[...] might have been surprised when headlines began appearing last year suggesting that Google and its fellow tech giants were threatening everything from our economy to democracy itself. Lawmakers have accused Google of creating an automated advertising system so vast and subtle that hardly anyone noticed when Russian saboteurs co-opted it in the last election. Critics say Facebook exploits our addictive impulses and silos us in ideological echo chambers. Amazon's reach is blamed for spurring a retail meltdown; Apple's economic impact is so profound it can cause market-wide gyrations. These controversies point to the growing anxiety that a small number of technology companies are now such powerful entities that they can destroy entire industries or social norms with just a few lines of computer code. Those four companies, plus Microsoft, make up America's largest sources of aggregated news, advertising, online shopping, digital entertainment and the tools of business and communication. They're also among the world's most valuable firms, with combined annual revenues of more than half a trillion dollars.
In a rare display of bipartisanship, lawmakers from both political parties have started questioning how these tech giants grew so powerful so fast. Regulators in Missouri, Utah, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere have called for greater scrutiny of Google and others, citing antitrust concerns; some critics have suggested that our courts and legislatures need to go after tech firms in the same way the trustbusters broke up oil and railroad monopolies a century ago. But others say that Google and its cohort are guilty only of delighting customers. If these tech leviathans ever fail to satisfy us, their defenders argue, capitalism will punish them the same way it once brought down Yahoo, AOL and MySpace.
[...] There's a loose coalition of economists and legal theorists who call themselves the New Brandeis Movement (critics call them "antitrust hipsters"), who believe that today's tech giants pose threats as significant as Standard Oil a century ago. "All of the money spent online is going to just a few companies now," says [Gary Reback] (who disdains the New Brandeis label). "They don't need dynamite or Pinkertons to club their competitors anymore. They just need algorithms and data."
Related: Microsoft Relishes its Role as Accuser in Antitrust Suit Against Google
Google Faces Record 3 Billion Euro EU Antitrust Fine: Telegraph
Antitrust Suit Filed Against Google by Gab.Ai
India Fines Google $21.17 Million for Abusing Dominant Position
Google's Crackdown on "Annoying" and "Disruptive" Ads Begins
Related Stories
Danny Hakim reports at the NYT that as European antitrust regulators formally accuse Google of abusing its dominance, Microsoft is relishing playing a behind-the-scenes role of scold instead of victim. Microsoft has founded or funded a cottage industry of splinter groups to go after Google. The most prominent, the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace, or Icomp, has waged a relentless public relations campaign promoting grievances against Google. It conducted a study that suggested changes made by Google to appease regulators were largely window dressing. “Microsoft is doing its best to create problems for Google,” says Manfred Weber, the chairman of the European People’s Party, the center-right party that is the largest voting bloc in the European Parliament. “It’s interesting. Ten years ago Microsoft was a big and strong company. Now they are the underdog.”
According to Hakim, Microsoft and Google are the Cain and Abel of American technology, locked in the kind of struggle that often takes place when a new giant threatens an older one. Microsoft was frustrated after American regulators at the Federal Trade Commission didn’t act on a similar antitrust investigation against Google in 2013, calling it a “missed opportunity.” It has taken the fight to the state level, along with a number of other opponents of Google. Microsoft alleges that Google's anti-competitive practices include stopping Bing from indexing content on Google-owned YouTube; blocking Microsoft Windows smartphones from "operating properly" with YouTube; blocking access to content owned by book publishers; and limiting the flow of ad campaign information back to advertisers, making it more expensive to run ads with rivals. "Over the past year, a growing number of advertisers, publishers, and consumers have expressed to us their concerns about the search market in Europe," says Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel. "They've urged us to share our knowledge of the search market with competition officials."
Google (GOOGL.O) faces a record antitrust fine of around 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) from the European Commission in the coming weeks, British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-eu-idUSKCN0Y60J4
The European Union has accused Google of promoting its shopping service in Internet searches at the expense of rival services in a case that has dragged on since late 2010.
Several people familiar with the matter told Reuters last month they believed that after three failed attempts at a compromise in the past six years Google now had no plans to try to settle the allegations unless the EU watchdog changed its stance.
The Telegraph cited sources close to the situation as saying officials planned to announce the fine as early as next month, but that the bill had not yet been finalised.
Google will also be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals, the newspaper said.
The Commission can fine firms up to 10 percent of their annual sales, which in Google's case would be a maximum possible sanction of more than 6 billion euros.
-- submitted from IRC
Google faces Antitrust suit filed by new social media company Gab.ai.
