Why Google Should Be Afraid of a Missouri Republican's Google Probe (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Republican attorney general of Missouri has launched an investigation into Google's business practices. Josh Hawley wants to know how Google handles user data. And he plans to look into whether Google is using its dominance in the search business to harm companies in other markets where Google competes. It's another sign of growing pressure Google is facing from the political right. Grassroots conservatives increasingly see Google as falling on the wrong side of the culture wars. So far that hasn't had a big impact in Washington policymaking. But with Hawley planning to run for the U.S. Senate next year, we could see more Republican hostility toward Google -- and perhaps other big technology companies -- in the coming years. The Hawley investigation will dig into whether Google violated Missouri's consumer-protection and antitrust laws. Specifically, Hawley will investigate: "Google's collection, use, and disclosure of information about Google users and their online activities," "Google's alleged misappropriation of online content from the websites of its competitors," and "Google's alleged manipulation of search results to preference websites owned by Google and to demote websites that compete with Google." States like Missouri have their own antitrust laws and the power to investigate company business conduct independently of the feds. So Hawley seems to be taking yet another look at those same issues to see if Google's conduct runs afoul of Missouri law.

We don't know if Hawley will get the Republican nomination or win his challenge to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) next year, but people like him will surely be elected to the Senate in the coming decade. Hawley's decision to go after Google suggests that he sees some upside in being seen as an antagonist to a company that conservatives increasingly view with suspicion. More than that, it suggests that Hawley believes it's worth the risk of alienating the GOP's pro-business wing, which takes a dim view of strict antitrust enforcement even if it targets a company with close ties to Democrats.

Comments

Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

When your company founders are openly supporting the political opposition party, your company partnered with the old government, and your company has demonstrated your willingness to censure political thought of the user base when they go against your chosen politics, then you shouldn't be surprised that your company becomes targeted by the opposition party when your party is out of power. You made your bed, now sleep in it.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[markdavis]

>"Why companies should stay out of politics"

+1 Google has been ACTIVELY "left", so why would this surprise anyone? And "left" government officials have done exactly the same type of harassment as this in the past. It is best to be neutral on political things not directly about business.

Actors, too, should keep the hell out of politics. A lot of them look pretty damn stupid going on ads telling us how to vote, or making stupid political commentaries, as if their opinions are somehow more valid, important, or enlightened than the rest of us.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has been ACTIVELY "left", so why would this surprise anyone? And "left" government officials have done exactly the same type of harassment as this in the past.

So many commenters here have been quick to forget discriminatory IRS practices under Obama.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[interkin3tic]

Anyone who isn't extreme right gets accused of being liberal by someone on the internet.

I have to ask, what the fuck has google done that is "ACTIVELY left"?

To wit:

- They fired a guy who sent out a foolish memo. Feel free to try to convince me it was because it was a right-wing point of view, and maybe if he had say, said religious people were inherently technology incompetent he would have kept his job. But the fact is he pissed off a good chunk of the company, had a history of similar stupid behavior, and it's not straight up political.

- They acknowledge that unlimited carbon in the atmosphere might mess things up and try to reduce their carbon footprint. Though they're far more interested in money.

- They hire people who are liberal. AKA educated people.

- They support immigration, like all the tech companies do because it's easier to pay immigrants lower wages?

- They give money to a lot of politicians in California where they are which, hey, happens to be democrat. They gave money to republicans too, again, more interested in money than ideology.

- The founders support left-wing causes as right wing rich people do for the right wing yet you seem to have no problem with?

-They supported Hillary and Bernie over Trump like, you know, every fucking sane person out there.

So seriously, what's left wing about Google? The fact that they don't have mandatory pray to jeebus time? They don't preach the gospel of "Tax cuts = magic?"

Is it as facile as "They're in California?"

as if their opinions are somehow more valid, important, or enlightened than the rest of us.

"The rest of us" being the minority of the population who votes right wing? Look at the right wing right now. Yes, they are more enlightened than you are.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

Yup. And actually the recent kerfuffle with Keurig shows the same thing.

Media Matters called up Keurig and convinced them to pull advertising from Hannity because he was, according to Media Matters 'pro child molestor'. None of which was true of course.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/...

So Keurig pulled their ads. Of course at that point the right started a 'boycott Keurig' campaign, with videos of people smashing their Keurig machines. Though as Ben Shapiro pointed out - smashing a machine you already own doesn't make any sense. All you need to do is stop buying K cups from Keurig.

Now in the long run this means that companies will either be Democrat companies or Republican ones. Up to now that hasn't happened. E.g.

http://www.foodandwine.com/fwx...

Experian assigned number values to restaurants, with 100 representing neutral territory. That means that a restaurant that scores 120 on the liberal index boasts 20 percent more liberals at its tables than average. The numbers aren't all that surprising. California Pizza Kitchen brings in the most liberals, with a score of 146 on the lefty index. O'Charley's-a chain located throughout the South and Midwest-and Cracker Barrel have the most conservative clientele, scoring 121 and 118, respectively, on the righty index.

I live outside the US and CPK used to have a branch near me and I used to quite like their salads, despite being politically conservative. If I was in the US I'd have gone there too. However suppose CPK took a political stand I didn't approve of. Then I'd eat somewhere else.

Companies don't realise that as soon as they take a political position they will please about half the people and alienate about half. However the people they please are not going to shop their more and the people they alienate can easily shop somewhere else. I.e. companies taking an open political stance is a net loss.

People who don't realise this are spending too much time inside an echo chamber were everyone things their politics are virtuous and the other side's politics are evil.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think we should be so quick to accept government being used to target private businesses for political reasons. Ethics matter.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm well when you support the left wing candidate for POTUS and support most all of the left wing ideology it kinda makes you left....the fact that you think Google being called left is such a bad thing is perplexing to me. Google is left like Chick-fil-a is right its pretty common knowledge.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. If actors had stayed out of politics, we wouldn't have Reaganomics or the current shit show.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed... But sadly, a lot of people does not know better and will actually let themselves be influenced by people who are famous. Just look at the Guvernator or Donald J. T.

Personally, not being from the united states and not living there... I find it hilarious that Donald J. T. was elected president and hilarious that Arnold made guvenor...I find the whole of US politics amusing... But if I had to live in the united states, then my view of things would likely be quite different :-)

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

You live in an echo chamber where everything you read tells you your views are virtuous and clever and the other side is evil and stupid. The reason Google got into such trouble is that they hire people from inside the same echo chamber and fire people when they point this out like Damore did.

You American left wingers have ironically become indistinguishable from the way you used to portray the religious right - self righteous authoritarians who think anyone who disagrees with them is stupid and/or evil. The American left even has doctrines equivalent to original sin (male privilege and white guilt) and hell (environmental collapse). As with original sin white guilt can only be expiated by continual penitence. As with the Christian fundamentalist version of hell environmental collapse can only be avoided by not doing fun stuff. And like the Christian fundamentalists the onus always seems to be on stopping other people doing fun stuff - people like Al Gore live in vast, energy efficient mansions while telling everyone else to use less energy to save the planet from global warming, analogous to the way Ted Haggard used meth and slept with rent boys in private while publicly telling everyone else to abstain from sin in order to save their souls from hellfire. Like the religious right in the 80's the modern American left wants to take away people's freedom, ostensibly for their own good. But like the religious right you always get the feeling that pursuit of political power is a significant part of the real reason. And the people wanting to set standards have no intention of living up to those standards themselves.

It's actually kind of amusing to watch from the outside. You don't know how much like the standard Hollywood portrayal of a hypocritical, power hungry fundamentalists your side sounds like. You can see characters like this in any Stephen King novel. What the left in the US don't realise is to at least half the US people like Al Gore look a lot like that to them.

The left in the US didn't used to be this way. Bill Clinton may have been an awful person when it came to sexual harassment and corruption, but he moved the party to the centre, a trick Tony Blair copied in the UK. It's only recently that the left has become captivated by identity politics and millennial fears of environmental catastrophe that can only be averted by vast amounts of central planning. Bernie for example wants Medicare for all. Something even NPR - a sympathetic media outlet - said would cost $32 Trillion over 10 years

https://www.npr.org/2017/09/14...

Payment is unclear. A generous plan that covers all Americans is going to require more revenue. There's no exact plan for how to pay for Sanders' bill, but he did on Wednesday afternoon release a list of potential payment options. Among the proposals: a 7.5 percent payroll tax on employers, a 4 percent individual income tax and an array of taxes on wealthier Americans, as well as corporations. In addition, Sanders' plan says the end of big health insurance-related tax expenditures, like employers' ability to deduct insurance premiums, would save trillions of dollars.

But even with all of those potential revenue-boosters, Sanders may still fall far short of the total amount of money needed to pay for his ambitious program. Altogether, his estimates of how much money his funding mechanisms would generate totals up to around $16 trillion over 10 years. In a 2016 report on his presidential campaign's "Medicare for All" plan, the Urban Institute estimated that the plan would cost $32 trillion over 10 years.

To put $32 Trillion in perspective the cumulative debt almost doubled under Obama - increasing from $10.63 Trillion to $19.4 trillion. Once again Politifact is a source sympathetic to the left.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations have a long history of providing financial support to both parties. They may make public statements favoring one party over the other but they funnel their money using lobbying groups and 501c entities that allow unlimited donations used to buy political support. And Google makes the NSA look like rank amateurs when it comes to obtaining, storing, and selling personal information. The NSA is a government agency but Google is a for profit enterprise and the more data they can collect and categorize the richer they get.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[DNS-and-BIND]

LOL if you don't think Google is left and SJW, you're so far inside your own bubble that anyone to the right of Mao Zedong looks like a nazi to you.

"Googleâ(TM)s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety," he wrote in his TL;DR section of the memo. "This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed. The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology."

The response? Threats of violence. "Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldnâ(TM)t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment."

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[PolygamousRanchKid]

How much does Missouri cost on Amazon . . . ? Probably a lot less than a McMansion in the Silicon Valley. Google should just buy them. Problem solved.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the thing that was investigated by a republican congress and didn't happen?

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK Google is associated more with the Conservatives, and thus the right, not the left. But the Conservatives in the UK hold positions similar to those of Clinton.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[fustakrakich]

Everybody should stay out of politics. Only professionals should express their opinions.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[fustakrakich]

32 trillion, out of a probably 180-200 trillion GDP over the same period, not too shabby. Sounds very affordable.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

US debt to GDP is already at over 100%

https://tradingeconomics.com/u...

It's forecast to stay there

https://tradingeconomics.com/u...

Now going from $19 Trillion and 100% of GDP to $51 Trillion and presumably over 200% of GDP doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

And that's from one policy. Most people think the forecast is hopelessly optimistic and if you're willing to add $32 trillion to the debt over one policy to buy votes, what's to stop you adding another one?

