Slashdot Mirror


Why Google and Amazon Are Hypocrites (om.blog)

Amazon earlier this month responded to Google's decision to remove YouTube from all Fire TV products and the Echo Show. Google says it's taking this extreme step because of Amazon's recent delisting of new Nest products (like Nest Secure and the E Thermostat) and the company's long-running refusal to sell Chromecast or support Google Cast in any capacity. Veteran journalist Om Malik writes: This smacks of so much hypocrisy that I don't even know where to start. The two public proponents of network neutrality and anything but neutral about each other's services on each other's platforms. They can complain about the cable companies from blocking their content and charging for fast lanes. The irony isn't lost on me even a wee bit. They are locked in a battle to collect as much data about us -- what we shop, what we see, what we do online and they do so under the guise of offering us services that are amazing and wonderful. They don't talk about what they won't do with our data, instead, they bicker and distract. So to think that these purveyors of hyper-capitalism will fight for interests of consumers is not only childish, it is foolish. We as end customers need to figure out who is speaking on our behalf when it comes to the rules of the Internet.

13 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. That's easy by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We as end customers need to figure out who is speaking on our behalf when it comes to the rules of the Internet.

    Nobody.

    Next question?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:That's easy by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, I'm saying candidates interested in representing their electorate rarely get the financing necessary to run a credible campaign, and so instead everyone votes for the perceived lesser evil of the major party candidates,who clearly *don't* represent their interests except on a few hot-button topics of no interest to their corporate backers, and which they tend to remain in eternal gridlock with their opponents over - to the benefit of everyone directly involved.

      And sadly, voting for the lesser evil is in fact the rational choice in this situation - it is a known weakness of first-past-the-post voting systems, and one that politicians have learned how to game extremely effectively.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  2. Not hypocritcal by Tepar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A good parallel is Uber and Lyft. They both use the same infrastructure (roads). Should they be required to support each other's services? No. They're competitors. Similarly, Google and Amazon use the same infrastructure (the Internet). Net neutrality should allow them to compete on the shared infrastructure, just as others compete on their shared infrastructure.

    1. Re:Not hypocritcal by novakyu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except one and the same driver can be driving for Lyft and Uber at the same time, choosing the most convenient passenger to pick up (or for that matter, someone can have both Uber and Lyft apps on their phone at the same time).

      What Google and Amazon are doing is anticompetitive. It may not match with your carefully drawn definitions of net neutrality, but what they are doing is anticompetitive (they are leveraging their market power in one market segment to help their product in another segment), which is why to nontechnical people, this seems as wrong as violations of net neutrality principles.

    2. Re:Not hypocritcal by swillden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Case #2 in point, Google's execs regularly fly their Boeing 767 into and out of government owned Moffett Field rather than "fight the lines" at San Jose International a mere 4 or 5 more miles down the road.

      That's not a very good example. NASA got a pretty good deal there, gaining access to regular use of the Google jets, saving them several million dollars per year, and then later $1.2B for a lease of Hangar One, saving them millions more in annual maintenance expenses in addition to the cash.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  3. Re: alabama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    being removed from the state supreme court, twice, is enough of a reason to be disqualified for every holding another public office ever again.

  4. Re: alabama by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Franken is still in the Senate. So hypocrites abound in both parties. News at 11

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  5. Why would you think that in the first place? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So to think that these purveyors of hyper-capitalism will fight for interests of consumers is not only childish, it is foolish.

    Who the hell said that? Google and Amazon are acting in their own interest. On net neutrality, their interests align with ours. I'm not sure I'd call it hypocrisy, because the point is the same in both cases: corporations are going to serve their own interests, including when that has a detrimental effect on healthy competition. If you are trusting anyone to do anything else, you are a fool.

    --
    This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  6. It's a matter of importance and magnitude by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    YouTube on some Amazon gadget or Amazon selling some Google toy is two kids petty bickering I can easily ignore.

    Net neutrality is something that WILL affect me, no matter how hard I try to ignore it being eliminated.