The legal action is the latest salvo in an escalating battle between right-leaning technologists and leaders against Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Google.
Gab alleges in the lawsuit that "Google deprives competitors, on a discriminatory basis, of access to the App Store, which an essential facility or resource."
"Google is the biggest threat to the free flow of information," Gab chief executive Andrew Torba said in a statement. "Gab started to fight against the big tech companies in the marketplace, and their monopolistic conduct has forced us to bring the fight to the courtroom."
Gab has published its court filing.
So it appears, "India's antitrust watchdog on Thursday imposed a 1.36 billion rupees ($21.17 million) fine on Google for "search bias" and abuse of its dominant position, in the latest regulatory setback for the world's most popular internet search engine."
In India, the Commission found, that Google through its search design had placed its commercial flight search function at a prominent position on the search results page to the disadvantage of businesses trying to gain market access.
The penalty... translates to 5 per cent of the company's average total revenue generated from India operations.
Some details of the "search bias" at https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/competition-commission-of-india-fines-google-for-rs-135-86-crores-for-search-bias/articleshow/62839148.cms
More coverage:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/cci-issues-order-against-google-for-search-bias/articleshow/62838992.cms
http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/big-setback-for-google-whopping-rs-135-crore-fine-slapped-by-competition-commission-of-india-here-is-why/1058516/
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/indias-anti-trust-regulator-fines-google-for-search-bias/
Who trusts Google (an advertisement company) to give the correct, on-time flight details anyway?
Critics wary as Google's Chrome begins an ad crackdown
On Thursday, Google will begin using its Chrome browser to eradicate ads it deems annoying or otherwise detrimental to users. It just so happens that many of Google's own most lucrative ads will sail through its new filters. The move, which Google first floated back in June, is ostensibly aimed at making online advertising more tolerable by flagging sites that run annoying ads such as ones that auto-play video with sound. And it's using a big hammer: Chrome will start blocking all ads — including Google's own — on offending sites if they don't reform themselves.
There's some irony here, given that Google's aim is partly to convince people to turn off their own ad-blocking software. These popular browser add-ons deprive publishers (and Google) of revenue by preventing ads from displaying.
Google vice president Rahul Roy-Chowdhury wrote in a blog post that the company aims to keep the web healthy by "filtering out disruptive ad experiences."
But the company's motives and methods are both under attack. Along with Facebook, Google dominates the online-advertising market; together they accounted for over 63 percent of the $83 billion spent on U.S. digital ads last year, according to eMarketer. Google is also virtually synonymous with online search, and Chrome is the most popular browser on the web, with a roughly 60 percent market share. So to critics, Google's move looks less like a neighborhood cleanup than an assertion of dominance.
Is this Google's antitrust moment? (Is this a recycled comment?)
- Under the hood: How Chrome's ad filtering works
- The Initial Better Ads Standards
- Exclusive: Industry Experts On The Impact Of Google Chrome's Ad Blocker
Previously: Google Preparing to Filter "Unacceptable Ads" in 2018
Google Chrome to Begin Blocking "Non-Compliant Ads" on Feb. 15
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:10PM (57 children)
It makes no sense to turn to a violently imposed monopoly and ask it to "protect" us from a voluntarily grown "monopoly".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:50PM (3 children)
Maybe not.
But I don't mind turning to a constitutionally imposed monopoly and asking it to both protect and regulate (within reason).
Clue: if you want to live with other people, then there will be laws, to which you are subject. if you don't like the rules of society, you can try another country, or find somewhere (supposedly) beyond the reach of the law, or where there simply are no other law abiding people (Antarctica, Wyoming).
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:06PM
Just sayin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @05:42PM (1 child)
Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 05 2018, @03:31PM
It may not be ideal, but it makes far better sense than the alternative of anarchy.
Let me point out something. People criticize the Bible because of some of the horrible things that occur in the book of Judges in the Old Testament. A recurring theme throughout that book, and oft' repeated right after each atrocity is: But in those days Israel had no king, and everyone did as he saw fit.
That "everything did as he saw fit" is the problem. Having a government (but not necessarily a "king") is better. People agreeing to certain laws for everyone's mutual safety. It's the "I live by my own rules" people that tempt me to think I should consider owning a firearm. Law abiding people are not the ones I fear.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:14PM (51 children)
There's nothing "violently imposed," unless you're still fighting the Civil War [wikipedia.org].
