> Only Google itself knows the real answer to this question
This alone should be setting off alarm bells for everyone, the government should be raiding Google offices to find the necessary facts to answer these questions. Google operates as the de facto front page of the Internet, the default starting point for the vast majority of the public, and they're incredibly dodgy about the real facts about how they use that power.
It's incredible how often Google both states a "fact" that is extremely biased in their favor, and simultaneously suggest it's indisputable because only Google has data on it, and of course, Google will not share the data because it's confidential business information.
This stonewall is behind incredible lies like the idea that targeted advertising increases revenue by 50%, despite independent data finding the difference closer to 4%.
I think the issue at hand here, is that Google should be legally compelled to disclose the real answers to this question, and a lot of other questions about how their algorithms work.
> The data in the article comes from 100 million people dumb enough to infect their devices with malware
This is ironic, considering the Google Toolbar, headed by Sundar Pichai himself, is much of how Google got it's mass adaption as well as browsing data to improve their search rankings. Perhaps the difference between "malware" and "useful tool" is how successful the business behind it is. ;)
I can't get behind this. Suggesting that corporations be raided by the government is not a good idea.
To my knowledge, Google has not denied any information requests they've received (or been subpoenaed for), and actively work with law enforcement in circumstances required of them. If we get to a point where they stand in contempt of court ordered information requests, perhaps this becomes appropriate, but let's not jump straight there because they're a big (huge) company. Many, if not most companies have private information that only they would know about their company and don't have the expectation of turning it over, I don't think scale changes that.
> To my knowledge, Google has not denied any information requests they've received
Your knowledge stops very short in this area then. Google is utilizing the entire playbook to delay and obscure information from antitrust regulators. For example, Google almost always responds to requests for response from regulators on the last legally permissible day to do so, often after requesting multiple extensions. Here's an article about the third extension they got to respond to one of the EU charges: https://phys.org/news/2015-08-google-extension-eu-case.html (Google responded to this one four days before the deadline of the third extension, https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-responds-to-european-uni...)
Each of these months-delayed responses of course, can be summarized down to "Google doesn't believe Google is anticompetitive" in a blog post I could've written in an afternoon.
They managed to drag out the EU cases years longer than they should've taken through these sorts of games, and the US cases are now just getting started.
Essentially what's happening here is Google knows it's in the wrong, and it knows it's making more money than it will ever be forced to give up in fines and penalties, so they want to drag all of these processes out as long as possible.
The public would be best served by raiding the offices, seizing the information, and stopping all illegal operations from continuing while the investigation is completed, so that Google executives have adequate incentive to respond quickly to restore business.
I started to write up a whole thing, but your hn history and linked twitter shows you're very openly rabidly anti-google. That's fine, and in general I'd even mostly agree with you. I draw the line at suggesting government raids of private companies, though. That won't ever be a good idea.
There are a lot of companies I am pretty anti, to be fair. Find me say one nice thing about Facebook. Or Tesla.
I would say in the case of big tech companies, I am concerned the standard playbook is no longer viable. They often are more powerful than the countries that would regulate them, and they use threats and market manipulation to overpower nation states. There are now multiple examples where a company has used withdrawal or suspension of services to force a country to undo or roll back a law, or where a company has outright bought a political measure that repeals legislated protections for individuals.
The sole place sovereign nations still have the upper hand is arguably physical force. I think we need to start looking at some of these companies as organized crime, not civil violators.
This alone should be setting off alarm bells for everyone, the government should be raiding Google offices to find the necessary facts to answer these questions. Google operates as the de facto front page of the Internet, the default starting point for the vast majority of the public, and they're incredibly dodgy about the real facts about how they use that power.
It's incredible how often Google both states a "fact" that is extremely biased in their favor, and simultaneously suggest it's indisputable because only Google has data on it, and of course, Google will not share the data because it's confidential business information.
This stonewall is behind incredible lies like the idea that targeted advertising increases revenue by 50%, despite independent data finding the difference closer to 4%.
I think the issue at hand here, is that Google should be legally compelled to disclose the real answers to this question, and a lot of other questions about how their algorithms work.
> The data in the article comes from 100 million people dumb enough to infect their devices with malware
This is ironic, considering the Google Toolbar, headed by Sundar Pichai himself, is much of how Google got it's mass adaption as well as browsing data to improve their search rankings. Perhaps the difference between "malware" and "useful tool" is how successful the business behind it is. ;)