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> Go to a store, this is what Walmart, Albertsons/Safeway, Costco, etc have been doing for longer than any of the FAANGs have existed.

This one is substantively different. Amazon claims it is a market and not a store, and is therefore not legally responsible for things like the quality of products sold there or how they are represented. They claim that both buyers and sellers are their customers, unlike an actual store where only the buyers are the customers.

So when Amazon decides to set up its own logistics company, no problem. When they use private market data to place their own products into their market, that's a different matter.

> Amazon claims it is a market and not a store, and is therefore not legally responsible for things like the quality of products sold there or how they are represented.

Amazon claims this, but at least in California they still face product liability: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-court-appeal...

While on its face the outcome doesn't seem surprising to me, this may nonetheless turn out to be a very important national precedent as California was, IIRC, the first jurisdiction to both clearly establish strict product liability for manufacturers and also extend that liability to intermediate sellers in the distribution chain.

I agree. I don't think Amazon can continue this kind of legal equivocation much longer. The claim to be "a neutral market" when questions of consumer protections arise and "just one web store among many" when questions of improper use of their market ownership arise.

The California decision makes a lot of sense.

Looking at their business model with their ownership of the customer relationships, control of the payment methods, and the co-mingling of inventory, it's hard to claim that Amazon is just matching buyers and sellers.

I'm not really in the "break-up big tech" camp. We already have the laws needed to make companies play fair, we just need to enforce them.

That said, the whole Amazon Basics model is kind of questionable. I could see that being split off and forced to operate without access to private market data or preferential placement in the marketplace.

> They claim that both buyers and sellers are their customers, unlike an actual store where only the buyers are the customers.

The garden department at your local department (Wal-Mart does this. So do most home repair places) store is operated by another company. So too is the salty snack aisle, soft drink aisle and many other departments where an outside vendor is basically renting shelf space, and paying the rent in margin at the register. In all of these cases, the store also has a house brand that is in the same aisle, competing with the big brands. So, what Amazon is doing is really the same, but in an ecommerce format. BTW, department and grocery stores were running their own logistics company long before Amazon even existed.

I side with you.

Ben Evans shares a lot of good arguments here: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/12/amazons-mark...

When people say they got a solution to “the problem” for me this sounds every time like they not even started to understand anything they are talking about.

FAANG is a sui generics case. And looking at Amazon’s service, I believe they do a lot of things right that others do not. And that’s part of “the problem”.

> > How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different?

> The same reason you can’t put software you want on a Xbox/PlayStation/Switch.

The iPhone is a general purpose computer, not a gaming toy. You do finances, email, chat, dating, games, spreadsheets, GPS navigation, photos, video - your entire life, all one one device.

For half of Americans, this is the only computer they own.

For half of Americans, Apple controls what software you can use, and it extorts a 30% cut.

That's mafia behavior.

Gamers can choose between Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC, Steam, Epic, and dozens of other platforms. There's lots of choice, and this is just one industry with a very narrow impact on consumers' lives.

Mobile computer (aka smartphone) users get to choose between Apple and Android for the entirety of everything they do, and both of these companies try to butt into everything. They even want to control banking and payments.

The App Stores aren't given to us benevolently out of the good will of a loving Apple and Google. They're means of exerting control and extracting profit in a monopolistic fashion. They both need to die.

> You do finances, email, chat, dating, games, spreadsheets, GPS navigation

> For half of Americans, Apple controls what software you can use, and it extorts a 30% cut.

30% (or even 15%) of $0 is $0.

Apple gets nothing from me for my finance apps, my email client, my chat apps, my spreadsheet apps, or my GPS apps, because they are free.

I can’t comment about dating apps as I’m not using any. Complaining that Apple charges for gaming, however, is weird given you choose to reject them as gaming devices.

The argument was "general purpose computer" which would include games. It's not exclusively a gaming device

Is the PlayStation store also evil?

Implicitly, if it's provided as a reason I can't get root-by-default permissions in a device I purchased.