It's disastrous. And up until the last election most Democrats knew it. Hillary still does

http://www.businessinsider.com...

In an interview published Wednesday, Ezra Klein of Vox asked Clinton, who defeated Sanders to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, what she thought of the independent Vermont senator's Medicare-for-all plan, which he is set to release later Wednesday.

"Well, I don't know what the particulars are," Clinton said. "As you might remember, during the campaign he introduced a single-payer bill every year he was in Congress - and when somebody finally read it, he couldn't explain it and couldn't really tell people how much it was going to cost."

Clinton also highlighted what she saw as potential flaws in selling such a plan: special interests and public sentiment.

"When I was working on healthcare back in in '93 and '94, I said if we could've waved the magic wand and started all over, maybe we would start with something resembling single-payer plus other payers, like other countries that have universal coverage and are much better at controlling costs than we do, primarily in Europe," Clinton said. "But we were facing the reality of not just strong, powerful forces but people's own fears as well as their appreciation for what they already had."

As an example, Clinton cited the difficulties with the attempt at single-payer in Sanders' home state of Vermont, saying it was "difficult to out the pieces together."

In Vermont Single Payer For All failed

https://www.politico.com/story...

I bet the Democrats end up supporting it though and wheeling out Jimmy Kimmel to cry that anyone who opposes it wants kids like his to die.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm well when you support the left wing candidate for POTUS

Hint; there was no such person. Even Bernie Sanders is pretty much middle of the road. Both Hillary and Donald are corporate stooges working for the 1% over everyone else. The difference being only that Trump probably works more for the 0.001% and the Russians whilst Hillary works for the 0.01% and the Banks, which may well make her worse.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Your numbers are Ayn Rand gibberish. The government doesn't consume the entire GDP+. Universal health care is trivially affordable. The only difficultly is the corruption.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a threat of violence to be told that other people may want to be violent towards you... If I told you that you might get mugged if you go to a certain neighborhood, I'm not threatening to mug you...

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot, this is a hard argument to make. Mainly because facts like this just don't matter in political perception. It doesn't really matter what Google does, the OPs point was that the founder's political activities position the company, and that's exactly right. The founders worked for a partisan presidential campaign, and took advantage of great access to the White House. I don't actually think there was a profit motive there. I think they did that to try to help the country, and I think they did help the country.

But it doesn't matter what their motivations were. It doesn't matter what the company does.

To answer your pointed question directly: "ACTIVELY left" means running the web strategy for Obama's first campaign. It's totally within their rights to do that, but it's clearly political activity and forms a justified basis for the perception of bias.

On another note... you are the reason why the right wingers won the last presidential election. You can't claim to be tolerant and progressive while expressing such disdain for people with different political viewpoints and cultures. It's hypocritical. It plays into people's fears that folks on the left would prefer to force people to behave a certain way, and that modern liberalism is dead.

And hey, right wingers don't have to deal with this standard? Tough shit. You worry about you first. Welcome to trying convince people of your good intentions.

If it makes you feel better, all ANYONE on the left needs to do is simply not fuck up for the next year (until the midterm elections). Don't denigrate anyone's religion or culture. Don't imply that rural folks are stupid, lazy, or uneducated. Just don't be an asshole, and the Republicans are going to self destruct their way out of power. It is absurd that this needs to be said.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who decides where to eat based on political leanings is in a bubble. Most people don't know or care who voted what, but they can taste the difference between good and bad food immediately.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

The government doesn't consume the entire GDP+

The Federal Government currently owes more than the annual GDP

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se...

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

Incidentally Moody's have worked out the fiscal headway various countries have here

https://www.economy.com/dismal...

The Economist wrote about it here

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

With current debt to GDP ratios the US is in the greenzone. Doubling debt to to GDP ratio would be bad though. It would put the US somewhere between Ireland and Portugal.

This will affect Treasury Bill ratings, and the amount of interest the US pays on its debt.

The worst case is a sovereign debt crisis where credit ratings fall, interest payments on debt increase, those interest payments add to the debt, so the debt rises and the cycle repeats until the country defaults.

Policies that add $32 trillion to the US's public debt risk heading down this path.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Opportunist]

And what makes someone a professional in economics?

Most CEO decisions could easily be improved if handed to a Magic-8-Ball.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the thing that was investigated by a republican congress and didn't happen?

OJ isn't a murderer. Clinton didn't perjure himself. Bill Cosby, Weinstein, and all the others never molested anyone. Etc.

Interesting that pointing out left wing bias is modded offtopic while the opposite is not. Almost as if one side is more insincere than the other these days, not unlike equating a lack of criminal conviction with the absence of action...unless it benefits your political party of course.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[TheRaven64]

Hmm well when you support the left wing candidate for POTUS and support most all of the left wing ideology it kinda makes you left

Note for Americans wondering why they're confusing an international audience: A candidate that is bought and paid for by industry groups is not 'left' just because they are supported by different industry groups to the candidate who self identifies as 'right'.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[jrumney]

Or perhaps politicians should stay out of business...

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who decides that child molestation falls under "political leanings" is inside a huge f'ing bubble...

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

Democrats haven't been able to buy people since Republicans passed the 13th Amendment

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Though arguably the H1B visa allow companies to have indentured servants. I'm surprised the Democrats haven't suggested illegals getting three fifths of vote.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[drinkypoo]

Hmm well when you support the left wing candidate for POTUS

I don't remember Google supporting Jill Stein.

Oh, you meant Clinton? She's centrist, not leftist. Keep trying kiddo, you'll get it never.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

No, certainly it is a MAFIA Argument. Google are Monsters, face it.

Bing
Yandex
Yacy

Boycott google.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Call the experts the Soviet of Google.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Clinton and Obama openly lobbied for the 1â.... For the war industry and for Russia to obtain a lot of uranium

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 This just proves that USA have got major issues at the political level and with his judicial system:

- the separation of powers is not effective ;
- USA is corrupted by design: state sanctioned buying of politician.

The executive powers is there to provide the necessary support for the application the laws and the legislative powers is there to pass laws. None of those two should be able to influence (corrupt) the judicial powers.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who isn't extreme right gets accused of being liberal by someone on the internet.
 
Just like anyone who isn't extreme left gets accused of nazism, racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia? Being slurred as a liberal seems mild in comparison.
 
But, you know, "we go high!!!"
 
LOL!

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets be honest, most people from one place find the politics of another place amusing. I always laugh when I see fist fights break out between politicians.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter. Hannity is now giving away 500 Keurig machines, so the message is "pull your advertising from my show and I'll buy a bunch of your product."

The outraged snowflakes are flailing around and accomplishing nothing.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[GLMDesigns]

That's a reflection upon you if you think Bernie Sanders is middle of the road.

The biggest problem in politics is we don't have a definition of "right" that makes any sense.

Ayn Rand and Adolf Htler cannot both be "right-wing". They are mutually exclusive.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[gbjbaanb]

Unfortunately the bias is prevalent from the left - but that's because the left-wing media actively encourages it and is mainstream, while the right-wing media is simply ridiculed when they do it. The difference is clear that the media on the left, that gives a free-pass to bad practices from the left is the mainstream.

What we should be doing is holding up all examples of bad practice, and criticisng it. The left-wing media should be holding the left-leaning companies and individuals to as much rigour as they can to weed out the bad uns. But instead, we know our media is biased and polarised and this only drives society to be even more tribal and encourages "opposition" media to appear to counter it. This state of affairs is really is nobody's best interests except the political activists who want to make elections about tribal loyalty and not policies.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[gbjbaanb]

professional politicians? I doubt we'd really want a bunch of unelected self-appointed career politicians running our lives because they say they know best and have a degree in politics and gender studies to prove it.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

So many commenters here have been quick to forget discriminatory IRS practices under Obama.

You mean the thing about IRS investigating a group that said it didn't like taxes at all?
Whyever would they try cheating on tax returns?

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[CrimsonAvenger]

The biggest problem in politics is we don't have a definition of "right" that makes any sense.

We have a definition of "Right Wing" that makes sense - anything that disagrees with the Left Wing in any particular.

Ayn Rand and Adolf Htler cannot both be "right-wing". They are mutually exclusive.

***looks at definition provided***. Yep, Hitler and Ayn Rand are both Right Wing....

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You are one of those dipshits that don't know that don't know the political parties switched sides. Holy shit. People this dumb really do exist.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

All that is pure voodoo bullshit. And you're confusing accumulated debt with deficit spending. We can easily afford universal health care simply by implementing a fair equitable tax system so that the rich pay their fair share. Just admit that you're a Randian freako trying to rationalize slavery.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the one that didn't happen so bad that Tea Party groups ended up with a $3.5M settlement.

Keep on being a dumb fuck though, it's clearly working for you.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly how did google censure political thought? Other than the pointing out that the bulk of the "news" that the the republicans/russians kept pushing was nothing more than bald faces lies.

Living in Missouri and having to deal with Hawley it is very plain that he is a trump wanna be and is desperately looking to make a name for himself

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Actively left? You mean by promoting the Russian ad buys? or maybe you mean the YouTube videos that were created by the Internet Research Agency paid trolls and were promoted by YouTube?

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Destroying the machine garantees the owner will never buy K-cups again. It also garantees no potential future owners, and thus no one buys K-cups after buying the machine on ebay/goodwill/garage sale for cheap. It basicly garantees the machine will never generate $$$ for Keurig again. That is why people smashed X product when they disagree with the policies or politics or whatever other reason that would drive a person to never buy from the company.

If people really hated EA, for example, they would go to used game stores, buy used copies of games that have DLC or whatever, and break them on the spot. This will prevent a future customer from giving $$$ to EA but all the while supporting the used game market (a boon to EA for years.)

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations you found someone more left than Clinton. That still doesn't make Clinton centrist. In the US the Democratic party is the major left party like the Republican party is the major right one. I never said Clinton was the most liberal candidate but she sure as hell isn't centrist in the US. Now you can drag up some bull shit definition of left versus right and say "well actually if you take Clinton and put her in the EU she would be right." We are talking about US politics and a US company. Keep trying and you will get it kiddo.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[netizen_james]

You mean the ALLEGED discriminatory practices which, upon investigation, were discovered to be unfounded? Those practices?

Which of these facts are you claiming is not a fact?: "the FBI told Fox News that its investigation had found no evidence so far warranting the filing of federal criminal charges in connection with the controversy, as it had not found any evidence of "enemy hunting", and that the investigation continued. On October 23, 2015, the Justice Department declared that no criminal charges would be filed. On September 8, 2017, the Trump Justice Department declined to reopen the criminal investigation into Lois Lerner, a central figure in the controversy.[1] " (wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...) (see also: https://www.npr.org/sections/i... )

What you really mean is that mean old nasty IRS was actually enforcing the regulations concerning 501(c) groups that were ILLEGALLY putting money into Republican campaigns, and were allowing the wealthy to anonymously contribute thousands of dollars which they wouldn't have been able to do through normal campaign donations. It seems like conservatives in general think that the laws don't apply to them, because they think they're doing "God's work", and to them, 'God's laws' (or rather, their very constrained and contorted INTERPRETATIONS of 'God's laws') always beat out 'Man's laws'.

