Google Urges DOJ To Reverse Course on Breaking Up Company (yahoo.com) 69
Google is urging officials at President Donald Trump's Justice Department to back away from a push to break up the search engine company, citing national security concerns, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the discussions. From the report: Representatives for the Alphabet unit asked the government in a meeting last week to take a less aggressive stance as the US looks to end what a judge ruled to be an illegal online search monopoly, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the private deliberations. The Biden administration in November had called for Google to sell its Chrome web browser and make other changes to its business including an end to billions of dollars in exclusivity payments to companies including Apple.
Although Google has previously pushed back on the Biden-era plan, the recent discussions may preview aspects of the company's approach to the case as it continues under the Trump administration. A federal judge is set to rule on how Google must change its practices following hearings scheduled for next month. Both sides are due to file their final proposals to the judge on Friday.
Although Google has previously pushed back on the Biden-era plan, the recent discussions may preview aspects of the company's approach to the case as it continues under the Trump administration. A federal judge is set to rule on how Google must change its practices following hearings scheduled for next month. Both sides are due to file their final proposals to the judge on Friday.
So its become too big to fail (Score:4, Insightful)
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Too big to fail is possibly an end goal. Microsoft made a mistake by having Internet Explorer "illegally tied" to Windows. What you have to do is make every single thing you do utterly dependent on all your other pieces. You can't break up Google without breaking Google and I think that's what they were going for in the first place.
Re: So its become too big to fail (Score:2)
Microsoft did that. As a consequence they were not required to remove the bulk of the browser from their OS, only the part that most people were just familiar with.
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Re:So its become too big to fail (Score:4)
The Govts remedies are vastly inadequate. You totally can break up - and need to break up - Google. What they have done to the web is as close to annihilation as it gets. They have laid waste to the entire affiliate industry. 10's of thousands of sites are gone. thousands of SEO's and affiliates had to go to work "in house" some where because Google has slaughtered their income. Breaking up Google is as simple as: Break off Youtube, Android, Fiber, Gmail, and Chrome). Anything less than that, is woefully inadequate.
Simple? Hardly.
YouTube could survive on its own, because it serves ads, and thus can presumably pay for itself through ad revenue, subscriptions to its premium service, etc., though it would need to take a chunk of the ad sales team and infrastructure (both ad and serving) along with it. Splitting it off would probably be a huge nightmare logistically, but it is at least possible. Unfortunately, that's the only one on your list that would be.
Android is paid for by phone vendors paying money to use the various Google apps, including the Play Store. Without those Google apps, there's no revenue stream. So Android dies in your plan unless it finds a new revenue stream, and it isn't clear how that would be possible with an open source OS. So for the same reason Linux never succeeded on the desktop, Android would likely die of resource starvation under your plan.
Fiber is basically being operated like an independent company anyway, with its own C-Suite, so that division probably could be split off, but given that they are both fairly small and fairly independent, doing so probably wouldn't really do much other than preventing Alphabet's board from replacing the Fiber CEO (assuming that subsidiary doesn't have an independent board — a quick Google search didn't reveal any information for or against that assumption). Also, the complaints from the DOJ don't relate to Fiber at all, if memory serves, making that a rather odd suggestion.
As far as I know, Gmail is paid for entirely by ad revenue from other Google properties such as Search. And the basic free storage for Gmail (which is usually enough for most users) is also paid for in that way. So they would have to find a new funding source if they split off from Google. Short of Gmail getting bought by another company with deep pockets (which just makes one big company smaller and another big company bigger), the only other options would be either monetizing your private email messages (very bad) or charging money for the service (also very bad). So your choice would be between a privacy disaster for consumers or the near complete destruction of the service (because most accounts would probably be closed if the owners had to pay money for them).
Chrome is also paid for entirely by ad revenue from other Google properties. It does not inject its own ads or sell your personal data. So without the backing of a large corporation, it could not exist.
Additionally, without the majority of Chrome's code, the Android os would be hopelessly broken. I can't think of a feasible model for funding a standalone Chrome. Even if you tried to make it go with Android, it would be challenging, because funding Android independently would be challenging.
Worse, Firefox and Safari are *also* funded largely by money paid to those browsers in exchange for Google Search being the default search engine, with 86% of Firefox's revenue coming from that agreement. If part of the DOJ settlement involves Google not being allowed to do this, there's a good chance that web browser development will come to a screeching halt across the entire industry. And if the decision doesn't prevent that, then you would end up with Chrome development being paid for by Google, so you would likely gain almost nothing from the split.
