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0 pointsocdtrekkie5y ago0 comments

> To my knowledge, Google has not denied any information requests they've received

Your knowledge stops very short in this area then. Google is utilizing the entire playbook to delay and obscure information from antitrust regulators. For example, Google almost always responds to requests for response from regulators on the last legally permissible day to do so, often after requesting multiple extensions. Here's an article about the third extension they got to respond to one of the EU charges: https://phys.org/news/2015-08-google-extension-eu-case.html (Google responded to this one four days before the deadline of the third extension, https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-responds-to-european-uni...)

In another example, Google was to respond by April of 2016. After getting extensions out to the end of September and then October... Google finally responded on November 3rd: https://www.digitaltrends.com/business/google-antitrust-eu-r...

Each of these months-delayed responses of course, can be summarized down to "Google doesn't believe Google is anticompetitive" in a blog post I could've written in an afternoon.

They managed to drag out the EU cases years longer than they should've taken through these sorts of games, and the US cases are now just getting started.

This was three days ago: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-doj-accuses-google-dragging...

Google has taken states to court to try and block them from sharing information necessary to investigate the case: https://www.axios.com/google-texas-paxton-antitrust-microsof...

And have straight up refused to turn over emails and texts from corporate executives relevant to the case: https://nypost.com/2020/02/21/google-stonewalling-ags-over-e...

Also, bear in mind, Google and Facebook agreed to cooperate in fighting antitrust investigations against them, to avoid one providing information on the other's side of the deal: https://news.yahoo.com/google-facebook-agreed-team-against-0...

Essentially what's happening here is Google knows it's in the wrong, and it knows it's making more money than it will ever be forced to give up in fines and penalties, so they want to drag all of these processes out as long as possible.

The public would be best served by raiding the offices, seizing the information, and stopping all illegal operations from continuing while the investigation is completed, so that Google executives have adequate incentive to respond quickly to restore business.

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shortstuffsushi5y ago

I started to write up a whole thing, but your hn history and linked twitter shows you're very openly rabidly anti-google. That's fine, and in general I'd even mostly agree with you. I draw the line at suggesting government raids of private companies, though. That won't ever be a good idea.

ocdtrekkieOP5y ago

There are a lot of companies I am pretty anti, to be fair. Find me say one nice thing about Facebook. Or Tesla.

I would say in the case of big tech companies, I am concerned the standard playbook is no longer viable. They often are more powerful than the countries that would regulate them, and they use threats and market manipulation to overpower nation states. There are now multiple examples where a company has used withdrawal or suspension of services to force a country to undo or roll back a law, or where a company has outright bought a political measure that repeals legislated protections for individuals.

The sole place sovereign nations still have the upper hand is arguably physical force. I think we need to start looking at some of these companies as organized crime, not civil violators.