This is the same dynamic that has conservatives excoriating Bill and Hillary (him for having an affair, and her for sticking by him in spite of the affair), while ignoring or excusing the serial philandering of Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde's affair, Bob Livingston's affair, or the paraphilia of Denis Hastert. This is the same dynamic that allows conservatives to decry the actions of Harry Weinstein, while ignoring the similar allegations against Roy Moore.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Green Mountain Bot]

And worse, someone actually modded him up as insightful.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[netizen_james]

that the Trump administration gave away millions of dollars to conservative groups surprises you in some way? Surely you don't believe that a settlement is an admission of guilt, do you?

Is that why Eric Gardner's family got 5.9 million from the NYC, because they were admitting that the NYPD murdered him, even though no indictments were filed against Daniel Pantaleo? Or is that 'different' somehow?

Please stop being a blind partisan. It's clearly not working all that well for you.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[netizen_james]

What 'left wing person' did Google officially endorse for President? Can you link us to their press release on that endorsement? There were no 'left wing' candidates for president in 2016. Not even Dr. Stein.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

I've heard a bunch of Democrats tell me that the parties switched sides. Aka 'our party used to be evil but now it's good' and the Republicans adopting the Southern Strategy.

See Ben Shapiro debunk the 'Southern Strategy' talking point here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[netizen_james]

Rand was simply a moron - her 'objectivism' isn't 'rightwing', it's just a stupid attempt to justify greed and selfishness. The 'collectivism' that the Randians decry is what the rest of us call 'civilization'. If all the Randians were rounded up and put on Madagascar to fend for themselves, they'd all die because to them, cooperation is anathema.

Yes, Hitler was 'right wing'. Most authoritarians are. No, Stalin was not a leftist. Neither was Castro. They were both authoritarians too.

If you want to see a 'leftist' nation, you need only look to Norway and Denmark. If you want to see a 'libertarian' nation, you won't find one. Anywhere. Ever. There's a reason for that.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

A leftist can be authoritarian and Fidel Castro was a leftist.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

And you're confusing accumulated debt with deficit spending.

The debt is just the sum of the deficits.

We can easily afford universal health care simply by implementing a fair equitable tax system so that the rich pay their fair share.

The top 2.7% pay 51% of all individual income taxes collected. And the top 0.1% pay 39.2% of all taxes collected. It's hard to imagine how they're not already paying 'their fair share'.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

In 2014, people with adjusted gross income, or AGI, above $250,000 paid just over half (51.6%) of all individual income taxes, though they accounted for only 2.7% of all returns filed, according to our analysis of preliminary IRS data. Their average tax rate (total taxes paid divided by cumulative AGI) was 25.7%. By contrast, people with incomes of less than $50,000 accounted for 62.3% of all individual returns filed, but they paid just 5.7% of total taxes. Their average tax rate was 4.3%.

The relative tax burdens borne by different income groups changes over time, due both to economic conditions and the constantly shifting provisions of tax law. For example, using more comprehensive IRS data covering tax years 2000 through 2011, we found that people who made between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 23.8% of the total tax liability in 2011, up from 18.8% in 2000. Filers in the $50,000-to-$75,000 group, on the other hand, paid 12% of the total liability in 2000 but only 9.1% in 2011. (The tax liability figures include a few taxes, such as self-employment tax and the "nanny tax," that people typically pay along with their income taxes.)

All told, individual income taxes accounted for a little less than half (47.4%) of government revenue, a share that's been roughly constant since World War II. The federal government collected $1.54 trillion from individual income taxes in fiscal 2015, making it the national government's single-biggest revenue source. (Other sources of federal revenue include corporate income taxes, the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, excise taxes such as those on gasoline and cigarettes, estate taxes, customs duties and payments from the Federal Reserve.) Until the 1940s, when the income tax was expanded to help fund the war effort, generally only the very wealthy paid it.

Since the 1970s, the segment of federal revenues that has grown the most is the payroll tax - those line items on your pay stub that go to pay for Social Security and Medicare. For most people, in fact, payroll taxes take a bigger bite out of their paycheck than federal income tax. Why? The 6.2% Social Security withholding tax only applies to wages up to $118,500. For example, a worker earning $40,000 will pay $2,480 (6.2%) in Social Security tax, but an executive earning $400,000 will pay $7,347 (6.2% of $118,500), for an effective rate of just 1.8%. By contrast, the 1.45% Medicare tax has no upper limit, and in fact high earners pay an extra 0.9%.

All but the top-earning 20% of American families pay more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes, according to a Treasury Department analysis.

Still, that analysis confirms that, after all federal taxes are factored in, the U.S. tax system as a whole is progressive. The top 0.1% of families pay the equivalent of 39.2% and the bottom 20% have negative tax rates (that is, they get more money back from the government in the form of refundable tax credits than they pay in taxes).

Even if you confiscate 100% of all wealth from all the billionaires you'd get $1.7 trillion, and only once.

https://www.quora.com/How-much...

US has about 425 billio

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[drinkypoo]

I never said Clinton was the most liberal candidate but she sure as hell isn't centrist in the US.

Yes, she absolutely is. She is as bought and paid for as any of her fellows, and she is a corporatist through and through. There are notably more leftist politicians in the media on a regular basis.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[desdinova 216]

to the ultra conservative media anyone who proposes anything that benefits someone other that their money people is "left" or liberal

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Curunir_wolf]

So, sure, Google is a monopolist bully that censors speech, invades privacy, and uses shade practices to kill their competition, but they're on our side!

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[desdinova 216]

here's a crazy idea. How about not using political power to seek revenge on political opponents?

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Curunir_wolf]

So many commenters here have been quick to forget discriminatory IRS practices under Obama.

You mean the thing about IRS investigating a group that said it didn't like taxes at all? Whyever would they try cheating on tax returns?

It was a much wider program than that, there were many groups. When all that happened, my wife was the head of a group in our state. She got started with the Ron Paul campaign, before the "Tea Party" was really a thing, so she got her org's 501(c)(3) status before the IRS started targeting conservative groups.

So since that was already in place, they went after us personally instead. There were audits, bills, threats, all based on nothing. We kept filing paperwork and responses to their queries, which somehow the IRS never received. I'd mail AND fax the stuff in, call to confirm and they just tell me I have to wait 6 weeks. 6 weeks pass and somehow they never got it. Send it again, and more threatening letters. We had to start making payments for a bill we didn't owe because they were shutting down our bank account.

The funny part is, less than a week after the "investigation" ended with a finding that the IRS "did nothing wrong," I get a call from a IRS rep that says they just got our case on the desk. He asked a couple of questions and gave me a fax number. Sent in the paperwork and called the next day, everything was cleared up.

So, yea, I don't buy that they weren't targeting people.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Curunir_wolf]

Bullshit.

When all that happened, my wife was the head of a group in our state. She got started with the Ron Paul campaign, before the "Tea Party" was really a thing, so she got her org's 501(c)(3) status before the IRS started targeting conservative groups.

So since that was already in place, they went after us personally instead. There were audits, bills, threats, all based on nothing. We kept filing paperwork and responses to their queries, which somehow the IRS never received. I'd mail AND fax the stuff in, call to confirm and they just tell me I have to wait 6 weeks. 6 weeks pass and somehow they never got it. Send it again, and more threatening letters. We had to start making payments for a bill we didn't owe because they were shutting down our bank account.

The funny part is, less than a week after the "investigation" ended with a finding that the IRS "did nothing wrong," I get a call from a IRS rep that says they just got our case on the desk. He asked a couple of questions and gave me a fax number. Sent in the paperwork and called the next day, everything was cleared up.

So, yea, I don't buy that they weren't targeting people.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[barc0001]

> Now in the long run this means that companies will either be Democrat companies or Republican ones. Up to now that hasn't happened.

Oh really? What planet have you been living on for the past 40 years?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/10/09/ceo-says-hell-fire-employees-if-obamas-reelected/#2301dd3259c0

http://www.businesspundit.com/20-companies-that-you-probably-didnt-know-were-republican/

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is would you notice any difference if that happened?

I mean it seems like replacing one bunch of know-nothings with a different bunch of know-nothings would be a wash...

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[GLMDesigns]

The definition of "Right" to most people is anything "not left"

Whatever you may think of Ayn Rand her philosophy promoting the rights of individuals and freedom of association is antithetical with H!tlers.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[e_pluribus_funk]

It's less why companies should stay out of politics and more why companies should play on both sides of the fence.

Staying out of politics opens up opportunities for your competitors to lobby for legislation that directly targets you as a business, or to set up government funded litigation attacks like what happened to Microsoft earlier. Microsoft went from not donating any money to politics to being one of the bigger donors overnight because of that.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[e_pluribus_funk]

>That's a reflection upon you if you think Bernie Sanders is middle of the road.

Most folks, particularly folks on the left, typically define the "center" as sitting right about where they are politically speaking.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to look at total tax burden, not just income tax. People with low incomes pay a substantial percentage of their income as sales tax, property tax (built into rent), and excise taxes.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[GLMDesigns]

She stressed rule of law - that requires cooperation.

She admired the constitution and the ideals as embodied in the US Constitution. Washington, Madison, Jefferson couldn't cooperate? Really?

You want to disagree with her? Fine. Disagree all you want. But making things up doesn't help you make your case.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

Well Pew did that and found

Still, that analysis confirms that, after all federal taxes are factored in, the U.S. tax system as a whole is progressive. The top 0.1% of families pay the equivalent of 39.2% and the bottom 20% have negative tax rates (that is, they get more money back from the government in the form of refundable tax credits than they pay in taxes).

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayn Rand and Hitler were both very quite clearly right wing. The only dissent to that reality is from right wing think tanks who have, since the 1970's, attempted to paint Hitler as "left wing" despite the mountains of evidence that 99.9% of the world acknowledges.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[pots]

It's certainly a reason why companies would want to stay out of politics, but there's a very compelling reason why they want to be involved in politics: political lobbying provides greater returns than any other investment.

Politics being politics, it's very difficult to do this without making enemies. Many companies take the approach of giving money to everyone, thereby maintaining "neutrality," but they make no friends this way either. Google is an up-and-comer in Washington, but they're one of the top ten financiers for lobbyists now. It makes sense that they'd have some enemies. The probe that the article mentions is probably just a sign that their efforts are paying off.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[kaatochacha]

So essentially, your definition is : Authoritarian and/or greedy=right, stuff I like=left.
I hate to break it to you, but the extreme right and the extreme left are like the far side of a donut--they're barely indistinguishable from each other in how they achieve their goals. Your argument is sort of like sayinig "Well, he was (my group), until he did (bad thing), then he wasn't. Because my group doesn't do (bad thing).

