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Comment by Veratyr | Hacker News Reader

I totally agree that Google, Facebook and Amazon have too much power and too little accountability.

However they're all global companies and as bad as they are, I trust all of them more than I trust the US government (I am not American). Can you even imagine how their business would work when these are state entities? You're no longer buying ad placements from a marketing company, you're buying them from the US government. You're no longer selling product through a third-party storefront, you're selling through the US government. Google and Facebook, two of the most important information gateways, are now controlled by the US Congress and Senate. All that information on people all over the world is now in the hands of the US government.

The very thought of this terrifies me.

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> I trust all of them more than I trust the US government

Governments don't deserve your trust. The same goes for business. Trusting either is is a terrible idea, because power corrupts wherever it accumulates. While public and private use power in different ways, they are both a serious threat when they are allowed to act without regular check on their power. The solution isn't to pick sides. Power needs to be diluted regularly, and that happens when government and business work as checks on each other. It is the conflict itself that keeps power from accumulating.

> Can you even imagine how their business would work when these are state entities?

They already are, in all but name. Remember Prism?

> All that information on people all over the world is now in the hands of the US government.

That ship already sailed, unfortunately. I agree that this is a terrifying problem, but I'm not sure how to fix it. However, consider this: right now there are effectively no restraints on that power. Nationalizing/utilifying Google et al at least introduces the opportunity to add regulation by bringing the problem into public scrutiny.

>Trusting either is is a terrible idea, because power corrupts wherever it accumulates.

Concentrated power is also concentrated responsibility.

It's the lack of individual power for any one member that makes groups (governments, companies, political organizations, etc) untrustworthy. When nobody feels like they have enough individual power to do what they consider right they also do not feel responsible for doing wrong. They're just doing their jobs.

Maybe nationalization is a bad way to go about it, but these companies are too large, they have too much power over society and society needs to exert power back onto them. So there should be some kind of external oversight when decisions that affect millions of people are being made.

I think governments are inefficient and corrupt, but companies are absolutely free to do as they please when deciding how to change products that affect society. Also, there is much more spying freedom in the private sector. This is why there should be a mechanism to oversee what happens with our data.

You mean like a set of regulations these companies had to comply with? Maybe with panels of ordinary citizens to adjudicate their application, overseen by a professional expert. Maybe we could call these regulations 'laws'.

Largest companies by annual revenue[0]:

    WalMart Stores (US)  - $485.8bn 
    State Grid (China) - $315.1bn
    Sinopec (China) - $267.5bn 
    China Natural Petroleum (China) - $262.6bn
    Toyota Motor (Japan) - $254.7bn
    Volkswagen (Germany) - $240.2bn
    Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands) - $240bn
    Berkshire Hathaway (US) - $223.6bn
    Apple (US) - $215.6bn
    Exxon Mobil (US) - $205bn

None are the big three. Should we nationalize Toyota and Volkswagen also?

[0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/20/revealed-worl...

Are you more or less forced to buy a Toyota simply because all your friends drive a Toyota? Is the majority of roads exclusive to Toyotas? If you question a business decision of Toyota, or a design of their car, can you then sell said car and purchase one from another brand with minimal impact on your daily life (Other than the fact that you have to sell and buy a car)?

Clearly it's not just about revenue numbers here.

I think nationalising Walmart is a perfectly reasonable idea. Considering issues like the level of access to quality food in poor neighbourhoods in the US and the fact that US government subsidises much of Walmart's labour cost already, it would be a much better deal for the American people on average.

Not really relevant, it's not the revenue that is a problem. It's their massive network effects that are, as the author puts it, platform monopolies.

Walmart, Toyota, Apple, do not have entrenching networks that lead to a monopoly. You can just as easily go to Target, buy a Honda, or get an Android phone

I guess the idea is that each country or region has its own Google, Facebook or Amazon - Not that it all belongs to the US government.

I would also argue that they are US companies first and global companies second. Their main focus is always USA and their spirit is also very American for the good and the bad. Strategy for the rest of the world is made in the USA. All important decision are made in the USA. Most investments are made in the USA and also the profits go to the USA.

This is nor good or bad but the point is that those are not global companies.

According to [1] 75% of Facebook Users are located outside the US. And According to [2] India has more Facebook Users than the US. The statistics differ somehow, though they both should be current, but the point remains: Facebook is very much a global company. I am sure that you can find similar statistics for Google or Amazon.

[1] https://brandongaille.com/facebook-user-statistics-by-countr... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-...

I didn't say that their audience is not outside of the USA. Feel free to re-read what I wrote.

Think about it like that. BMW sells most of their cars outside of Germany but still is a German company that operates world wide. And this is very true for most big companies today.

This is such a widespread idea I wonder where it comes from. At least your government (hopefully) is a somewhat democratic institution and is to that extend accountable and is providing standard procedures to make it more accountable if you believe it ought to be.

There's no such thing in Facebook or Google. Managers dictate policy and if you don't like it you can leave/stop using their service.

My government is far more democratic than the US but I still wouldn't trust it with that kind of power.

Democracy is nice and all but the representative democracy most of the world is ruled by puts people who are good at getting elected in power rather than people who are good at running a country. Google/Facebook don't have that problem, their leaders are there on merit rather than their charisma, popularity or the lies they told.

Also, Google/Facebook are very much regulated by data protection authorities in the countries they operate in.

I'm not sure it would be such a huge difference from now, when the US government can go through the NSA to acquire data from internet companies. Surely if you had a document the contents of which you wouldn't want the US government to know, you already wouldn't put it on Google Drive?

But you raise another important point. What happens to all the infrastructure and personnel that Google or Amazon have outside the US? Ireland and the Netherlands probably don't feel the same way about hosting a branch of the US Government as they do about a global corporation, and vice versa the US government wouldn't want the same level of scrutiny from foreign governments that Google does. Would European countries attempt to nationalize their local Facebook datacenters? Would it effectively break those colossi apart along national borders?

It's more than who has access to the data, it's also who sets the policies for acceptable content and the direction of the products.

I would say there is a difference. Right now my assumption would be that American Law Enforcement could target someone to have access to everything. And they might be able to surveil unencrypted traffic. But I do not think that they are always reading anybodies WhatsApp messages. Nationalized that assumption couldn't be made anymore.

They are american companies first and you should trust them even less because they are open to corruption by the US government.

> All that information on people all over the world is now in the hands of the US government. The very thought of this terrifies me.

I hate to tell you this, but that barn door was already left open a long time ago.

If Google and Facebook were nationalized, why would they need to sell ads?

Same reason that BBC Worldwide does.

The same reason the postal service does. They still have to pay the bills.

I could see Facebook and Google move to a subscription-style model. People would easily pay, say, 3$ per month for Facebook and 5$ per month for Google if it was the only option. (Prices should be lower in less developed regions, of course.)

Once freed from the prime directive of collecting increasing amounts of data to improve ad tracking, operating and development costs should be much lower than they are now, too.

> People would easily pay, say, 3$ per month for Facebook and 5$ per month for Google if it was the only option

If people had to pay a monthly fee for search or social media, it would very quickly not be the only option anymore

Where would you prefer the funding to come from?

The current situation is close to what you describe (PRISM, etc...)

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