war about ruby vs. PHP?

Also, Shevy, shape up your forum posting. This isn't 1990's netmail on a green terminal. Several people have already asked that you adjust how you post and quote because it directly interferes with how people use the forum's content. Don't ignore that.
Also, keep things on-topic to threads you post in, if you will.

[gi_jimbo]

I don't suppose there's been any more news on this since Aug?
Also please, please keep things on topic. I know this is the off-topic forum but at least the threads themselves should be kept on-topic shouldn't they?

Off-topic:
It's frustrating when people post news articles related to the topic and get shamed for their sources. As others said, where the article is from really shouldn't matter as long as reliable sources are cited. There's no getting away from opinion based news now days and we should all come to terms with that. In light of this, everyone is free to fact check news sources which is why cited sources are so useful. I know I'm way more ready to trust a news source that links directly to its sources than one that doesn't. If you don't like the political leanings or views of a particular source, everyone's better off if you just keep that opinion to yourself so there's less unproductive/useless inciting noise to worry about.

[Moonchild]

I don't know what the progress, if any, is, in the United States. Google has been given pretty much a few years of "do whatever you want" by having it not go to court until 2023, last i heard. That leeway is being used by making it exceedingly hard for any competition to survive. When it does go to court, it'll likely be watered down to the "unfair ads policy" and will maybe get a few large fines that will be a slap on the wrist for a multi-trillion dollar conglomerate, and otherwise have a lot of data thrown out the window because the relevancy can be contested if it's only of historical reference to how the internet is at that time.

I.e.: I think unless something drastic happens, this will be one for anecdotal reference at most. A dystopian future seems increasingly likely.

[gi_jimbo]

Dang, that's unfortunate.

[Tharthan]

I don't know what the progress, if any, is, in the United States.

unless something drastic happens

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/31/2022-wi ... -tech.html

Proposals to update competition law, establish online privacy rights and protect kids from harm on the internet have broad bipartisan support. But persisting differences on the best way to craft those laws as well as the presence of many other pressing legislative priorities have so far kept many significant bills from advancing.

[...]

A package of tech-focused antitrust bills has already crossed a major hurdle in the House, advancing with bipartisan votes out of the Judiciary committee.

[...]

The bills were born out of a 16-month investigation by the subcommittee into the competitive practices of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, which found each wields monopoly power and recommended legislative changes to promote competition in digital markets.

[...]

Meanwhile, antitrust regulators will [—separately from Congress—] continue to forge ahead in 2022, with the FTC and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division each gaining [new] chiefs this year in Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, respectively. They each inherited major lawsuits and probes into Big Tech companies that are expected to continue under their watch.

[Moonchild]

Yeah and it still won't go to court until 2023 at least.
All that article states is that "things are still active" but doesn't actually show any progress.

Also, there is no reason why the committee needed 16 months to get to the point where they are now. In Nov 2020 they had all the details to move forward but... didn't.

[Tharthan]

Yeah and it still won't go to court until 2023 at least.

If bipartisan antitrust bills from Congress—pretty publicised (which they definitely would be, just on the fact that they would be actually something bipartisan!) and with the approval of the president —are passed and signed into law this year, that could potentially swiften the time of the lawsuit getting underway, yes, perhaps even early on in 2023.

But depending upon what are in the exact bills that would be passed, it is possible that certain restrictions could be enacted in the meantime on monopolistic megacorps in question that could end up being of assistance to us.

Let us hope so.

[gi_jimbo]

Here's an awesome link I found on DuckDuckGo for calling the congressmen of your state.
https://www.antitrustday.org/call/

[Tharthan]

Here are some recent updates on the matter:

https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/doj-will-sue-google-over-ad-tech-business-in-september-report-says/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/browsers-are-back-in-the-antitrust-hot-seat-11660815001

[moonbat]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/browsers-a ... 1660815001

Archive version for those who get paywalled. And yet they miss the most important fact - that Chrome's rendering engine Blink is what powers every so called independent browser other than this one and Chromezilla.

[Mæstro]

Off-topic:
I have often tried and failed to tell what appeal or redeeming value (if any) journalism has, when it is worse than worthless for learning new things. By this, I mean ordinary newspapers, broadcasts like the BBC or DW and so on. (Gazettes, announcements like Pale Moon’s and other primary sources have clear enough reasons to exist, as do hobby zines and the like.) Propagandism is the only explanation I have yet understood, but this fails to show why the layman draws to it. I want to be more charitable than assuming it is mere conditioning.