Is that it, Johnny Reb [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:17PM (33 children)
All laws are violently imposed. That's not to say anarchy would be any less violent.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:27PM (28 children)
Really? I haven't seen any shooting, weapons, or threats of violence in the capitol building during votes.
Nor have I ever seen anyone with a knife to a President's throat while signing bills into law.
I'd go further to say that I've never seen any of that in municipal or state governments either.
And since we elected those folks (again, I haven't seen anyone standing next to a voter with a weapon, forcing them to vote a certain way), I don't see how you can come to that conclusion.
Or is your position that there are hidden death rays everywhere, ready to kill anyone that doesn't toe the line? Perhaps your tinfoil hat is a little tight?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:32PM (5 children)
I think they're referring to intellectual violence in those posts. As in we should all be our own country according to Ayn Rand and the U.S. should be an anarchy or something. Voluntary association, blah blah, rule of law blah blah, personal liberty etc.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:45PM (4 children)
Is didn't realize that the album [wikipedia.org] was so well-known, or so focused on anarcho-capitalism. Well, I guess you learn something new every day. ;)
More seriously, intellectual violence? Please. That's seems like more of a cop out, than a school of thought -- Something along the lines of "Mommy! Bobby's arguments are better and logically stronger than mine! That makes me sad and mad! Make him stop doing intellectual violence to me!"
Either you can elucidate your arguments with logic, evidence and quality rhetoric, or you can't. If you can't, it's because your logic, evidence or rhetorical skill is lacking, not that someone else is "doing violence" to you.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 23 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
Hey, I didn't say I buy their logic. I just try a bit harder to figure out what they're trying to say ;)
It's true that we're not consulted at birth about what sort of government we personally want to have. You can take the last of the boxes (moving box) to object, I suppose.
There's the old saw that these Randians who seem to love the idea of anarchy, should try moving to Somalia and see how much they like it then. I'm a middle ground sort of person, in that with *no* regulations, companies will bend us all over, but the government should only impose enough regulation to protect the public interest (prevent dangerous products being sold, that sort of thing). If the feds would just stop giving monopolies to ISPs and such, competition would work out a lot of the problems we have on its own.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @06:40PM (2 children)
And I didn't mean to imply that you did. If I came across that way, my apologies.
I was just a little taken aback by the concept of "intellectual violence" as I think I made pretty clear.
A fair point. However, I'd say we also (as we've seen over the last couple centuries) have the choice to work toward *changing the way our government works* in addition to the choice to leave.
How much and what kinds of regulation government (at *all* levels) puts into place is, IMHO, a reflection of those who vote to elect representatives to act for them.
There is a relatively new (more than half a century, but short in terms of the life of our current form of government) tradition of writing laws to be intentionally vague (and this is not a partisan thing either), and leaving the details to "regulatory agencies." This allows elected folks (who we can complain about all we want, but *we* elected them) to take "credit" for passing "laws to "protect us" while being able to decry unpopular stuff by blaming "regulation" by agencies that those same people created with those laws they trumpeted as so wonderful.
I'm sure we agree on the necessity for certain laws/regulations and disagree on others. That's normal, as we are different people with different ideas about what's appropriate.
That's what politics is *supposed* to be about. People who disagree making good-faith efforts to work together on things we *can* agree upon for the benefit of us all.
It's not the idea that I'm right and you're wrong, so unless I get my way, all the way, I'll make sure nothing gets done, or at least do my best to discredit and demonize those who disagree with me.
As to your point about ISPs, I agree that we need much, much more competition. However, the federal government's involvement in granting monopolies there is pretty much non-existent. It's state and local governments that grant those mono/duo-polies.
This isn't directed at you, it's just appropriate in the context here, that state and local governments generally have much more power to impact our daily lives than does the federal government. And state/local governments tend to be at least as (often much, much more) corrupt than the federal government.
It's often much easier to strike out at national government figures, especially on media (radio, TV, "social" media, and even sites like this one), as most people will know who they are.
However, your city councilman, state assemblyman/senator, mayor/town executive and governor have enormously more power to impact your daily life than does the federal government. Going after Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, Donald Trump or Barack Obama in those fora has much more impact than calling out Greg Wren*, Bill Postmus*, Rod Tam*, Sheldon Silver* or any of the other of the *dozens* of state and local officials who have been *convicted* of bribery, theft and corruption.
*Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_and_local_politicians_convicted_of_crimes [wikipedia.org]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 23 2018, @06:59PM (1 child)
You didn't come off as confrontational. I've just been spending too much time on Reddit lately, lol.