In other words, I don't think you've thought through what you're asking for. I just can't see any way that any of the splits you suggest would result in healthy, stable corporations as an end result, with the possible exception of YouTube, because the funding model just doesn't work. But maybe I'm missing something.
Re: So its become too big to fail (Score:2)
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The antitrust decision came down to bundling IE with Windows. In this day if you shipped an OS without a browser it would be considered broken.
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Yet amusingly, now that Firefox is ethically compromised, the EULA now a ToS, it can be said that browsers are broken, almost as a rule, the temptations too great. Add in the mania of AI, no controls on what AI snoops, and the only alternatives are stripped browsers, like LibreWolf, and odder theories of browsers, like Vivaldi, Brave, etc.
Every Linux distribution has to make the decision about Firefox's Big Problem.
The basic premise that breaking up Google is a national security concern, is just another Don
National Security Concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have we reached the point where corporate interests are now national security concerns? I suppose that's the end-goal of capitalist societies, isn't it? Making sure the corporations are so massive that it would be seen as a blow to national security to not allow them to do whatever they want to the world.
Is there anything left in the United States for the ordinary citizen? Or are we just doomed to turn into a society hell-bent on working us to death for the greater glory of the corporations?
Re:National Security Concerns? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it is an end goal of fascists. la Presidenta is a fascist dictator. Those pets, i.e., cabinet heads, are fascists themselves and see no problem is integrating their companies and industry with the fed. gov. Elmo is one of them, and he owns la Presidenta as well.
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Definitely have a feeling these rises and dips of the crypto market is being taken advantage of by the admin. Like if you knew a couple hours ahead of time that Trump was going to call out those specific coins (or were involved in choosing them) how easy would it be to make some trades in that window knowing they're about to jump, all with little to no paper trail. Just a feeling but time will tell.
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Don't forget how fast Google Maps started showing "Gulf of America".
Re: National Security Concerns? (Score:2)
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Is Fake Tan Lord a female in disguise, or is it a form of protest?
Neither. We now live in a world where we don't use preferred-pronouns.
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Have we reached the point where corporate interests are now national security concerns?
Definitely. Elon and his human shield are flying Air Force One on the taxpayer dime. https://www.hindustantimes.com... [hindustantimes.com] The worlds richest man lives in the Whitehouse and won't leave Trump's side. Elon has been classified as a "special government employee" so that means he can only work 130 days per year so let's see what happens at the 130 day mark, shall we? https://www.doi.gov/ethics/spe... [doi.gov]
Re:National Security Concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have we reached the point where corporate interests are now national security concerns?
Definitely. Elon and his human shield are flying Air Force One on the taxpayer dime. https://www.hindustantimes.com... [hindustantimes.com] The worlds richest man lives in the Whitehouse and won't leave Trump's side. Elon has been classified as a "special government employee" so that means he can only work 130 days per year so let's see what happens at the 130 day mark, shall we? https://www.doi.gov/ethics/spe... [doi.gov]
Elon owns Donald. He doesn't leave his side because he knows Don's unpredictable as all hell and :Elon now considers himself to be the de-facto president. I can guarantee you that no one will call them out when it's day 131 and Elon doesn't leave. The Republicans in congress are, for some reason, utterly convinced that the only way to keep their jobs is to just let the pair do whatever they feel like doing. The Democrats, long looking like the public relations arm of the corporatists, have given up the pretense of the public relations part of their job, and now simply sit back and let things go where they may. The checks and balances only work if someone is willing to step up. And, apparently, no one is brave enough to step up.
It's going to be a painfully long four years.
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The checks and balances only work if someone is willing to step up.
This is correct and under-appreciated. The executive is the branch that is tasked with enforcing the law, pretty much exclusively outside of edge cases. If we have an executive that refuses to enforce laws as written that is pretty much definitionally a constitutional crisis as we've reached an impasse of the document, it doesn't really have a provision of "if President is an autocrat and majority party support the autocrat".
The answer is impeachment of course (which does not require a crime, a President
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The checks and balances only work if someone is willing to step up.
This is correct and under-appreciated. The executive is the branch that is tasked with enforcing the law, pretty much exclusively outside of edge cases. If we have an executive that refuses to enforce laws as written that is pretty much definitionally a constitutional crisis as we've reached an impasse of the document, it doesn't really have a provision of "if President is an autocrat and majority party support the autocrat".
