[jm4]

Public accountability is a slippery slope. How do you accomplish that? Legislation? New legislation pitched as a solution to a problem tends to be a rat's nest of rules that no one understands, that doesn't often have the intended impact, that can have unintended consequences, and, after some public shaming of the offender, lets them conduct business as usual.

Not sure employee representation on the board is a solution to anything. Not that I think it's necessarily a bad thing either. It's just that if you're looking to that as a solution to the problem of big companies that are too big I think you will be disappointed. Employees on the board can be as corrupt and unaccountable as anyone else.

The solution to Google is to stop using their products. Stop using Android, stop using search, stop using Chrome, ditch as much of the ecosystem as possible. It makes a difference even if you can't get away from them completely and it starts with the individual.

There are too many people bitching about Google and still using their products. Hit them where it hurts because it's the only way they will learn. Before Google was evil Microsoft was evil. Antitrust largely failed against them. It took the early adopters being completely fed up with them and using other products to make a difference. Microsoft missed out on mobile, nearly missed out on cloud, ceded a massive chunk of the server market to Linux, saw a resurgence of Mac on the desktop, had their own failures in the OS market and were basically washed up before they finally decided to do something different. Frankly, they are doing a pretty darn good job lately. They are making good products and embracing interoperability.

I think Microsoft is a better company today than they would have been had the antitrust case been more "successful". We put up with their crap for as long as we did only because there weren't very good alternatives for much of that time. Ironically, the rise of Google helped break the stranglehold. Google doesn't have the same invincibility that Microsoft did. There are alternatives for every product they have. If we want them to change then it's time to start using these alternatives.

[CodiePetersen]

So I'm a moderate libertarian and the "don't tell them what to do, society's hidden hand will decide" is an argument used by libertarians frequently and one I disagree with. One, specifically for this case, the issue at hand doesn't affect the user's. Two being a global company, quitting at Google will just open a slot that they need to fill and they have plenty of people lining up for the job. So really any sort of grass roots effort wont work because there are plenty of people who don't give a shit about the employee woes.

Another problem is that Google has contracts with the government, which belongs to us, so actually we do have a say if our taxes directly fund them. Also there are many companies they have deals with or that use services of theirs, many of which we won't know of the partnership. You are essentially asking for a globally coordinated boycott. But their service is so fundamental that you will find few people giving up the products because they can't. I've had my Gmail account since Gmail came out as invite only when you had to send those links. Too many of my accounts are linked to it and too many people know that's a for sure thing to contact me by. Samsung runs on android and there are other companies and developers that have built businesses around android or Google services. You aren't going to see these companies or individuals, sad as it is, make the pivot away for moral reasons. In some cases sure it's just tedious and annoying, like mine, to change but in other cases it's too much of a cost and risk.

I think the easiest way as I have mentioned in other posts is to break Google up, and other too big to fail/drop tech companies as well. We do it with other types of companies but I think the problem is legislators consider all tech companies as equal competitors to one another. Just because I can make a search engine doesn't mean Google has meaningful competition. I say break them up and let real competition dictate what society wants from them.

[jm4]

I dislike Google the company as well as their products. If someone wants to break them up then you’ll find me smirking on the sidelines when it happens. But how do you talk about breaking up Google without addressing Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.? They basically all compete in the same markets. What are you going to do? Break up Google and let one of the others take their place? Break them all up? Then what? Outlaw tech conglomerates so no one takes their place? This makes no sense. Or impose regulations so stringent that you’d have to be a massive conglomerate to be able to comply? How does that make anything better if it raises the bar for a newcomer to enter the market and compete?

And if the vast majority don’t give a shit about privacy and actually like what these companies have to offer then who are we to say the rules need to change? Google is as big as they are because they make things a shitload of people want. We are in the minority. As long as we can largely avoid doing business with these companies and there’s someone else who serves us then what’s the big deal? Go use something else.

[CodiePetersen]

Well, I actually mention other "too big to fail/drop" tech companies. All four that you mention I think fall under that category. A lot of tech companies touch everything. Google isn't just a search engine company, its AI, it's telecommunications, its software, its hardware. It's not a vertical monopoly its a horizontal one. The same with several of the others you mention. So of course they are going to "compete" with one another. But it's actually not competition if you think about it.

Apple hardware specifically only works with Apple stuff for example. Microsoft back in the day was getting all sorts of crap for not allowing removal of of IE and other anti competitive practices. But today we see whole business built up around even more egregious anti-competitive practices. That's not competition that's literally a new market. I think that what has happened is that tech has exploded so rapidly and our congressional members (in the US) so out of touch with the tech industry that many of these companies operate mostly unhindered. This is a new age where thoughts can be typed up on a computer and the very next day you can start defining the future. Just look at bitcoin, barely 10 years old and already as the market cap of a small nation's GDP.

When a company's actions directly impact the well being of a nation, either economically, physically, socially, or politically, it is the government's job to step in and ensure that the best course of action is taken to protect citizens. We setup farming subsidies to ensure predictable quantities of food are available for the population at predictable prices. When oil and steel were vital for our nations growth, we broke them up and invented laws to ensure that no single entity could influence the health of the nation. I happen to believe we just need to break them up. They have enough products that each can become their own companies. Now I might be wrong, this is kind of a new situation, but we do have to do something, I think that is pretty clear. But I don't think normal market forces will fix this by itself.