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[kaatochacha]

"Universal health care is trivially affordable".
Please, citation?
Or is this like "building a hyperloop between LA and New York is child's play".

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[JackieBrown]

She is a leftist in the American since which includes social issues. I guess Europeans have a more simplest view of left in right (bought by corp - must be right or centrist.)

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Break out of your google search bubble and read this then.

https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this is a good example of why companies get into politics.

Lobbying is much less expensive then defending yourself in court + bad PR + paying fines.

This loser is just winding up for a run at congress : "Look, I stood up to big tech company! Elect me!"

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Pubstar]

They can both be right wing. What you're look at is something that is a line segment from Left to Right. You need to add the vertical graph of Authoritarian and Libertarian to that, so you have a plane that they can exist on.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

So, sure, Google is a monopolist bully that censors speech, invades privacy, and uses shade practices to kill their competition, but they're on our side!

Hey, gbjbaanb, you see my point? Demonstrated with the above example. And I didn't even have to ask. Like I said, not able to rise beyond their own partisan bias, Google is not on their side, so they hate, hate, hate. They make Google's political agenda out to be important, but all they really care about is how many liberals they can attack, not one wit about what Google is actually doing.

Cuz, I get it, Google is the badness for you now, Curunir_wolf, but let me know when you start policing your own yourself.

Or not, I do appreciate your consistency in being hypocritical, it keeps validating the criticisms of your own failures.

Now go smash your own Keurig. And don't eat a Papa John's Pizza. Don't do that at all.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[drinkypoo]

She is a leftist in the American since which includes social issues.

Clinton decided not to support a UBI, and she has publicly stated that single payer health care is dead in America. She has punted on the issues that liberals care about most. So no, no she is not a leftist in any "since".

I guess Europeans have a more simplest view of left in right (bought by corp - must be right or centrist.)

It's just that simple, yes. Supporting corporatism is a centrist position. And I was born in Santa Cruz, California.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[dcw3]

This state of affairs is really is nobody's best interests except the

...media. FTFY

The media gains because the tribes love to watch drama. It's the same reason you only hear "news" that is unusual, and not about the six hundred murders that happened in Detroit. They only care about selling advertising, and tribalism supports that.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard a bunch of Democrats tell me that the parties switched sides.

Nope. What happened was the eventual evolution of the sides, and the GOP embraced the Southern White Conservatives that had previously been in the Democratic Party because they still hated Lincoln.

Aka 'our party used to be evil but now it's good' and the Republicans adopting the Southern Strategy.

AKA, the members of the party back then are now dead, and the living members of the current party are capable of making their own decisions.

See Ben Shapiro debunk the 'Southern Strategy' talking point here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

See Lee Atwater admit it. See Michael Steele admit it. See More.

Sorry, but Ben Shapiro is a known liar.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[dcw3]

And Lincoln wouldn't have been shot.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[JackieBrown]

So if a republican is pro-life and traditional marriage but agianst corps and for single payor, are they centrists?

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[drinkypoo]

So if a republican is pro-life and traditional marriage but agianst corps and for single payor, are they centrists?

Anyone who wants to tell you what you can do in your bedroom is a conservative or a fascist.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin kicked my dog!

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Reverend Green]

But, but, but... if you support $OTHER_TEAM you're a big jerk Nazi traitor asshole!!!1!!1!

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Reverend Green]

leftist = rightist = centrist = authoritarian financialist

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Reverend Green]

Time for debt repudiation? Power grows from the barrel of a gun - and fedgov has a lot more guns than the banksters.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[dcw3]

California Pizza Kitchen brings in the most liberals, with a score of 146 on the lefty index. O'Charley's-a chain located throughout the South and Midwest-and Cracker Barrel have the most conservative clientele, scoring 121 and 118, respectively, on the righty index.

I think anything with "California" would be far left by default...and then there's "Cracker"-anything on the right.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[dcw3]

You have to be careful when you read these things. Companies like mine donate to any candidate (often on both sides) based upon their voting record in regards to how it helps the company. A single donation could be perceived as supporting one side, or spun that way.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Hal_Porter]

Before talking about this stuff it would seem to me to be a good idea to find out how governments get money. Either they raise taxes or they borrow. And when they borrow they do it by selling bonds on the open market. The interest rate they need to promise depends on how risky their debt is seen as. Part of that is how much it is as a percentage of GDP.

The 'banksters' as you put it are people who buy Treasury Bills on an open market. If they stop buying it's not like you can find them all and threaten them.

You have a sovereign debt crisis and threatening individual people to make them buy T bills would make it worse

http://www.ibtimes.com/what-so...

For healthy governments, borrowing costs are actually low in the "bust" phrase of the "boom and bust" economic cycle because spooked investors move money from the private sector to the perceived safety of the government.

Investors assume that the government's legal power of taxation on the entire economy gives them a better chance of honoring their debt than private entities.

However, when government debt becomes too high - some suggest debt levels equal to 90 to 100 percent of GDP - international investors/lenders may no longer believe the country's tax base can support debt repayment. As a result, the debts of these governments fall in value and their yields (borrowing cost) go up.

Rising yields is a self-reinforcing cycle that makes high debt levels even less sustainable. It also raises the borrowing cost for the entire private sector.

Falling government bond yields deal a detrimental blow to the financial sector. Caruana said it severely erodes the worth of banks' assets because most banks have a large holding of domestic sovereign bonds.

It also weakens the government's implicit guarantee on big banks, which makes it more expensive for banks to raise funds.

Both developments limit banks' ability to lend to the private sector, which hurts the real economy.

In summary, when investors doubt the debt repayment ability of governments and government debt turns from risk-free to credit instruments, "the consequences are likely to be severe," said Caruana.

Indeed, while economies free from sovereign debt problems have generally enjoyed economic growth in 2010 after the global downturn in 2009, Greece's real GDP plunged 4.5 percent in 2010, turning in a worse performance than its 2.0 percent contraction in 2009.

For countries stuck in unfortunate sovereign debt situations, Caruana said they need to "earn back their reputation as practically risk-free borrowers" by credible and tangible fiscal consolidation and structural reforms.

The only way to persuade people to buy your bonds again is to my drastic cuts in public spending to convince people that you're going to reduce your debt to gdp ratio to sustainable levels. Meanwhile your real GDP contracts sharply. It's very hard to get out of this.

Right now the US has a debt to GDP ratio of about $18.96 trillion, or about 104% of GDP. If Bernie's single payer for all were implemented then debt would rise to about $51 trillion of over 200% of GDP. If that caused a sovereign debt crisis T bill auctions would fail and the US government would need to offer higher interest rates. Of course raising the interest rate makes the fiscal situation worse and your credit rating worse.

Or it could default. Even Greece didn't do that because that's even worse than a sovereign debt crisis. You need to call the IMF with emergency loans, and the IMF will demand restructuring - i.e. even sharper cuts than you have in a sovereign debt crisis.

Basically look at most South American countries. Most of them elected politicians who made unrealistic spending promises. They raised taxes, borrowed so much that they had a sovereign debt crisis or default or printed money and created hyperinflation.

South America is poorer than the US mostly because most South American governments have followed Bernienomics most of the time since independence.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[dcw3]

In general, that's a good idea. But, you often end up making compromises that appear, and negotiations and deals end up leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth. That gets people looking for revenge, and then you have what we have now...tribalism, and a feeding frenzy by the media for more because it brings in more revenue. If we can't learn to view those on the other side as something other than "libtards" or "teabaggers", then I have little hope that we'll recover from this without blood spilling eventually.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I also get fatigued with actors who opine about, not just politics, but a lot of things. In fact, I get irritated when they talk about their acting process, come to think of it. But "should"? Then who "should" NOT keep the hell out of politics? I think engineers should keep the hell out of politics. Bankers too. Businessmen. They just don't have the background.
Huh. Everyone, I guess!
But that's idiotic, of course. Don't listen to someone if you're not interested in them, is probably the best rule. But everyone can weigh in. Actors are certainly not as bad as a lot of people who run their mouth off about politics. Many actors came from all kinds of backgrounds, and maybe did well via luck, or looks, or any number of other qualities unrelated to talent and/or brains, but they certainly represent a wide variety of regional, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. And if people listen to them because they're famous, well, that's the country we live in, and why we have the president we do.

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[cthulhu11]

Actively left ... except their hiring policies.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Reverend Green]

How's that bootleather taste?

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that, sometimes, their front page "Doodles" will feature the accomplishments of women, minorities, artists, scientists, and other pinko pussies. Not once have they featured Jesus.

Re: Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? We have two choices in our elections, and in this particular election, it came down to an Orange, pretty stupid, insanely narcissistic, serial-lying pussy-grabbing asshole and a run-of-the-mill politician. That doesn't make Google "left wing", it makes them "sane".

Re:Why companies should stay out of politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the one that didn't happen so bad that Tea Party groups ended up with a $3.5M settlement.

Keep on being a dumb fuck though, it's clearly working for you.

Scientology also got a settlement. Your evidence isn't actually evidence of what you think it is.

Just throw some cash at them

[Daemonik]

I'm gonna guess the Republicans are prepping to find replacements for all those wealthy donors who are threatening to abandon them if they don't get their tax breaks. Just threaten some corporations until they drop some free speech dollars into the right Super-PACs.

Campaign Contributions

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't know if Hawley will get the Republican nomination or win his challenge to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) next year

In unrelated news, Google to provide campaign contributions for re-election of Sen. Claire McCaskill next year.

Why exactly does Google

[Anonymous Coward]

seem to be a target for 'conservatives'? They are an 'merican company that makes lots of money. That sounds like a conservative's wet dream. Seriously though, what is the googs doing that would make them seem like suspicious to conservatives?

Re:Why exactly does Google

[MachineShedFred]

Seriously though, what is the googs doing that would make them seem like suspicious to conservatives?

They donate lots of money to Democrats.

Re: Why exactly does Google

[Anonymous Coward]

That guy that was fired for pissing off coworkers claimed to be conservative. So the righties are out for google now. Also since Silicon Valley tends to be liberal the conservatives now hate tech companies.

Re: Why exactly does Google

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't look closely, but my understanding was that Damore was quite liberal, just apparently not the kosher type liberal.

Re: Why exactly does Google

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't look closely, but my understanding was that Damore was quite liberal, just apparently not the kosher type liberal.

Actually he wasn't. You can see that from the interviews he did afterwards. He was just a conservative / sexist pretending to be reasonable for the particular debate. The argument was that his document included an ostensible aim of improving diversity and a number of caveat's which made it a reasonable contribution to the debate. If you read between the lines when he withdrew his employment case against Google without any apparent compensation he had likely been behaving badly in other ways at work and they had plenty of other evidence of sexism against him.