The answer is impeachment of course (which does not require a crime, a President can be impeached for wearing a funny hat if there's enough votes to convict) but 9 Republican Senators are not going to suddenly come around to the idea of lawful democracy.
You'd think self-interest alone would drive the Republican Senators and Reps to do something about it. But apparently the craven nature they've long been accused of has fully manifested to the point where all it takes is some minor posturing and the threat of bullying to keep them from even pretending to care about their own power. It was pretty wild watching last night as the Republican side of the chamber clapped and cheered for the demise of the senate as a functional part of government, but apparently t
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Some Rs have said they're too afraid of the creditable death threats to stand up to Trump and those people are being slowly replaced by ones who are more loyal. Apparently they can't handle the stress tons of people are forced to deal with every day (poorer areas of cities with higher crime rates) nor can they handle the responsibilities of their position. At a minimum they should all resign for breaking their oaths.
But more importantly, what I want to know is why is Trump letting storms hit the east coas
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Some Rs have said they're too afraid of the creditable death threats to stand up to Trump and those people are being slowly replaced by ones who are more loyal. Apparently they can't handle the stress tons of people are forced to deal with every day (poorer areas of cities with higher crime rates) nor can they handle the responsibilities of their position. At a minimum they should all resign for breaking their oaths.
But more importantly, what I want to know is why is Trump letting storms hit the east coast? Since the Rs are in control of all aspects of the government, surely they've taken over Ds' weather control system. Do we need to build statues or something for better weather? Please tell us so we can get on that.
Elon hasn't gotten to that level of the game yet. Or, more specifically, the person he pays to pretend to be him playing video games hasn't figured out which secret level that weather control system is on.
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It really is like Republicans read the quote of "If conservatives become convinced they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." and said "Hey that's a good idea"
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It really is like Republicans read the quote of "If conservatives become convinced they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." and said "Hey that's a good idea"
It's almost like we have an entire population of people who view ever warning as a roadmap.
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"It's a COOKBOOK!"
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It's going to be a painfully long four years.
Four years? You think Trump or Musk will step down in four years?
Personally, I don't think Donald Trump will ever willing leave office, under any circumstances.
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It's going to be a painfully long four years.
Four years? You think Trump or Musk will step down in four years?
Personally, I don't think Donald Trump will ever willing leave office, under any circumstances.
Honestly, Trump could keel over from McDonald's overload any day. Vance would be a worse President. He's got far less impediments to being an outright puppet boy. Trump at least has his ego and somewhat spastic reactionary weirdness to keep the oligarchs guessing. Vance would just yes-man us right into a never-ending tailspin.
I'm hoping the current regime isn't smart enough to try stamping out national elections before the mid-terms. Because if they keep this mess up, the Republicans will at least have a so
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Wild fantasy? Movie script? We have 3 years and 10 months to find out.
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Sounds like they are just setting up a reason for not telling us shit after they made an 'artistic' deal with Trump.
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Imagine the USA is the stock market. This is what is called a profit taking event.
The model is from Russia, how Putin broke the government into pieces and sold them off to the oligarchs. So government is privatized, while the oligagarchs cream off the maximum amount of profits, and Poopoo gets a percentage. Standard Mob style management. Mob takes 50% of your profits. The oligarchs owe their position to the boss, so they take whatever terms are offered,
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Have we reached the point where corporate interests are now national security concerns? I suppose that's the end-goal of capitalist societies, isn't it? Making sure the corporations are so massive that it would be seen as a blow to national security to not allow them to do whatever they want to the world.
One of the possible terminal stages of capitalism is total corporatism [wikipedia.org], and yes, corporations being given national security status is one of the last steps to reach it. The final step is corporations directly driving government (possibly hidden behind a facade of "democracy" for short transition period).
Once megacorps become indispensable and unbreakable it's a very short walk to them taking over control of society and governance. After all, who can stop them? We already decided they're essential to fina
trump administration is overtly corrupt (Score:3, Insightful)
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You and that fucking laptop. How many years into this investigation and it has resulted in what charges? Not paying taxes and lying on a federal firearms form. Sounds like Hunter is a republican.
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I'm always in two minds as to whether to correct idiots like the GP. On the one hand, they're clearly batshit insane, as the fact YouTube defaults to extreme right wing videos every time I clear my cookies clearly demonstrates, as merely one example.
