Slashdot Mirror
Senator Orrin Hatch Asks FTC To Investigate Competitive Effects of Google's Conduct in Search and Digital Advertising (thehill.com)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate whether Google's search and digital advertising practices are stifling the marketplace. From a report: Hatch sent a letter to FTC [PDF] Chairman Joseph Simons expressing concern about reports in recent years ranging from Google restricting competing advertising services to collecting data from users' Gmail inbox contents. "Needless to say, I found these reports disquieting," Hatch wrote. "Although these reports concern different aspects of Google's business, many relate to the company's dominant position in search and accumulating vast amounts of personal data." The letter comes at a time when critics of Google's market power are gaining momentum, helped along by growing concerns over data privacy. But most of the lawmakers echoing those concerns have been Democrats and Hatch, the longest-serving member of the Senate, may be the highest-profile Republican to call for the government to take antitrust action against Google.
Well, Google is the best big corporation there. Better than Microsoft, better than Facebook. But it has money, so politics will come to hunt them.
All these moronic conservatives suddenly rediscovering these quaint ideas like 'regulation' and 'anti-trust' laws.
It's a purely political move. Hatch has got his tongue so far up Trump's backside that he can taste what Trump's eating before he swallows.
Trump puts the hate out on google, Hatch responds by saying "Hey! I hate google too!"
I'm not saying that this isn't a smart thing to do, at least in the short term, but he's not concerned about antitrust or regulation. He's concerned about being on Trump's good side, and antitrust and regulations are the tools he happens to be using now to get that done. He's not suddenly into regulation, it's just that the ends justify the means.
https://projects.fivethirtyeig... proves this out, btw, if you're more interested in stats than clever metaphors about ass kissing sycophants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Does Google need to be looked at? Yes, all the big tech companies need to be looked at.
However, the timing is suspicious - coming right after Trump starts (falsely) attacking Google. While the letter addresses
other concerns this certainly feels like an attempt to cater to Trump by punishing Google.
Don't worry, Hatch never complained about the NSA doing what Google does, and he won't be able to sustain anything. He will be out of office soon.
Is this actually happening?
A president of the US possibly believe people don't think he's doing great that he's wielding state power through a cut out?
I don't understand how it's legal for the president to target a company like this under such clear motivations.
I don't see this being a bad thing per say. Unless Google has gone thru that within the last year or so.
But the reason to look into it cuz the president is an idiot is not.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Is just about THE most clueless Senator when it comes to technology. And he's carrying Trump's water here since Google is the latest entry on the Trump Enemy List.
.....and yet when Equifax collected all that data and LOST the data, he didn't feel obligated to do anything. Sounds about right!
Microsoft was being funded by the CIA, NSA, and FBI to backdoor Windows and Internet Explorer. They had to kill off Netscape because it couldn't be intimidated, coerced, or bought.
I know that it's ageist, but there needs to be mandatory retirement at age 80 for Senators, Prez & VP, and supreme court justices. I'll leave an opening for US Representative. (2 yr terms). I mean pilots are forced out at a certain age and they only control the lives of a couple hundred people.
This is enlightening and scary:
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_senators_by_age.html
Nobody should be allowed to disparage our greatest POTUS ever or his followers. To allow such is treason. #MAGA
Google DOES NOT control advertising or search on the internet. They DO NOT have a monopoly.
Let me say that again.
Google DOES NOT control advertising or search on the internet. They DO NOT have a monopoly.
Who controls which search engine is used the most? Who controls where advertising dollars are spent? Who controls how much web sites can make through clicking advertising or click-bait?
The answer is most definitely NOT GOOGLE.
We do.
We the people.
We the users of the Internet determine which search engine is used the most.
We the users of the Internet determine where advertising dollars are spent based on which search engine is used the most.
We the users of the Internet determine which company makes the most money based on our search and click habits.
The more people use Google's search services, increases the advertising dollars spent on Google's advertising services.
If 90%+ of the population turn to Google for search results, then the advertising dollars follow that path to Google to buy advertising.
Why would any company spend a lot of money for advertising on a search engine that only a small percentage of the population uses?
It's simple math. Not a conspiracy, not a monopoly, but plain and simple supply and demand.
That was Hatch when he was running against his predecessor.
Time to go home Orrin.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Big government Republican's are aways ready to attack American industry.
Microsoft was being funded by the CIA, NSA, and FBI to backdoor Windows and Internet Explorer.
Got any proof of that other than the stupid bullshit around the '_NSAKEY' name? A signing key that has never been used and would be the dumbest thing in the world to sign a backdoor with since it would immediately make it stand out.
It is unlikely that they can pass a regulation to make Google behave they way they want, nor should they.
They CAN, and should, pass regulations requiring that Google and all the other sites have complete transparency of their policies and rules.
Further, that the rules should be objective in nature and that there is a process in place to contest findings of rule violations. No one should be wondering why their content is blocked or otherwise not available to people who are looking for it.
There is also an argument to be made that the methods they use to rank sites be clearly explained.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The majority of people hate Donald Trump; the results should reflect that.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
This is the same Google that in 2017 was fined 2.4 billion Euro by the EU for manipulating search results?
https://www.theguardian.com/bu...
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Orrin Hatch, one of the architects of striping both the FTC and FCC of their ability to regulate business is asking the FTC to investigate Google because they are mean to "conservatives".
The irony is palpable with a man who's spent his career defanging governments ability to go after monopolies asking government to investigate when they don't have the authority to do a damn thing and he knows it because he was instrumental in taking those abilities away.
But Hatch is a sycophant who finally proved he didn't have any morals and he proved it when he got down on his knees and serviced Trump. It's a good thing he's retiring because he shat all over his legacy the last 4 years.
Google restricting competing advertising services to collecting data from users' Gmail inbox contents.
Why did I read that as preventing competitors and governments from inserting malicious scripts for Gmail users to enjoy?
As a normal every day American conservative, I'd like to see google and other liberal biased companies pay a huge price for shoving their politics down our throughts. They need to be taken down and I don't really care how it is done. Just look at the net nutrality, poll after poll shows consumers prefer internet without it but google ignores that and still pays cultural marxists to post about it on cool websites like this Slashdot.Org.
I take it this means we're never going to talk about Comcast or Charter, huh?
"per say".
Hatch is a frigging stupid little little little person. how are people still voting this idiot in. read techdirts new story on the isp racket and you will see he is complicit in this shit.
Google blocks various legal firearm related links and searches so why not?
Empirical evidence abounds. All you have to do is watch where the money has been going for the past 30 years. I'm smart enough to know the litany of "accidental" exploits were largely left unaddressed on purpose, and even when they weren't actively inserting them they were using management and hiring practices they knew would make passable security nearly impossible to achieve while at the same time eliminating any impetus to even try. Nobody even questions this anymore in the IT community. Luckily for Microsoft though, most the computer geeks out there are complicit in the evildoing because they see the cultivating of this type of naivety amongst regular users as a limitless opportunity for new revenue streams. They're happy to help marginalize people like me who point out that the emperor wears no clothes.