Strictly speaking, it is over the companies monopoly in search. Google also lives in other markets where there is competition, so this may be about those markets not search.

Google is a monopoly in most of those verticals too.

A common antitrust concern is about leveraging a monopoly in one area to gain oversized advantage in another.

Yes, but that doesn't give the DOJ a free ride to use an antitrust trial in one area to punish a company in other more competitive areas by revealing trade secrets. That is extrajudicial, and not far off from a dirty cop harassing an innocent party "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride". The trial itself should not be a punishment under a half-decent justice system.

But companies also shouldn't get a free ride with "trade secret." At some level, they are free to pick their defense.

And, charity to the actual ruling, I'm assuming that better arguments were made behind closed doors to get to this point? I don't think it should be a problem to have parts of the process closed, at all. I do find it odd to have such a large blockout, though.

> But companies also shouldn't get a free ride with "trade secret"

They don't - the judge determines what should be sealed by weighing public interest against potential harm. In this instance, the article author disagrees with the judge's decisions.

Right, which is why I had my second paragraph. It is far too easy to assume the pedal is completely moved to one end.

I think it is fair to question judgements of people. Even judges and article authors.

Do we have any way of assessing how fair these judgements were? Do you have any way of showing that the DOJ was trying to get a "free ride" on revealing trade secrets?

But Google probably have a lot of data about their competitors that they would like to present to the judges. Making that data public would make it look like Google is smearing the competition, I can see why a judge would agree to keep that secret.

For example, Apple maybe had an auction to bid for default search spot on their platforms. Google bid the highest as we know, but we don't know what the competition bid and Google probably want to present that as evidence that this was just a normal auction similar to bidding for advertisement spots. For example, if Bing bid 90% of the current Google bid, then it is pretty clear that Google wasn't paying Apple to keep competition out but rather paying Apple for a premium spot in a fair market.

Nobody argues that Apple is anti competitive when they pay Google to put ads on top of certain search results, so why would Google be anti competitive when they pay Apple for a premium spot? They don't pay Apple to keep others out, just for the premium spot, you can still use other search engines.

To beat China and their unacceptable values we must become china

No, we must beat them by showing the world that there's a better way. Unfortunately, allowing our corporations to take a shit on the rules of law and get their way in court because "trade secrets" is more like China than we'd like to admit.

This is akin to "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". Special rules for special corporations who cry "trade secrets" when called out for bad behavior. Yuck.

In practice, what happens is that these values are slowly made more acceptable. "Think of the children" to make privacy violation more acceptable; "They are terrorists" to make human rights violations more acceptable; "Drain the swamp" or "The election was stolen" to make insurrection more acceptable; "Protect our women" to make transphobia more acceptable. That kinda thing. It's happening everywhere.

> In practice, what happens is that these values are slowly made more acceptable.

> "Protect our women" to make transphobia more acceptable.

This is itself a reaction to unacceptable values being imposed, namely that a subset of men should be allowed to disregard women's boundaries and consent with impunity.

The pushback is because so many women are standing up and saying no, we don't accept this incursion on our rights and dignity.

I can help! Stop insisting that trans women are men, then there is no problem.

They are men, whether you like it or not. Men who desire to be women, or who just call themselves women, for whatever reason.

No-one should be compelled to accept a false, reality-denying belief as if it were true. This absurd assertion that some men are women is a particularly pernicious falsehood.

Why is that particularly pernicious?

You act like that's settled fact. It's just your opinion.

The opinion itself isn't the problem, it's when you want to hurt an out-group that it becomes a problem. Personally, I despise a bully, especially am adult one.

On your opinion, it takes no account of edge cases. Occasionally, humans are born with XXY chromosomes. Occasionally humans are born with both male and female genitals. Occasionally humans are born chimaeric, with different DNA in different parts of their bodies. It's biological fact that the distinction between male and female is blurry.

We're on HN, I expect you already know this. If you didn't know this, then, you're one of today's lucky 10,000.

Either way, your opinion is not based in fact. I take it you'll be a little less rigid on this topic?

You have conflated two groups of people: those with rare disorders of sexual development, and men who demand access to women's and girls' spaces while pretending to be women.

Using the existence of the former group as a rhetorical shield for the intrusive behaviour of the latter isn't at all convincing.

It's quite clear from your comments that you elevate male desires above the dignity and safety of women. I hope you can reflect on your misogyny and perhaps even start to respect women as equals rather than second class citizens to be subjugated to the wants of men.

