Despite my strong differences with many of the decisions made by #Google over recent years, I can't emphasize enough what an utter disaster for the privacy and security of ordinary users most of the DOJ "remedies" being suggested to the judge in the Google antitrust case would be. I can't figure out if DOJ just isn't considering these issues in their rush to create "competition" in a manner that wouldn't actually help ordinary consumers at all -- and more likely just cause them more tech-related problems and confusion -- or if the folks at DOJ working on this simply don't really understand the technical realities involved.
The DOJ allowed technical "ecosystems" to flourish over the last 20 years+ in the consumer space. Ecosystems have not only become a fact of life, but also in many cases a value-add to consumers. They let Apple refuse standards, they let Google bully standards, they let Amazon ... well... Amazon just sucks.
Chickens roosting now.
@lauren Occam's razor
@lauren
I don't think they understand technical stuff at all.
@lauren
The irony is that a different kind of break-up -- spinning off Cloud and "infrastructure" (which Search, Ads, Youtube, Maps, etc. would rent) -- would probably benefit Google as well, by forcing them to simplify their overly complex infrastructure.
@lauren My bet is "they don't understand the value [to the user] of the interconnections between the various Google parts". They're lawyers, not IT folks. Also, why Google? Why not break up Apple, or Microsoft, or any of the food giants that hold farmers hostage with cartel pricing and threaten water supply in several regions? They want to do *something* so it looks like they've still got a handle of things. They chose poorly.
@lauren Also, forced breakups of companies, especially in tech, don't really work. While the idea may be that customers get more choice who to buy services from, I am very afraid that it would go wrong in the same way as the Bell breakup did, where one geographic region is now served exclusively by Noogle, the other by Zoogle and the third one by Froogle. No gain in choice, just more bureaucracy and cost, and an overall loss in service quality.
@WooShell @lauren OMG absolutely this.
The US should have kept Ma Bell as a monopoly and just nationalized it. Take over all of its assets and run it as a service for the public good, just like the Postal service. Remove all profit motive from its operation.
Same should probably be done with Google now, take it completely away from private ownership.
Caveat: Haven't read DOJ proposed remedies with regard to Google. I imagine Lauren's guess that "folks at DOJ [...] don't really understand the technical realities involved" is spot on. But this reply is about "forced breakups of companies don't work".
Name a tech breakup (other than Ma Bell) since Continental Television v. GTE Sylvania. Hell, name a massive company that got broken up since Standard Oil.
Anti-monopoly enforcement by the US DOJ hasn't been reliably performed since the Chicago School rose to prominence in Economics and captured mind share in the Federal Judiciary. After getting beaten back by the Judiciary in case after case, the DOJ largely stopped proposing breakups as a remedy.
There haven't been significant forced corporate breakups due to anti-trust/anti-monopoly reasons for 40+ years. So, the claim that "breakups of companies [...] don't really work" really does need a few citations.
@dylannorthrup @WooShell I would argue that the AT&T divestiture ended up NOT working. That's not to say it couldn't have been done in a different manner more effectively, but look at the stranglehold a few giant Telecoms (including the reconstituted AT&T) have now!
@lauren @WooShell As an alumnus of two baby bells, I won't dispute it failed. But it's the only instance of the breakup of a major (arguably tech) company in the last 40+ years due to anti-trust/monopoly reasons.
You can't generalize that "forced breakups of companies, especially in tech, don't really work" from a single example. I don't know of any other large company (e.g. Fortune 500) on anti-trust grounds, let alone a tech company.
Happy to concede the DOJ's proposed remedies are not fit for purpose in the case of Google. But not ready to concede that splitting the company couldn't be part of a set of remedies to address Google's heel-turn over the last decade or so.
@dylannorthrup @WooShell There's lots of arguments to be made either way, my point, in this specific case, is that the kinds of "remedies" DOJ is seeking are utterly antithetical to rigorous privacy and security systems, and can't help but cause an array of new problems in those realms. And I consider that to be irresponsible to the max.