US Treasury Secretary Calls For Google Monopoly Probe (theregister.co.uk) 86
After a 60 Minutes episode that focused on Google and its effective search monopoly, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin called for large tech companies to be investigated for potential antitrust violations. Asked whether Google was abusing its market dominance as a monopoly, Mnuchin told CNBC on Monday "these are issues that the Justice Department needs to look at seriously," and argued that it was important to "look at the power they have" noting that companies like Google "have a greater and greater impact on the economy." The Register reports: Mnuchin's willingness to directly criticize Google and other tech companies and argue that they should be under investigation is just the latest sign that Washington DC is serious about digging in the market power of Big Internet. It is notable that it was 20 years ago, almost to the day, that America finally dealt with another tech antitrust problem when the Justice Department and 20 state attorneys general filed suit -- on May 18, 1998 -- against what was then the most powerful tech company in the country: Microsoft.
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Federal prison is a lot more fair than state prison that's for sure.
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As a tour guide? That'd be neat. Sounds like a good job for a retiree.
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Tour guides have show proficiency in a subject and be able to convey knowledge verbally.
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She's an intelligent woman, that I have no doubt. She has trouble with being forthright and conceding when she doesn't have expertise on a topic. Not knowing everything doesn't make you stupid. As for her public speaking ability? Hillary's public speaking abilities are not as bad as G.W. Bush, but on the other hand Bush would make a fantastic tourguide with his goofy charisma. (and has ability to climb stairs)
Not being able to say "I don't know" is a flaw typical of male slashdotters.
I thought Hasbro owned Monopoly (Score:2)
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If so we need to break up Hasbro. No one should own a Monopoly®.
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And I thought it was Parker Brothers, but I guess I haven't been keeping up.
In 1991, Hasbro acquired Parker Bros. and thus Monopoly. [wikipedia.org]
I don't think I've played Monopoly since the early '80s anyway.
Dupe! (Score:2)
Dupe!
https://search.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
Editors: I suggest to just google the title you are about to publish to help avoid dupes.
Example: I googled for " US Treasury Secretary Calls For Google Monopoly Probe" and found the previously posted article right away ("Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin Wants Justice Department To Scrutinize Big Tech")
Trickle down theory (Score:1)
This is just a warning shot that the contribution was not enough to satisfy current needs.
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No they came to the realization that tech is a threat to the existing power structures that they depend on.
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You are part of the problem.
Ad hominem attack based on the geographical location where one lives has no place in informed debate. Stop posting forever.
It is long past time (Score:5, Interesting)
Google has been ripe for anti-trust for more than long enough. And for the people that are asking why lets break it down. Google is NOT just a search engine. Visit a few websites and look at who all is running scripts. Most sites will have at least 1 or more of googles analytic, tagging, ads, or static services. Next up is Android... do you use Android? Then you have a relationship with Google like it or not. Play Store is owned by Google or Alphabet whichever.
Do you use Chrome, google owns it. Remember when Microsoft was in trouble for just having internet explorer installed when you got it? The simple fact is that you cannot do nearly anything without Google on the internet. And while that might seem harmless it is not. Google tracks you, tracks what you do, catalogues what you like or it thinks you like. Google keeps bio-metrics and facial recognition of you. Once you are in, you are IN!
Google is in your business, they gather and correlate any an every bit of information about you that it can so it can sell it and use it to appropriate more information about you to sell as well. The problem is not just monopoly, it is anti-trust, and that means google colluding with and influencing or even "forcefully/maliciously influencing" businesses they partner with the same way Walmart and Amazon likes to push distributors and suppliers around with their largess...
If you are a small business... and google tells you that you need to do something or face being delisted or worse... what are you going to do? They are a big player and if you don't play according to their rules they have ways to make life tough for you, no one is going to actually care! Google just simply should NOT be allowed to be a browser, search engine, business data/analytic, application store, ISP, and ad service all at the same time.
Anti-Trust is NOT about keeping people from using google as a search engine, or ads, or as a content provider, or as application store, or as a mobile OS platform. Anti-Trust is about Google owning and operating all of those at the same time and keeping their API's in house just enough so that they are not easy to use by competitors. Because now that google owns most of the logic on the roads, you still have to bend to their will or you just get no service and websites will not serve up content to you unless you accept google!
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Between them, Google and Facebook control 60% of online ad revenue. That duopoly by itself, in a field that can best be described as "civilian propaganda," deserves close scrutiny by regulators. The difference between Facebook and Google is that Google does hardware, OS, software, search, and apps (vertical integration), while Facebook does just apps. Thus, of the two, Google actually has far more of an impact and interacts with nearly every citizen through vertical integration. Vertical integration was
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It is not only interesting but directly correlated.
I don't know if it happened in this very specific order, but it likely happened something similar to this.
Facebook was given loads of user data by its own users.
Analytica harvested that data from Facebook.
Trump campaign hired Analytica.
