Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech bills

Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by jeffbee on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:43PM (#29986374)

It seems pretty specific to me. If Congress writes a law that says Google can't integrate hours of operation into Google Maps, they have to defer to Yelp, that harms consumers and only helps Yelp. Viewed through that lens, you can and should think of these bills as Yelp welfare.

If you are a big fan of Yelp I guess that's OK for you, but most of us can see that it's a scam.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by betwixthewires on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:51PM (#29986479)

But it isn't true, I can see an equally likely scenario where Google has to offer its POI maps data to other search engines, making the overall search experience better, to stay competitive.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by endisneigh on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @05:01PM (#29986634)

That doesn’t make any sense. What precedent is there for this sort of action? Do we really want the government to be micro managing the features of online services?

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by betwixthewires on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @05:08PM (#29986723)

Precedent? What about Microsoft being forced not to cripple browsers other than IE in windows? That's the most prominent recent example.

Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it makes no sense at all.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by endisneigh on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @05:19PM (#29986859)

That's not the same as what the parent said at all. When has the government ever forced one company to offer data to another one?

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by ancientsofmumu on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @05:31PM (#29987026)

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 did just that, forcing data interoperability between the carriers.

Thus, another key provision of the 1996 Act sets obligations for incumbent carriers and new entrants to interconnect their networks with one another, imposing additional requirements on the incumbents because they might desire to restrict competitive entry by denying such interconnection or by setting terms, conditions, and rates that could undermine the ability of the new entrants to compete.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by endisneigh on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @07:20PM (#29988170)

There's certainly no consensus that what it did was good, and interconnection isn't the same as forcing one provider to literally give data to another.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by webmaven on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @08:46PM (#29988813)

> There's certainly no consensus that what it did was good, and interconnection isn't the same as forcing one provider to literally give data to another.

How about number portability?

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by betwixthewires on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @10:20PM (#29989541)

What about just forcing them to open the API to search competitors?

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by srcreigh on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @08:20PM (#29988627)

Really, government loosening control of web browsers in windows is an indirect way of forcing MS to give data to other companies. With hindsight MS could have made all the same arguments we hear today about protecting users from invasive privacy violations involved in web browsers.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by ocdtrekkie on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @09:45PM (#29989287)

If I recall, the government required AOL Instant Messenger to operate as an interoperable system, which is why for a while, other messengers could talk back and forth with AIM.

Imagine if the same quality government regulation required the same of Facebook Messenger or Twitter or Google Hangouts.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by frabcus on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:51PM (#29986485)

Only if they don’t innovate.

They could create a search marketplace for providing high quality hours of operation services, and let multiple providers compete for it.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by jsnell on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @05:37PM (#29987108)

Ok. So in your new framework, who would be choosing which provider is used, how are the prices set, and who would be compensating the provider? No end user will agree to pay for this data. But you can't have the payer be different from the decision maker.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by frabcus on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @06:04PM (#29987410)

By "they" I meant Google - instead of embedding just their own services in the SERP.

I guess it could be a marketplace made by the industry as a whole or regulated by government.

But yes, you’re right this needs thought.

Developing good regulations is a skill. It happens all over the world in all industries - we need to encourage it to be done well and to iterate and copy practices that work well.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by KoftaBob on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:54PM (#29986525)

> If Congress writes a law that says Google can't integrate hours of operation into Google Maps

I don't get where Google is even getting that scenario from. Where in the antitrust laws does it specify rules that would result in that?

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by echelon on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:49PM (#29986463)

And what happens when Google becomes the operating system for the world and you have to do everything through Google?

Competition is incredibly important.

Imagine if Microsoft hadn't been anti-trusted and didn't have to unbundle the web, pay Apple for their malfeasance, etc. We wouldn't have iPhone / Android.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by bennysomething on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @05:11PM (#29986760)

You think the reason for Android and iPhone is Microsoft anti trust? Why? The final settlement didn't amount to much

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....

If anything it proves that we didn't need anti trust action, the market took care of itself. Microsoft stagnated, Steve Jobs returned to Apple and innovated, Google had a great search algorithm and piggy backed their infrastructure on free software (Linux) and then ripped off apples design for phone software.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by coliveira on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:48PM (#29986440)

But yelp is not the only company that can compile hours of operation. However, if Google is able to integrate all that into the same product, there will be no yelp or yelp competitor to talk about.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by avirut on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:58PM (#29986586)

But as a consumer it's very nice to have hours of operation, directions, phone numbers, and reviews all in one place that's linked to my search engine.

I can see how, if Google's top priority is turning a profit, Google having a product so data-rich and unified that it leaves no room for competitors is bad for consumers in the long term. On the other hand, the most desirable option would be a reliably "benevolent" mega-corp that could be trusted to prioritize the user experience while also horizontally integrating across product segments to create a unified service.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by passivate on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @09:01PM (#29988929)

>the most desirable option would be a reliably "benevolent" mega-corp that could be trusted to prioritize the user experience while also horizontally integrating across product segments to create a unified service.

Why is that desirable? Its not to me. The most desirable outcome is open data exchange standards that allow data exchange so that ANYONE can build such a service.

Google locks-up publicly available data and they subsidize/price dump to offer services at no-cost so other players die out leaving them to manipulate the market as they see fit. Its the worst possible outcome for everyone involved.

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Re:Google: The harmful consequences of Congress’s anti-tech ... by jeffbee on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @06:33PM (#29987716)

From a consumer perspective the death of Yelp is something to be greatly desired. That's the anti-trust perspective of the USA over the last 40 years.

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