And you conflate your opinion with justification to dictate how others live.

Your accusation of misogyny is disingenuous and offensive, and I won't have it.

The fucking irony, after you had the brass neck to open with "protect women" - sir, the set of people railing against trans women using the women's loo is a neat overlap with apologists for Trump perving on girls in their dressing rooms.

We're defining other people in opposition to their self-image here, right?

CSA correlates strongly with authoritarianism. If you want to protect girls, drown a right-winger.

We're done.

Well, at least we have common ground in our opposition to right-wing politics and the behaviour of its acolytes.

I urge you to read, with an open mind, what gender-critical and radical feminist women have to say, both on this issue and more broadly.

It is my hope that you find these female-centred perspectives to be more enlightening than what either of the male-dominated progressive or conservative political blocs exclaim.

Hold on - you're cruel because _sociology_ told you to be?

And at no point did you notice you were stanford-prisoning?

And you're so invested in your identity that you're willing to degrade and humiliate another human being? One who's been bullied all their life? And you think you're NOT right wing?

No, I don't think you and I have any common ground.

I see your account is brand new. Welcome to hacker news, assuming you're not merely dodging a ban. Identity politics, bashing minorities, accusations founded or unfounded - these are not welcome here. I doubt I'll be the last person to tell you that.

>namely that a subset of men should be allowed to disregard women's boundaries and consent with impunity.

What?

> > namely that a subset of men should be allowed to disregard women's boundaries and consent with impunity

> What?

Men who desire to be women forcing their way into women's and girls' spaces, and who keep advocating for the law to be changed, where it isn't already, so they can keep getting away with this.

> Wait. What? An "anti-trust" trial against one of the five trillion dollar company in the world abusing its monopoly power is taken seriously on its claim it could cause "competitive harm"? Catch 22.

I don’t see the catch 22? Google is entitled to a legal presumption of innocence like any other organization, so the court can’t yet make decisions based on the premise that it is abusing its alleged monopoly power. It’s important for courts to avoid the perception that merely being the target of a lawsuit is a punishment, although of course in many ways it is.

I'm not saying that they are guilty.

But the judge shouldn't be completely oblivious of Alphabet's past history and its role as a "key market player" and just taking the claims at face value.

The argumentation doesn't sound very balanced tbh. More like: that's way above my league and I don't want to be the one jeopardizing national security, so I have to trust you on that.

In a sense, this is an admission that Alphabet is way to "big" already to be treated as an "ordinary company" which makes a due process a more complicated matter, euphemistically speaking.

That's the way I read it, I might be wrong.

This was even worse in the case against MS. They were, somehow, taken at face value that they would not abuse purchasing Activision. For... reasons?

> I don’t see the catch 22? Google is entitled to a legal presumption of innocence like any other organization,

There's no presumption of innocence in civil matters.

Since this is being tried entirely as a civil matter (and not as a criminal case, as far as I am aware[1]), there's no presumption of innocence, no "beyond reasonable doubt", there's only "preponderance of evidence".

[1] Unless it really is being brought to the court by the state prosecution, in which case it probably is a criminal matter.

If I need the preponderance of the evidence to find you liable, you were presumed not liable. Obviously the presumption is not as strong as clear and convincing or reasonable doubt, but there’s no reason to say that there is no presumption of a sense of liability under this standard.

> If I need the preponderance of the evidence to find you liable, you were presumed not liable. Obviously the presumption is not as strong as clear and convincing or reasonable doubt, but there’s no reason to say that there is no presumption of a sense of liability under this standard.

Preponderance doesn't mean "a lot", it means "more than the opposing evidence", and during a trial the balance sways between both parties multiple times.

There is no presumption of innocence, as all it takes is for one party to make a claim and the other party to not explicitly deny that claim for the balance of probabilities to be in favour of the party that made the claim.

If I sue in in civil court, with a claim of "He called me a dirty cheating embezzler, which hurt my relations with my investor" and you simply don't show up, you may lose.

If you do show up and refuse to argue your case, you will* lose.

If you show up and argue "no I didn't", then the balance of probabilities is back in your favour.

It works exactly like the DMCA.

“If you do show up and refuse to argue your case, you will lose.”

If a defendant in a civil matter shows up and the plaintiffs case sucks, there is no obligation for the defense to put in a show and the jury (hell, even the judge) could rule in favor of the defendant who is presumed not liable.