I don't even have the foggiest idea who my local reps are, as I don't follow local news really either. My interaction with the gov't is pretty minimal other than renewing driver's license etc. I did get called for jury duty last summer, which was a very interesting experience (almost ended up on the jury but not quite).
Dunno if "Intellectual Violence" is an actual term in those spheres; it was just my layman's word.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:04AM
Fair enough.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday February 23 2018, @12:36AM (20 children)
If you don't believe laws are violently imposed try violating them. Even the most trivial of laws, if you insist on violating it while law enforcement is attempting to enforce it, they will eventually kill you rather than allow you to continue.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @01:10AM (16 children)
Those laws are imposed by the consent of the governed. That means you and me.
If you believe (and you won't get a lot of argument from me about it) that those who are employed to *enforce* those laws do so in far too violent a fashion, then we need to replace those who manage and oversee those folks, to make sure that they do so much less violently.
However, that's a governance [wikipedia.org] issue that needs to be addressed, not a complete breakdown of our society. The fact that you and I can rail against it with impunity is ample proof of that.
I'm sure there are as many opinions as to *how* those changes should be implemented as there are people who express them. Fortunately, we control how governance is managed in the US. Both indirectly (through the representatives we elect) and directly (via ballot initiatives, where those are available).
Just because you (rightly, IMHO) don't think that people (ourselves included) should be murdered in the streets for allegedly selling cigarettes [wikipedia.org], gunned down for having a broken tail light [npr.org], reporting a potential crime [wikipedia.org], any number of other minor issues or even an attempt to do the right thing, doesn't mean that our laws are imposed at the point of a gun.
Rather, it shines a light on a dark and frightening aspect of our society and how those who are tasked (by the will of the voters) to uphold the laws enacted by our representatives (elected by those same voters) are given far too much leeway in "protecting" us.
Does that make sense to you?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday February 23 2018, @12:24PM (14 children)
You don't get what I'm saying. No, the laws are not imposed by the concent of the governed.
Groups of people, elected or otherwise, decide what the laws will be. The governed are seldom consulted. Those laws are then enforced by violence and the threat thereof.
If, for example, I wanted to sell Beanie Babies on a street corner without a license in a jurisdiction which requires one, members of the government would show up to stop me. At first they may try nicer things like asking me to stop and imposing fines, but if I refused and didn't pay the fines they would escalate to forcibly removing me. If I effectively resisted their force they would kill me.
That is true of all governments. With the exceptions of corruption and graft, they will kill any subject rather than allow them to continue violating the law.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @06:07PM (5 children)
If you have the political franchise [wikipedia.org] Then you help to decide who makes up those groups of people.
And if you don't like the decisions they make, you can work to elect different folks, or have legislation considered as a ballot measure [wikipedia.org]
I'm sorry you're so ignorant of basic civics. Perhaps you should have paid closer attention in school?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:10AM (4 children)
You are completely missing the point. I'm not passing judgement on the laws themselves or who decided what they are, only pointing out that every law in every country is imposed by violence and the threat thereof. If you continue to violate a law despite enforcement's attempt to stop you, they will increase their force until you give in or are dead. If this were not true one could avoid taxes, ignore the speed limit, etc. just by being stubborn.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:03AM (3 children)
No. I'm not missing the point.
Words have specific meanings.
If you mean to say that "government has the *legal* monopoly on violence." you won't get an argument from me.
If you mean to say the words you actually used: "Laws are violently imposed," that means something different, and I'll argue that, at least in the US, that's not true.
Does that clarify things for you, as you seem to be a little confused about what *i* mean?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:06AM (1 child)
That monopoly on violence is used by some people to make impositions on other people.
Also, you are begging the question (using circular logic) by calling that monopoly "legal"; you are assuming that which is to be proved; you are assuming that there is consent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:15AM
Hopefully to stop your inane drivel.
Can't you go suicide by cop or something?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:03AM
Whoosh. Stupid or trolling?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday February 23 2018, @09:52PM (7 children)
The majority of citizens (residents and business orders) Again, local residents and business owners don't want their streets wall to wall with guys sitting on blankets selling their used CDs, art, beanie babies and everything else. These business ventures disrupt traffic, block walkways, prevent access to the other businesses on the street, they often leave all kinds of mess and garbage behind and don't take responsibility for cleaning up, they fight over the best spots, they may agressively accost passersby. They might sell food in unsafe ways. Or chinese toys full of lead. Etc etc etc.
