I don't think Hanlon's Razor applies to large companies. Individual humans tend to have reasonably powerful moral compass's, but make a lot of mistakes due to lack of information, focus, and error checking. For humans, it makes sense to assume "stupidity" rather than malice. On the other hand, companies like Google have tons of the smartest people in the world making decisions, but they tend to put profit over morality whenever possible. In a sense, they have to, or else they'll be out-competed by someone who does.

For large companies, I would almost go so far as to propose that one should "never attribute to stupidity what can adequately be explained by malice."

I have no opinion about this particular instance. I just find that HN tends to bring up Hanlon's Razor a lot in defense of corporations.

Agreed, but I don't think this sentence is true: "In a sense, they have to, or else they'll be out-competed by someone who does."

No they don't. It would be fine for everyone if instead one of being one of the richest companies in existence they would only make the top 10.

“Google is in an oligopolistic position (along with Facebook)”

The real issue is that too many people are depending on advertising to support their business plan instead of the tried and true - making a product that people are willing to give you money for.

I’m not sure if this is an attempt to troll the thread or your legitimate point of view. If the latter, ads play a major role in the success of man (most?) great products you are currently using because without exposure most people wouldn’t know of their existence.

Sadly, that power clustered towards Google with no oversight whatsoever.

Google will continue to be opaque unless they have oversight/regulations. Something I imagine they spend quite a bit* to prevent in any way possible.

I don’t have any moral issue with using advertising to get your product in front of people. There are many different ways to market besides depending on Google ads.

I have a problem with a business plan that bases your entire revenue stream on Google ads.

Basically you sum up why having 1 major, huge company that supplies a vast array of website coverage, is a bad idea, aka google adsense/doubleclick which powers so many ad networks. Yes there is facebook/twitter and a few others but google is the one with the crazy huge coverage. Also yes there are other formats but we live in a very digital age where it has potentially better returns for less cost when you use google adsense rather than traditional media. When you are a small company these cost differences are a huge deal.

I wonder why more people don't take Google to court over this. Yes, you'd need extraordinary funds to fight them properly, but on the other hand them sending anyone to court will also cost them extraordinary amount of money - so I imagine before they accept any such legal challenge they would ask the CS department to actually have a look at the case first. Having a lawyer send them a letter saying that you are going to take them to court is comparatively cheap compared to having your entire AdSense account shut down.

Sure, if you have an actual colorable claim of a violation of a legal right, wave the threat of court action. But also recognize that that escalation can work two ways...

> but on the other hand them sending anyone to court will also cost them extraordinary amount of money

Alphabet has $117 billion cash on hand, they can handle the cost. In fact, they can handle the cost of a scorched earth defense more easily than the cost of getting a reputation for rolling over everytime someone waves the threat of a small claims action.

> so I imagine before they accept any such legal challenge they would ask the CS department to actually have a look at the case first.

More likely, once they get that kind of letter, the legal department will probe the CS records of related to the issue to determine the legal position. They might then suggest just giving you want you want, or they might then send you a nice letter from their attorney about how they are prepared to make a claim for (e.g.) civil fraud for the deceptive action that they were previously willing to leave with an account termination, and that if they do so it will far exceed the small claims limit and they will use that counterclaim to move to transfer your case out of small claims.

Bank accounts and credit cards work very differently in making payments. Getting an ACH transaction disputed is far more time consuming and difficult. Fat fingering a bank account number number and not triple checking it for an ACH payment isn't something I would just shrug off.