> You’re going to have a really hard time defining what’s “fair” for a black box algorithm to do.

To which the two biggest counter-arguments are:

1. “So don’t allow black box algorithms”

2. “This is why the search engine company should be separate from the company which owns all the other products”

People use Google because the algorithm is a black box that is constantly updated to keep away black hat SEO crap. An open web page ranking algorithm is useless in an adversarial environment. There is no current signal that can’t be trivially gained that doesn’t effectively require mass user surveillance (to see “what’s really popular”).

> 2. “This is why the search engine company should be separate from the company which owns all the other products”

This doesn’t solve the problem. They can still alter top listings to push things for “preferred partners and truths”.

> An open web page ranking algorithm is useless in an adversarial environment.

Anybody with Search experience confirm or deny this claim?

I have experience, and this is trivially true. Search engines can only look at proxies for relevance , as General AI hasn't been achieved yet. Proxies can always be gamed.

> black hat SEO crap

Pretty redundant if you ask me: black hat, SEO and crap.

Crap is not redundant. It's more popular than ever!

/s

> An open web page ranking algorithm is useless in an adversarial environment.

We here know that, politicians don’t seem to and they set the rules.

Regardless: the fear here is that Google itself is gaming its own algorithm — or just directly bypassing it because they can. I make no claim about the validity of this fear.

So when are we banning human judgements? They are the ultimate black box.

at least humans are held accountable.

Algorithm designers are human. You can hold them accountable.

This can be done by requiring them to be open about the algorithm, hence “don’t allow black box algorithms”.

The algorithm may be e.g. a DNN which is quite opaque, even if its inputs are revealed.

If technical limitations are incompatible with social concerns, the social concerns are what needs to take priority.

If society wants to make sure algorithms are fair, it may decide one option is to ban black boxes algorithms — if DNNs can’t be comprehended, that means no DNNs. Alternatively, if society says the only way to have a black box is to not compete in the domain the black box judges, then Google et al will have to change their business models.

We don't even understand the consequences of the laws we pass in plain English. The idea that news feed algorithms are going to be meaningfully interpretable by anyone is just not practical, even if those algorithms are relatively simple.

The other problem with transparent algorithms is that they are trivial to game. Gaming is almost certainly worse than obscurity.

A. Laws aren’t written in plain English (or other vernacular), they are written in legalese. This is why lawyers have to train so long and why people should not represent themselves.

B. Hence the alternative of “don’t let the company which runs the algorithm benefit from the results of that algorithm”, which I’ve phrased differently in each post on this topic.

There are really clear conflicts of interests, even if you believe (as I happen to) that they are not exploiting their positions to the detriment of consumers: Google has products and services which people search for using Google’s own algorithm; Apple gets to write and enforce the rules of the App Store while having products in that store; Amazon sells both e-book readers and owns a e-book brand & platform, and would benefit from the Amazon.{com|co.uk|de|etc} stores listing the Kindle devices higher than they might otherwise be.

Again, I am not claiming they are actually engaging in anti-consumer behaviours (that would be outside of my expertise, and anecdotally I don’t feel like I’m being harmed by any of this), I’m saying it’s a conflict of interest and society is suspicious.

>The same reason you can’t put software you want on a Xbox/PlayStation/Switch.

What reason is this? As far as I'm concerned you should be allowed to install whatever you want on game consoles as well.

As the boundaries of hardware, firmware, and “software defined” blur, I disagree with forcing manufacturers to implement and enable some arbitrary magical line between proprietary hardware and open software. The whole thing can be IP; the whole thing can be a product.

I’m just fine with saying this thing is an appliance that does what it does, including only accepting paired cartridges (gate-kept apps).

Consumers buy toasters instead of open grills for valid reasons, same for mobile devices. Forcing the toaster maker to support open grilling is over-regulation, the opposite of letting markets decide. If consumers don’t want a no muss no fuss appliance, they can buy something else.

"The same reason you can’t put software you want on a Xbox/PlayStation/Switch."

Stop using this argument, its daft and convinces noone.