Despite your complaint that you can't sell beanie babies on the corner, most of society doesn't want that crap all over the city wherever these peddlars would like to be. So they support its regulation, and small numbers of such permits are available for limited purposes, people who get them can be held responsible for what they are doing, it eliminates fights over who its allowed to be where and when. And we designate market spaces specifically for them, open air markets, flea markets, etc.
Uh-huh.
Highly doubtful, unless by 'effectively resist' you start threatening the lives of the enforcement people; at which point you aren't being killed for your beanie baby business, you are being killed for this other much more violent thing you are doing.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:14AM (6 children)
Try this: stop paying taxes and attempt to go about your business ignoring all attempts to collect said taxes. Eventually someone will attempt to arrest you. If you refuse to be arrested the force applied to you will increase until you are subdued or dead. The same holds true for every enforced law in every nation, with exceptions for graft and corruption. There is no condition under which the police will say "Oh, you mean you really really don't want to follow the law? That's ok, have a nice day." Unless you have sufficiently bribed them to do so.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:57AM (5 children)
Again, The only way you end up dead is if you escalate the violence yourself in the process of "resisting".
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:01AM (4 children)
No. You simply do not comply, and the violence will be escallated apon you. You apparently Know nothing about law enforcement.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:25AM (3 children)
"No. You simply do not comply, and the violence will be escallated apon you."
I've seen lots of non-violent protesters hauled off, after refusing to 'comply'. Not shot nor killed.
"You apparently Know nothing about law enforcement"
You're evidently still alive, so at least you clearly don't have any first hand experience with this theory of years. But now you are going to claim to know people who were shot for not paying their taxes?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:42PM (2 children)
Allowing yourself to be hauled off is a form of compliance.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:20PM (1 child)
If you were killed for getting violent then you were killed for getting violent. Not some other thing. You can piss and moan all you like that you wouldn't have gotten violent if it wasn't for the other thing, but you chose to get violent. Your argument is as immature as a 5 year justifying biting his sibling because the sibling was bugging him and wouldn't stop.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday February 25 2018, @06:27AM
Bullshit.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:33PM
So why, if you don't sign up for selective service are you sent to jail? Shouldn't I be able to give my consent to be governed by opting in or out? Why is my consent taken for granted based merely on the fact that I was raised to the age of majority in this country? How can an average 18 year old leave, once they find out that they don't wish to consent to the governance of the land they live in?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 23 2018, @04:38AM
The rich Whites solve the problem by further subdividing neighborhoods into rich and poor.
Back when I first lived here, The cops would protect the neighborhood. Now, they moved the "boundary of protection" North and ignored those to the Southern boundary. What was once a protected neighborhood became demarcated by Whites and all of those troublesome minorities.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Friday February 23 2018, @07:15PM (1 child)
Laws are finally enforced using violent means, but in the vast majority of cases they are not, unless you define receiving a ticket, fine, arrest or prison sentence as "violent", in which case there's a good chance that you define getting called an asshole as "violent" in which case everything is violence and your argument is moot via reductio ad absurdum.
We live in an era of unprecedented peace and absence of violence. There has never been a time in human history where so many civil conflicts and crimes/misdemeanors are resolved without violence (e.g., getting a ticket or fine, court resolutions instead of duels).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:21AM
Issuing a ticket is a threat of "Pay up or we will arrest you". And of course if you don't pay up and refuse to be arrested the force used against you will increase until you are subdued or killed. If you are arrested and attempt to escape you will be forcibly subdued or killed. It's all backed up by violence.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:07PM
it's mostly done with the implied threat of violence. obviously.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday February 23 2018, @05:04AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday February 23 2018, @12:26PM (2 children)
Laws are imposed by enforcement. If they were not enforced they would be suggestions rather than laws.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday February 23 2018, @03:10PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:23AM
"Impose" does not mean "put in". Note the word "force".
im·pose
imˈpōz/Submit
verb
past tense: imposed; past participle: imposed
1.
force (something unwelcome or unfamiliar) to be accepted or put in place.
"the decision was theirs and was not imposed on them by others"
synonyms: foist, force, inflict, press, urge; More
2.
take advantage of someone by demanding their attention or commitment.
"she realized that she had imposed on Miss Hatherby's kindness"
synonyms: take advantage of, exploit, take liberties with, treat unfairly; bother, trouble, disturb, inconvenience, put out, put to trouble, be a burden on; informalwalk all over
"it was never my intention to impose on you"
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Friday February 23 2018, @01:53AM (16 children)
Laws are, indeed, violently imposed. Try ignoring them around a police officer who isn't intentionally ignoring you and you will experience the violence.