[Moonchild]

Off-topic:

I have often tried and failed to tell what appeal or redeeming value (if any) journalism has, when it is worse than worthless for learning new things.

It's not the primary purpose of journalism to be educational. Its primary purpose is to inform. To report on events in an as objective and truthful manner as possible. That is why I think the only real journalism is investigative journalism: actually doing the research that readers won't have the capability to do or to make things known to the public that would otherwise remain hidden due to obscurity or information control.
You can't expect every reader of articles to do the impossible task of first off finding news themselves and then finding the time and capacity to investigate it. that is why it's important that journalism be factual first and foremost, and truthful. Many people rely on a journalist's reporting. I don't call that conditioning; I call that trusting the herald.

[athenian200]

Off-topic:
I have often tried and failed to tell what appeal or redeeming value (if any) journalism has, when it is worse than worthless for learning new things. By this, I mean ordinary newspapers, broadcasts like the BBC or DW and so on. (Gazettes, announcements like Pale Moon’s and other primary sources have clear enough reasons to exist, as do hobby zines and the like.) Propagandism is the only explanation I have yet understood, but this fails to show why the layman draws to it. I want to be more charitable than assuming it is mere conditioning.

Off-topic:
There was a very brief time in history where journalism was actually somewhat reliable and stuck to the facts. It was influenced by the modernist mode of thinking. Unfortunately, modernism seems to be collapsing, and with it the notion of objective and universal truths. Things have come full circle back to journalism being basically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

[Tharthan]

Axios recently interviewed the outgoing congressman who chaired the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel. He said:

The challenge we face is while everyone was asleep at the switch, there has been so much consolidation that there's just so much work ahead.

[...]

We knew this would be complicated and hard, and that's why we launched an investigation[.] Our [subsequent] report has been cited all over the world, and we passed five bipartisan pieces of legislation out of committee.

[...]

[W]e underestimated [...] how difficult it would be to get all of our colleagues up to speed[...][.] We went member by member, either me or [my Republican counterpart on the subcommittee] or one of our staff and offered briefings to everyone.

The tech companies benefited from the fact that this is complicated, and they were constantly sharing information which was just not correct.

[...]

If you have more competition, you have other platforms that would be offering you greater levels of security, privacy, etc.

There was also one question in the Axios article that was of particular note:

[Q.] [The Senate Majority Leader] said he was going to bring the antitrust bills to the floor for a vote last summer. That didn't happen. What happened there?

[A.] I don't know what really happened there. We had the votes to pass our bills in the House. The Senate had the votes.

I never received an explanation, and no one ever explained why it didn't happen. I acknowledge I don't exactly know the way the Senate operates, and their calendars.

But there's no good reason to me for why it didn't happen. It was really disappointing[...][.] There will eventually be political consequences if people don't do this.

The article also notes that the party currently in control of the House of Representatives, although having some members in Congress who are open to antitrust legislation, has a leadership that is very much in the pocket of BIg Tech. Thus antitrust legislation is unfortunately unlikely to proceed with any swiftness anytime soon.

NOTE

To put my cards on the table: I am a political moderate and an independent. I don't support either of the major U.S. political parties, and in fact do not really believe in political parties in general.

My statement noting that those currently calling the shots in the House of Representatives appear to be very unsympathetic to antitrust ought not to be taken as an endorsement for the other political party in American politics. As I said, I support neither political party——indeed, no political party.

In other news:

CNBC published an article recently, detailing the FTC chair's recent comments on antitrust.

She tried to frame the antitrust question in a way that would appeal to the broader American populace. It is very unfortunate that "more competition = A. more options for consumers, and B. a heightened need for businesses to actually respond to consumer criticism" is somehow not enough of a compelling argument to convince the average American today to get behind antitrust.

The tech industry often points to the threat of China catching up to U.S. technologies as an argument against more aggressive enforcement against them.[...]

