[HN Gopher] Googlers told to avoid words like 'share' and 'bundl...
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Googlers told to avoid words like 'share' and 'bundle,' US says
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 145 points
Date : 2023-09-14 14:38 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| quercusa wrote:
| Is this not standard for BigCorps?
| searealist wrote:
| It is, every big company does this.
| aaomidi wrote:
| _While being explicitly told not to do this_
|
| To be fair, _every big company_ should probably be scared of
| future anti trust suits.
| pgeorgi wrote:
| The financial sector has a bunch of regulations on internal
| communication (mostly around retention and availability),
| but others don't really, so "explicitly told not to do
| this" seems like a misrepresentation.
| searealist wrote:
| No one is telling them not to do this. The news just takes
| things out of context to push agendas.
| aaomidi wrote:
| What's the agenda news is pushing?
| Andrex wrote:
| They were specifically told not to do it by the DOJ and did it
| anyways.
| jsnell wrote:
| Can you provide a reference to that?
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| Indeed. I've worked for several and my recollection is that
| cautions around both what you do and how you talk about things
| that may be sensitive to regulators (like antitrust, export
| controls, etc.,) were present in the annual mandatory business
| conduct training at all of them.
|
| (edit: fix grammar nit)
| falcolas wrote:
| Does that make it OK when the Justice Department comes around?
| [deleted]
| jsheller wrote:
| For things like this, Matt Levine is insightful:
|
| https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/matt-levines-mo...
|
| Summary is that not only can you not say things like "lock up" or
| "market share", you also can't tell employees not to say those
| things or you'll see headlines like the posted article and have
| the government claiming at trial that you're trying to hide
| evidence. This feels kind of odd and kind of unfair.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Is it really that odd? The point isn't that you can't _say_
| those things and you can 't tell employees to not say those
| things. The point is that you can't _do_ those things, and
| separately, you can 't tell employees to not say those things.
|
| Your characteristic made it sound like the government's end
| goal is for the company to simply not say those things, in
| which case it would be silly for them to also not allow you to
| tell employees to not say them. But of course the government's
| end goal is for the company to not _do_ those things, and
| separately, they don 't want the company to instruct its
| employees to refrain from discussing those things because that
| indeed looks a lot like trying to hide evidence.
| summerlight wrote:
| Yes, that's very odd. Because without such corporate policy
| being allowed, competitors can easily bribe some employees to
| loudly speak it out and use it as evidence of bad
| acts/intention. It's almost impossible to counter it as long
| as they're careful enough to hide such collusion.
| [deleted]
| kibwen wrote:
| Right, there's nothing odd or unfair here unless you're an
| anticompetitive company trying to get away with
| anticompetitive practices.
|
| It's like saying that it's odd or unfair for someone to have
| "how to hide a dead body" in their search history as evidence
| against them while they're on trial for murder. But your
| honor, if I'm being penalized for researching how to hide the
| body, it's unfair because it makes it more likely that my
| murder will be discovered! Think of the chilling effect this
| will have on murderers, and the devastating economic
| repurcussions on manufacturers of bone saws and rubber hose!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you also can 't tell employees not to say those things_
|
| You and I can't. Our lawyers can. There shouldn't be _that_
| many people at your firm who can make anticompetitive
| decisions. Ensure they meet 1:1 with corporate counsel to be
| advised on what the law is, and how the law responds to certain
| language. That's not only kosher, it's protected by privilege.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| based on the discovery from this and other cases, everyone at
| Google believed they were entitled to meet with legal counsel
| and that all conversations were privileged
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _everyone at Google believed they were entitled to meet
| with legal counsel and that all conversations were
| privileged_
|
| It sounds like a lot of senior people at Google don't
| understand how privilege works.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Legal privilege will not apply if your conversations with
| your attorney are for planning or furthering an ongoing crime
| or fraud, or one that hasn't happened yet.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if your conversations with your attorney are for
| planning or furthering an ongoing crime or fraud_
|
| Sure. But that isn't what's going on here.
|
| Every regulated industry has blackballed terms.
| Communicating that to ensure employees don't accidentally
| trip up, as well as informing them of the laws they are
| meant to follow, is totally legitimate.
| timeagain wrote:
| "Unfair" only in that regardless of the words used, anti-
| competitive practices may be prosecuted as such. If you need to
| educate your employees not to sound like monopolists it may be
| too late.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I was a senior person at a company best remaining nameless that
| trained all new executives to never use the words "monopoly,"
| "fix prices," "dictate prices," despite the fact we had a
| required pricing schedule for retailers, bought back all excess
| inventory at cost to prevent a grey market, and dropped
| retailers that ran promotions. Their products were never on
| sale and accounted for 80% of retailers revenues, and they
| controlled 75% of their market segment. Whenever a new upstart
| brand came along they simply acquired them. Everyone sold their
| brands because it was known unless you were owned by this
| company you had no long term future in the market.
|
| These sorts of market controlling companies are weird to work
| for. On the one hand they have a certain excellence that keeps
| their market lock year over year. On the other there's a
| strangulating incestuous monoculture that self perpetuates a
| view of brilliance. You see this internally at other companies
| with these locks - google for one, googlers, especially hey day
| googlers, walk out with an ego the size of their market share.
| I've scrupulously avoided working there despite many chances
| over the years because of the smugness - not that I couldn't
| work with that environment, I'm afraid I would adopt it as
| well.
| ars wrote:
| ResMed and Luxottica are like that. Luxottica is a straight
| up abusive monopoly - they actually sell the insurance that
| they themselves take!
|
| ResMed simply has better technology than others, and is a de-
| facto monopoly.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Luxottica is a straight up abusive monopoly - they
| actually sell the insurance that they themselves take!
|
| What is wrong with this? Apple does it, lots of managed
| healthcare organizations like Kaiser Permanente and
| UnitedHealth and CVS do it, auto manufacturers do it, etc.
| ars wrote:
| It's not actually insurance, it's a payment plan.
| Insurance is meant to cover unexpected events, with this
| you pay a monthly fee for "insurance" which gives you the
| right to buy the glasses later for a normal price.
|
| The other companies you mention are actual insurance:
| They cover rare, and unexpected events. As opposed to
| covering once every two year glasses, on a schedule.
| deepsun wrote:
| Yes, but there's also a problem is customers really believe
| it's worth paying $300 for the simplest type of near-vision
| glasses in 2023. And they're ready to pay for that, so why
| not take their money?
