Bwahaha. Since when is business, or hell life in general fair?
Maybe ‘not doing illegal things’ should be the bar? At least they’re written down in advance (hopefully) instead of retroactively defined by folks who didn’t win?
Maybe ‘not doing illegal things’ should be the bar? At least they’re written down in advance (hopefully) instead of retroactively defined by folks who didn’t win?
...yes, allow me to introduce you too this little thing called the Sherman Antitrust Act, which has been the law for ~130 years.
Which is what you wrote.
As it’s hard to find a company that doesn’t at least attempt tactics like this named in the complaint (or much worse), it seemed to leave the implication clear.
They deserved to have the law applied because you felt it was unfair.
Feel free to read the code, sections 1 through 7.
It says ‘in restraint of trade or commerce’. But how is Google restraining trade or commerce in a way any different (or even more than!) a broadcaster getting exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics for instance? And how is that not Unfair too?
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1]
Section 2 makes it illegal to Monopolize or attempt to Monopolize - but never defines it.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/2
None of the other sections seem interesting.
In law the general definition of monopoly covers so many markets, and is also based on ‘unreasonable’ efforts to restrict competition. Reasonable is doing a lot work here, as that can go pretty far!
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly]
So what law exactly do you think they are breaking and why? Are they taking unreasonable steps to prevent others from competing with them? If so, what would be reasonable for them to do instead?
Fatalism sounds wise but is not. Life is fairer than it used to be and can be fairer than it is now. We cannot end injustice, but we can end this injustice.
Besides, the US alleges crimes.
If one assumes life is or should be fair, then when it is not one is a victim of others and has little means to resolve it directly. After all, that should never have even been possible!
If one assumes life is not fair, then one has awareness of risks and choices they can make (and a realistic view of choices they don’t have).
If one wants to make a just and fair society, recognizing it is an abstraction on a fundamentally unfair foundation is important. Or you’ll just end up with a delusion plastered on top of another delusion.
Allegations are also easy. A verdict is a different matter. We’ll see what happens.
And frankly, if life was actually fair - we wouldn’t need a justice system at all, would we?
As to the second question, feel free to browse my comment history.
Which is by definition after it had occurred. Which is my point on retroactive.
Jurisprudence is about establishing consistent interpretations of those words. The point of "legal certainty" is that an ordinary citizen can predict what will and won't be judged fair and reasonable. "Courts have ruled" is what you go by. The Supreme Court in whatever country is the final judge of that.
If your point is that it's inconsistent, that's trivially true. Human beings are involved.
After this exchange, I thought of a use that's been reduced to one syllable: FRAND, for "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory."
In this thread, for instance, when asked what unreasonable thing Google was doing, no one has an answer apparently. Let alone, alternatives.
Same with Fair vs Unfair.
So when it gets to the courts, and some line gets drawn - many people will get surprised, because what they thought was illegal/legal will not be the case.
And they were not likely unreasonable or wrong before hand either.
It’s not literal (as in de jure) ex-post facto of course, but it’s pretty close to de-facto.
Frankly, it’s awfully similar to the SEC’s handling of crypto regulation (and the confusion and BS resulting from it).
Have a vague enough rule that almost anything could apply. Refuse to provide any guidance or enforce it consistently. Come down on someone you don’t like later (after they’ve been doing it for decades), and claim they’ve been violating it the whole time and they should have known (somehow).
It may be legal (or not, we’ll find out), but it doesn’t seem just.
As for what Google is or isn't doing wrong: the prosecution has to lay that out. I would think the opening statement would have said that, but I didn't read it. If it was really weak, Google would have moved for a dismissal or directed verdict.
the only really relevant ones I saw were about attorney-client privilege, where you were 100% right. I saw nothing much about antitrust.
"fair" and "reasonable" definitions probably suffer because there aren't that many antitrust cases tried, period.
So I’ve had all the training, worked with some talented attorneys, and been directly involved in related decisions - though not the ones being called into question here.
100% it's not. It could start with you though.
The entire purpose and objective of the law is to make society just and fair. It is far from perfect, but it is well superior to the selfish mayhem you speak of.
Laws are also not retroactive.
Or been involved in cases?
This is so far from the actual application of the law it’s hilarious.
The purpose of the law is keeping problem cases under control, providing a degree of predictability necessary for social stability, and mediating disputes in a way they don’t escalate into socially disruptive violence.
‘Keeping the peace’.
All the rest is window dressing/PR.
The reason why Google is getting this case thrown at it is not because what it was doing was unfair - but because they were too damn good at doing it.
If they went bankrupt trying or it didn’t work, no one would care. Same if they were only middling successful (but didn’t get so obscenely rich and high profile off it). There are hundreds of examples of this right now in a number of industries, from meat packing to RAM, that will continue to be ignored.
And because they’ve been so good at it, it’s stirring up a lot of anger and resentment that will cause problems. So they need to be “brought back under control”. Just like Microsoft was back in the day.
We’ll see what happens.