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Comment by rpastuszak | Hacker News Reader

> Google said Mr. Pichai and Mr. Breton “had a frank, but open conversation about plans to update digital policy in Europe.”

This (and the rest of the article) reads like it was discussing a conflict between the leaders of two different countries, but let's stop for a second and remind ourselves that we are talking about a a) political unit governing the lives of 450m people and b) a company.

No company should be big enough to be considered an equal partner in a conversation like this. This kind of narrative is not new, but it's becoming a norm that people take for granted without realising how perverse it is.

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"No company should be big enough to..." is a bit of a philosophical musing, but since the world we have has allowed for companies grow to this size and to own and dominate our data as they have, what other solutions would you have in mind to update digital policy that don't involve also speaking to the people at the helm of the very organizations that are holding most of said data? You wouldn't at least discuss the topic with them?

I don't think it's meant to be a criticism of the act itself, but what the fact that it's necessary represents. I imagine the proposed solution would be closer to "break up google" than "stop talking to google"

Why not just break up all tech giants? Why single out Google?

Because we are talking about Google today: they were the subject of the article; we shouldn't have to generalize every single statement.

> we are talking about Google today

We were talking only about Google yesterday and probably will tomorrow too, but sure "we are talking about Google today".

And we were also, separately, talking about Apple all week, and we spent the past year talking about Facebook. What is your point? (Actually, looking at your comments you seem to spend all your time talking about Google, so I am guessing you are a Google shill and probably work for them or something :/.)

This is like the “#alllivesmatter” response. Sure, there are other giants and all too big companies should be improved with various interventions. But the article is about google and eu, so bringing up that this also applies to all big giants is not very interesting.

Of course google has unique problems that no other tech giant has since no one else controls search.

I’m sure you could invent any reason if you needed to, given this is a political question rather than a purely economic one.

For example, while I think of Apple as just a luxury goods company, the fact they make high-end phones means they are an obvious security target for anyone who wants to hack high-value individuals in general. I can easily believe some would want to take it into government ownership just for the increased government oversight opportunities alone, even in a liberal capitalist society.

It would make more sense to just tax them..

King Philip IV of France took a practical approach in dealing with a similar problem. [Two days ago], Friday the 13th, was the 713th anniversary of his solution to the thorny problem of sovreign conflicts with powerful transnational organizations. That is the day he smashed the Templars in France.

Philip tweeted: "Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume"

("God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom")

> King Philip IV of France took a practical approach in dealing with a similar problem.

AFAIK his problem was slighly different—he owed them money :)

> Philip tweeted ...

Wow. Twitter sure has been around a lot longer than most people realised. ;)

Are you proposing that the EU government should murder all Google employees in the EU in order to consolidate its own power and control?

Why do you make than inflammatory analogy ? Even Philip IV didn't kill all templars, only the senior leadership. The rank and file templars joined other orders.

It draws attention to the inflammatory premise of the original comment, that Google ought to be thankful France isn't taking "a practical approach". A king murdering the leaders of an organization that got in his way is not a positive example of regulatory power!

I can choose to drop Google any second. Dropping the EU government, on the other hand...

Also, the EU has failed to produce any viable alternative to Google mostly because of our shitty laws. Let's not pretend the hegemony of Google is some kind of imperialism that was forced on us.

Most people can’t drop google at any time. They can’t afford buying a new phone, buying a new computer (all those chrome book users), and everything else.

Being able to transition off google has become a privilege that’s especially difficult on low income folks.

A phone or a computer is not a basic human need. But even then, maybe let's use the EU to provide open phones instead of destroying the only thing available?

"U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right"

https://www.wired.com/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access

My country's constitution nor the EU have such claims anywhere. The UN can say whatever it wants, it's not an authority here.

What would count as basic human needs, according to your country’s constitution?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human...

It is an authority just not for you.

That's what I said, it's not an authority here, neither for me or my government.

People are totally cut off from modern society without some kind of phone or computer. I’m not sure you can say they are not a basic human need.

You're forgetting a privilege to have a cheap phone, free maps, free decent email provider, cheap usable computer etc. It's possible thanks to Google. Of course it's costly to transition the same way it would be costly to get those services if Google wasn't around.

> cheap phone

Had one before android existed.

> free decent email provider,

Still use the same I used before gmail was a thing.

> cheap usable computer etc

I cannot comprehend from what kind of twisted alternate reality this claim hails.

Or did you simply forget to mark your sarcasm with /s ?

Then you can use those options as Google didn't exist. The thing is the quality is so much better thanks to them people choose the products. The phone you had before Android wouldn't fulfill a purpose people buy phones these days. If you don't remember how much better Gmail was than email providers back in the day I don't know what to tell you.

> I can choose to drop Google any second

> failed to produce any viable alternative to Google

These two statements seem to be in conflict

In what way? You can use duckduckgo, iOS, etc. The EU has failed to produce a good search engine and a good mobile operating system.