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| It's so nuts that Facebook was able to put a computer and
| cameras into sunglasses without increasing the price
|
| Prescription glasses are basically just chunks of not-
| too-special plastic that you can buy online for $20 or
| less, but people refuse to believe that the whole
| industry is a scam when I try to tell them about it
| nostromo wrote:
| It's because of insurance.
|
| Anything insurance touches becomes expensive, because
| insured individuals are no longer price sensitive, so
| there is no incentive to lower costs by providers.
|
| My employer pays for my vision insurance, whether I want
| it or not, so I may as well maximize the benefit with the
| "best" hardware I can get for "free."
| NavinF wrote:
| That's because those $20 glasses are objectively worse
| than $200 Costco glasses. You might not think that the
| latter is worth the increased price, but for the vast
| majority of Americans it is.
|
| Btw Zeiss (known to HNers for making EUV lithography
| hardware) also makes glasses and you can buy them online.
| Some of their lenses are $700. Not worth it for me, but I
| can definitely see how someone would be willing to pay
| even more for those optical specs
| throwmeout123 wrote:
| I have zeiss lenses on my glasses, they're terrible. Full
| of scratches in 1.5 years. Worst money I've ever spent,
| my last no name EUR80 lenses went for years without a
| single scratch! Anecdata obviously
| NavinF wrote:
| What model? High index or polycarbonate?
| throwmeout123 wrote:
| I have no idea, but i can copy some data from the
| package:
|
| One is SV AS +2.5 sphere 0 cyl duravision platinum uv
| 1.60 index (guess this is what you're talking about)
| uvprotect
|
| The other is the same but 1.25 sphere
|
| Hope it helps
| Clubber wrote:
| >On the one hand they have a certain excellence that keeps
| their market lock year over year.
|
| Would it be unreasonable to say a lot of potential excellence
| isn't actualized because:
|
| >Whenever a new upstart brand came along they simply acquired
| them.
|
| and they don't ever actually compete with a near peer?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I'd say they do a good job of acquiring and learning and
| teaching. When they take on a brand they don't subsume them
| but let them be fairly autonomous, but take on certain
| commoditized aspects such as supply chain, distribution,
| and marketing placement. The core of the brand stays
| independent and some of the learning of that brand comes
| back into the core company. They also are very self
| critical and internally striving. But, yes, they could
| certainly be better and healthy competition would help.
| throwmeout123 wrote:
| Would it be possible to identify those companies and then
| build new companies just to be acquired? Nice chunk of change
| every 3 years...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| and just because I used snapchat to message (which has
| ephemeral messaging by default, at least client side) doesnt
| mean I'm a hiding antitrust violations!
|
| or whatever procedurally generated idea you think I'm hiding
|
| just cocaine shipments.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| What seems unfair? Government agencies are actively try to
| identify forming monopolies and stop them, or break them up. If
| a company doesn't want to face consequences for acting like a
| monopoly, the best way to do that is to not approach becoming a
| monopoly.
| danaris wrote:
| Or--and hear me out here--you could just _not_ conduct your
| business in such a way that you end up on trial for abusing a
| dominant market position.
|
| It's not like this is something that loads of companies have
| faced--this isn't the kind of situation where you can say "but
| the DoJ brings companies up on trial for this all the time,
| whether they've clearly got a dominant market position or not!"
|
| The _rules_ are byzantine and complex, but the _principle_ is
| simple: Compete fairly, rather than trying to eliminate your
| competition. If you do end up with a dominant market position,
| by whatever means, don 't try to abuse it to keep others out of
| the market or small within the market.
|
| "But Wall Street" "But muh infinite growth" "But repeatedly-
| debunked-fiction about fiduciary duty to stockholders" No. You
| don't have to be a greedy, selfish, narcissistic asshole just
| to get by.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The issue isn't the phrasing. It's the conspiring to violate
| antitrust law. If you do conspire to violate antitrust law,
| then telling people to hide the evidence is furthering that
| conspiracy. That's not unfair, it's a misunderstanding of what
| the illegal part is.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I remember when I was a corporate lawyer, it was common
| practice to search for emails that just said "call me" -- an
| indication that there was something that they didn't want to
| put in writing.
|
| This wasn't a smoking gun, but it could help prove you were on
| the right track. Also, if you depose someone and ask them about
| a specific phone conversation they had, they're probably less
| likely to lie than if you just generally ask them if they ever
| talked about XYZ.
| tetrep wrote:
| > This feels kind of odd and kind of unfair.
|
| Why? It's not a crime in and of itself. You're also free to
| make sure all your banking transactions are <$10k, but that
| doesn't make you immune to being investigated for money
| laundering.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| I was also under the impression this was true, but in fact
| structuring is its own crime, even if the money was obtained
| legally.
| treis wrote:
| >you also can't tell employees not to say those things or
| you'll see headlines like the posted article and have the
| government claiming at trial that you're trying to hide
| evidence. This feels kind of odd and kind of unfair.
|
| The point is to not do anti-competitive things. Doing them and
| not talking about them isn't better than doing them and talking
| about them. Clearly it's worse because you know you're doing
| something wrong and trying to get away with it.
| senkora wrote:
| > you also can't tell employees not to say those things
|
| You can, but only in an regularly scheduled unrecorded meeting
| that is described euphemistically as "compliance training".
| stefan_ wrote:
| Odd and unfair?! Companies are just an abstraction we invented
| purely to facilitate capitalism, a simple organizational unit
| in the market. If they try to monopolize and manipulate the
| market to defeat competition, there is no reason to keep them
| around.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Err, companies go back before the invention of capitalism.
| Ignoring government chartered companies (which date back to
| the earliest governments, and therefore served monarchical
| economic systems), the first common-stock company was the
| Dutch East India Company (sometimes known as VOC) and was
| founded under a mercantilist economic system.
|
| And the VOC was hard-core manipulative and monopolistic.
|
| If you want to claim that companies were invented to serve
| the rapacious profiteer, then all good--that's mostly true.
| But as a factual matter, they are not the invention of
| capitalism and long predate it.
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| > Companies are just an abstraction we invented purely to
| facilitate capitalism, a simple organizational unit in the
| market.
|
| No. The earliest companies in various cultures go back more
| than a thousand years and they have emerged for a variety of
| reasons -- pooled risks and resources, family businesses
| needing to hire non-relatives, tradesmen needing to hand
| their businesses on to their apprentices, etc.
|
| _Capitalism_ is actually pretty new. It 's not much older as
| a practice than its definition.
|
| Kongo Gumi alone existed for more than a thousand years
| before capitalism became a meaningful economic model.
|
| The livery companies in the UK date back 600 years before the
| UK was a capitalist system.
|
| And we could still have various forms of companies in a non-
| capitalist system, which in turn does not automatically mean
| communism.
| gipp wrote:
| ? Their culpability on that count has nothing to do with
| whether this particular argument is a fair one or not. If you
| do something unfair to a guilty person it was still an unfair
| thing
| dekhn wrote:
| My favorite part is the core guidance Google always told us
| was: "how would you feel if an email wrote showed up negatively
| on the front page of the New York Times".
|
| I lost count of the number of times that Google _execs_ (and
| senior directors) emails showed up on the front page of the
| Times after that; one time I opened the Times to see my own
| manager 's email advising the android team that it was fine to
| reverse engineer Java code from Sun into Android.
| TX81Z wrote:
| With the * _really*_ sensitive stuff you aren't even allowed
| to write a single thing down, everything is done verbally,
| totally off the books.
