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haplol t1_j9rskyk wrote

Reply to comment by Justforthenuews in U.S. Justice Dept accuses Google of evidence destruction in antitrust case by batmaninwonderland

And when was the last time those laws broke up a giant corporation?

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Justforthenuews t1_j9rt3tg wrote

The early 80’s iirc, Bell systems taken away from AT&T. Took 8 years to go through. The last big company that went through half the motions was microsoft in the 90’s due to their browser comboed into their OS at the time, I believe?

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Ripcord t1_j9rtt73 wrote

Also in the 2000s. They were broken up into multiple pieces.

...until the Bush admin lobbied to overturn it.

Still. That whole process and the shock of actually being ordered to be broken up had lasting real impact on Microsoft's shittiest practices, at least for quite a while.

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ThrillSurgeon t1_j9stars wrote

Microsoft had to endure a 12-hour deposition by its CEO Bill Gates. We were scheduled for a 6-hour depo by Mark Zucekerberg, but that scheduled deposition vanished. This antitrust will probably evaporate too after payments are made and assets transferred.

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ObjectivePitiful1170 t1_j9vu20v wrote

> Microsoft had to endure a 12-hour deposition by its CEO Bill Gates.

We endured 12-hours of inconsequential bickering about definitions. At the end of it, Microsoft received a de-facto immunity in exchange for items of little value that did not do anything to curtail their behaviour. That only exemplifies how the anti-trust laws became supportive of monopolies.

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ThrillSurgeon t1_ja2jww4 wrote

Bill and Microsoft definitely felt the pressure though. He had to say everything right for 12-hours, it was the opposite of inconsequential for someone interested in Microsoft themselves and how they skirted anti-trust rules and other regulations - a master class.They actually legitimately went after him. Nothing changing isn't true, they don't even go through with these kind of depositions anymore, that means it's gotten worse.

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bartturner t1_j9rtr2m wrote

There was no action against Microsoft in the states.

In the EU they were required to add a screen when first starting Windows on what browser you wanted.

Kind of funny to now look back and see the results.

In the US and the EU Google completely dominates with browsers and Microsoft gave up on their own and using Google for their browser.

Google has 60% in Europe and 61% in the United States.

Looks like it made no difference.

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want_to_join t1_j9tx46u wrote

Why lie, if you don't know?

There was action against Microsoft in the states. The suit was settled following concessions from the company.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.

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MississippiJoel t1_j9w674u wrote

I think he meant penalties. You took his "no action" statement literally, but missed his point.

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want_to_join t1_j9w98e8 wrote

But there was action and penalties, they just decided to make changes to avoid the penalties. That's what settling a court case entails. Not sure how their statement is accurate in any sense.

Edit: they did not avoid penalties, they made changes to lessen their penalties.

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bartturner t1_j9w4c1e wrote

Sigh...

In the US they were NOT required to have a screen when you first start Windows. In the EU there was.

We get to see the result with a fantastic A/B test.

It made no difference. Google won the browser both in the US and the EU. Basically have the same percent in both.

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want_to_join t1_j9w9nk8 wrote

Not having the same result does not mean no action/no penalties... Which might sound KISS simple, but it is honestly hard to understand what point you are trying to make. There was action against Microsoft. There was a result of said action. It was not the same result as the EU case, no. Not sure why anyone would think it would.

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bartturner t1_j9wauf1 wrote

It is so simple.

In the US there were no action with the browser. They were allowed to continue to have IE the default browser. Nothing.

In the EU they were required to add a screen so you could choose your browser.

We now get to see the results of the A/B test.

In both cases Google won the browser wars and has basicallly the same market share in both areas.

Not complicated and we are so lucky to have such a nice and clean A/B test.

Clearly the action made NO difference!!

The market spoke and wanted Google for their browser.

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want_to_join t1_j9wbequ wrote

> In the US there were no action.

Right... Bud, IDK exactly what issue is going on here but this statement is 100% not correct. There WAS an antitrust lawsuit that the US government brought and successfully prosecuted against Microsoft. It ended with them paying antitrust penalties and changing their contracts with third party computer manufacturers...

Again, IDK what blockage you are having, but you're wrong. Different action does not mean no action. The US ABSOLUTELY 100% DID take action against Microsoft.

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Ill-Poet-3298 t1_ja37mlq wrote

You are clearly dealing with a Google astroturf drone. Has a vested interest in the idea that monopolies aren't so bad, MS wasn't punished, so Google won't be either, shut up and take it. Such a weird choice on Google's part to support such a thing.

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bartturner t1_j9wddhc wrote

> Right... Bud, IDK exactly what issue is going on here but this statement is 100% not correct.

I am American and have installed Windows and can guarantee you that we do NOT get the screen asking about browser that you get in the EU. No action was taken in the US.

I have no idea why you are even challenging.

I actually prefer the invisible hand because actions often times cause an unexpected result.

But I do love this one because we get such a nice and clean A/B test.

Clearly the invisible hand (Market) is what really dictates things.

I think about it right now with Apple and Gogole default search. If that changed it would just be the vast majority still using Google.

People are going to go towards what works best in most cases and Google is just a lot better.

Edit: I should say that now I spend half my time in South East Asia and where I am now. But I have lived most of the time in the US since the EU took action with the browser being a choice when first start Windows and the US not taking the same action.