Trump won election contrary to statistics that painted Hillary as a landslide winner.
People began to freak out about it and wondered how it could happen.
People seem to still not realize that not only did it happen but it has
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There's another much simpler, and far less convoluted way that we arrived in the present:
The Hillary campaign bungled what should have been an easy win by completely ignoring what they thought were 'safe' states in the upper midwest, to their own peril. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio. And that's the ball game.
Don't attribute to conspiracy what is adequately explained by sheer incompetence and an incredibly flawed candidate.
Re: It is long past time (Score:1)
Try new Donaldizole. Clinically proven safe and effective for the treatment of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
Talk to your doctor - get help today!
Re:It is long past time, but it is OK for MS??? (Score:1)
so what is being done about Microsoft? 5,000 employee company is paying those bastards $1 million a year to keep the software cops from shutting the business down. Google is not extorting us for $1 million per year....
get off my lawn you punk!
Re: It is long past time (Score:2)
Shills be shillin'.
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Got any citations for that FUD? For example, that Google keeps your biometrics?
None of that is an issue for competition anyway. What matters is things like promoting Google products over others in search. The EU has already dealt with this, and it seems like the US just wants the same now.
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There's plenty of issues for concern. Here you go. [wikipedia.org]
He's probably talking about this part: "If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go. Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are." That'd be your face as a biometric, coupled with you name. But from the context, I think that's Schmit talking about how things COULD happen. What's possible rather than what Google does. Schmit does this. Remember when
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Totally agree that Google has been ripe for this for a long time. Decade+. They've got more power and control over the masses than is reasonable and their potential for abuse is MASSIVE.
But unless there's actual instances of them abusing said power... I don't think they deserve to have anti-trust laws brought against them. And we shouldn't punish those who don't deserve it least the FTC simply become a popularity contest or worse, fall prey to crony capitalism.
Imagine the potential abuse that a malicious
Web Monopolies (Score:2)
Re: Google? What about AT&T/Verizon/Comcast/C (Score:2)
#Whataboutism
Here you go, Mnuchin.... Google Monopoly Probe (Score:2)
https://www.google.com/search?q=monopoly+probe [google.com]
Monopoly? (Score:2)
I'm confused.
What market do they monopolize?
In what situation does anyone not have a choice as to whether to use some product or service offered by google, or one offered by another entity?
Re:Monopoly? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm gonna google it.
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I'm confused.
What market do they monopolize?
They have a de facto monopoly on search. To "google" something is synonymous with web search.
They are over half of the cell phone market (All android). All android phones are tightly integrated with the Google store, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc...
They provide analytics, scripts, advertising, and other services to all websites.
In what situation does anyone not have a choice as to whether to use some product or service offered by google, or one offered by another entity?
Web browsing in general. if you look at the cross-site references to almost every site you browse, you'll see google-analytics, adsense, googleapis, or any other of a number of google-
Re: Translation (Score:2)
That must mean Trump is a lot more expensive to bribe than Obama was?
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I suppose the other examples are subjective, but the numbers don't lie; more people seem to use them than not. I used Firefox since 0.6 days but finally switched to Chrome about a year and half before Quantum came out. Not bothering to switch back since I don't care for the new look of FF and there's no compelling reason to do so at this point - too little, too late.
What's better than Google Maps that's "free"?
I prefer Android OS in
Re: This talk of Google being a "Monopoly" is B.S. (Score:1)
I do love the smell of AstroTurf in the morning.
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I like startpage / ixquick. But it fails me sometimes and I fall back to google.
Firefox is still alright.
The alternatives to android are pretty shitty. Apple? .... Microsoft? But there's an important almost but not quite viable alternative of running F-droid. [f-droid.org]
Google services don't ship on Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, or the various flavors of Linux.
*Cough* Android is a flavor of linux. *cough*.
And google services ship with them. And seriously don't like being removed, when you even can. If MS can get an anti-trust suit for shipping Windows with IE, then this is probably equivalent.
No one i
It's easy, start using Bing (Score:2)
you know what's funny? (Score:2)
So funny my ass hurts! (Score:1)
yep, you got it. My ass hurts, the doc says it is hemorrhoids... But I think it has been from all the years taking it from the nice folks at Microsoft. Damn, they have been getting away with this for decades but now the boot is in the ass to both Facebook and Google...
This stinks like there is a dead fish under the passengers seat.
Who in the hell keeps giving Microsoft all the freedom they have and everyone else gets to be broken up??? I can expect more butt hurt from the bully that keeps telling me to
This (Score:2)
I see someone has decided Google isn't donating enough money to politicians again.
This is the way much of the world works. The only difference is the west pays closer attention and such donations must be on the up and up.
Why Google and not the cable industry? (Score:2)
Google actually has competition, in pretty much anything it does.
The cable industry doesn't, and it shows. Why hasn't Comcast been investigated?
Didn't the ISPs Stomp All Over Google Fiber? (Score:1)