    This smells of a rather desperate attempt to shill, after all sensible arguments have been gone for a long, long time, so what's left is whataboutism and deflection.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. Re:If they are actively blacklisting... by admin7087 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    None of this has anything to do with Net Neutrality, though, and it's important to make people aware of the fact that whoever wrote the original story has not the slightest clue about net neutrality. It's important, because the enemies of net neutrality are aggressively pushing all kinds of false narratives about it.

  8. Nothing to do with Net Neutrality by ne7minder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    His complaint is valid and very much a concern but it is irrelevant to the companies position on net neutrality. This is an example of the behavior you should expect from the big providers one NN has been killed and it argues against killing NN but google's & amazon's opinion on NN is not germane to the subject

  9. Article fusses over non-issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If the device can access the Internet, it can play youtube. Apparently, the Fire is some kind of walled-garden already, so negotiations about what are in or out actually make sense. If Amazon wants youtube in their walled garden, they appease Google. Otherwise, they tear down the walls. They can get youtube either way.

    Amazon's store front doesn't sell everything in the world. There are many products not listed for many reasons. There is no store-provision neutrality law nor even debate on the topic. Every online storefront in the world decides what it will and will not carry, including Amazon. If people really want Google products, they are free to buy them from Google's storefront, at the same price they would have been on Amazon anyway (and with less risk of accidentally getting a knock-off).

  10. Re: alabama by e3m4n · · Score: 3, Insightful

    more importantly, there has been no allegations in more recent times. Every allegation is 30yrs old. If we are going to remove everyone from any elected or government position based on any sort of thing they did 30 years ago, under the scrutiny of 2017 views (bear in mind that in alabama, asking parents for their underage kids hand in marriage was not _that_ uncommon; Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13yr old Cousin only a about decade earlier) then we better start throwing every single one of them out and look for robots to replace them. Because nobody, and I do mean nobody, is going to be able to live an entire life without coming to a moment of change in ones life. I am not condoning anything he did, but it's also important to understand we cannot try people today for things they did before there was a stigma against it. Any one of us are already guilty of doing something perfectly acceptable when we were in high school that is now, or in the future, will be socially unacceptable. In 15yrs even practical jokes are going to be considered 'bullying' and subject to zero tolerance. Too bad you stuck that tack in your friends chair when you were 17, its totally going to ruin your chances of being elected to Congress when you are 50, because you show a pattern of behavior of being a bully and dehumanizing others. Forget that everybody used to love you for things they called 'antics' and often encouraged the behavior and cheered at these jokes.

    Date Rape: that was something that didnt exist as a term until the mid 90s. Until then it was something of a he-said / she-said encounter often written off to after-sex regret (which in some cases still is just post-regret). There was a complete shit-ton of it going on in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Going somewhere to park and make-out was usually a guarantee of leading to sex; which is why they always told girls to never put themselves in a compromising situation. There was no "no means no" back then. Intervention and education are the only way to change someones way of thinking.

    Statutory Rape: IE the age at which a child is considered mentally mature enough to actually consent to sex, and anything below that age is considered rape no matter how many times that person says yes or initiates. However, they made provisions for things, even to this day, for parental consent. "Parental consent is needed in Alabama and Utah at age 14" according to their current legislation.

    So is a 30yr old dating a 14yo, possibly in search of a wife, creepy? You bet. But so is a 60yr old dating a 20yr old. And nobody calls that out, even to this day. Its taken well over a 100years to overcome racism after the abolition of slavery. One cannot expect to go back in time and hold people accountable for sexism during the 70s only a decade after the birth of feminism.

    IMO IF the ONLY allegations they can find, true or otherwise, are from 30 years ago then I think it has no bearing on the issue at hand and his ability to represent the state of Alabama. If the allegations are true, then at some time, more than 20yrs ago, he quit acting this way and changed his way of thinking and acting. The Washington Post even ran an article where THEY went to Australia, to a small religious town where Moore lived for a time, in search of any sort of political dirt they could dig up, as they love to do to any non-freepass-democrat. The Washington Post admitted flat out that they have never been able to find any other place or time that someone would say that he was anything but the nicest person.