I do agree with what you are getting at though, it is messy and there are a lot of unknowns. What I don't agree with though is that it can just be ignored by switching to another product or service and it will go away.

[jjdjr0odo7]

Slippery slope is an informal fallacy.

Why not legislation? It’s THE way for organizing our society. Do you really think it’s a free market and meritocracy? No. There are laws that incentivize and offer protection for starting corporations.

Our society is not built on objective principles but on what’s good for it. And it’s never lurched forward in ways that move the needle to the benefit of the masses without top down rejiggering.

Here’s an objective fact: neoliberalism and so-called free market capitalism are not owed deference and fealty by the masses. Either it works well enough for enough people or it encounters a tipping point where it needs dramatic change in guiding principles.

What you’re arguing for is not increased freedom for the masses an accountability, but sitting still politically. Same old same old. How’s that working out?

Pretty well for the privileged crowd on HN. Better not mess with it!

[jm4]

The people who work at Google who wanted to stage a walkout are free to leave for another job. They are free to start their own companies. We are free to use other products or create our own. How is legislation the best solution here?

People need to stop with the excuses and the expectation that someone else will change the rules to fix their problem and be the change they want to see in the world. Google will eventually be displaced by someone else who does a better job just like every other toxic company that came before them. Anybody can do it. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft all started (and in some cases reinvented themselves) that way. And if the newcomer sticks around long enough they'll probably become toxic too. It's the way the world works.

We don't need legislation to fix this. We need someone to do a better job. They're not out killing people. Just stop using their shit.

[britch]

Get a non-techie android owner off Google, even for just a week. I dare you. No search, No Maps, No calendar, No search, No gmail, No YouTube, no drive, no docs.

Do you really think they can function? Even if they switch to Apple they still have to interface with calendar and gmail to function in society.

Can they even avoid sites hosted by Google?

You make it sound like it's all easy choices. "Just don't buy brand X."

These companies are so large and so ingrained the the web and modern society that they are unavoidable.

[jm4]

You’re right about non-techies switching from Android. They don’t like trying to switch. Many of them like the products. Many of them don’t care that Google is in the business of sucking up data because they place more value on the fact that the products work better for them as a result. There are plenty of people who don’t mind some highly targeted, unobtrusive ads because it’s better than the shitty banners and pop ups that used to be all over the place. Why are they supposed to switch? Because their nerd friend says Google is evil? This is like convincing someone to use Linux back in the day because Microsoft is bad.

To each their own I guess. We have more choices in technology than we’ve ever had. I haven’t used Google search in 10 years. It’s been longer since I used gmail. I used Android on and off and got rid of it permanently after downloading my google archive and seeing what’s in there. I watch videos on YouTube because there isn’t anything better. It’s not just a philosophical choice to avoid Google. That’s part of it but I think many of Google’s products are pretty lackluster as well. Search and gmail are the only ones that they really nailed. Both are phenomenal. The rest of them are mediocre defensive moves to protect the brand from a competitor, neat experiments that don’t become a must-have product, acquisitions or just another thing they’ll kill off. I used search and gmail until the the invasive tracking wasn’t worth it. I avoid Google web properties when I can. I know they still track me as much as they can. I make efforts to minimize the ability for someone to effectively build a profile and I make larger efforts to prevent them from successfully delivering targeting ads or converting.

If enough people stop using Google products, even if they can’t avoid indirectly touching something, Google will eventually want to figure out why and start making things that sell better. They don’t do what they do because they decided to be evil. They do it because it makes money. And people don’t continue to use it because they can’t switch. They use it because they like it or because they don’t have enough of a problem that they’re willing to switch. Instead, they bitch and moan a little bit and then go about their business. Maybe the more vocal ones are clamoring for regulation. That group is essentially saying they don’t like the way the product works even though they’re not the target market and we should make a law to change the product to their liking.

The reality is there is a a huge market where people are willing to trade information for product. I don’t like it but is it that bad that we need to break up companies? It’s put smartphones in places where they wouldn’t be otherwise. It’s connected people. It’s done more to level the playing field in terms of technical literacy and availability than anything anyone has ever done. There are homeless people who still have an android phone and everything that comes with it and that opens doors which would otherwise be shut. Would the world be a better or worse place if none of that came into existence?

We need to start with education. If the masses don’t understand it and the lawmakers don’t understand it we can’t exactly expect them to fix it. Apple is doing a little bit on this front with privacy-oriented products and requiring clear privacy policies from developers. I’d like to see more of this. If they truly differentiate themselves as the privacy (even at a premium) company then we’ve got a couple decent models to choose from. That’s really the key because more than the size or scope of these companies, it’s the homogenization of the industry that concerns me. But first, people need to understand enough about how it works that a company can effectively differentiate their product.

If there has to be legislation then I’d like to see something that requires more transparency of what is collected, how it’s used, give the individual some more control, etc. Something in the spirit of GDPR that isn’t such s shit show.