> I can choose to drop Google any second

This is true, bit misses the point.

The point is that through whatever means, but including cheating, Google has become incredibly, obscenely powerful.

And one of the many reasons that is undesirable is the aforementioned cheating.

You cannot operate on the internet and drop google. This isn’t possible because you live in an interconnected world.

Unless you’re a hermit who disconnects entirely from the web, you can’t drop them.

You may cancel all your accounts, but you’ll still visit sites that use google analytics, interact with hosts that use Google’s registrars for their domain names, be profiled by google and included in targeted advertising by web sites that you don’t even know.

You’ll also be impacted by the incentives google puts on content creators through their de facto standards of chrome, web video, drm, etc.

I’d say it’s easier to drop the EU than Google. You can move to Britain or elsewhere and escape EU laws. You can’t go anywhere on the internet to escape Google’s laws.

There are a ton of better/worse alternatives to various google products. Aside from networking effects, noone needs to use google at all, right now.

Talk about hyperbolic comparisons and nonsense excuses

In which country of the world can you "choose to drop your government any second"?

Though feel free to drop Google, if you can

> I can choose to drop Google any second.

Good luck with that, Google is everywhere (search, maps, mobile phones, and many more). You have to make a lot of effort to avoid it.

It is far easier to drop EU government because elections happen every few years. In case of Google you don't have elections (or maybe you have, but it is shareholder voting, so more like plutocracy).

You can switch to Bing or DDG in less than one second. Good luck doing that with the EU.

Try searching in bing for movie trailers or for other videos (e. g. home workout) how many results will be for YouTube? And you still think there is no effort?

I can move out of EU or vote to change it. I don't have that power with Google.

You are seriously saying it’s easier to move out of the EU or to replace the EU government, than it is not to use Google?

Yes it is. Have you tried e.g. for a week to never use ANY service that is from Google?

Normally people thing it is just search, but search is just the tip of the iceberg.

In case of EU, you just need to wait max 5 years for next elections and you can have your input by voting (in case of Google you can send your input to /dev/null of their automated "customer service").

Would you be able to avoid (just for one week):

- google analytics,

- GCP (this one is hard),

- youtube,

- google dns servers,

- android without any google services (or just iOS, this one might be easier if you already have iPhone, but for majority of people it is not easy),

- adwords/adsense

- fonts

- translate

- pay (again, easier of you are iPhone user)

- photos

- maps

- charts (you can have link to those on web pages)

- chrome

- gmail (if you don't have account there then it is easy, if you have - it is almost impossible to change your email address everywhere)

And also imagine a person that is an "average Joe", has cheap Android phone, uses Chrome without any ad blocking and has email account in gmail.

Would it be easy for him? Or would it be easier to go voting? Or find a job in neighboring country that doesn't belong to EU (e.g. Switzerland or Norway, not sure if UK counts right now) ?

Well if you are going to say he has to use a cheap Android phone and a gmail account, then obviously he can’t avoid Google, but that’s not much of an argument.

Nobody is really restricted in that way.

It’s obviously much easier to buy an iPhone and install an ad-blocker than it is to get a new job in Switzerland or Norway if you don’t already live there.

Have you actually looked at at what it takes to emigrate to Switzerland?

As for your list, of course you can’t stop other people from using Google. We’re talking about not using Google yourself.

The move to different country is one time deal. Avoiding Google for the rest of your life is a constant job.

I didn't say that the "Joe" has to use cheap Android phone and gmail account. I just said that he has one already because one is cheap and the other is free. So imagine that he used both for several years.

And now he can change that, but is it easy? Buying iPhone is easy (not cheap, but moving out is also not cheap), but changing your email address in zillion places is next to impossible.

You don't have to make any effort to avoid it. Picking up your phone is effort you're making to meet it, simply stop doing that.

There’s occasions where a single entity will basically dictate how a country gets structured [0] in key aspects.

To me the most important part is how long that power is concentrated (a few years ? decades ? three generations ?) and how it ends up counterbalanced.

It seems to be about time for Google and Amazon.

[0] https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-P-Morgan

> We are talking about a a) political unit governing the lives of 450m people and b) a company.

No, We are talking about a a) political unit governing the lives of 450m people and b) a company affecting the lives of 2 billion.

I can’t get behind this vision of the government as something that’s fundamentally above the rest of us. I’d argue that every company should be considered an equal partner in a conversation like this, to the greatest extent feasible. (And I’d argue the EU official here seems to agree - he mentions in the article that he wants to “hear and listen to everybody”.)

Their employees can vote like the rest of us does

Jack Ma,too, thought he was big enough to take on China's leaders. It didn't worked out as planned.

All EU has to do is let the process play itself and unleash the dozens of EU agencies that deal with these things.

If Mr. Pichai would say he is currently begging Mr. Breton to leave Google as is he would give Alphabet stockholders sufficient reason to annul him.

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