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Comment by dessant | Hacker News Reader

Do we have any recourse against this monopoly, other than voicing our concerns repeatedly while they ignore us?

Can we launch a class action lawsuit against Google if they harm people by limiting consumer choice, and force us to be tracked everywhere using reCAPTCHA v3 and various other methods?

Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a real option, there are several government services, health care providers and utility companies using reCAPTCHA, you personal data either gets harvested by Google, or you're barred from accessing essential online services.

What can EU and US citizens do to initiate an investigation into Google's data harvesting practices?

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Gentle reminder that Alphabet is now listed as one of the biggest lobbying firms in the US. They spend tens of millions telling lawmakers what laws to write.

> Do we have any recourse against this monopoly...?

Once upon a time, Congress used to write and pass laws to protect Americans from egregious abuses of power like this. Of course, that time is long gone.

> egregious abuses of power like this

Do you honestly think removing URLs from search results is an "egregious abuse of power?" This is the company that buys credit card transactions from Visa et al. and associates them with your maps and and history for the benefit of advertisers, and you're complaining about them removing a design element 95% of people probably don't care about?

I meant Google in general. It’s yet another tiny step in a terrible direction. At this point I would love to legislate most of Google out of existence, personally.

Google does lots of great things for people, so it looks to me like you're overreacting. Finding the right balance is important in regulation.

It’s important to keep in mind that imbalance goes both ways.

Google is unequivocally evil. It doesn't matter how much good they do when they are being evil.

I don't really buy using legislation. Alternatives exist and people don't seem to care to use them. That's the market at work.

> I don't really buy using legislation. Alternatives exist and people don't seem to care to use them.

Google is engaged in using its market dominance in one segment to gain or maintain dominance in others, while suppressing the competition. This is illegal behavior for which Google has been fined several times over the past few years.

Just consider that in past Android versions there was a hard-coded Google search bar on the default home screen that you could not remove. Google has been forced to ask users and offer a set of alternative search engines on devices with recent Android versions. Same goes for Chrome and competing browsers [1].

Right now Google Search detects the Firefox for Android user agent and serves a second-tier search experience for Firefox users on Android. They have been doing this for the past 6 years [2].

[1] https://mashable.com/article/google-browser-search-engine-ch...

[2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=975444

How is Google stopping users from using another search engine?

Once you have monopoly power, the market can do little. Google has that power now.

You mean like the power of yahoo/altavista back in the day?

You mean like when the internet was small and being on top of yahoo/altavista search results was mostly irrelevant to your bottom line?

Does an abuse of power become less egregious because there are even worse ones?

Re: the phishing example, it's roughly analogous to a business refusing to put up caution signs around dangerous areas like slippery floors or where there's construction. It's such a small thing that could help prevent enormous losses from clients and yet they won't do it for shady business reasons.

Yes it is when taken in aggregate with all of the other changes which have been hostile to users and good for their ad business. One example is how they used AB testing to justify, over the course of a decade, a slow redesign of Sponsored Results so they look nearly identical to like regular search results.

Their unethical behavior lead me to quit, divest, and delete all of my Google accounts.

> Do you honestly think removing URLs from search results is an "egregious abuse of power?"

Yes, it very obviously is. Google the search engine, and therefore Google, would never have gotten off the ground if it had hidden URL from the beginning.

> and you're complaining about them removing a design element 95% of people probably don't care about?

If so many people don't care about something so basic and crucial to not being a serf in the information age, then that makes the issue even more important, and Google's behaviour even more egregious.

What about the rest of the world? Everyone uses Google, not just the US.

Yes: minimize or stop using them. There are alternate search options. The web has very little lock-in (on the user side) compared to say desktop and mobile... make use of that.

While there's a chance the EU might do something about the behavior, I think it's safe to say that here in the US the odds of anything pro-consumer happening anytime soon are effectively nil.

> Yes: minimize or stop using them... The web has very little lock-in

There are people who could not register to vote in time because reCAPTCHA has blocked them.

Notice that I said on the user side. I completely agree that when a web site uses various Google (or other) services you're stuck. However, the article is about Google removing URLs from search results... you can do something about that.

What‘s your alternative to using reCAPTCHA? Have you tried building a page with login function without it?

www.hcaptcha.com www.solvemedia.com

A load of other anti-spam captchas not owned by Google...

Not using a captcha at all?

300,000 users a month and we don't have any problems. Why do people think this is so critical? Just because TEH GOOGLE convinced us it is in order to push their product?

So basically after a few decades of using the Internet, we're now at a place where we are willing to stop using some of the most famous services we're accustomed to. Strangely, those are mostly owned by Google and Facebook.

Yes, that's the way market economies work. One of your jobs as a consumer is to recognize when your interests and a company's no longer align and be willing to walk.

Of course, but majority of people aren't informed enough about these situations and that has created a negative loop which allows these companies to exploit lack of knowledge on their customers' part in an increasing rate.

Ding Ding Ding! Google is working against their users' interests, and most of them don't realize it, because computers are still magical appliances to 95% of users.

That doesn't mitigate Google's evil, it makes it worse.

My roadblock with that is when I tell people I try to not use Google properties, they look at me like i'm some sort of conspiracy theorist loon. :/

Mojeek is independent search engine: https://www.mojeek.com/

  > Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a
  > real option, there are several government services, health
  > care providers and utility companies using reCAPTCHA,
  > you personal data either gets harvested by Google,
  > or you're barred from accessing essential online services.

Google is not the problem, the government services, health care providers, and utility companies are the problem. You will need to get in touch with your local ombudsman and deal with each one individually.

