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Comment by dr_kiszonka | Hacker News Reader

(Disclaimer: I have a big personal gripe with Google, but I don't hate the company in general)

Something has been on mind for a while.

I see lawsuits against Google collecting / selling personal data and ideas to combat its monopoly in search. What I don't see is a discussion about regulating companies that have data on the majority of the population.

I know for a fact that Google used search insights to inform strategy. By knowing what people search for and modeling our behavior, they have an unprecedented ability to forecast future events. I expect that Facebook and other, lesser-known companies do the same. I believe it is dangerous for a company to have this ability.

I am not an expert in public policy and politics. Would it make sense to have regulatory oversight over all companies that have data on, e.g., over 50% of a country's population?

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Regulations don't make the problem go away.

In fact, it's more likely Google will use the regulation to corner the market with regulatory capture.

This has been one of the chief complaints for GDPR, right? While GDPR provides consumer data protection, it also creates regulatory and compliance barriers for new competition entering those markets, with heavy penalties.

So what does make the problem go away? Antitrust seems to be the only option at this point.

You could let Google fail.

Today they are on top, but if Automotive is any indication, Google will soon struggle

Regulations, a lot of times, tend to have the opposite of the intended effect. In this case, you'd need to define what is meant by "having data".

Is having an email or phone enough to qualify?

Maybe yes.

In that case, think of a rapidly growing startup, which breaches that mark (50% or whatever the law says) - and now has to comply with the law.

But the startup is not capable of compliance, because the law was made for behemoths like google.

This startup will go belly over and die soon.

Google's monopoly saved.

Alternatively, leaving it in the public domain for civil suits to be filed has a tendency of natural selection. If a company is TRULY big enough, and has that kind of data, someone WILL sue.

Thanks for your comment. I need to think about your other points, but what if we changed "data" to "behavioral data?"

Are startups that have collected data on 50% (or even 10%) of the US population still small enough that complying would be burdensome?

The answer here depends a lot on what the hypothetical regulation would be.

Does anyone know how many consumer oriented startups reach 30 million customers?

> In that case, think of a rapidly growing startup, which breaches that mark (50% or whatever the law says) - and now has to comply with the law.

> But the startup is not capable of compliance, because the law was made for behemoths like google.

If I were 'king of the world' I would consider something like this, but would not have it be a binary 'must comply or exempt' but a spectrum of ranges from 'totally exempt' to 'totally regulated' depending on what percentage of 50% you had.

If you have 5% of user emails, you are responsible for the bottom 10% of regulations and/or you need to fully comply with the regulations for a sample size of 10% of your users.

IDK I need to give it more thought, but first, another zoom meeting awaits.

That doesn't sound very realistic to me. A startup doesn't just capture 50% of any significant market over night. It will have plenty of time to hire some compliance staff as it grows.

Regulation and civil lawsuits don't serve the same purpose. Regulation is making the rules. Courts interpret the rules in light of a specific situation.

I agree that regulation can be counter productive. It can create a level playing field or cement dominant positions of encumbants. So let's have good regulation.

"By knowing what people search for and modeling our behavior, they have unprecedented ability to forecast future events. I expect Facebook and other, lesser known companies do the same. I believe it is dangerous for a company to have this ability."

I have thought of this as "search-based front-running". How much of it goes on, I would like to know.

> they have unprecedented ability to forecast future events.

Per Matt Levine's "anything can be securities fraud if you don't tell your shareholders about it", then having the "unprecedented ability to forecast future events" and not informing your shareholders about it could be argued as securities fraud in court. Something to think about.

One of my favorite articles on that front is where two Capital One fraud analysts used internal purchase data to invest in consumer-oriented brands. Yes, it became insider trading:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-capitalone-insidertra...

Key quote: The Huangs, who are not related, began with a $147,000 investment and together made more than $2.8 million from the trades, a three-year return of 1,819 percent, the SEC said.

It seems like corporations will develop psychohistory and use it for profit rather than some Hari Seldon type using it to save civilization.

I wouldn't be surprised if over the years employees have been making canny decisions on the stock markets. Facebook also has a lot of information via its portfolio of services to enable this too.

Why wouldn't 49% qualify? And then, 48%? Where do you draw a line and why?

This is the problem with laws, especially when the company that it's supposed to regulate is a top 20 lobbyist/briber.

Yes, all that data helped Google perfect its amazing chat and video calling app strategy.

Don't forget Google Plus, and that email killer whose name I cannot recall.

Google+ and Wave were both doomed because they were invite-only. If you have to ration invites, it isn't much of a social network. Invite-only successfully created artificial demand for Gmail because invited users could immediately communicate with non-Gmail users. That didn't work for Google+ or Wave since they didn't interoperate with services that people already used.

If only Google would have had enough data to predict that!

And because they didn’t perfect their chat and video calling app strategy, it’s fine for companies to have unrestricted access to personal data without any oversight.

No one is arguing in favour of that, but the statement that all the data lets them perfect their strategies and shut out competitors is provably wrong.

I am also frustrated with Google's communication apps. Strategy is one thing, execution is another ;)

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