This was the biggest problem. He had a number of reasonable points, but the people who just read the emotional level of his document rather than the science picked up that he was a sexist so thought he should be fired. Then they turn out to be right. People who read the same document on a scientific level without actually checking for things that were missing thought that it was reasonable and maybe he was just making a point in a bad way. They turn out to be wrong. The reasonable arguments, for example that diversity training doesn't work (research has been shown it to have a negative effect) and that restructuring work might make more sense (if you need emotional intelligence to be a programming manager maybe it's good to design the entry work to fit that more) got lost in the whole mess and may even have been discredited.

Re:Why exactly does Google

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They have an ever widening ring of censorship that is targeting conservative voices on Youtube. Additionally, it is now known that they have a toxic leftist monoculture that is hostile to conservative workers in their work force that became apparent with the firing of James Damore. Who dared ot ask reasonable questions but felt the full rage of the toxic left because it impinged on their every widening ideology of identity politics that is essentially cult-like now.

Re: Why exactly does Google

[Dread_ed]

Damore said, if you read with some clarity and intelligence, that the patriarchy has, at a fundamental level, influenced and controlled the structure of jobs in the tech sector. His position is that because of male domination in that industry the parts of the job that are not related to the actual work of being a software engineer are more easily tolerated by those with Y chromosomes.

Long hours, little time off, working weekends, high stress, and recognition based on being noisy and self promoting are all artifacts of a overtly male occupied industry, which is now permeated by decades of entrenched male-oriented business structures. His tentative proposal was to rearrange these parts of the business to better accommodate individuals that do not thrive in that environment.

I think it was in Google's best interests to tar and feather him. The changes he points to would severely alter the corporate business structure and cost Google an incredible amount of money. Working anyone, not just women, 6-7 days a week for 12 hour days (or more!) would become verboten. Promoting people would require taking a deeper look at each eligible candidate, rather than quickly sifting through the handful of shameless self promoters who constantly squak for promotion. Reducing stress would require redundancy in more positions and necessitate additional employees.

He is right though. If the tech industry were to change these antiquated ideas of what it takes to make it big at Google, more women would find working there attractive. Lowering standards wouldn't be necessary to increase female participation in their workforce. The drawbacks of the industry that have the best and brightest women choosing other fields would no longer be a barrier. I also think that more men would want to work there too, but as there has been no shortage of men who are willing to sacrifice their entire lives to the company for 70 hours a week plus, this is irrelevant. If the objective is to attract a more diverse pool of qualified candidates, and to keep the ones you already have happy, these changes would certainly do it.

So yeah, Google dodged a bullet there. Damore's changes would certainly accomplish the goal of attracting more diverse qualified candidates. Unfortunately, Google is too attached to a patriarchal system that preys on the "bread-winner" drive of males for profitability and market dominance. If exploiting their employees wasn't such a big part of their successful business model they could easily change their business structures to make their company more attractive to women.

Google also got really lucky that there are so many "feminists" that took the "he's a sexist" bait and ran with it. If they had bothered to actually think about what he said, rather than using it as an opportunity to rant and scold, his points could have spurred a debate that may have ultimately become an important turning point in the all too silent war that has been simmering between workers and corporate America. Alas, useful idiots are available by the millions and they are always looking for an opportunity to be offended in a loud and public voice. The end result is that Google gets to maintain their antiquated, male-centric, patriarchal business structure and at the same time receive the support of women everywhere.

What a damn shame.

Re: Why exactly does Google

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read between the lines when he withdrew his employment case against Google without any apparent compensation he had likely been behaving badly in other ways at work and they had plenty of other evidence of sexism against him. [...] the people who just read the emotional level of his document rather than the science picked up that he was a sexist so thought he should be fired. Then they turn out to be right.

People should not be fired after just reading them on an emotional level. It would be a problem if that point were obscured by those emotional people turning out to have been right, because they are currently still hard at work at Google being noisily aggressively wrong and emotional, both against employees and users.

I don't know why you get to read between the lines like this, though. If there were other sexist stuff, I think Google should have shown it to Googlers and perhaps investors. It's important to clarify to both parties the memo isn't enough to get someone fired, if indeed it isn't. Either party's clarity alone is more important to Google than avoiding whatever the settlement would've been. This hasn't happened, so for now I think it's just your fantasy. Maybe it will "turn out to be [true]," but it hasn't yet.

People who read the same document on a scientific level without actually checking for things that were missing

What missing things? the references that journalists deleted when they tried to smear him?

Headline

[MachineShedFred]

Keep your republican probes to yourself - that kind of thing gets you in the newspapers these days.

rimshot!

Re:Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, at least he's no Harvey Weinstein...

Re:Headline

[Uberbah]

Hey, at least he's no Harvey Weinstein...

Another right-winger (by nature of supporting right-wing politicians) - what about him?

Re:Headline

[Bodhammer]

Which are the right wingers on this list? https://www.opensecrets.org/se...

Re:Headline

[ArchieBunker]

James Woods is about the only conservative actor and he even admitted it hurt his career.

Re: Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Willis.. There are a few, and I am sure there are many more than that.

Re: Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he is a pedo creep too that tried to get in Willa Holland's pants.

Re:Headline

[KozmoStevnNaut]

All of them, by any reasonable political compass.

Re: Headline

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Arnie is probably one of the most liberal republicans in the public eye.

Re:Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, the classic liberal "he makes us look bad so we'll claim he's a conservative". Seriously, at some point you guys just need to learn to accept that there are assholes on your side too. Look at the Republicans current controversy. Are they claiming he's not really a republican? No. They're telling him to resign.

Re:Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond being a sex offender?

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41594672

Re:Headline

[Loyd_G]

Gary Sinese and Kelsey Grammar too

Re: Headline

[e_pluribus_funk]

Schwarzenegger is not conservative by any decent definition. Willis isn't really political at all. Reagan is dead.

Re:Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

s/ admitted/ bragged

Everyone, yes even you and me, we all like to think we've been victimized. Because the alternative is admitting that we're just not as good as we'd like to be.

Anyone who says "this hurt my career", I take that with a large pinch of salt. Yes, that applies both ways, it applies to Weinstein's victims as well as Trump's. And James Woods.

Yes, very possibly having shit that you didn't invite into your life - did hurt your career. But we all have that. Everyone has something in their life that they didn't want and didn't sign up for. Maybe you can get help or support, maybe you can figure out a way to claim redress - if so, good on you. But if not - I'm sorry, but we all play the cards we're dealt. Be thankful for the tricks you do win.

Re:Headline

[Uberbah]

Which are the right wingers on this list?

All of them. Why, were you operating under the fallacy that Democrats==left? They are, as often as not, more extreme right wingers than the GOP.

Re:Headline

[dcw3]

Not by US standards. People need to get off of this soapbox. And sure, both sides take individual policies to the opposite spectrum. And yes, we all know that most all American politics is on the right. But, you can't apply the global left/right to the politics of the US...it's not relevant to the discussion because when Americans talk about left/right, it's only relative to the U.S. range of positions, and the Ds are left of the Rs. You'd have to come up with another phrase ridiculous phrase to distinguish the ultra right from the central right to the leftist right.

Re:Headline

[dcw3]

How's Tim Allen doing these days?

Re:Headline

[Uberbah]

Not by US standards.

Yes. Even by U.S. standards.

People need to get off of this soapbox.

People need to take off their partisan blinders:

No Republican has done as much to hurt the poor as Bill Clinton did when he gutted welfare.

No Republican has put more blacks and Latinos in jail than Clinton's draconian crime bills in the 90's.

No Republican has tried to outright cut Social Security benefits like Obama tried to do for years.

No Republican has outright said he will ignore Congress and start a war without any kind of authorization, the way Obama threatened to do on Syria.

No Republican has come close to Obama's deportation record.

No Republican has come close to Obama's persecution of whisteblowers.

No Republican has come close to Obama's NDAA which allows the military to arrest you on American soil and throw you in prison indefinitely without a lawyer or a trial.

More. Extreme. Than. The. GOP.

Federal

[supernova87a]

I'm guessing that Google would do well to quickly take this out of state jurisdiction (if something threatens to be filed), to forestall mushrooming multiple state investigations if one succeeds, and claim that if anything should be tried at a federal level it's internet competition. And then so swamp the opposition with studies and facts about how they simply reflect the bidding of their advertisers and express no opinion or facilitate no anticompetitive behavior themselves.

But just guessing, I'm no lawyer.

Re:Federal

[Anonymous Coward]

how would the ( take it out of state jurisdiction). If Missouri ( or any other state) wants to pass any law that is not unconstitutional, all business wanting to do d business in the state must comply. A more interesting move would be to simply stop doing business in Missouri. When people from missouri located computers or ip's go to the google site they would get a [not allowed in your state] sign that pointed to the politicians and provided e-mail and phone for political action to get the laws changed.

Re:Federal

[omnichad]

When it's specifically about interstate commerce - an enumerated federal jurisdiction.

It's OK If The Left Wants Frivolous Investigations

[Anonymous Coward]

But god forbid the someone on the right wants to investigate actual issues.

Nexus?

[glitch!]

Does Google have a nexus in Missouri? If not, what legal issue can proceed? If Google were incorporated in Antarctica, could anyone sue them? Just asking for the sake of legal jurisdiction.

Looking back, does anyone (!) want to go back to Altavista searches? Or Inktomi? Or that other search engine that got big bucks from mesothemioma and bulk email ads per click? I must have cost them a lot from my clicks :)

Re:Nexus?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you operate in the state or country you have to follow their laws. I have already been moving away from google services as they appear to be more concerned about politics and censoring dissent than providing good products and services.

Google? No thanks. If they are too incorporated in everyone's life to not be able to be divorced from their services then perhaps anti-trust suits are exactly what we need. Break that shit up.

Re:Nexus?

[Altrag]

Define "operate in." That's a tricky one with the interwebs. It may well be that Google has zero physical presence in Missouri, zero legal presence in Missouri, zero financial presence in Missouri.. and yet 90% of Missouri likely uses Google because 90% of everybody does (I mean I don't know what Google happens to have in Missouri.. I'm just saying that it doesn't matter whether they do or not -- Missourites will still be using Google.)

The internet has no natural borders. It was specifically designed that way since it comes from the cold war era and the designers were intentionally creating a system that the Soviets would have a hard time breaking. Fast forward nearly half a century and we have countries (and in this case, states) explicitly wanting to break the internet and running into a problem with its fundamental design philosophy. They can either keep it in full or cut it off entirely, but trying to pick and choose what parts of it you want is very very difficult. Even China's great firewall is only moderately successful and they pour a hell of a lot more resources into it than Missouri could ever afford.

Because of course this isn't about breaking or stopping Google. I'd bet that guy Googled the information he used to file his claims. Its about trying to make Google bend to their (almost certainly) right wing ideology and fining them until they do.