| masfuerte wrote:
| This is just basic hygiene. At work I'm scrupulous about
| obeying the law, even to the extent it annoys my
| colleagues. In real life, if there's anything even slightly
| sketchy happening, I insist on nothing being stated in
| writing. I continue to be amazed at supposedly intelligent
| executives who discuss illegal activities in writing.
| TylerE wrote:
| https://youtu.be/7R3fqjCL4XY?si=0uOcKDgWZhuvlZbQ (NSFW
| language warning)
| aaomidi wrote:
| > This feels kind of odd and kind of unfair.
|
| Legitimately a hilarious notion to be honest.
| happytiger wrote:
| Training employees to avoid terms that legally insinuate
| "market dominance" (aka, monopolies) is the smoking gun of
| someone trying to hide a monopoly though. How is that in any
| way unfair?
|
| Unfortunately that article is under lock and key login so
| forgive me if the comment is off point.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I don't think it's unreasonable to fear that your employees
| will say something stupid that shows up in court even if you
| haven't done anything illegal.
| happytiger wrote:
| There is always a balance of risk between what appears in
| discovery and trial to be active management of risk, the
| original risk of monopolistic accusations and prosecution,
| and the risk of false accusation due to imprudent or
| unconscious behavior of employees and associates of the
| business, irrespective of legality.
|
| I'm simply saying the smoking gun of managers managing the
| risk needs to be seriously considered as a possible smoking
| gun and not simply dismissed because of its potential as a
| false indicator.
| TX81Z wrote:
| It's utterly uncontroversial to state that Google search has
| gone to shit in the last few years.
|
| Now, the question to ask is if Google wasn't paying off other
| companies to make them the default would they have been more
| incentivized to make a better search experience?
|
| At this point I don't get any better results from Google than
| DuckDuckGo/Bing. A few years ago Google was better, now they
| are increasingly useless and no better than competitors.
|
| If iOS users got a prompt to choose a search engine the first
| time they open Safari, and the order of choices was random, how
| many would even notice the results were different in any way?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| There are folks in my life who aren't comfortable with
| computers and either wouldn't know that changing the default
| search engine was even possible, or wouldn't feel comfortable
| with going into the settings because they would be afraid of
| breaking something.
| lazide wrote:
| "Anything you say can and will be used against you."
|
| It's not just a warning, it's reality, as you're seeing play
| out here.
|
| Legal opponents will use whatever they can get ahold of. At a
| certain scale, it's guaranteed you'll have legal opponents -
| often constantly! - no matter what you do. Though some courses
| of action will certainly result in more of them!
|
| The question is, is it better or worse than the alternative?
| And how likely is it to actually cause you harm?
|
| Because I'm pretty sure a bunch of emails saying "We're going
| to crush x by locking up the market." would be worse. We'll see
| how this plays out though!
| AnonymousC123 wrote:
| I suspect in the future all employee education on law will
| have a lawyer present who marks the discussion as client
| attorney priviledged.
|
| It is weird that the legal system has developed where
| absolutely all communication except that which has lawyers
| can be discovered in court. Almost like a guild support it's
| members. But if that's the way it is so be it.
|
| Everything will now be feature more lawyers and education on
| law will be client attorney privileged.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That sounds weird because it isn't how it works. The courts
| take a dim view of clients who attempt to abuse attorney-
| client privilege by putting all communications under it.
|
| (A good heuristic for legal reasoning is that anything that
| sounds like a "one weird trick to avoid getting prosecuted"
| listicle item has already been picked clean by the courts.)
| mikestew wrote:
| Google has already tried something similar:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/google-
| routinely...
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| IANAL but you don't get attorney client privilege just by
| having a lawyer in the room. You actually have to be quite
| careful to make sure the privilege can be asserted.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| I was a lawyer (still am, just don't practice anymore),
| and this is true.
|
| Not only that, but if you have the wrong people in the
| room, then you can lose what would otherwise have been
| attorney-client privilege.
| belval wrote:
| Not seeking legal advice, just curious. Where is the line
| drawn with regard to attorney-client privilege in
| corporation with various communication tools?
|
| I was once told by a lawyer that emails were privileged
| (assuming you are communicating with your corporate
| counsel) but Slack messages with the same person were
| not. Is this just a lack of precedent with Slack?
| [deleted]
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| I have never used Slack and don't know anything about it,
| so it is hard for me to say. Are Slack messages
| accessible by third parties? If so, that can break A/C
| privilege. That is probably the main way it happens.
|
| You still need to be careful with email too. Just because
| you are emailing a lawyer doesn't make it automatically
| privileged, though there is a much stronger presumption
| and argument for privilege. But, like, your plans to go
| to the bar with your lawyer buddy after work are not
| privileged, even if they are also your corporate counsel.
| It still needs to be related to legal advice, or in
| anticipation of litigation (which itself is a very large
| umbrella that gets you a lot of privilege for otherwise
| mundane corporate communications).
|
| At any rate, a good counsellor will tell you what is safe
| and not safe. Be sure to take it seriously.
| lazide wrote:
| Not a lawyer, but my understanding is:
|
| - you have to have a reasonable expectation of privacy
| for the communication (yelling it across a crowded room,
| or using a line you know is recorded by someone else
| means no privilege)
|
| - it needs to be a legitimate attempt to receive counsel
| from said attorney.
|
| - the only other folks who are in the communication are
| also related to the matter and also clients of the
| attorney (or attorneys for you).
|
| So asking your attorney 'hey, I ran over someone - am I
| in trouble?' over direct private email (or other channel)
| that is private? That's privileged.
|
| CC'ng your attorney on a thread where you're conspiring
| between 3-4 other people so that 'it's attorney client
| priviledged', but the thread isn't about you getting
| legal advice about the legality of the endeavor?
|
| Not privileged.
|
| Think of it this way:
|
| - the courts want to be sure that you can have direct
| conversations with your attorney on legal matters. That
| includes asking questions about the law, defending
| yourself, etc. and they don't want you to have to worry
| about putting your foot in your mouth in the process.
| Because a big reason attorneys exist is because people
| will put their foot in their mouth constantly without
| help.
|
| - the courts also want to be sure that the truth of any
| legal matter (with the assistance of your attorney) is
| found in a speedy, accurate, and expeditious manner.
|
| So if you aren't legitimately trying to get legal advice
| or help? Pound sand.
| TylerE wrote:
| Is the whole "pay me a dollar retainer so you're my
| client" trope an actual thing?
| k12sosse wrote:
| Simple answer.. only hire attorneys in all positions /s
| zerocrates wrote:
| Not really.
|
| One obvious reason: there are pro-bono and state-provided
| attorneys, but they still retain the privilege with
| clients that don't pay.
|
| There's no requirement for money to change hands, and the
| mere act of doing so doesn't create an attorney-client
| relationship where one doesn't otherwise exist.
| majormajor wrote:
| "Facts can't be privileged" is how one lawyer at a place I
| worked with put it, regarding attempted tricks like this.