Furstly, which law or court case actually establishes that those business practices are right and proper?

Secondly, which law or court case establishes that smartphones can be equated with game consoles? There is a huge body of law that governs mobile connectivity, spectrum, emergency services, etc. that has no bearing on a gaming device.

I believe the principal is that everything which is not banned is legal. This probably has a funky Latin translation, but I don’t know as I’m not a lawyer.

John has gone to the pub, a random person gave him $5,000 and said he can keep half if he transfers the rest to Bob. Later it turned out it was drug money.

The question in court will not be "is money laundering illegal" or "is taking money from random people illegal". The question in court will be "does this amount to money laundering, or is john just an idiot and it was not his responsibility to know".

Similarly, here we are discussing not "is market manipulation illegal", but "does the activity carried out by Apple amount to market manipulation"

Comparing Apple to game consoles is basically: "stop selling drugs" - "John does it too, and he is not in jail, so it's fine."

That argument only works if John has been to court and a judge has ruled that he is innocent. That's case law - it established that previously, in similar circumstances, a court has rules that this was / wasn't a crime.

Mens rea.

Strict liability, duty of care and ignorantia juris non excusat.

Right.

Mens rea ("guilty mind") itself is not a uniformly applied principle. But it's the name of the concept you were attempting to address above.

See also actus reus ("guilty act").

And note that in tort liability (as opposed to criminal liability) other standards may apply. "Strict liabilty" is more typically applied in civil law, though there are (I learned responding here) some applications in criminal law as well. In the latter case it seems to be similar to my understanding of prima facie violation. That is, the fact of a thing is a violation of law, regardless of intent.

Antitrust law is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

False.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/speech/criminal-enforcement-anti...

>>"The same reason you can’t put software you want on a Xbox/PlayStation/Switch."

> Stop using this argument, its daft and convinces noone.

Letting anyone put any software they wanted on an Xbox/Playstation/Switch would diminish the platform's value by eroding security and trust.

For instance, compare online cheating ecosystems between those three platforms and the PC (where you can run any software you want). The PC is a much, much worse platform in terms of cheaters, scammers and account hijacks.

I have no problem with people running whatever they want on the hardware they purchase, but extending that to "I should also be allowed to be trusted when I do this" does not logically follow. In other words, feel free to reflash your Xbox, but don't expect to be able to play games or connect to your Xbox Live account from that hardware after your jailbreak.

That is totally irrelevant.

This about not allowing competing browsers as a blanket policy. If this was trully about security, Apple can do as many security audits as they want. They can even charge for them. They can require affidavit, security officers, insurance policy, indemnity, etc.

But they dont because this is not about security, it is about controling the market

Controlling what market? The browser market?

A large part of Apple's brand, at this point, is security from snooping, personal privacy, etc etc. It makes sense to control the browser on the iPhone for privacy than it does to seek to eliminate browser competitors. Safari isn't a crucial part of their revenue, devices with the security promise are. Furthermore, the browser seems to be the key space where use privacy is violated from, via cookies and other tracking software. If Apple want's to say they have a pro-privacy device, controlling the browser makes sense for that goal.

It just doesn't make business sense for Apple to be attempting to control the browser market. Maybe you mean they are controlling some other market through the browser, though.

Apple does not own the hardware, why do they have any say what software I choose to execute.

Moreover, when one is selling something that involves transferring all rights in tangible/real property being sold to be transfered. Here apple is reserving the right to decide what can and cant run on the device. This clearly is a violation of property rights. Last I checked apple did not have people sign rent/lease agreements for the hardware.

Apple definitely has a say in how its software is run. IOS is licensed for use on Apple-branded devices, with further stipulations requiring, amongst other things, that it remain unmodified (it's right there in the EULA).

I'll be the last one to prevent you from running your own software on the hardware you bought. So, knock yourself out: Wipe all the nasty, evil Apple software off of that device and have your way with it. I would not expect any help from Apple about how to do this.

"I would not expect any help from Apple about how to do this."

