[davmre]

> The government doesn't have to win an antitrust trial in order to create competition. As the saying goes, "the process is the punishment."

Regardless of what you think of Google or this case specifically, this is an argument for authoritarianism: that it is legitimate for the government to "punish" any company at will, based only on them falling into political disfavor.

> ... the only punishment Google would have to bear from this trial would come after the government won its case, when the judge decided on a punishment (the term of art is "remedy") for Google.

Yes, this is called the rule of law. Punishment comes through the courts, after a guilty verdict. The government has to actually win the argument as to what remedies would be proportionate under the law. In this case the judge didn't buy it. It's fine to disagree with his reasoning (or with the law), but the fantasizing about extrajudicial punishment here is frankly un-American.

[ratherbefuddled]

There's very little reason that Google should have been protected from the evidence of its wrongdoing being made public. That's not extrajudicial punishment, that is public record. Justice should be seen to be done as well as done.

Who can know how appropriate or not the remedy was when the evidence is hidden?

For full disclosure: I'm neither a google employee nor a US citizen.

[davmre]

Sure, there's a strong public interest in having proceedings on record. US civil cases are supposed to have a presumption of openness, which the judge weighs against other interests, like protecting trade secrets, confidential business information, privacy of third parties, etc.

The public record argument is fine; it's just a different argument than the extrajudicial punishment advocated by the original post.

[NotPractical]

I think the extrajudicial punishment he's advocating for is the wrath of the court of public opinion though? Unless I'm misreading.

[davmre]

The public interest is in judging the trial process, not in judging the defendant.

Suppose the government charges you with murder, searches your house, and finds your sex toy collection. At trial they present some elaborate thesis about how you used a sex toy to kill someone, but do not convince the jury, so you're found not guilty. The public has a legitimate interest in judging that the trial was handled with integrity and that the correct verdict was reached. They do not have a legitimate interest in judging you based on whatever private information presented at trial might in some way embarrass you (eg, photos of your sex toy collection). On balance, it could be that the public-record interest does in fact justify making public the evidence of the sex toys, but you have to justify it on those terms. The transparency is not itself intended to be punitive.

[ratherbefuddled]

We are talking about an extremely powerful corporation in an antitrust case not a person. It does not need to be defended in this way, which is a level of protection rarely afforded to individuals.

There is a definite public interest in understanding how Google conducts itself given the reach and impact it has.

There is no way for the public to have confidence in the trial process if it is conducted in secret, and given the outcome every reason to question the process.

I'm surprised anybody objective would defend this.

[protocolture]

>This is an argument for authoritarianism, that the government should be able to "punish" any company at will based only on them falling into political disfavor.

No its more like, the process of transparency harms the company enough that they will shift their own mentality to ensure they never have to participate in a transparent process.

[davmre]

If there's a general standard of transparency applied to all companies, fine. There are costs to increasing transparency, but certainly you could argue for that policy.

The argument that we should cheer on the use of government power to target a specific company, to selectively expose their dirty laundry as punishment for a crime they have not been convicted of, is what I found noxious in the original post.

[protocolture]

The direct reference was Bill Gates being forced to testify about internet explorer. Its hard to argue with that particular case. There are very few people who argue that the results of that intervention were unwarranted.

I do find it a bit curious however, where later in the article theres a discussion about explicit collusion between corporates and the government. I vastly prefer the state and corps to be at odds with each other, than in bed with each other. Do any of the allegations towards the end register on your authoritarianismometer?

[davmre]

Regardless of the effects, I don't think the case against MS was brought with the intent to "punish" MS through the trial process. The government brought the case because it thought it could win, it did win, and a judicial remedy was imposed. Trials are inherently unpleasant, but a just system tries to minimize this, not exploit it.

Any unjust policy (including just dispensing with trials altogether and allowing the executive to arbitrarily break up companies) will get to the 'desirable' outcome in some cases. That doesn't make it a just policy.

The specific allegation in the post is that the Trump administration will not appeal the verdict because Sundar gave $1M to Trump's inauguration. As far as I know, the government has not yet indicated whether it will appeal, so the claim that "Trump just paid him back, 40,000 times over" is in fact not true. (whether it becomes true at some point in the future, it was a falsehood at the time the author wrote it). It's also quite plausible that a Republican administration wouldn't appeal the verdict just due to being more pro-business in general, even without explicit corruption. But it's precisely because we have such a corrupt executive that it becomes all the more important to stick up for the rule of law. The correct response to authoritarianism is not to advocate for more authoritarianism!

[protocolture]

>Regardless of the effects, I don't think the case against MS was brought with the intent to "punish" MS through the trial process. The government brought the case because it thought it could win, it did win, and a judicial remedy was imposed. Trials are inherently unpleasant, but a just system tries to minimize this, not exploit it.

Maybe. But then why was the google case actively sheltered and hidden from the public. The optics were considered in at least one of these cases.