It boggles my mind that Apple’s market position allows it to pocket $18 billion a year in pure rent for this real estate on its platform and the company paying is the one that gets an antitrust suit.
Folks hooked to Chrome seem to forget that whatever they do online is used to refine their ad profile and generate even more ad money for Google and you can't opt out.
In fact, because it’s a common trope to say “they must have been listening to our conversation” when served an eerily specific ad, I’d wager people do not know about adtech at all.
That meme is evidence you are wrong, so not sure why you brought it up. If people didn't believe they were being tracked they wouldn't have thought it listened on them. Listening on them is tracking.
Now of course the device probably wasn't listening and it just suggested the ad for other tracking reasons, so they are wrong about the specifics but they do understand that they are being tracked.
Someone making a joke says nothing about what they believe to be true. Like the birds not being real.
No it isn't a joke, people know their phone is listening to them, smart assistants has made the world perfectly aware of how much they are monitored. So since they know the phone is listening, they think the phone showed them the ad since it listened to them. It isn't a joke, people think this, memes aren't always jokes they are just ideas that spread easily.
Look at this thread for example, does this look like a joke to you? People think it is listening to everything and just give up and go on with their life, that is what typical people believe.
"This has happened to me several times. Sadly, there is not much you can do about it. If your phone has a mic, it is listening to everything you say 24/7."
https://old.reddit.com/r/CasualConversation/comments/ldv1ey/...
But that’s a tangent. The claim I was seeking evidence for was:
“The vast majority of people using Google's services do know about adtech surveillance, and just don't care.”
People who read HN are not the vast majority (thankfully).
I still don’t think the vast majority of people are aware of the depths of adtech because Google and Meta go to great lengths to control the narrative and keep people in the dark. They make people believe they’re “in-control” of their privacy. If people were made aware of how much tracking still goes on then they would care.
I meant the reddit thread I linked. In all such threads I've seen people think that their phone is recording everything they say to show ads, no jokes about it.
Here on HN people know that the phone doesn't do that, since we have people who looked at what code is activated on the phone and what it sends. But regular people doesn't know that, they think they are constantly being monitored and there is nothing to do about it, so all they can do is either stop caring or fall into despair, and most just choose to stop caring.
Smart assistants were a great trick to get people used to the idea that they are constantly being monitored. Makes them less likely to put up a fight when you start monitoring everything for real.
You may not mind, but billions of people paying more for things would likely rather pay less.
Wait, they do search? I go to their website and put in keywords, and it throws random unrelated shit at me.
In any case I have switched to Safari and it feels far less sluggish.
Google's market position both allows and makes it financially beneficial to pay $18 billion to suppress one single source of competition. Nobody forces google to buy the default search spot.
Someone would pay Apple to be the default search, if Google didn't pay billions Microsoft would pay billions to make Bing the default search. Would you prefer that?
Apple is auctioning it out to the highest bidder, I don't see how bidding in an auction is wrong.
Edit: Also Google would love a law enforcing that, since now they don't have to pay all of these billions of dollars and most people would pick Google in that choice anyway. The main players that doesn't want that are Apple and the others that auctions out default search.
So Google convincing the judges to stop Apple from auctioning out default search would be a Google win.
Or do you really think Google is paying billions without stipulating that Apple can't offer a choice during setup?
> Also Google would love a law enforcing that, since now they don't have to pay all of these billions of dollars and most people would pick Google in that choice anyway
I need you to square this circle for me. If Google were so confident that people would pick Google of their own volition, why would they bother spending billions?
If you do get a choice at startup then there is nothing to sell since there is no default. So yes, if Apple isn't selling the product then they don't get any money.
But Google paying Apple has nothing to do with it, Apple would make billions selling the default to Microsoft otherwise, they wouldn't give you a choice at startup. The only thing that would give you that choice is if laws ban Apple from selling the default search provider spot.
> I need you to square this circle for me. If Google were so confident that people would pick Google of their own volition, why would they bother spending billions?
Because otherwise Microsoft would spend those billions and now Bing would be the default. Defaults matters, but if you force the user to make a choice they would pick Google due to brand recognition.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-28/microsoft...
Not if it is ruled anti-competitive to do this in general.
So yes, phone manufacturers have a choice here, they don't have to make Google the default.
I wouldn't recommend it for privacy, but them giving me the choice means manufacturers can do this if they want.
I agree Xiaomi loves their data collection to the point of selling pole fan that require an app to operate - I saw that one in one of their stores.
So what else is there?
If there's something wrong with money being exchanged to be a default search provider, that wrong probably still lies with Google.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-28/microsoft...
On the other hand, it might also create antitrust issues if the market definition were to be broadened.
Either way, the who is just as important as the what in cases like this. Your attempt to equate the two seems to be a fallacy
So my argument is that there isn't an antitrust issue here, not that Microsoft paying would lead to antitrust issues. Winning fair auctions isn't an antitrust issue. Antitrust is when you issue abusive contracts such as "You get a discount if you only sell our products and no products from out competitors", but that isn't a fair auction since you use your dominance to change the deal and pressure the vendor to stop selling others products. In this case Google just bid higher than the competitors, there is no other reason for Apple to use them as the default.
You would need to show that Google pays more than they earn for the default search engine spot, or that they used some other means to force Apple to accept the deal. But I have seen no evidence of that.
It also encompasses behavior facilitated by market dominance that makes it impossible or too difficult for new market entrants to compete, including behavior that, under different circumstances, would be completely fine.
A generic example of something that would be completely fine in many situations would be a merger & acquisition. It's the best example of what you describe as “winning a fair auction”. Companies B, C, and D might all make an offer to buy company A, and since company B made the highest bid, they win, and all is fine.
If, however, company B is a huge conglomerate and the M&A of company A would consolidate even more power into Company B, perhaps even increase their monopoly position to the point that company B ends up being the sole company in multiple verticals, then this might prove to be an antitrust issue even though no abusive contract is in play.
Because this can have undesirable outcomes in terms of competition with unwanted effects downstream for consumers, we, as a society, have decided to put some guardrails in place in the form of antitrust legislation.
Circling back to the situation at hand, the argument at hand by the DOJ seems to be that Google has gained a significant market leader position and that deals such as the one made with Apple make it impossible for other competitors to compete effectively. Even more so when it pertains to search engines because they seem to rely heavily on usage data to be able to improve.
At face value, that argument isn't much different than the argument behind preventing M&As that are deemed antitrust issues.
The DOJ’s arguments go further, however, in stating that it is the market leader position combined with the deep pockets funded by Google’s other divisions that make it possible for them to offer billions in the first place. Which, within the antitrust context, adds a deeper dimension beyond just the “you're big, you shouldn't get bigger” argument I mentioned above.
You seem to touch upon this a little in this part of your comment:
> You would need to show that Google pays more than they earn for the default search engine spot […] But I have seen no evidence of that.
We will be unlikely to see evidence of that, assuming it exists, because the parties and the judge would discuss that under seal, and only they will get to see those numbers (unless someone does a whoopsie and forgets to redact it before uploading it to the docket).
Instead, the law should be that the iPhone has no default search provider, and the user gets to choose, and no money exchanges hands.
So, basically the same thing that microsoft was forced to do, with IE.
Problem solved!