..In any event, it is a terrible waste of resources focusing on
Google, when there are real anti-trust violators to go after.
They might look
into both Apple's and Microsoft's anti-
competitive behaviour...
I
am not a "fan" of Apple or Microsoft; and consider some of
their behaviour to
be very much against the common good. In this area
one failing that I see in
these
discussions is an ability to distinguish between types of "intellectual"
property, the confusion between patents, copyright and registered
designs.
They are all different
mechanisms, but they all protect
capital, and now tend
to be used to support rentier economics and
maintain and expand the dominance
of established players. This is very
different from the original intention of
"To promote the Progress of
Science and useful Arts,
by securing for
limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings
and Discoveries".
I cannot let Gringo's statement about Google go
unanswered. In my (not
so) humble opinion, Google have moved a quite long way
from "Do
no evil". They appear to be successfully using a near-monopoly to
disrupt
and dominate other fields that they do not yet control.
Subsidization
of the Google Chrome browser, ChromeOS systems and the
handset ecosystem
should be causes
for concern, particularly when it is difficult to separate
one's identity from
these products. I, like many on this forum, use Google
products; but I am becoming increasingly concerned that "I
am the product".
Google's need to find out more and more about me to
support their advertising
business model is worrying.
I have a GMail account, and often use the Google
Search engine and
Google Maps, but I ensure that I only login when I have to
and
always logout of Google before I leave their pages. I also
use tools like
Privoxy and Adblock. Am I paranoid? Possibly, but my
background is as an (old)
scientist, so I remember when we all
contributed to the common good, and
corporatization had
not embedded itself into the structure of the
internet.
As an aside, I wonder if the legal background to this site can
cause a
subtle bias. Lawyers are usually on one side of an argument, and
will
strenuously defend that side, even when 'justice' is
not always served.
Hopefully judges can remove themselves from this
tendency
to bias. Scientists
try to look for the truth, and often (usually!) have to
throw
away accepted
"truths" when the evidence, or circumstances change. It is
very difficult for
people to accept that what used to true, or good, may not
now be so.
I am
dismayed by the efforts of Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google to
create
semi-private networks at the expense of the commons - So
I believe that
diligent government oversight of Google
(and the rest) is more than justified.
Tim Strutt [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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In any event, it is a terrible waste of resources focusing on
Google, when there are real anti-trust violators to go after. They might look
into both Apple's and Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour via misuse of
patents, as well as Microsoft's campaign to disparage Google. That would be
money well spent.
Anti-competitive behavior is not in itself
illegal. It is only when anti-competitive behavior is used to further a monopoly
or to use the advantage of a monopoly in one market to expand your market share
in another market does it become illegal. Neither Apple or Microsoft have a
monopoly in the smart phone market, and Apple has never been found to have a
monopoly in any market. Microsoft has only been found to have a monopoly in the
PC operating system market. Microsoft's use of patents to try to harm Google in
the smart phone market, while not of our liking, is not illegal unless they
somehow use their monopoly in the PC operating system market as part of that
attack on Google.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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