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Comment by pkilgore | Hacker News Reader

You're correct it's unremarkable a company would want to limit it's production of documents in accordance with their rights to do so under federal and state rules.

It's super, and I mean super, fucked up that you turn around and accused the the other side of corruption with literally no evidence that it is true.

It's beyond super fucked up that HN thinks OPs answer adds any actual insight to this conversation, as opposed to utterly unsupported insinuations.

OP could be right, but we should all be doing better here, from the WSJ to the people upvoting this garbage.

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I don't know. The second line is a bit sketchy, but an AG having the MPAA ghostwrite things for him seems like pretty good support for an insinuation that private interests are manipulating the investigation. Maybe the term "corruption" is too loaded, but would you agree that the AGs are investigating Google based in part on how third party groups would like the investigation to go?

Not the OP but at this level (a trillion dollar company) there’s definitely a third-party involved. I don’t particularly see anything wrong with that per se (I kind of see as “wrong” the part where we have three or four companies which are worth close to one trillion or more, but that’s another discussion), it is just a translation of the “checks and balances” thing from the party- and democracy-level to the corporate level (which corporate level might use parts of the old system for itself, in this case presumably the AG office). It’s not an ideal situation if you compare it to what the Founding Fathers might have desired but it is what it is.

I broadly agree with what you’re saying, but I think it’s misleading to sum it up as a lack of corruption. This kind of thing is exactly why Google would be hesitant to give up documents; they know that for many people on the other side of the table, the primary mission is hurting Google rather than upholding the law.

Indeed. My first reaction to the headline was to say "I wouldn't be surprised at all that Google was doing uncompetitive stuff, but just pushing back on discovery doesn't mean anything". Then I read the comments and saw the same one you're reacting to and wasn't sure if I should vote it up for the relevant first point or not because of the other points.

Moreover, this is hardly an isolated case. Google juggles multiple major anticompetitive & similar cases at all times, in multiple jurisdictions. They've lost several.

That's the wider context.

They haven't lost any actually, if you're referring to EU enforcement then that stuff in unilateral, a court isn't involved so technically they couldn't lose.

As for background if state AGs have ulterior motives then so does the EU many folds.

The Washington Post article linked above mentions that the Texas AG is using his google probe to solicit donations in his reelection emails.

Here is a NYT article about how state AGs get used by company lawyers to go after competitors with money exchanging hands (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/us/politics/lawyers-creat...)

Here is the one about the Mississippi AG used by the movie industry to go after google (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/technology/google-attorne...)

The WSJ is a not an uninterested party in this case, and this is but one example of them misquoting and spinning reports to attack google (https://searchengineland.com/misquoted-and-misunderstood-why...)

Suggests that the probe is popular with the constituents who elected them. Anti-trust probes are a very popular form of oversight, in case that isn't blindingly obvious.

It doesn't mean they aren't corrupt and wrong. Many things the government does have been popular and wrong.

It doesn’t mean they are.

> Suggests that the probe is popular with the constituents who elected them.

Could you please clarify if you mean the donors, the voters, or both?

Both, and they aren't mutually exclusive either.

> they aren't mutually exclusive either.

This is technically true but misleading, as it's generally assumed that "the voters" means the >99% of the electorate who are not rich enough to make individual demands of candidates in return for campaign contributions. (And "donors" mostly means corporations, which thankfully do not get to vote, although there are a few people (ie, technically voters) who are rich enough personally to bribe candidates.)

Whether you like it or not, the fact here is that it isn't clear whether Google resisting or AGs demanding docs is the right thing here or not. So stop being so melodramatic about it and using such strong words.

You're right, it's an outrage to suggest the current administration might be involved in less than pristine legal behavior!

> You're right, it's an outrage to suggest the current administration might be involved in less than pristine legal behavior!

While I appreciate your enthusiasm, I think it is premature to assume that the executive branch of federal government is somehow behind state Attorney Generals' fishing expeditions.

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