| Only specific discussions asking for counsel can be. So as
| far as I understand what could be protected in something
| like this training case: questions about how to make the
| training? Sure. The training itself? Nope.
| lazide wrote:
| Client /attorney privilege doesn't work that way. :(
|
| But frankly, all the G stuff _was with attorney guidance_
| and well vetted. It already had what you're trying to get
| to the best of the very well paid attorney's ability.
| happytiger wrote:
| It's much more insidious. It will necessitate a
| surveillance AI on all interactions to eliminate legal
| liability. That is absolutely inevitable.
| AnonymousC123 wrote:
| Ohh that's a good idea.
|
| If I'm understanding this correctly you proactively
| filter comms through an AI. If it detects you said
| something that could be interpreted a certain way the
| communication isn't sent and the user is told to be more
| careful in their phrasing?
|
| That's pretty brilliant to be honest. Except maybe the
| discovery will then be on what the AI filter was
| instructed to prevent as if that's an admission of guilt.
| happytiger wrote:
| There's always a double jeopardy in legal monitoring. You
| have to adjudicate the risk of appearance in discovery
| and trial against the original risk you sought to
| moderate.
|
| I absolutely think this is a good startup idea, and have
| been pondering building out a prototype.
|
| I don't love it, but in so many ways when you sit down
| and look at the alternative to it that isn't tearing down
| or radically altering the existing legal system, it's
| actually the better platform for the future.
|
| Unfortunately there is a plethora of social control (and
| behavioral modification) issues intrinsic in this
| technology area, and like medical it requires some
| serious and open ethical exploration.
|
| Thanks for the good comment.
| dudus wrote:
| Not only that but someone once told me to write the
| following before any email communications:
| "-- ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGED --"
|
| They explained to me this allowed us to communicate without
| fear our discussion can be misquoted and miscategorized in
| the future.
|
| EDIT: To clarify that was something I needed to add when
| talking with legal. Not something magic that works for
| everyone.
|
| So besides being in good standing with a member of their
| guild you also have to preface your communication with
| their religious texts. \s
| jstarfish wrote:
| > Not only that but someone once told me to write the
| following before any email communications:
|
| That _only_ applies when corresponding with counsel, and
| even there in limited circumstances (not everything _can_
| be privileged). If no attorney is addressed, it cannot be
| privileged.
|
| IIRC, applying the label arbitrarily risks _all_
| correspondence being made discoverable.
| morelisp wrote:
| To be legally binding it needs to be
| -----BEGIN ATTORNEY/CLIENT PRIVILEGED BLOCK-----
| gowld wrote:
| Never write the END block. Infinite privilege glitch!
| ketralnis wrote:
| and if you never end the block everything you do is safe
| from now on. Judges don't want you to know this one weird
| trick
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| This does not grant privilege to communications, just so
| people are aware.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I suspect if you're under investigation for abusing monopoly
| power and you tell your employees not to use phrases like
| "We'll crush the competition" and instead talk about how
| "You'll try to maintain a competitive environment while doing
| your best to excel" it's probably better than your legal
| opponents finding evidence that people in your company are
| constantly talking about abusing their power to "crush the
| competition".
|
| I guess we'll get an idea by the result of this lawsuit.
| roenxi wrote:
| I'm still suspicious of the idea that Google can have a
| monopoly anywhere except maybe in the Android ecosystem. It
| is too easy to move away from their products and go use
| something else. Nobody is under any pressure to use
| Google's search. Literally Google "alternatives to google
| search" and get a list of reasonable alternatives. If they
| have outstanding market share it is because they are just
| better, not because they have a monopoly [0].
|
| But the problem I'm looking at here is the phrase
| "...you're under investigation for abusing monopoly
| power..." anticipates the result to some degree. This is a
| an exhaustive list of the guidance lawyers can provide.
| Both seem to anticipate that some wrongdoing has been done.
| It leads to shallow thinking:
|
| ... you're under investigation for abusing monopoly power
| and lawyers tell employees not to use phrases like "We'll
| crush the competition".
|
| ... you're under investigation for abusing monopoly power
| and lawyers provide no guidance, then employees use phrases
| like "We'll crush the competition".
|
| Most of the work is actually being done by the initial
| frame, not what the employees are told.
|
| [0] I wouldn't know, I don't use Google search.
| peyton wrote:
| It's an ad company. Good luck running a local plumbing
| business without forking over 10% to the big GOOG.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Chrome defaults to Google Search.
|
| ChromeOS comes with a bundled browser, the big no-no that
| cost Microsoft.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| ChromeOS is like 3% of the market.
| TylerE wrote:
| Windows had about 90% consumer market share at that
| point. ChromeOS... doesn't.
| roenxi wrote:
| Are you suggesting that _ChromeOS_ of all things has a
| monopoly position in the market?
|
| I'm happy to be proven wrong if the year of the Linux
| desktop has finally come!
| AlphaSite wrote:
| Google used the search monopoly to grow chrome into
| another monopoly, placing it on their front page, a place
| where absolutely no one else can ever get advertising.
| roenxi wrote:
| Chrome's engine is open source, and there is literally
| nothing stopping someone from installing Brave, Firefox
| or Opera. They all render the same pages and are all
| standards compliant enough.
|
| Did Google give Chrome a boost? Yes. Was that a good
| thing? Also yes. Chrome was the better browser at the
| time they did that - still arguably is. But that doesn't
| mean monopolies are involved. Apple gives privileged
| advertising to the iPhone, iPod and iPad on their website
| and they aren't a monopoly in any sense.
|
| Google is arguably less of a monopoly in pushing Chrome
| because they sell advertising to other people. I'm sure
| Samsung would pay an absurd amount of money to get an ad
| on apple.com with any URL path. In theory Google could be
| a monopoly and put a chrome ad on google.com but the fact
| is that they aren't a monopoly and pushing chrome did
| good for the world, not harm. They're just providing
| exceptional products and people trust the brand [0].
|
| [0] Trusting brands in software is silly.
| lazide wrote:
| That depends entirely on the details of how it is said.
|
| If it is said in a way clearly making it obvious that not
| just the words, but the intent is bad, and to instead do
| the other thing? Seems likely to not be an issue.
|
| If it is saying the intent is fine, just use the other
| words? Then yeah.
|
| If it gets to the press, chances are it's being spun the
| opposite way that context would show it was being used,
| because that's how it usually works to get clicks.
| jrockway wrote:
| This is kind of what's sad at working at a big company. If
| the same team was doing the same work at a startup, every
| one of their meetings can be "this feature will kill the
| competition". Personally I think it's a great attitude; if
| your technology is better than everyone else, you deserve
| to put them out of business. And you're certainly entitled
| to try. (And, sometimes ideas do kill their industry.
| Called someone on your landline recently? Bought a DVD at
| the store? Listened to music on a Walkman? It happens.)
