To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

Re:To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public by martin_drapeau on Monday July 15, 2019 @11:40AM (#20441864)

The article mentions a precedent: "in the 1956 consent decree in the U.S. in which AT&T agreed to share all its patents with other companies free of charge."

Today the picture is completely different. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are global - their infrastructure is virtual - not physical lines and cables. If a government wants to cause harm to one of those companies, they can decide to "move" somewhere else.

In addition GAFA is capturing dollars from everywhere in the world and bringing it to the US. It's in the US governments interest to tread softly here. No matter how the media spins things, GAFA is great for the US economy.

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Re:To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public by learnfromstory on Monday July 15, 2019 @11:58AM (#20442015)

Uh no. Google has hundreds of billions of dollars invested in real non-virtual assets, majority of which are in the USA.

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Re:To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public by martin_drapeau on Monday July 15, 2019 @12:32PM (#20442418)

Sure, however they are not directly tied to their bread and butter - pay per click. They could over time divest and move data centers and jobs elsewhere without directly affecting revenues. Would be painful and risky but feasible.

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