The violence doesn't occur during the construction of the law, that's just bribery and corruption. But the imposition of the law is by violence and threat of violence.
This doesn't mean that there is a better system, but it is an accurate description of the existing system in whatever country you reside...assuming there exists a government in that country.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @02:47AM (13 children)
A relatively reasonable point. However, I disagree in one respect:
Government (at least not in the US) isn't violently *imposed*. Rather government has the legal monopoly on force. There's an important difference between those two statements.
That our governance of that monopoly on force isn't well managed is the problem (as I discuss here [soylentnews.org]). That government has such a monopoly is not.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @07:13AM (10 children)
Try running a competing postal service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @09:17AM (1 child)
Why we gots so many bad boys here on the Soylents? What you gunna do when they come for you?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:09PM
uh, put on the gas mask and the bullet proof vest, attach the drum and give them some justice?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @06:53PM (7 children)
You'll note that the US Postal Service, unlike its many competitors (Fedex, UPS, DHL and dozens of smaller ones) has service requirements not imposed on anyone else [wikipedia.org]:
That you have to go back more that 170 years to find what you think is a "reasonable" counterexample speaks volumes, IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @10:50PM (6 children)
Your reply neither advances your argument nor dismantles your opponent's argument.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 23 2018, @11:17PM (5 children)
That you think I consider the other poster an "opponent" is interesting. I don't. We're just people commenting in a discussion.
I don't see discussion as a competition. Rather, it's sharing thoughts and ideas, hopefully to the benefit of us all.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:48AM (4 children)
Chill out, bro.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:57AM (3 children)
I'm very relaxed.
Where did I say anything that made me seem exercised by your statement?
I view this as a discussion, not a debate.
Please don't project your views on me. I have my own that suit me quite well, thanks!
You are welcome on my lawn. I do kind of wish that you'd add to the topic at hand, rather than trying to do some kind of bizarre play-by-play, but it's not for me to determine that.
Toodles!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:54AM
That makes it a debate.
You have once again neither advanced your argument nor dismantled your opponent's argument.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:03AM
That makes it a debate.
You have once again neither advanced your argument nor dismantled your opponent's argument.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @09:48PM
That makes it a debate.
You have once again neither advanced your argument nor dismantled your opponent's argument.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday February 23 2018, @12:30PM (1 child)
All governments are violently imposed. I was never asked for consent to be governed, and if I resisted I would be met with violence.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:01PM
Good. I think you should. Hopefully, they'll jail you or just kill you. Then I wouldn't have to listen to more of your mindless drivel.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 23 2018, @04:52PM (1 child)
I'd say "violently maintained" would be more accurate than "violently imposed." Imposed mostly talks about when the rules are first created, not when they're enforced in an ongoing fashion.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 23 2018, @05:56PM
OK. Whether imposed or maintained is more appropriate depends on the time span you are focusing on.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:40PM
While there are legitimate concerns about Google's monopolistic practices, most of the criticism is really coming from legacy businesses and their owners who would prefer to compete with the deck stacked their way.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2, Interesting) by requerdanos on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:16PM (7 children)
In the late 90s, an elderly gentlemen in his 80s told me the Bible was against Google in principle, and to look it up.
That isn't exactly what I found in Genesis 11 [biblegateway.com], but it's not all that far off, either.
All the knowledge in one place, and knowledge is power.
The parallel isn't exact, because many groups of people speak many different languages, but there's translate.google.com to help with that.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:01PM
What I would take from that is that, we're increasingly able to communicate despite language barrier -- and increasingly able to do great things, and like the builders of the tower of babble and want to make ourselves gods.
But . . . Daniel 12:4 [biblegateway.com]
although some translations to English render it differently (NASB):
where the back and forth, and increase of knowledge are not necessarily connected.
At the "time of the end" does this mean people would overcome the language barrier and significantly increase knowledge. (maybe build a space elevator this time)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 23 2018, @01:56AM
I'm rather sure he was talking about "the mark of the beast" from Revelations. I've heard that used in all sorts of figurative ways, but especially to cover credit cards and their use. You can say that's not specifically against Google, but I've heard enough people calling Google the internet, that I suspect he was talking about on-line purchases.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @08:14AM (1 child)
Citing bible as an authority... way to Godwin any thread. Save the bible for the scientists, like historians or anthropologists and wild eyed theologians.
The goog monster is a huge threat but resistance must be based on reason instead of dusty fairytales.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday February 23 2018, @04:45PM
If you consider any random "inexact parallel" to be a "cited authority," you are before long going to have some really strange beliefs. It may already be too late.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @08:28PM (2 children)
So the old testament god is a dick who separated people just because unity scares him?