|
| The devil is always in the details. If you kill the US
| steel industry by being a government that pays people to
| buy steel from your country, that's problematic. If you
| just make shit and people like it, though, that should
| never be illegal.
| pyrale wrote:
| > if your technology is better than everyone else, you
| deserve to put them out of business.
|
| The issue is that, once you reach Google scale, you have
| so many tools to put the competition out of business that
| are unrelated to product fit. And, in the case of Google,
| they've been known to do just that.
|
| So yeah, you can't really compare an incumbent with
| monopoly power to an underdog, just like some sentences
| from young kids are hilarious, that would be chilling if
| adults said them.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Personally I think it's a great attitude; if your
| technology is better than everyone else, you deserve to
| put them out of business.
|
| I think this "Others must lose so that I win" attitude is
| one of the more toxic attributes of this Thunderdome
| Capitalism so many industries have somehow ended up in.
| Wouldn't it be great if we could have dozens of
| businesses all successful, all doing "somewhat good"
| rather than having to always have a small number of
| winners that take everything?
|
| If I'm going to open a laundromat a block away from
| Paul's competing laundromat, I'm not doing it to try to
| put Paul out of business. I'm just trying to capture
| enough business so that we can coexist comfortably. Some
| entrepreneurs just don't know the meaning of the word
| "enough".
| jrockway wrote:
| I'm not sure how applicable this is to software. If
| you're making nails or something, then sure, your factory
| can only turn so many tons of coiled steel into nails per
| day. So other companies can exist that also make nails.
| In software, it's a little different; you moving a
| billion copies doesn't necessarily take any more work
| than selling one copy, so even if you "want to leave
| enough for everyone", you might not be able to. I doubt
| the Chrome team was saying things like "we shouldn't add
| tabs, that would be so bad for Internet Explorer".
| thegrimmest wrote:
| But if your laundromat is better in some way (service,
| cost, marketing), why wouldn't you want to grow? And if
| the market is a fixed size, (which just about every
| market is) doesn't that inevitably result in Paul
| adapting to keep up or closing down? When did it become
| immoral to _realize_ this and _strive_ for it? In this
| scenario _everyone besides Paul_ benefits. And so it will
| be when you become the incumbent and face a competitor
| with a similar edge.
|
| In Google's case, I suspect "search" will die to AI like
| Blackberries died to iPhones. Google is already proving
| that its size and bureaucratic unwieldiness are major
| obstacles to its competing in the AI space. Would we
| really hold back the vast social benefits of this
| progress because we object to some people becoming
| obscenely wealthy?
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I think the "winner takes all" attitude is the problem.
| It's perfectly fine to run a tech company with a limited
| market but it doesn't generate the spectacular returns
| current investors are looking for.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| It is not problematic to put people out of business by
| having a superior product. It is problematic to abuse the
| fact that you have more money, connections, lawyers,
| political power, market control, customer interaction
| control, etc.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Absolutely, and the fact that our lawmakers cannot
| distinguish the two, and rely on fighting the last war
| with dumb heuristics based on phraseology is a real
| social problem.
| naikrovek wrote:
| I'll tell ya, having watched the MS antitrust stuff happen vs.
| this, Google has a hell of a lot more apologists participating
| in posts like this one than Microsoft had _employees_ at the
| time.
|
| Google learned a lot from prior big antitrust cases, clearly.
| aaomidi wrote:
| I work at Google and the comments like the one OP had is so
| deeply confusing to me?
|
| If the judicial system finds that there was monopolistic
| behavior, then they should deal with it. People apologizing
| that "oh poor companies have a hard time with words" are wild
| to me.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Having worked at MS post anti trust, we weren't allowed to
| say things like "murder the competition", but I just assumed
| that was because they didn't want us going to jail for
| attempted homicide when we were just using hyperbole.
| dllthomas wrote:
| I think there are three things worth distinguishing.
|
| 1. "Don't do these bad things."
|
| 2. "Don't talk about it when you do these bad things."
|
| 3. "For chrissake don't talk like you're doing these things
| when you're not even doing them."
|
| 1 and 3 are appropriate, 2 isn't. I agree that the lines are
| not always obvious.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Well put another way - It's one thing to tell your employees
| not to break the law. That's good!
|
| It's another thing to tell your employees not to use a bunch of
| words while doing their job which implicate the firm in
| breaking laws they've been accused of breaking. It's almost
| like an admission of guilt or attempt to obfuscate.
|
| From a bank/fund perspective - we get tons and tons of training
| about how we should not insider trade, money launder, etc. They
| have people who have gone to jail come give talks about how
| it's not worth it, it was the biggest mistake of their lives,
| etc. Never ever, across half a dozen firms and 20 years, have I
| had training that was like "so hey don't use these terms that
| are used by insider traders because that would give the wrong
| impression when you are um.. doing your job and stuff..".
|
| It's stupid and hubristic. Just like the other stuff that came
| out of GOOG execs sending emails telling people not to put
| stuff in emails, lol. Cmon guys.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That's certainly the legal theory that the DOJ is going to
| push.
|
| The counter argument that I'm sure Google will bring to the
| table is that (a) that advice was given in the context of
| helping engineers understand that legal definitions and
| vernacular definitions are different, and it is the nature of
| adversarial court systems that words they think they're using
| with one meeting can be taken out of context by an opponent
| in a court case, so think about what they are saying, and (b)
| all of the above is just facts and the government suppressing
| a corporation's right to state facts would be a clear and
| obvious violation of the First Amendment.
|
| But these are two legal arguments and it's hard to predict
| how the court will decide.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I worked at another FAANG and they did exactly the same thing.
|
| There were official docs saying not to say the word monopoly,
| or something to that effect (It's been a few years). It felt
| dirty, glad to see that I was right and no, there isn't some
| magic legal loophole of using special phraseology to imply
| things that are illegal.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| "Don't say 'murder'; say 'liquidate' or 'take care of'"
|
| I mean, that sure looks like evidence to me, and not in an
| unfair way.
|
| Calling it unfair is like "how can you possibly expect me to
| not get in trouble if I can't conspire to avoid getting caught
| breaking the law!"
| chmod600 wrote:
| We've shifted too much in the direction of punishing based on
| words rather than actions.
|
| Punishments should be driven primarily from actions and harms,
| and words should just be used to show intent and involvement.
|
| It seems weird to me that the question of whether company X did
| something wrong is answered by its own employees' statements
| (based on their narrow perspective) rather than some objective
| criteria that something bad happened.
| mattigames wrote:
| Can you imagine saying that with any other charge "It seems
| weird that Tom is being charged with murder just because the
| sister's victim claims that she discussed his death treats with
| her and not because we have objective proof of the murder"
| corethree wrote:
| I get where your coming from especially with this whole pronoun
| fiasco.
|
| But on the other side of the coin very real bullying can come
| from just words.
|
| Unfortunately what is real bullying and just harmless talk
| exists actually exists on a gradient so we can't really codify
| it into anything that seems reasonable. Most good judgements
| are arrived at by just intuition.
