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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 10 2021, @03:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the service-guarantees-citizenship dept.

Google sends anti-regulation propaganda to small businesses using Google Maps:

Google is quietly enlisting the help of small businesses to help protect the nearly $2 trillion company from antitrust regulations. In response to Congressional bills like the "Ending Platform Monopolies Act," which would ban platform owners from favoring their own services over the competition, Google is telling small business owners that these bills would hurt their ability to find customers online and that they should contact their congressperson about the issue.

We've seen Google do political action before, usually in the form of headline-grabbing blog posts from CEO Sundar Pichai defending the latest product-bundling scheme. The strategy here seems new, though; rather than writing a public blog post, Google is quietly targeting users who have registered business listings on Google Maps. These users report receiving unsolicited emails and an "action item" in the Google Business Profile UI that both link to Google's new anti-antitrust site.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 10 2021, @04:30PM (6 children)

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday November 10 2021, @04:30PM (#1195197) Homepage Journal

    Well, I guess THAT was a damned lie... Have you tried reading Google News on a tablet using Firefox? Like 1980s Microsoft, "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run". Unlike Microsoft with Lotus, they didn't make it not work, just prone to crashes, but only in Google News. I actually contacted the FTC about it.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=2, Informative=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @04:38PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @04:38PM (#1195201)

    I remember at least one major redesign made Google News much slower, with some Javascript infinite loop sometimes that would force you to kill the page.

    Bing News [bing.com] is a viable alternative.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @04:58PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @04:58PM (#1195209)

      Whenever google news started misbehaving for me, I reverted back to yahoo news. As long as you don't mind having to pause the videos that auto-play, it will keep you informed of the latest cavorting of the Kardashians and which middle-age celeb is sporting a bikini in posted selfies.

      Call me old-fashioned.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @05:08PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @05:08PM (#1195210)

        The youth culture really is out of control when 50 year old women still feel they have to show your their bits to stay "relevant."

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @05:45PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @05:45PM (#1195219)

          I feel sorry for the celebs (and their agents) who are reduced to peddling soft porn on social media to make a buck.

          • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday November 11 2021, @08:57PM

            by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Thursday November 11 2021, @08:57PM (#1195498)

            I feel sorry for the celebs (and their agents) who are reduced to peddling soft porn on social media to make a buck.

            Why? They are still doing better than most of us who actually work for a living.

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @05:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10 2021, @05:47PM (#1195220)

          That has been true ever since there was a Hollywood. The Hollywood "golden era" was pretty brutal on women actors when they reached a perceived certain age.