I would love to see Google make an example of one of these stupid lawsuits. Take their ball and go home rather than compromise, and see how well Missouri (or France or whoever) handles a world where Bing is their only search option (it would have been even better 2 or 3 years ago when Bing was worse.) I mean I don't expect them to ever do that, especially on a country level where they almost certainly have local server complexes to reduce latency. But it would be a hell of a show if they did.

Re:Nexus?

[dcw3]

I'd love to see Google take their ball and go home too. But as much of a monopoly as they are, they don't quite have a total lockdown on search. And, competition is a good thing.

Google has more than this Missouri AG

[schwit1]

More money, more time, more experience and more patience. Google only needs to wait for another AG to come along who drops the case for the right campaign contribution.

Fund Primary Opponents

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget donating to the Democrats, just throw some money at primary challengers.

Remember how the Republicans were kind of forced to accept Trump?
Now imagine that, times 500 congressional races.

I think the Republicans might want to cut bait against an opponent like Google.

Re:Fund Primary Opponents

[Hal_Porter]

Aren't the left supposed to be against corporations using money to corrupt the political process?

Kid Rock

[Anonymous Coward]

We would all be better off if Kid Rock followed through on the hype of running for this senate seat. He would have won and flattened all of these bozos.

Regulations

[whoever57]

So, basically, reducing regulations only matter when it affects large Republican donors?

Re:Regulations

[Anonymous Coward]

So, basically, reducing regulations only matter when it affects large Republican donors?

Yes. More generally, one's legislative agenda serves only those who have contributed to one's election and future re-elections.

This also works in the reverse order, those who do not donate receive lots of regulatory attention. Remember pre-1996 Microsoft saying they didn't see a need to lobby? Well, after Janet Reno finished with them, they do not do that anymore.

Re:Regulations

[Anonymous Coward]

Counterpoint: the political establishment is no longer protecting their abuses.

Re:Regulations

[Altrag]

No, it only matters when it benefits large Republican donors.

The Republicans are pretty happy to regulate the hell out of your bedroom, your womb (should you have one,) your faith and anything else they happen to dislike. The whole "small government" and "deregulation" catch phrases are just that -- catch phrases. Republicans want just as much government as Democrats.. they just want it focused in a different direction.

Altavista

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually enjoyed Altavista. Best choice in its era.

Just so we're clear...

[PopeRatzo]

The Republican attorney general of Missouri has launched an investigation into Google's business practices. Josh Hawley wants to know how Google handles user data. And he plans to look into whether Google is using its dominance in the search business to harm companies in other markets where Google competes. It's another sign of growing pressure Google is facing from the political right. Grassroots conservatives increasingly see Google as falling on the wrong side of the culture wars.

They don't have a problem with Google's business practices, their privacy intrusion, their anti-trust violations. The problem is that they do all these things while not supporting the GOP.

Maybe if Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google were to molest some children they'd be more comfortable with him.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

he could just rape some women like winstien and cosby don't forget a*holes live on both sides of the isle ;)

Re:Just so we're clear...

[rahvin112]

It's called politicizing law and order, not much different than the president demanding Justice to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton to act as a distraction about Russia and little Trump Jr. being brain dead stupid. This is the kind of shit that happens in banana republics and places like Russia and China.

No have no doubt the whole investigation is politically based as I doubt the state of Missouri has any serious privacy protections and this whole thing is to distract from Trumps own problems and to try to punish Google for their political activism. Only problem is that when you politicize law enforcement it ends up going the other way too and law and order goes out the windows and police start being used for political retaliation. For example the NY attorney general then launches a massive investigation of Trump Corp and when Trump loses in 2020 a special prosecutor gets appointed to investigate everything he's ever done (him and his kids would probably end up in jail for life with all the shady bullshit they've done) and the big blue state AG's (NY and Cali) open investigations of all the major GOP doners. Is that where we want to go, every politician gets a special prosecutor after leaving office and any company that advocates for anything gets law enforcement thrown against them?

It's not right to politicize law enforcement, it's a dangerous and IMO illegal use of law enforcement assets and ANYONE that does it should be arrested and charged with abuse of authority. Trump and this Missouri AG are on a very dangerous path here and there should be severe repercussions for doing what they are doing. The fact that they are both so fucking short-sided to see where this slope leads once they aren't in power should stop them but if it doesn't the rest of us should. No one on either side of the aisle should be defending this perversion of the justice system. The president should not have the authority to order an investigation of anything/anyone by the justice department.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Child molesting is a left-wing thing. Joe Biden, Harvey Weinstein, George Takei, and Kevin Spacey are all on the same side. Not to mention John Podesta and all the others we haven't even caught yet.

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the women were underage, he could run for senate in Alabama.

The difference between Dems and Repubs is Dems condemn their criminals, Repubs call it fake news.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wut? Molestation and sexual assaults are firmly a domain of the left. Not a day goes by without another democratic party supporter or lefty journalist getting accused of sexual misconduct.

And now all of a sudden they are also against privacy and for data collection because republicans are against it? So much for all that grandstanding and virtue signalling.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia and little Trump Jr. being brain dead stupid

Let me guess: you get your news from Salon and the Huffington post?

Re:Just so we're clear...

[goose-incarnated]

George Takei?

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republican attorney general of Missouri has launched an investigation into Google's business practices. Josh Hawley wants to know how Google handles user data. And he plans to look into whether Google is using its dominance in the search business to harm companies in other markets where Google competes. It's another sign of growing pressure Google is facing from the political right. Grassroots conservatives increasingly see Google as falling on the wrong side of the culture wars.

They don't have a problem with Google's business practices, their privacy intrusion, their anti-trust violations. The problem is that they do all these things while not supporting the GOP.

Maybe if Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google were to molest some children they'd be more comfortable with him.

You got that backwards. Republicans get excoriated for molesting women and children.

Democrats get away with it.

Bill Clinton is the biggest example.

Look how Democrat Whoopi Goldberg excused Democrat Roman Polanski: "It wasn't rape rape"

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dems condemn their criminals

Now THAT is funny. You are a gullible fool.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[drinkypoo]

Child molesting is a left-wing thing.

So Roy Moore has secretly been a left-winger all his life? Trump? But the real difference is that the left-wing public is totally willing to throw all of those people under the bus, but the right-wing public is all too ready to make excuses for child molesters. Roy Moore has got over fifty churches making apologies for him, which makes sense given that there are whole books of the Christian bible which are literally nothing but apologia for older books in which God and his followers act like fuckheads constantly.

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Hal_Porter]

They didn't condemn JFK or Clinton both of whom molested their employees. Clinton may have raped Juanita Broaddrick. Or Ted Kennedy, who left Mary Jo Kopecne to drown.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Or Harvey Milk

https://www.politicsforum.org/...

Re:Just so we're clear...

[meglon]

http://www.constantinereport.c...

... from the Grand Old Pedophile party of Donald "grab them by the pussy" Trump. On yet another topic you are, once again, a fucking ignorant idiot.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Hal_Porter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Hollywood have to do with this?

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dems condemn their criminals

Democrats ARE criminals. What else would you expect from a party that protects the most vicious and murders the most innocent? I can only pray your pets toss you from a building or stone you to death some day. That would be justice.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Baron_Yam]

I think in Takei's case there's good reason to disregard the accusation unless and until it goes to and through court.

So far as I'm aware, it's a single accusation from long ago that is uncorroborated. You look at the other major cases flying around, and there's tons of people crawling out of the woodwork saying, "We all knew but were afraid to do anything".

Takei hasn't had that kind of power... well, ever, as far as I know, and even with it being the 'in' thing to denounce right now, I don't see a lynch mob of former associates gathering.

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

JFK -- really? Thomas Jefferson had slaves and fathered a child with one -- you left that out.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I think it's pretty damn dangerous and definitely unjust to go straight from "accusation" to "judgement of guilt" regardless of who the accused it, left OR right. ALL of these accusations should be disregarded until the accused has had the opportunity to answer in court. The accused has the right to confront and challenge the accuser and is unconditionally entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and all that.

Not that I don't think Weinstein is a creep or that clown in Alabama is wholly unsuitable for public office. I do. But mob justice is not justice.

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Hal_Porter]

https://newrepublic.com/articl...

Alford's story is entirely believable. She was an attractive, naive recent graduate of Miss Porter's School. Miss Porter's was also the alma mater of Jacqueline Kennedy and of a slightly older White House secretary named "Fiddle" with whom Kennedy was also having an affair, or so the First Lady believed--there was also a purported dalliance with Fiddle's close friend "Faddle," a secretary in the press office--and it isn't lost on Alford that this descendant of Boston's lace-curtain Irish had a thing for Social Register girls. Her fourth day on the job she was invited upstairs to the private residence. Kennedy led Mimi into his wife's bedroom (the First Lady was away), unbuttoned her blouse, touched her breast, pulled down her underwear, dropped his pants, climbed on top of her, and fucked her. When she told him she was a virgin he became a bit more compassionate, but neither in that sexual encounter nor in any other did he ever kiss her on the lips.

This part of Alford's story doesn't really add anything to what we already know about Kennedy. Nor does it really change my opinion of the 35th president. But this part does:

Dave Powers was sitting poolside while the President and I swam lazy circles around each other, splashing playfully. Dave had removed his jacket and loosened his tie in the warm air of the pool, but he was otherwise fully clothed. He was sitting on a towel, with his pants leg rolled up, and his bare feet dangling in the water.

The President swam over and whispered in my ear. "Mr. Powers looks a little tense," he said. "Would you take care of it?"

It was a dare, but I knew exactly what he meant. This was a challenge to give Dave Powers oral sex. I don't think the President thought I'd do it, but I'm ashamed to say that I did. It was a pathetic, sordid, scene, and is very hard for me to think about today. Dave was jolly and obedient as I stood in the shallow end of the pool and performed my duties. The President silently watched.

Afterwards, Alford says she was "deeply embarrassed," and as she climbed out of the pool she "could hear Dave speak in as stern a tone as I ever heard him use with his boss. 'You shouldn't have made her do that,' Dave said. 'I know, I know,' I heard the President say. Later, a chastened President Kennedy apologized to us both." Alford believes that Kennedy showed "his darker side ... when we were among men he knew. That's when he felt a need to display his power over me." Kennedy didn't just have a thing for Social Register girls; he had a thing for humiliating Social Register girls. He also had a thing for humiliating his fellow Irishman, Dave Powers.

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dems nominate our criminals.

Re:Just so we're clear...

[DNS-and-BIND]

LOL suddenly because it's "one of us" an accusation isn't enough? WTF? An accusation is all that's needed, otherwise you're victim-blaming. Have you been asleep for the last 30 years? Did you miss Rolling Stone's "A Rape on Campus" story? Or Mattress Girl's accusation that she was raped by German immigrant Jean-Paul Nungesser?

Re:Just so we're clear...