| chmod600 wrote:
| That would be interesting to discuss but it's not where I was
| going and it's a bit off topic.
|
| Investigations should start with the crime and work backwards
| to find the criminal. If you have to find incriminating
| statements to tell if a crime has even happened, that is
| really a different thing.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >If you have to find incriminating statements to tell if a
| crime has even happened, that is really a different thing.
|
| That's what it sounds like:
|
| >Alphabet Inc.'s Google is on trial in Washington DC over
| US allegations that it illegally maintained a monopoly in
| the online search business.
|
| They aren't 100% sure so they are finding statements and
| actions to prove that Google is engaging in anti-
| competitive behavior.
| freeAgent wrote:
| The reason they don't want employees to use these words (and
| why they go OTR occasionally) is, at least as alleged by the
| government, to make discovery more difficult/impossible and
| also to hide/destroy evidence of their activity. It's not about
| being word police, it's about the reason why they're policing
| language.
| csb6 wrote:
| The instructions and training given to employees is definitely
| relevant when determining intent, i.e. the question of whether
| Google systematically or accidentally destroyed evidence. No
| one is saying that the case is about words only. It is about
| anticompetitive behavior and the act of destroying evidence of
| it.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| On the contrary: this case it's punishing the very behavior you
| are complaining about.
|
| People who tried to defend themselves with vain word choice now
| have that very act of defence used as a tool for their
| prosecution.
| nwbort wrote:
| Many of these words are terms of art in antitrust economics that
| also have common meanings (eg, 'bundle'). It seems
| uncontroversial to me that a company would want their employees
| to avoid using those terms.
| cratermoon wrote:
| More succinctly, "avoid words monopolists use"
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/google-hid-evide...
| andylynch wrote:
| I thought this was fairly well known. I'm surprised Google et al.
| still don't seem to have communications recording mandates for
| sensitive roles, like investment firms.
| bogwog wrote:
| This site spends a significant amount of bandwidth complaining
| about the problems of big tech, yet when people are actually
| trying to do something about it, the benefit of the doubt goes to
| the big tech companies.
| bagels wrote:
| Context matters: Don't use these words because it might let
| others know that we're monopolists. Don't use these words because
| we don't want to become monopolists, and if you use these words,
| it indicates that you might be doing something monopolistic.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Your second context is a bad idea. If you truly want to avoid
| monopolistic behavior, then you want to _encourage_ your
| employees to talk about that behavior plainly; so that when
| they _do_ attempt something monopolistic, you will know about
| it and react.
| gipp wrote:
| But then you still have the original problem: it's illegal to
| say the words, but it's also illegal to tell people not to
| say the words? You already know that there's explicit
| precedent that these words are considered indicative of
| illegal behavior, and you're just supposed to ignore that
| information in your effort to comply with the law?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| > it's illegal to say the words
|
| No, it absolutely is not.
|
| The words themselves are in no way whatsoever at issue
| here. The focus is on the context those words exist in.
| gipp wrote:
| They _weren 't_ used... and what context? Nobody was
| (legally) accusing Google of monopoly until recently, and
| this training has been in place forever.
|
| This is standard practice at most any big co, as far as
| I'm aware
| yongjik wrote:
| Your suggestion will result in a toxic workspace where anyone
| who does not like a product decision will simply say "Why do
| you want to hurt our users?", or even worse, "Why do you want
| to violate the law?"
|
| Companies ask employees to refrain from discussing such stuff
| because most employees are _not_ in a position to evaluate
| "Does this decision run afoul of antitrust laws?" (And maybe
| because they actually want to hide something, but in that
| case, we had better see actual evidences of the supposedly
| wrong behavior, instead of "Company X asked employees to
| avoid words that may cause expensive lawsuits.")
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It's toxic for employees to say, "This is a bad thing we
| should explicitly avoid doing", and it's A-OK for employees
| to say, "Don't let anyone hear you say we are doing these
| bad things. If you must talk about these things, use
| different words, or you will draw critical attention to our
| behavior."?
|
| Bullshit.
| yongjik wrote:
| Google: Don't use words that make it sound like we're
| doing illegal things, when taken out of context. If you
| have a genuine concern, talk to our legal department.
|
| Your interpretation: "Don't let anyone hear you say we
| are doing these bad things."
|
| Yep, that's what I'd call toxic.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Your entire argument assumes these words are being taken
| out of context. So you really believe that? I sincerely
| don't.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I really believe that. From everything I've seen, Google
| consistently does the right thing with regards to
| avoiding search lock-in, and is substantially above the
| industry standard in doing so. Just try changing the
| default search engine in Chrome vs. Edge!
| bagels wrote:
| Maybe ineffective, but it seems like simply asking people not
| to use these words isn't necessarily a sign of covering up
| crimes.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It's not like this is where the whole case started: the
| context is that Google is being sued for monopolistic
| behavior!
| lsaferite wrote:
| Regardless of guilt or not, using this kind of training
| as evidence against them seems asinine. If you don't have
| clear evidence and need to resort to this to try to win
| your case, why are you even filing the case?
| bagels wrote:
| Well, I would hope this is just one small piece.
| lsaferite wrote:
| My point is that it shouldn't *be* a piece of evidence,
| at least not for the Prosecution. Maybe the Defense could
| raise it as an example of them trying to be mindful of
| monopolistic behaviors and prevent them from taking root.
| LikelyABurner wrote:
| I fiercely despise Google and want them to go out of business
| legitimately, but this argument is right up there with "the
| defendant used encryption, that proves they must have child porn
| on their computer Your Honor!"
|
| It is not the responsibility of any company to make it easier for
| prosecutors to CTRL-F their emails to indict them, especially
| given how prosecutors can and will go on fishing expeditions.
| [deleted]
| more_corn wrote:
| I'm no google apologist but sometimes words are action. I
| remember them saying "we aren't going to destroy our competition,
| we're going to compete vigorously" words describe a plan, plans
| dictate actions. If you're directing people to the language of
| competition you're already better off than most monopolies.
| dekhn wrote:
| I think it's wise not to discuss some things in a discoverable
| media because that media often ends up... getting discovered, and
| then all-too-often abused by lawyers, then tried in the court of
| public opinion. Very frequently there is missing context that
| leads to angry mobs over something somebody said in their email.
|
| (I do accept that some people email things that are promoting
| something illegal, and those folks also learned to move to other
| media types)
| septillianator wrote:
| This case seems like a joke. Seems very "damn if you do and damn
| if you dont" across the board. DOJ states that Google trains to
| not use monopolistic language for the very same reason as to what
| they are trying to be held liable of doing. Seems like it would
| be a recipe for disaster to save the chats between employees and
| execs. Holding people accountable word for word that they have in
| the midst of conversation seems unjust to begin with. . People
| say things without thinking entirely through- its chat! And the
| huge bids to be the default browser on phone is the nature of
| business set forth by the likes of the phone manufactures to
| begin with. The idea of their being a default search to begin
| with is the problem. GOOGLE is just playing the game. It shoudl
| be required that the search engine should be picked at the time
| of the unboxing of the phone and this rule probably should have
| been made 15 years ago. The whole case seems like a huge waste of
| time to me and is another example of the government demonstrating
| their incompetence with regards to big tech.