On the other... if he wants Trump to break up Google, let him call for that. Google enshittified itself years ago, and arguably can only get worse and make society worse as long as it continues to live in its existing form. Obviously it has to be done properly -
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But splitting off Chrome (into an independent non-profit like Mozilla) and YouTube (into a company with a poison pill provision preventing it from being taken over by Facebook or Musk) from the search engine company would almost certainly massively improve things and reduce the amount of bullshit Google collects about everyone.
But who would pay for it?
86% of Firefox's revenue comes from Google's default search engine placement. The government wants to stop that. Firefox would likely basically die at that point.
And $18 billion of the budget for the Safari team comes from Google for the same reason. Assuming there are two or three hundred employees working on Safari, that means that 100% of Safari's O($300M) budget and $17.7B of Apple's non-Safari R&D budget comes from Google, so Apple's annual profits would instantly drop
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The Chrome Foundation *could* get the same considerations as the Mozilla Foundation, maybe (like Firefox) including making some Google services default such as search. Yes, I read your next sentence, bear with me.
The government does, I don't. I never said any such thing.
But even if the government did, I'm pretty sure a Chrome Foundation could attract enough funding to ensure its survival. It's a critical component of multiple operating systems at thi
Re: Oh nonononono nooo (Score:2)
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Yeah, they didnt do any of that. Suppression of misinformation isn't the same as political bias.
It is when one party is significantly more likely to fall prey to disinformation.
Re: Oh nonononono nooo (Score:2)
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I mean, no disagreement, but I couldn't help but bring up the elephant in the room. And suddenly, that idiom takes on a bit of double entendre.
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Re: Oh nonononono nooo (Score:1)
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The company that rigged the Youtube algorithm and Android and push notifications and search and news filtering to try and influence the election against Trump and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story and pushed Russiagate bullshit and covered up Burisma is asking Trump not to break them up. I bet I know the answer to that one.
I hate when my Facebook feed ends up on Slashdot.
Stop watching the pee tape (Score:1)
It will work (Score:4, Insightful)
Why else do you think they donated to the inauguration and renamed the Gulf? Anyone with actual ethics would say this is stupid Donald don't you have more important matters?
Re:It will work (Score:4, Informative)
Trump never shut up about Obama golfing. https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
Re: It will work (Score:1)
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Why else do you think they donated to the inauguration and renamed the Gulf?
To be fair, renaming the gulf was just application of longstanding, globally-applied policy. Google Maps always shows the government-specified geographic names to users within that government's territory. So as soon as the Federal Geographic Data Committee's database changed the name, so did Google Maps. In the event the government-specified name is disputed by the rest of the world, the policy is that Maps adds the world's name as a parenthetical, which Google Maps does for the gulf. That last part isn'
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I notice that Google Maps does not show "Denali" as a parenthetical on Mt. McKinley (another renaming Trump ordered).
Probably because it's actually in the US.
Why Trump Won (Score:2)
All of big tech came together to make sure Trump won to prevent the DOJ from breaking up monopolies.
If the governement can't do this (Score:2)
Then why do we have a government? They have bungled every tech monopoly case and pander to their lawyers.
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Then why do we have a government?
Starting with Ronald Reagan, the purpose of the United States government is to protect and enrich the corporations. While some have, at moments, chosen to speak towards the helping the American people, if you actually pay attention to the way our elected officials vote, the way they carry out their policies, all of them Democrat or Republican, do everything they can to protect and enrich the corporations and those that own the corporations. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, our government scrambled with e
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Yes, it's just a resolving door with the private sector to public sector to private sector pipeline. The rules are written by those who worked and will work again for the groups that have vested interested in them. The American public seems relative okay with this because the American public thinks that .. *checks notes* .. uh government sucks or something.
Late stage capitalism = fascism (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure a large donation to Trump and rigidly following the fascist's rules will make this problem go away.
bye bye free (Score:2, Troll)
If Google is broken up, get ready to start paying for stuff that used to be "free." Such as Google maps and directions, gmail, google voice, and numerous others. The search ad revenue supports these other products, which in turn provide data into selling ads.
Wait I thought (Score:1)
This just proves both parties are just two heads of the SAME party!
The corporations OWN BOTH!
Urge, hell! (Score:1)
GooG MUST be broken up (Score:1)