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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.
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.
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.
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.