| wnoise wrote:
| This strongly reminds me of a scene from season 3 of The Wire. A
| bunch of gang leaders are making plans together -- by way of a
| meeting trying to be run by Robert's Rules of Order. A
| subordinate is taking notes -- have to have minutes according to
| the rules. Eventually the leader notices and asks "is you takin'
| notes on a criminal fuckin' conspiracy?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc
| Graziano_M wrote:
| One of the all-time best quotes from the series.
| rg111 wrote:
| It was a nice _cooooop_ for as long as it was operational.
|
| Bi'ness was abooming without any bloodshed.
|
| ---
|
| On a more serious note, it is quite baffling to me that even
| after the tech sector embracing the corporate culture fully,
| and tons of documents generated every hour, prosecutors still
| have to scrape for such documents.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > His goal was to help Google "maximize the opportunity" of rapid
| smartphone advancement [...] during a 2011 training called
| "Antitrust Basics for Search Team," Google also directed
| employees to "avoid metaphors involving wars or sports, winning,
| or losing."
|
| Ah yes, "maximize the opportunity". I was wondering how all this
| wishy-washy generalized corporate-speak language starts, it's
| actively being taught.
|
| > "We don't 'lock up' or 'lock in' our customers," and "we do not
| 'leverage' anything," Google told employees.
|
| Eventually "maximize the opportunity" will be added to the list
| of banned phrases. What's next, invent completely new terms,
| resort to latin or other languages?
|
| Criminal groups often invent new jargon so that the authorities,
| or strangers in general, can't understand what they are saying.
| So why shouldn't corporations do that? They can all learn
| something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenya and go from
| there. Prosecutors will never figure it out!
| [deleted]
| lainga wrote:
| >What's next, invent completely new terms, resort to latin or
| other languages?
|
| Worked for Pepys --
|
| > Pepys was surprised by his wife as he embraced Deb Willet; he
| writes that his wife "coming up suddenly, did find me imbracing
| the girl _con_ [with] my hand _sub_ [under] _su_ [her] coats...
| "
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Turning history off is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I
| personally remember a Google Legal executive saying that you just
| should not say some things electronically at all.
| asoneth wrote:
| I agree with others that this sort of guidance is in no way proof
| of malfeasance but I can also see why it might arouse suspicion.
|
| If a suspected mob boss is recorded telling members of their
| organization stop using words like "murder", "assassinate", and
| "intimidate" that would not be proof of a crime, maybe they are
| an upstanding business owner who simply wants their employees to
| stop using violent metaphors.
|
| But it would be suspicious and seems reasonable for a prosecutor
| to bring up in court.
| MAGZine wrote:
| Is anyone surprised by this? I'm reminded of two emails zuck was
| famous for sending. The first email incorporated the use of such
| banned verbiage. The second email, sent just a handful of minute
| later, seemed to speak to an imaginary jury, explaining why his
| last email was not anti-competitive nature.
|
| I can only imagine some lawyer freaking out, dialing up zuck
| immediately, and dictating the followup email to write.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I mean, intention usually matters.
|
| People can and do regularly misspeak.
|
| If you send a follow-up letter right after the first - it's
| hard to know if you're covering your ass or you realize you
| messed up.
|
| And if you have good enough lawyers and you're not on trial for
| something like murder - you can usually get away with stuff
| like that.
|
| As I think we should.
|
| If I could go to jail for every time I said something dumb on
| accident - I'd have been locked up for life before I turned 20.
| MAGZine wrote:
| I don't think anybody is saying that you should have to go to
| jail for everytime you said something dumb! But if you are
| going to be acting anticompetitively, it sure is a dumb idea
| to send a memo about it--followup email or not.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Google said "We do not lock up our customers" and not "We do lock
| them up but we can't say that" or even "Just don't use those
| words". Reasonably the training instructed employees to "not lock
| up customers".
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I'm a broken record at this point but... As arguably THE
| community leading the zeitgeist, we need to be having serious and
| sober conversations about the limits of capitalism.
|
| How are we ensuring a healthy long lasting multi century society?
| We need to start implementing alternatives because even what were
| supposed to be the "good guys" are just another set of idealists
| and optimists ground into cynical dust.
|
| It's nearly deterministic that a "successful" venture > ipo >
| investor focused corporate trajectory has no conclusion other
| than to eventually consume itself and harm people as they chase
| margins for investors as THE core goal.
|
| These are the cold sores of the antisocial margin chasing greed
| embedded in the structure of commerce and politics in which we
| live. Who else wants to help turn this ship?
|
| This is unsustainable
| [deleted]
| fortran77 wrote:
| I've been advised to use certain language in every company I've
| worked at. For example, I shouldn't say a product "dominates" a
| market, it has a "competitive edge" or it "leads". I'm not sure
| this is hiding evidence.
| danaris wrote:
| It's also possible you've only ever worked at companies that
| have been _trying_ to obtain or abuse a dominant market
| position, rather than trying to compete fairly in the market...
| [deleted]
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Doesnt the title imply using words monopolists use is evidence of
| something? Surely thats not what defines a monopoly. You'd have
| to look at actual actions.
|
| Communications like this could arguably be about building
| culture, not evading antitrust allegations:
|
| > "We don't 'lock up' or 'lock in' our customers," and "we do not
| 'leverage' anything," Google told employees.
|
| But regardless, are they trapping customers and abusing some
| unique power that makes them a monopoly or not?
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| Culture is based on what you actually do, not what you say.
| Volkswagen said they wanted to make cleaner cars, instead there
| was the emissions scandal. Most governments say they want to
| build new homes, not many houses get built.
| anticensor wrote:
| Or worse, earthquake-fragile houses get built.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Combined with other evidence, it could show that they knew what
| they were doing was wrong.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| The crime is not saying something, the crime is _meaning it_.
|
| Why would you tell you employees to use careful language? So
| they can say something without being obvious.
|
| The intent here is very clear.
| klabb3 wrote:
| 100% agree. This speaking-in-code game is testament to the
| complete ineffectiveness of antitrust laws. I went through this
| training as well and it's explicitly just about avoiding
| certain words and phrases. Meanwhile we have an industry where
| the _norm_ is anti-competitive behavior and myopic dominance
| games. These rent-seeking monopolies aren't created by
| accident.
| marricks wrote:
| I imagine a murder trial would be a lot easier if the person
| charged was quoted saying:
|
| "I'm going to murder this person"
|
| Compared to
|
| "I hope something bad happens to this person"
| nonethewiser wrote:
| But are you guilty of murder if you say "Im going to murder
| this person?"
| IvyMike wrote:
| As your lawyer I strongly advise you to not say "I'm going
| to murder this person".