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday February 23 2018, @10:30PM
I'd say that that's a nontraditional but not fundamentally inaccurate interpretation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @01:03AM
In the immortal words of the greatest prophet of a generation [wordpress.com]:
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:27PM (5 children)
This is outrageous!
These fuckers are debating whether or not the real job creators (google has 74,000 and could run the whole country with half of that) are stifling competition, while they should be drafting legislation to:
1. Provide Google with full access to IRS records;
2. A US$2.5 trillion infrastructure program to install cameras in every room of every residence, business and public bathroom in the US, with links to job creators;
3. Mandated always on mobile and "smart" device cameras and microphones;
4. Real time access to consumer bank records for such job creators;
5. Specific tax deductions equal to total global revenue for organizations that purchase more than 5,000 hard drives a year;
Anything else is just commie plots and propaganda. This is how it should be done. This is what capitalism is. This is what FREEDOM is!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:38PM (3 children)
So, for me, your attempt at irony falls flat.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:52PM
Poe's Law is very busy today. I hope Mr. Poe had a good lunch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:01PM (1 child)
You seem to have an incomplete understanding of capitalism. Perhaps you should go ahead and actually read (rather than just accept the bullshit handed to you on twitter, gab and FB -- maybe talk radio too?) the relevant literature yourself?
What's more, what we're talking about here is less about capitalism (although many would like you to think so -- and you fell for it -- sucker!) and more about oligarchy, cronyism, greed and a serious lack of ethics.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:21PM
The amount of Hannity koolaid consumed is directly proportional to illogical knowledge mastery.
Ain’t no commies here in fox land. Just God, guns and Russian hookers (thanks Don!).
Thou shalt commit adulterousnessesses. So commandth thy Don.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:02PM
You say it better than I could.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:56PM (4 children)
I really can't see much benefit in getting involved in this discussion, other than to say, get your rage out here on this story so that we needn't listen to it on every story.
Future rages can be summed up as TCAG (The Case Against Google) and we can all move on.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:10PM
Original AC here.
Wow frojack. You see that as rage?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it was just a little tongue-in-cheek humor.
Like this:
Q. How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
Do you get it now, Frojack? I'm a little surprised, you're usually a bit quicker on the uptake.
Or perhaps even more apropos, with the added benefit of making you think you might actually have been right:
Q: How many supply-side economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. If the government would just leave it alone,
it would screw itself in.
Have a great day, Frojack!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:18PM (1 child)
I fume over the lack of competition, not just Google.
There used to be lots of competition, now there are monopolies with big spending lobbyists and collusion. Stop politicians from accepting lobbyist money and get competition back.
Put government money behind open source projects instead of closed source spying and force companies to actually compete.
Also, don't support MS, Apple, NSA, etc in their spying while crying wolf about China/Huwaie (sp?).
We need smarter people in government (Go Trump![*cough*])
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:14PM
here, here!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Friday February 23 2018, @12:29AM
I'm hopeful but not optimistic that the growing investment in distributed alternatives to the centralized services will move us away from Google and it's like. Splitting Google, Facebook, or similar or giving their tech to other companies won't solve the real core problems we need to address. The core problem is that these businesses are centralized and their business models revolve around collecting customer data.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:01PM (4 children)
At least for me, Google's search engine and results had become so shitty, that I felt encouraged to make DDG my default search engine. I only rarely feel wanting to try Google now.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:03PM (1 child)
I've been increasingly using DDG for some things.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:03PM
Especially the ability to copy an image when doing an image search. :-)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @08:18AM (1 child)
What a misleading epithet. While that maybe was accurate in 2002 since then it's been but an advertising and spying outfit.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday February 23 2018, @10:46PM
It may surprise and delight you to learn that in addition to its primary business interests of advertising and espionage, Google also runs a "search" engine that is, in terms of market size, very large--this is true to the extent that they are, in fact, a "search giant." As recently as a few years ago, Search Engine Watch [searchenginewatch.com] estimated Google's search as having more traffic than the rest of the top 10 combined. I had the url for their search page around here somewhere, but anyway you can Google it.
And, at least for me, I also decided to make Google not my default search engine, switching instead to Yandex (which I actually like, as opposed to DDG which I don't). Not because I don't like Google's results, but to make sure my primary viewpoint was different than the "default" one for "most people" around here.