“What history and experience have shown us is what best positions the United States to compete internationally, to stay ahead internationally, is making sure that we are a home for innovation,” Khan said in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “And what best produces breakthrough innovations, cutting edge technologies, is competition. I think we’ve seen time and time again monopolies and incumbent firms arguing that they need to preserve their monopoly to make sure that the U.S. stays ahead. But historically the U.S. has instead enforced competition laws, enforced antitrust and that is what has led us to be the home of cutting-edge technologies.”

Khan offered an example of two historic tech antitrust cases in the last century, those of IBM and AT&T. In AT&T’s case, Khan noted that the government’s requirement that the telecom firm open its “patent vault ... led to decades and decades of innovation.”

“I think we saw that Silicon Valley was birthed in the wake of strong competition and antitrust enforcement,” Khan added. “And so I think we need to be very wary of arguments that it’s really monopoly that’s going to best position us to thrive internationally when time and time again we’ve seen the exact opposite.”

[Moonchild]

Just to provide a small window on what is going on from my side having been a participant in the DoJ investigation of Google regarding the advertising antitrust case, I thought I'd provide a small update as to the status of this:

The case is 1:23-cv-00108-LMB-JFA for anyone who wants to look up the public documents.

• On 04 April 2023, a protective order was issued in this case to provide protection in the discovery phase to people including myself who have provided testimony about Google's past behviour. This is an order that prevents Google from using this information for purposes outside of the ongoing litigation (protection of witnesses and experts).
• On 05 June 2023, magistrate judge John Anderson signed an order for coordination of discovery for various districts to combine their litigation discovery in so-called Multi-District Litigation (MDL). This means that there will be a coordnated effort of multiple legal districts pooling their discovery to bring this case to court (that's a good thing).

The gears of the US legal system are turning in the right direction, albeit slowly. After discovery is when the actual case can be presented in court in the next phase.

[Sajadi]

What i really would love to see is Chromium forcefully split off from Google the hard way. Google no longer being the owner of Chromium would be a VERY good thing.

[Tharthan]

I am glad that you are still involved in this case, Moonchild.

Given that no matter how the case goes, the results will have an impact on the future of the Internet and computing, you being someone who has provided testimony is very valuable. You are willing to call Google out for its shenanigans in a way that most others are very hesitant to do. Not to mention that the Pale Moon community's history of dealing with them over the years is no doubt a testament to just how anti-competitive Google is and how much their monopoly is bad for consumers.

[Moonchild]

You are willing to call Google out for its shenanigans in a way that most others are very hesitant to do.

I think that is primarily because most in the space, one way or another, depend on Google for their presence.

As some who have been around long enough already know, Google has no qualms trying to undermine projects by cutting off any funding that comes through them when they don't like the competition it creates. I sidestepped this by accepting a vastly smaller funding base for the project to preserve independence (by no longer using Google for income). Thanks to the support of individual donors we are remaining afloat, but of course there is very little room for expansion or targeted expenses without considerable funding (DDG does not count as such in its current state and in fact crossed into the "insufficient" territory).

the Pale Moon community's history of dealing with them over the years is no doubt a testament to just how anti-competitive Google is...

The difficulty is that it also needs to stick in court for anything to be done. Since the court case is still focusing on advertising practices, I don't think the anti-competition in the software development arena will be addressed.

Google no longer being the owner of Chromium would be a VERY good thing.

I'm afraid Google is very well-positioned for that to not actually being an issue. Look at Mozilla. Google has zero ownership rights but influences all core decisions for Gecko in major ways. So what would Chromium's development group become then? Would they somehow not follow Google's leads and incentives? I doubt that.

[Potkeny]

What i really would love to see is Chromium forcefully split off from Google the hard way. Google no longer being the owner of Chromium would be a VERY good thing.

Kind of off-topic, but..

Off-topic:
Remember Client Hints, the awesome "totally not User-Agent strings" google-"feature"? Not surprising anyone, of course it's used to block browsers based on that, even chromium-based ones.. for the fun of it, I guess? So naturally browsers fake it, just like they did with UA. Can't wait for the next iteration by google to make it harder to fake..

Back in 2019, we were forced to change our User-Agent strings for better site compatibility. Now, some websites continue to block us based on their Client Hints.

We’d love to announce ourselves as Vivaldi, but the current state of the web makes this difficult. Therefore, we are masquerading as competitors to benefit our users.

I sadly have my doubts that even splitting chromium away from google would be enough.