[Baron_Yam]

Agreed. However, it's still perfectly rational to feel fairly comfortable around Takei and not want to be anywhere near Weinstein right now.

One unverified accusation vs. dozens of corroborated accounts makes a difference, even before a courtroom. And Weinstein also made a limited admission of guilt when this all started.

Legal presumption of innocence is distinct from practical presumption of innocence.

Re: Just so we're clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

This from the people who gave us Teddy Kennedy.

Google is a monopolist in advertising

[FeelGood314]

You are not google's customer. You are the product. There is no monopoly on search, there is almost no barrier to creating a new search engine and there is nothing sticky about me using Bing, Google or DuckDuckGo. Google is completely up front about what they do with the data people freely give them.

Google is how ever a monopolist in advertising. If I want to buy advertising on the internet I go to Google. They make it easy, they give me amazing tools and they can sell me placement everywhere. No other advertiser on the non-facebook internet is even relevant. On the flip side if you want to sell advertising space on your website, unless you want to have a real sales team, you have no choice but to sell to Google. The barrier to entry in online advertising is massive. Search, email, maps, documents, etc., those are just added lines of defense to protect adwords.

Re: Google is a monopolist in advertising

[sergio7653]

The problem with Google is they make really good products that actually work. That is why it is so hard to compete with them, even for companies that have the resources. For example, in my opinion, there is no better way to look for a flight than their tool.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[rahvin112]

I believe that just like search a determined competitor could quickly take market share, but they would need to make their tools and systems as good as googles and none of their competitors do.

For whatever reason few of Google's competitors don't actually try to make their products as good as Google's, for example as easy to use and quick and easy to place advertising. Google makes the process extremely easy and almost fully automated, and I've yet to see a competitor that takes this aspect seriously. Their tools are clunky, their systems are often slow and unresponsive and frequently require human intervention. Google's competitors just don't take the need for simple easy technology seriously.

Do I think they abuse their advertising monopoly? Yes, but I do believe that just like search if someone really wanted to compete and was willing to invest the resources they could take market share. For example, why has facebook not moved out into advertising off their own systems successfully? Because they try to tie everything in to facebook, they make people use their systems and technology and it's never as easy as googles to implement with a simple link. The same thing prevents microsoft from succeeding, they are always trying to cross sell and make their tools suck to do it.

Facebook could take a significant chunk of general advertising on the internet within a month if they let their advertising unit act as an independent entity that isn't forced to dog food everything off their own systems and cross link and sell everything.

Re: Google is a monopolist in advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do I think they abuse their advertising monopoly? Yes"

Right there. That's it. That is the definition of anti-trust. We are done here. The rest of your post about tools is interesting but irrelevant to this situation.

Google's motto since day two: more evil tomorrow than yesterday - everyday!

Re: Google is a monopolist in advertising

[serviscope_minor]

For example, in my opinion, there is no better way to look for a flight than their tool.

I thought so to until recently, whe na collegue asked why I was catching a particular and rather inconvenient flight. Turns out that google flights was missing a bunch that other aggregators like skyscanner did have.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[coofercat]

No monopoly in search? Really? Google has something like 80% market share globally - that looks like a monopoly to me [source: https://www.netmarketshare.com...

there is almost no barrier to creating a new search engine

Yep, no barrier, except maybe millions of dollars and years of development work, oh and millions more in servers to actually crawl the Internet. Oh, and then somehow you've got to prize people away from their default browsers, 'mind share', phones and whatever else. Seems like small-potatoes to me too.

Google is completely up front about what they do with the data people freely give them.

Well, I'd disagree because people aren't aware of what they're giving google, and aren't aware of the ways it gets used either. "We use it to target ads at you" really doesn't do justice to the amount of data they scoop up and how much 'mining' they do on your data and how they use that data to influence you in various ways.

Google is how ever a monopolist in advertising

There we agree, although until recently Yahoo actually had a larger advertising network than Google. The critical difference is of course that Yahoo's network didn't extend to the search results page on Google search. Once you needed to use Google to put ads on that one page, it was easy to put them elsewhere too. One could argue that Google used their search dominance to gain advertising market share, which is really what happened but would be hard to prove sufficiently clearly in any legal proceedings unless you happen to get a dump of Google's internal email over the last 10 years or something.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Months ago the Youtube app on my PS4 would show me content about guns in the sports category. This was fine by me as I consider shooting to be a sport and I'm interested in it. Then an update happened and all of that content went away to be replaced with content I'm not interested in and don't ever search for (football, baseball, weight lifting, etc).

Many of the gun oriented channels I subscribe to have been completely demonetized. Why? I'm not talking about fringe, alt-right channels, but channels simply reviewing guns and gear like the NutnFancy Project and Demolition Ranch.

Google is absolutely using their position to promote a political agenda by making it harder for me to find the content I'm interested in, and making it harder for the people producing that content to continue to do so. When a company which is largely seen as a consumer tool for the people starts to dictate what content the people can produce and consume, it should come as no surprise that they will come under much greater scrutiny.

If they simply let their platforms show me what I'm interested in, which is what they used to do, this wouldn't be an issue. They have actively chosen sides and have started actively restricting users in ways which are politically motivated.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Definition of monopoly:

Market situation where one producer (or a group of producers acting in concert) controls supply of a good or service, and where the entry of new producers is prevented or highly restricted. Monopolist firms (in their attempt to maximize profits) keep the price high and restrict the output, and show little or no responsiveness to the needs of their customers.

I'm not seeing the overlap between what you said and this definition.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[swillden]

Well, I'd disagree because people aren't aware of what they're giving google, and aren't aware of the ways it gets used either. "We use it to target ads at you" really doesn't do justice to the amount of data they scoop up and how much 'mining' they do on your data and how they use that data to influence you in various ways.

Cite?

Note that I'm not arguing with you, just asking for details and sources. I see claims like yours a lot, but no one ever seems to be able to explain in detail what other stuff Google does, or how they know about what other stuff Google does.

Re: Google is a monopolist in advertising

[upl8n87447]

"Even for companies that have the resources". But do they? You have to consider that massive mega-wealthy companies like Google can buy up a massive chunk of the best talent in the world, as well as buy out companies with a flick of their pens.

Look at college hiring for instance. The best of the best students are often pulled into these companies early on through internships, and then locked in once they graduate. Through non-compete contracts, once a person is in these companies, it's not so cut and dry to go work for a competitor.

Add to this that Google has been around for a long time and has hundreds of thousands of man hours that have gone into their system, how could a new competitor ever hope to reasonably catch up. The sheer amount of money Google have invested into their technology is a massive sized mountain for any other company to climb.

Then of course there's customer loyalty / customer simplicity. Bing or other search engines may be better in some respects than Google, but people don't care about metrics. They just jump on google to search like they always do.

This is why I think "the possibility" of competition isn't a great metric to use when considering whether a company is a monopoly. User base / profitability percentages must be considered. I also think "breaking up" companies isn't always the best solution, rather those at the top of the food chain should have to pay higher taxes, whereas those on the bottom should get better incentives. We, as a nation, need to enforce rules that will keep the top in check, while empowering the bottom to compete.

Re: Google is a monopolist in advertising

[Altrag]

This is all kind of beside the point.

1) Microsoft is currently Google's biggest competitor in the search space (albeit very very far behind.) But its not like MS is exactly lacking in talent or resources.

2) Google themselves did exactly what you're talking about -- a couple guys in a garage with a good idea ended up taking down Altavista, Webcrawler, Yahoo!, and all of the other search engines at the time. If you had made this exact same claim about Altavista in 1999, everyone would have thought you were right on the money.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[Altrag]

One thing to note: There's nothing wrong with or anything illegal about having a monopoly. What's illegal is when you try to use your monopoly power to either unfairly bully potential competitors (for example, but selling lower than cost because you can afford to do that and they can't) or when you try to use your monopoly power in one industry to unfairly advantage yourself in another industry (as Microsoft was sued for back in 1998 when they used their Windows platform dominance to force Internet Explorer on users.)

In Google's case, they run a fine line on the latter, particularly with respect to their search engine dominance leading to their advertising dominance. They're also constantly being accused of prioritizing their services over others in the search rankings but most (not all) of the time its usually found that their competitors just suck and are naturally ranked lower based on the way the algorithm works without any specific bias being necessary.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[bingoUV]

Well, I'd disagree because people aren't aware of what they're giving google, and aren't aware of the ways it gets used either.

Cite?

Are you saying there is a remote possibility that
1. people are aware of what they're giving google, and
2. people are aware of the ways it gets used ?

Note that aware better mean "really sure, with evidence" rather than a hunch based on weasel words in Google's privacy policy.

but no one ever seems to be able to explain in detail what other stuff Google does, or how they know about what other stuff Google does.

Convenient when the "stuff Google does" is hidden behind closed doors on Google's servers. So even experts outside Google don't have access who could have analyzed it in some years, let alone "people".

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[swillden]

People can certainly have suspicions, without means to confirm or deny. But many make bold assertions of bad behavior, apparently claiming certain knowledge. If there actually is evidence to support such assertions, I'd like to hear about it, so I regularly ask. I never get a reply, which I guess means that the assertions are actually just suspicions.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[swillden]

based on weasel words in Google's privacy policy.

Oh, one more point.

Try this sometime as an exercise. Take a privacy policy with "weasel words" in it, and try to rewrite it without them (assuming that the company actually doesn't want or intend to behave badly). Be absolutely sure that the resulting text cannot possibly be construed to imply that the company is not doing anything that it actually is (e.g. that your company isn't using user data to provide the services that the user wants provided), because the legal liability inherent in making claims that could be refuted is huge. Once you've gotten yourself thoroughly protected against that sort of misinterpretation, now look at how it could be misinterpreted in the opposite direction, by people who want to believe that you're being abusive. You'll find lots of weasel words.

Seriously. Try it yourself.

Note that I'm not using this argument to claim absence of bad behavior, just to point out that it is impossible to accurately divine bad behavior from the presence of cautious wording in a privacy statement. English is imprecise, even legal English, and so lawyers have to err on the side of safety. Even worse, Google (and many others) have begun making a serious effort to write their policies in "normal" English, rather than legalese, which means that they're eschewing the greater precision provided by legalese, making the language fuzzier than lawyers are used to. That means they need an even larger safety margin. More weasel words.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[bingoUV]

If there actually is evidence to support such assertions

Which are the ways by which Google allows collecting such "evidence" ?

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[bingoUV]

Which is why anything other than server access and data access, without being NDA'ed so that experts can be consulted, is merely "weasel words".

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[swillden]

Which is why anything other than server access and data access, without being NDA'ed so that experts can be consulted, is merely "weasel words".

FWIW, the FTC has such access, pursuant to the Google Buzz consent decree, and regularly audits Google's compliance with the terms of the decree.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[swillden]

If there actually is evidence to support such assertions

Which are the ways by which Google allows collecting such "evidence" ?