| Hamuko wrote:
| How should I phrase my intent to squeeze the life out of
| someone then?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I will reduce their market share
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I'm planning to excel in the extremely competitive air-
| breathing segment this quarter.
| drdaeman wrote:
| (IANAL) AFAIK, intent matters a lot in the criminal law,
| and if the statement is unambiguous it's significantly
| easier to prove the intent.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| But the point is you would also have to actually kill
| them.
| qup wrote:
| no, the point is once they're dead, it matters greatly
| whether you intended to kill them or not
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Not really. You can't know if someone you never met
| killed someone after the fact so you rely on evidence.
| Some of which is what you say. The jury are regular
| people, not logicians.
|
| In addition killing is not always a crime.
| Aachen wrote:
| I agree with the sibling comment about what the point
| was, though of course you are technically correct as
| well, but in addition it might be relevant to mention
| that attempts at someone's life are also punishable.
| Whether the analogy continues to work for anti-monopoly
| law, I don't know
| leereeves wrote:
| Yeah, killing with intent is the very definition of
| murder. (Edit: Unlawfully) Killing someone without intent
| is manslaughter, with (generally) a much lighter
| punishment.
|
| But to answer GP's question, AIUI, merely saying "Im
| going to murder this person?" does not make someone
| guilty of murder or attempted murder, or (perhaps
| surprisingly) even conspiracy to commit murder.
| Conspiracy usually requires an overt act, like buying a
| weapon, in addition to the statement of intent.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/conspiracy
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| Generally it's only manslaughter if you were reckless or
| negligent when you killed the person.
| weaksauce wrote:
| there's more nuance to the manslaughter than just killing
| without intent. you generally have to be doing something
| wrong in the first place to have it rise to criminality.
| ianal though and different localities judge it
| differently.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It's more like, if you intentionally started avoiding a
| murder spot specifically before a murder ended up happening
| there, you'd look a lot more likely to have had some
| inkling that something wrong was going to happen there than
| if you had just always been taking the alternative route.
|
| Similarly, if Google was intentionally avoiding using
| anticompetitive language, it's reasonable to think that
| they felt they might be facing some anticompetitive
| behavior related action.
| lsaferite wrote:
| I'd say it's more like:
|
| A lot of people are murdered in location A, we walk past
| location A frequently, let's not walk by location A
| anymore because the police are looking at us funny. Then
| they get pulled into the interrogation room and they use
| the fact that you stopped going by location A as evidence
| that you were involved in the murders (that kept
| happening even after you stopped walking by that
| location).
| pawelmurias wrote:
| If you are saying things like "This would be a perfect murder
| weapon" and "I wish John Smith was dead" it will make you
| more likely to get convicted even if you are innocent.
| henry2023 wrote:
| - It was a joke bro.. sorry, your honor.
| k12sosse wrote:
| Like robbing stores and saying "twas merely a YT prank!"
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Instead of drugs, call them onions. Instead of money, call it
| flowers. Establishing euphemisms.
| archo wrote:
| https://archive.is/XsDSf
| monksy wrote:
| I need to be hired by Google so I can start the first Google
| Monopoly board game club
| gjvc wrote:
| I like to avoid the word "share"
| adolph wrote:
| _That memo and others from 2009 and 2011, the DOJ argued, made it
| clear that Google knew it needed "to be sensitive about antitrust
| considerations" and allegedly worked to hide any sketchy-sounding
| activity that could trigger antitrust scrutiny._
|
| It's kind of weird that the price of being successful is getting
| sued for monopolistic behavior. If Google had gone the way of
| Yahoo!, no lawsuit. If you think your company will make it big,
| then you have to be conscious about how lawyers will interpret
| your words many years after the fact.
| hotstickyballs wrote:
| Being successful is ok. Exploiting your success to prevent
| others from being successful is not
| adolph wrote:
| > Being successful is ok. Exploiting your success to prevent
| others from being successful is not
|
| Any entity builds on previous successes to continue existing.
| Given that exclusivity agreements exist, how can a company be
| both successful and not monopolistic? It doesn't seem fair to
| say "lets look at what you did before you were successful,
| which was legal at the time, but becomes illegal if you are
| too good at it."
| gustavus wrote:
| I don't think the problem is they were successful, I think the
| problem is more that they are using their success to
| effectively lock down the entire internet until only their
| approved platforms are allowed.
| adolph wrote:
| To what does the comment refer? Last I checked, Google has
| not "effectively lock[ed] down the entire internet until only
| their approved platforms are allowed."
| mabbo wrote:
| I feel like large companies no longer have any excuse for not
| storing all text communications for a decade or longer. Text is
| small. Storage is cheap. The idea that you just can't keep all
| these text messages is absurd.
|
| A recent criminal case in Canada was thrown out because the
| police decided to turn off their body cam mics while they had a
| conversation of what they were going to do during their arrest of
| the accused. The judge decided it was suppression of evidence by
| the police. (I agree with the decision).
|
| A CEO choosing not to record certain conversations is, in my
| view, not that far from different. It's taking active action to
| ensure there's no record when it would have been easier to have
| the record: a clear sign that they don't want someone to know
| that was said.
| sirspacey wrote:
| In an adversarial case like this, that seems to make sense.
|
| The issue is that there are many, many groups that would
| happily sue a company to achieve a hostile objective (get
| access to proprietary insights, change public opinion, etc.)
| irrespective of the merits of their argument.
|
| Accountability matters, but 100% observability and transparency
| do not automatically deliver it.
|
| As a startup founder I tried, As many other founders have. In
| my circle we all learned the same lesson. Self-interested
| observers could pollute "the commons" very quickly and break
| the company culture.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Exactly, these companies spoiled just train these employees on
| not to break the law. It's the drive to find an edge over
| competitors that's making employees take these unethical
| behaviors. When they realize nobody's watching, they're more
| likely to act unethically.
|
| A good comparison is the outrage that arises at speed cameras.
| People can't believe that a camera could write a ticket for
| them. They'll spoof and obscure license plates, take alternate
| routes, and try all sorts of things to avoid following the law.
| Just don't speed and you'll be ok. Don't act unethically in
| business and you'll be ok too.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"Don't act unethically in business and you'll be ok too."
|
| Easy to say, but the real world is full of grey areas,
| judgement calls, and interpretations. We don't have a law
| that says "don't act unethically" because it is way too
| broad. Regardless, you would still need a judge or a jury in
| order to make a verdict that unethical actions were taken.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| There is effectively no upside to retaining records from years
| ago, only downside when it comes back to bite you in the
| future.
|
| This is as true for corporate emails as it is for your ten year
| old social media posts.
| alberth wrote:
| > "As far back as _2003_ , Google managers circulated unambiguous
| instructions on phrases to avoid to ensure they don't come across
| like monopolists. ... Another internal presentation from March
| _2011_ , titled 'Antitrust Basics for Search Team,' tells
| employees:..."
|
| This is an odd article from Bloomberg since they are reporting on
| events that happened 20-years ago.
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