I find that Yandex is great for most things, but for some searches I look at page after page of nothing useful, try same search on Google, and find a result near the top. I am sure the reverse is also true for some searches.
(The interesting bonus with Yandex is that it throws the odd Russian-language result into the English search results, to help me practice reading things written in Cyrillic script. Admittedly not a bonus for most people, but if you want to widen your view, check those pages out in translation; you can be pretty sure Google wouldn't have shown them to you.)
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:20PM (2 children)
It has been a quite natural evolution. They were very successful companies. They branched out into new forms of business with the money they made. They got bigger and bigger and gained more momentum.
They will fail eventually, yes... nothing lasts forever... but maybe we shouldn't wait to do something; besides how long it would likely take, we might be surprised to see what fails with them.
It's nice to see everyone agreeing we should do something, too.
What, though? Just breaking them up isn't going to do anything but make a huge mess and make everyone angry and hurt and bitter, and leave the space open for someone else.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday February 23 2018, @02:10AM (1 child)
Well, for Google a good start might be to split Alphabet into it's separate companies. The problem with that is that the economically successful endeavors subsidize the ones that are still working on being economically successful...and that's an important thing to have subsidized.
My opinion, for what little it's worth, is that the tax on stock trades should be proportional to the inverse of the time that the stock is held up to around 7 years, and beyond that should start increasing again until at around 3 decades it consumes all the capital gains, and beyond that takes even more. If I had a serious chance of getting this implemented I'd start considering the exact shape of the curve, but I want it to be smooth, with one inflection point, and be at around 100% at both 1 second and 30 years, and essentially zero at seven years. This would encourage people to plan for the long term, but prohibit long term monopolization.
FWIW, the only real reason that I think of Google as evil is because it's an effective monopoly. But it *is* an effective monopoly, and that means that even if it's not being predominately evil and underhanded now (I think the evidence is equivocal) you can depend on it becoming such.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Friday February 23 2018, @08:50AM
the tax on stock trades should be proportional to the inverse of the time that the stock is held up to around 7 years, and beyond that should start increasing again until at around 3 decades it consumes all the capital gains, and beyond that takes even more. If I had a serious chance of getting this implemented I'd start considering the exact shape of the curve, but I want it to be smooth, with one inflection point, and be at around 100% at both 1 second and 30 years, and essentially zero at seven years. This would encourage people to plan for the long term, but prohibit long term monopolization.
I think this is a great idea, although I was tempted to replace your 1 second with 1 day, I prefer your one second, because of the bad things that might happen near the end of the day with my version.
I would leave the 30 year and above tax at about 30% because of cases where the stock passes through a whole generation without the option to trade because of family problems and other complications. There are reasons why very long term investment can be highly beneficial to society too.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday February 22 2018, @11:03PM
There are 2 reasons the government should take action under anti-trust law:
1. Customers have no alternative source of the good or service in question.
2. The company in question is maintaining its market position via illegal restraint of trade.
As far as Google's flagship product goes, their users definitely have alternative places to go, Bing being the most well-known at this point, but Baidu being probably more important based on the crawler traffic I see in some of the logs out there. There's also very little advantage in using only Google for everything: Somebody can fairly easily, for instance, use Google for searching, Dropbox for cloud data storage rather than Google Drive, and get their email from Hotmail.
And as for Google's customers, the advertisers, they could just as easily advertise via other sites. They choose not to, because the majority of users choose to use Google.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by arcz on Thursday February 22 2018, @11:11PM (1 child)
Splitting up the companies doesn't fix the problem. Copyright and patent law are the problems.
Here's how to fix it overnight:
Fixed!
(Score: 2) by Lester on Friday February 23 2018, @08:57AM
In fact, Google uses a lot of GPL, and publish a lot of Opensource code. The problem is they have more huge, enormous resources to do things that small companies can't do.
i.e. The can publish their A.I. algorithm but it is useless unless you have zillons of data mined from a zillons of users connections and a data center with thousands of CPU power and zettabytes of storage.
The solution is: "You are forbidden to store data about users habits"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @11:47PM
You're criticizing a monstrous surveillance engine like Google and you don't even mention its countless privacy violations? Where are your priorities?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @12:59AM
We should also make the case against Amazon.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @06:22AM
I just want to say, if Google is against Nazis, then I am against Google. It is that simple. I lost WWII, so now all I can do is post stuff on-line, with my fellow losers, like the Confederate States of noStates, and the Nazis collaborators of Hungary, like Sebastian Gorka! What a man! I like suck his, oh, sorry, me get Serbian carried away.