Irrelevant. Asserting the existence of evidence you can't collect doesn't make sense. Asserting the possibility that such evidence may exist does make sense, but that's not what I constantly see slashdotters doing.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[bingoUV]

Ha, government is precisely the entity in whose hands Google's data is most dangerous. Government agencies disarming themselves/each other is quite a stupid expectation.

Re:Google is a monopolist in advertising

[bingoUV]

I am a slashdotter. It is not enough to not have proof that people's data is abused - it is necessary to have proof that people's data is not abused.

The companies ARE unethical

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care who calls them out, they are extremely unethical and it is waaay past time for intervention. It isn't 'hostility' to enforce our laws and regulate unscrupulous businesses, of which, Silicon Valley currently lead the pack.

Paid by peter thiel

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what the motivation is?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-15/peter-thiel-gave-money-to-attorney-general-going-after-google

Hmmm

[Falconhell]

Yes, well I would have thought being probed by Missouri republicans wouldnt be nice, those good ol' boys are always the sick ones.

Manipulation of available information

[Kagetsuki]

It's not just "grassroots conservatives" that are worried about this. Re: the Demore memo, but also the fact Google was contributing to the Clinton campaign, and of course the "american scientist" search results. I'll grand that search result could be an organic result... but the fact we've had multiple engineers stating it's common practice to feed the engine specific data to "help" it find the right data does make me pretty suspicious. You can't deny most people use Google services, so if what they see come up on those services is manipulated for political gain, directly or indirectly, that's a pretty scary thing - especially when you consider there seems to be a large push for a non-meritocratic/anti-technocratic culture within the current ranks of Google employees.

Re:Manipulation of available information

[Xyrus]

Google is company, and they can do whatever the hell they want with their search results...oh wait, I'm sorry. I forgot who was in power now. A bunch of fucking hypocrites who decry regulation except for when it becomes damaging to their case. Let me rephrase this:

Google is a company, and they can do whatever the hell they want with their search results in order to support the neo-fascist extreme-right/alt-right agenda or we'll send in the jack-booted thugs to silence them.

Here's a tip: Google isn't the only search engine. There are plenty of others. If Google's search results offends their delicate neo-nazi sensibilities then there are a plethora of others to choose from.

Or is the argument that we should add regulations to prevent corporations from acting like and being treated like *gasp* people. Oh the horrors! You mean hold them accountable for their actions? Like selling ad space to Russian front companies to expose millions to foreign propoganda? Oh we can't have that! Think of the poor corporations and their profit margins!

Re:Manipulation of available information

[Kagetsuki]

My issue is with illiberal practices, restrictions on freedom of speech and/or expression, and anti-meritocratic/anti-technocratic systems. Filtering information is an authoritarian practice - and one the Nazi's made ample use of. If the current government is trying prevent companies from censoring information on the grounds the company doesn't agree with, therefore fostering real freedom of speech and expression which is the foundation for a liberal society, then I don't care what government it is I'll support that.

Have you read the Demore memo by the way?

That Or

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he is going after Google because he thinks they actually broke Missouri law. You know like how Google broke Italian, Chinese, and EU law. Naw it couldn't possibly be that an attorney general would want to put "and while I was in office I went after big corporations and successfully defended the little guys rights" on his election resume. It must be about payback for Trump because every stupid thing in every stupid story is about Trump.

if they start witch hunts

[Anonymous Coward]

against big, profitable companies, the Republicans will start to get treated like Obama got treated after he started criticizing the banks for the 2008 market crash.

Surprised? This is a campaign promise!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does anyone believe we can "Make America Great Again" without rolling back everything that has changed it. The people who made the slogan certainly don't. They truly were campaigning on restoring us to a 1950s America in every way - that time period when we ruled the world because we had the largest manufacturing base virtually untouched by war in the world and had just placed everyone in our debt in the reconstruction. You can't get back there and keep things that work against that dominance.

This is an anti-tech, anti-progressive administration for a reason. Tech and progress work against American dominance.

Welcome to the administration of the regressives.

this is a sad joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Every politician is in the market to be bribed. ahem... supported. The question is who. Who has deep pockets and will.

This means every politician needs to make some large entity afraid.

Gun control advocates get money from NRA too, in order to not pursue line items in their agendas.

This isn't going anywhere. We are modern serfs. This posturing is about making predators better able to predate on us, and nothing more.

Don't be a hypocrite.

[sg_oneill]

Reminder: If your a person who thinks "Companies should stay out of politics" and are not actively supporting folks like Bernie Sanders (Or one of the right wing equivilents who are against corporate donations to parties, assuming such a uniicorn exists) who are directly campaigning for banning corpoorate donations and lobbying, you are a hypocrite.

No ifs , no buts, hypocrite.

Re:Don't be a hypocrite.

[coofercat]

Is it not possible to choose another candidate because "they do way more for me that Bernie Sanders, except they don't want to stop corporate political donations" without being a hypocrite? Is it not possible to have some sort of 'grey area'? Maybe some 'degrees of support'?

In American politics, there is an enduring culture of "you're with us, or against us" - where it's not possible to support a candidate "a bit more" than another. Nope, you've got to love and cherish your chosen candidate 100%, forsaking all others (and worse - you're expected to pour as much vitriol and scorn onto all other candidates). I'm not sure that's healthy for your democracy, but it's yours to f'up if you wish.

Political much?

[houghi]

Not sure who the target here is with that much political talk, but remember that Socialist Europe does the same thing.

What? GOP will finally support...

[Anonymous Coward]

a right to privacy? No? They just want a cut of Google's money? Oh. Ok, I thought this was about the people, but it's really about the politicians.

There's a bias test for media.

[Anonymous Coward]

I's simple. What paragraph number is the subject's party mentioned. I read one article about Senator Mendez's corruption trial and it never said he was a Democrat.

This site used to be about tech and tech news...

[x0]

Now it's all political and how anyone not fully left of center is evil.

So, we have a legislator starting an investigation into whether or not Google is profiting off of, while concurrently harming other companies, and pushing the left's agenda.

This site used to be about the 800lb gorilla using it's market share to force the other companies to toe the line, or die on the vine.

Now , it's all about that left wing agenda and how anyone who disagrees is 'attacking' $favored_company or clubbing baby seals.

Sigh...

LOOK AT MICROSOFT AS WELL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 and other products (Suprisingly SQL Server) slurp your data against your will.

One Google question to ask - Why did google NEVER explain why location services needs to be on for newer Bluetooth functions?

Companies are user-hostile and steal your data against your will.

Re:This site used to be about tech and tech news..

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Now it's all political and how anyone not fully left of center is evil.

I'm sorry, I must have missed it for all the right-wing FYGM shit that I have to wade through to read any actually intelligent comments.

Re:This site used to be about tech and tech news..

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you posted the least intelligent comment yet. That's gotta hurt your pride. Maybe your mom should have ended breast feeding earlier.

Other way around...

[Anonymous Coward]

Realistically, the government should stay out of the politics of companies. The role of government is to provide a military and police presence and let business run how the invisible hand sees fit. Basic Randian ethics stuff here, taught in every high school as a requirement for graduating and being a functional citizen.

Re:Other way around...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really realistically, companies should stay out of politics, period.

If the owners want to espouse or support a political view, they can and should do that as individuals.
I dont get why it is OK for a few people at the top of a corporation to speak for
    The employees
    The stockholders
    The customers.

European scumbags!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, wait a second! What?

Ars partisan bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical partisan bullshit from the heavily left leaning Ars Technica. If Google is being investigated by a Republican, it MUST be because he's trying to score points in a culture war against the left. Couldn't possibly be that such an investigation is warranted by Google's business practices. Everything must have a political spin applied to it

Re: Kid Rock's opening speech

[Anonymous Coward]

My name is KIIIIIIIIIIIID...Kid Rock!!!

Bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy diggy said the boogy said up jump the boogy

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you that the trail ends somewhere in Redmond...

The abused users of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

... a dim view of strict antitrust enforcement ...

The news is more than a politician targets an unfriendly corporation: He's breaking party rules to do it. While the summary notes the advantage to the Republican party, the politician is doing it mostly for the benefit of re-election, sorry the abused users of Google.

who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Josh Hawley who? Googling him shows up no results. He is running for something? Funny how no one seems to think so. Well, at least that's how reality would look like if Google was guilty of what they are being accused of. Yes, yes. I exaggerate. But Google no longer wishes to not be evil. Not doing evil is much more objective than "doing the right thing". Right by whom? It's kind of subjective almost by definition.

google bad, experian....

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see if I get this straight....

Experian (et al) data mine personal data. They screw up and something like a 1/3 of the country's personal data is exposed. Anything of significance happen after this to experian? Not so much, it would appear.

Google, OTOH, is somehow misusing user data and needs to be disciplined even though AFAICT, nothing like experian has occurred with them.

Perhaps someone can explain the nuance here?

Republican Probing

[Anonymous Coward]

Google should be scared. A Missouri Republican probe sounds a little too much like an alien probe! Or an Alabama Republican probe...

Irony

[McFortner]

Funny how the people who distrust big business the most are the ones screaming about somebody wanting to shine the spotlight on Google.

Re:This site used to be about tech and tech news..

[Anonymous Coward]

Now it's all political and how anyone not fully left of center is evil.

Somebody must have a short memory, or suffering from AMNESIA!

So, we have a legislator starting an investigation into whether or not Google is profiting off of, while concurrently harming other companies, and pushing the left's agenda.

We have an elected right-wing official, not a legislator, and it's interesting that he's seeking to investigate Google, much like he investigated Planned Parenthood.

This site used to be about the 800lb gorilla using it's market share to force the other companies to toe the line, or die on the vine.

Oh, you remember the Microsoft anti-trust debates? Interesting how that turned out, wasn't it?

Now , it's all about that left wing agenda and how anyone who disagrees is 'attacking' $favored_company or clubbing baby seals.

Sigh...

And you haven't noticed the people advancing the right-wing agenda and shrilly declaring how anyone who is disagrees is "attacking" most_favored_politician and cutting up babies?

You'd do yourself credit if you made an effort to appear less biased. Sadly, like most of your kind, you seem to wring your hands about the dreaded left, but not one token word of concern about the right.

Is this something you just didn't notice?

Threats for Funds

[dcw3]

I see this as a political strategy.

1. Comment on how Business X is screwing the little guy, and state that legislation is needed.
2. Open the door to the lobbyists
3. Profit.

You don't need to actually go through with #1. The threat along brings it home.

Let me get this straight ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the party that just voted to end net neutrality -- which means cable companies and other ISPs can now sell customer's browsing history and other data -- are worried that Google is harming consumers?

Um, I'm gonna go ahead and call B.S. on that one.

It's just more "us vs. them" politics. It has NOTHING to do with protecting consumers.