This argument is straight up disingenuous- Apple is actively preventing you from running whatever you want on your property and they are preventing you from repairing it. You cannot get them to remove their crap from it.

The hardware still will not run any software that is not signed by apple. So even if I wanted to run linux on the device, I can't. The software EULA is not the problem. It's how they are controlling the underlying hardware.

Speaking of these devices, software is just virtual hardware, hardware is just statically fixed software. It’s all just patterns of logic gates configured to operate other cartridges of capability.

Conjuring up some arbitrary boundary constrains device maker innovation, reliability, security, and other consumer value.

You are free to pick your own water line, find a device that draws the line there, and vote with your wallet — or make and market your own thesis.

Not allowing arbitrary code on a platform is hardly an irrelevant point. It's a fundamental architectural decision that makes deep statements about what a platform can do, and who has permission to do it. These decisions define both business models AND features such as user security and trustworthiness.

For instance, to be competitive in terms of performance, a browser almost certainly needs to JIT Javascript. If a platform prevents apps from generating code and enabling the 'X' bit in PTEs then this isn't going to work. Even if the platform provides JIT services (e.g., pass in an AST, out pops a few pages of callable code) there is still a ton of added risk.

Designing and maintaining the security of a platform is a ton of work and a big investment (assuming it's done well). Security teams are already quite busy, and adding whole app categories that are suddenly able to break previously established design decisions is not easy -- "just do a security audit on a handful of titles" is a phrase that we've all heard, many times, and it sends shivers down our spines. Having seen it tried, and been on some projects that did it, I think it's impossible to do well even at a small scale.

Been there, done that, seen projects canceled because PMs couldn't internalize the nature of the risk to the platform.

this paper is more specific

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3500919

I first seriously discussed how Google is a systematic internaliser with my cofounder in 2003. The next year Google together with a consortium of major publishers abandoned and wrote off a $350MM initiative to enable trading in traditional and print media and the Advertising Age piece even reported specifics why they were disbanding which read close enough to what we began doing since 1996. The reasons involve a lot of micro market theory and since there's a involved corporate history that's about as much as I can say other than it looked very clear to us that Google merely found that the traditional media had managed to stitch up their markets in similar ways without any theoretical appreciation for their actions.

definition :

https://www.gbm.hsbc.com/financial-regulation/mifid/si

> > How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it?

> They don’t. Amazon and Facebook both make a fortune from ads.

Yes, but they own search ads and a large percentage of web ads (though the non-siloed web is becoming less and less relevant each year), and they do everything in their power to put people into their ad funnel.

They control 50% of the mobile OS, 70%+ of the browser monoculture, and nearly 100% of search. They can order sites according to which ones use AdSense or AMP, neuter ad blocking (especially of AdSense), and collect behavior across the web even when website owners don't want it.

They're fucking up an entire set of technologies to further their goals.

That's not monopolistic. That's horrific. I don't think we even have a term to describe this yet, it's so bad.

We're all getting Big Teched.

> Yes, but they own search ads and a large percentage of web ads (though the non-siloed web is becoming less and less relevant each year), and they do everything in their power to put people into their ad funnel.

You can call any company as a monopoly if you define its market narrowly enough. The hard question is making a good argument for your choice of market. Google is absolutely a monopoly in search advertising. But is search advertising the right market to consider? Google would argue the appropriate market is advertising as a whole, where they are clearly not a monopoly.

The ultimate question at hand is whether and to what extent consumers are being harmed by anti-competitive practices. I think in Google's case that's a hard case to make. It might be a bit easier for e.g. Facebook or Amazon, though.

Starbucks has a monopoly on coffee at Starbucks locations.

Which sounds like a crazy comparison but you’ve got people on HN saying that stores should be forced to carry products they don’t want to.

It’s completely unfair that Starbucks is taking away consumer choice by not selling Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

Apple has a monopoly on Starbucks in your car, in your home, in your place of work...

They take their blood money.

> If they want to erode public trust by using it to advertise their products, that’s their choice

Companies are people too!

In that case, some "people" should be dismembered and/killed.