Indentation introduces a code block, meaning a mono spaced font and no word wrap.

What would be a better way to quote, such that the quote is distinguishable from my own prose?

The canonical way is <https://news.ycombinator.com/> - though it doesn't actually seem to work here. Whatever, just use < > and spaces.

> What would be a better way to quote

Using italics by putting asterisks around the quote seems to work reasonably well.

> Test quote. Does this line wrap? Will this line wrap? Might ever this line be found to wrap? Should it be possible, on the fringes of the browser, to wrap a line so fine as this?

Thanks, I'll try it.

The recourse you have available is writing letters to your elected representatives and if they fail to take adequate action then to vote for someone else who will take action.

The consumers of Google are advertisers and they have other choices.

Users also can easily go to another search engine. Why sue Google because users decide not to go anywhere else?

US anti-trust actions have historically been triggered by abuse of market dominance (e.g. leveraging market dominance in other markets; anti-competitive behavior in a dominated market) which is not coupled to the ease of using a different service.

Ease-of-switching puts the onus on the user to recognize corporate violations of anti-trust law rather than upon the company violating anti-trust regulation.

It doesn't really make sense to presume users would or should change their behavior if a provider violates anti-trust law.

I keep seeing that “companies shouldn’t use their dominance in one area to get into another area”.

So does that mean that Netflix shouldn’t have used its dominance in DVD rentals to get into streaming and just die when another company did? Should Apple not have been allowed to use its dominance in the music/media player business to get into the smart phone business?

Antitrust was traditionally used when a company kept other competitors out. How is Google stopping another competitor from creating a search engine? The fact is that no one is forced to use Google. People can just as easily type bing.com in their browser as google.com.

In fact, the dominant desktop OS, doesn’t have Google as the default search engine and thanks to a consent decree - at least in the EU - Google cant force manufacturers of Android devices to make it the default search engine.

If Microsoft wanted to outbid Google to be the default search engine on iOS devices it could.

> It is illegal for a dominant company such as Google to use its dominance in one market in order to provide its own product an anti-competitive advantage in a separate market, the European Commission has recently decided.

> Such conduct constitutes an abuse of a dominant position and hence is in breach of competition law.

> It is not illegal for a company to enjoy dominance in a particular market. However, a company which is dominant in one market can easily use its market power to cement or further expand its dominance, or leverage it into separate markets. [0]

Regarding Netflix and Apple, the answer is "it depends". Cases are determined on a case-by-case basis.

Not sure we disagree (?). My understanding is that Google has a practical monopoly on search. This is not illegal in and of itself. Anti-competitive practices that leverage its dominance in search, however, would likely run afoul of EU and US antitrust regulations. (I'm not an attorney, and My understanding of antitrust law is at the level of layperson. )

[0] https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/Google-s-abusive-use-...

What is wrong with just not using Google instead?

As your parent comment wrote: "Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a real option, there are several government services, heath care providers and utility companies using reCAPTCHA, you personal data either gets harvested by Google, or you're barred from accessing essential online services."

Thanks I missed that part

It's impossible, they track and bother you even if you selectively ignore them. It's sick that we tolerate it, you wouldn't tolerate peeping Tom's either if they promised to anonymity their data. Hey your daughter is anonymous and face blurred, there is no harm done. You can ignore all the public beaches, just opt out like that.

You know what, I'm going to start using that. Let's call a spade a spade, this is exactly what Google is doing.

Make this concept popular and even the layperson will understand what Google is doing to them.

I think that just expressing our opinion, and doing what little we can will have an effect in the long run. Google is far from invincible - it still needs to answer to shareholders, and has (or will get) competitors and legal scrutiny.

Eventually, like previous major computer companies, its monopoly will weaken, and it will have to play a bit nicer.

That only works if the shareholders care about Google being ethical, as opposed to caring about maximizing profit. How likely do you think that is to happen? (Genuine question, not being sarcastic)

I do not expect most shareholders to act ethically. If anything, I think their drive for short-term profit is weakening Google far more than what any 'ethical shareholder' could have done or would have wanted to do.

I was arguing that Google/Alphabet is subject to the same forces that brought down the reign of other dominant companies in the software industry like IBM and Microsoft* . Eventually Google's reign will crumble too, and probably for the same reasons.

Our actions, albeit small can push in that direction, just like small actions helped to bring down others. Choosing other computer providers made IBM unable to extend its practices to minicomputers and left them vulnerable to MS. Linux played a role in denying server marketshare to MS. Popular opinion aided the antitrust cases against both MS and IBM - it is not commonly known these days there was a massive antitrust case against IBM which lasted even longer than the MS case.

* Note that both of these companies still exist and are very wealthy. I for one, do not seek to abolish Google - just to limit their ambitions to something that can coexist with others.

"Do we have any recourse against this monopoly, other than voicing our concerns repeatedly while they ignore us?"

There are a lot of Google employees (and potential Google employees) on HN.

So if "we" includes them, then yes, "we" could do a lot... like not work for Google.

They could do something better than resigning: voice their concerns both internally and in public. I have yet to see a HN comment posted by a current Google employee that has criticized Google's data harvesting practices or monopolistic behavior.

They would be foolish to publicly criticize their employer. Just because someone doesn’t post criticism publicly doesn’t mean they aren’t pushing internally. In the end though, the best way to hurt them is to walk away.

Personal sacrifice is often required for things to change. Any developer who publicly speaks up about these issues may be hurting their employment prospects, not just Google employees.

When it comes to search results, there are great competitors. You can not credibly argue that Google holds a monopoly on webpage search.

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