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want_to_join t1_j9wdt83 wrote

> guarantee you that we do NOT get the screen asking about browser that you get in the EU.

No one is debating that point. I am pointing out that the statement, "The US took no action against Microsoft," is not correct.

You are making it sound like you define the word, "action," as "a different computer screen."

Do you understand the meaning of the word "action"?

A lawsuit is action. A lawsuit was brought. Action was taken. Not the same action was taken.

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bartturner t1_j9wdxhg wrote

Apparently you have.

So we finally have agreement that the US did not require the choice on browser and in the EU they did. Perfect A/B test.

Good. That took a lot.

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want_to_join t1_j9weoxz wrote

No one, including myself, ever told you that the US forced them to add a loading screen.

You are still wrong, because the US did take action. Not even sure why you would spend the time to comment if you are going to act ignorant of the vocabulary... Stop wasting our time, maybe? Admitting you made an error of choice of words is far less embarrassing than pretending to not be able to understand english as an American.

See, I ALSO am an American, who has ALSO installed Windows, and so I would never argue with you that a screen exists when it does not.

Are you capable of admitting you are wrong? Or are you just going to continue this weird "refuse to acknowledge" game you seem to be playing?

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bartturner t1_j9wf3dj wrote

This is a rather silly discussion. I told you that they took no action with the browser.

You were challenging that but seem to finally have admitted the truth.

It gave us a great A/B test.

BTW, I am old and was around during this time in the tech industry.

In the EU they did take action that they did NOT in the US.

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want_to_join t1_j9wfbir wrote

> I told you that they took no action with the browser.

Not what you said. You said they took no action. Do you lack the understanding of this difference or not?

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bartturner t1_j9wfi55 wrote

You are a bit too much. It is what I said. Not my fault you do not listen.

BTW, you are missing the entire benefit with the fact that the US took NO action and the EU did.

We got our A/B test.

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want_to_join t1_j9wfolw wrote

But the US did take action, and it WAS involving the browser, so youre completely wrong. Still.

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want_to_join t1_j9wfwga wrote

> There was no action against Microsoft in the states.

Thats the quote you posted. Just take the L, dude. You're embarrassing yourself.

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bartturner t1_j9wh5kh wrote

Geeze. Read it again. I said no action in terms of browser.

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[deleted] t1_j9suadb wrote

[deleted]

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guitar_vigilante t1_j9tpgke wrote

Anti-trust action doesn't usually require one to have an actual monopoly in a market. Being sufficiently large and concentrated such that one can influence the market in an anti-competitive and bad-for-consumers manner is all it takes. And 60% is certainly enough to trigger that.

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[deleted] t1_j9u7ftj wrote

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guitar_vigilante t1_j9u7td7 wrote

Because anti-trust jurisprudence in the US has been incredibly poor for the past 30 years. The courts have in general been much more willing to allow industry concentration and will put down anti-trust suits pretty often. It's part of why pretty much every industry has seen a trend towards concentration in the past 30-40 years without much pushback from the federal government and why the last major successful anti-trust action was the Bell breakup in the 80s.

edit: and AT&T only had a 45% market share before the breakup.

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bartturner t1_j9t3qsj wrote

No but they have about 15x what Microsoft has today. Microsoft actually gave up on doing their own and now just use Google (Chromium).

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[deleted] t1_j9t80wp wrote

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DrPreppy t1_j9v00ko wrote

> that means browsers have a relatively healthy ecosystem

What? Market share. That chart boils down to "either they are using Google Chrome or they are on a Apple product". The current browser ecosystem is probably the least healthy it's ever been. Everybody else is a rounding error.

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bartturner t1_j9t84io wrote

You missed my entire point. It made ZERO difference.

Nothing in the US and Google has 61%. In the EU they did add the screen and 60%.

The market took care of things and Google won in both places. Google has 15x the market share that Microsoft has.

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[deleted] t1_j9tie2m wrote

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bartturner t1_j9timgs wrote

But there was NO browser choice law in the US. So we got a pretty good A/B test.

The end result is that Google had 60% and 61%. Basically no difference.

The law made no difference was my entire point.

I find that interesting. It is kind of rare we get such an A/B test to see.

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quiplaam t1_j9uezxz wrote

Google started winning in the browser space because early chrome and it's v8 rendering engine was soooooo much faster then the competition. By 2010, web programs got much more complex and Javascript more essential, so speeding that up made everything much better. Additionally, Google's dominance in search meant that it was easy for people to find about and try it out. It got better and better, while IE was stagnant. It is likely that the EU's regulations had minimal impact on on the adoption of Chrome

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Aazadan t1_j9s3hk2 wrote

Nope. Microsoft effectively beat the lawsuit. It took about 20 years, but there ended up only being one small fine (we're talking single digit millions), with Microsoft beating most charges due to the government essentially giving up, and Microsoft having delayed everything until the charges were no longer relevant.

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psychicsword t1_j9tos1x wrote

> The last big company that went through half the motions was microsoft in the 90’s due to their browser comboed into their OS at the time, I believe?

And now they did the same thing with edge. It is literally impossible to uninstall it.

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Justforthenuews t1_j9tyhci wrote

Not the same, edge was given up on two years ago. They use chromium now, and are running linux at home too, they even have a quiet little linux distro now. Things changing dramatically in there lately.

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psychicsword t1_j9u0z9o wrote

Sure they use the chromium rendering engine but that doesn't mean it isn't the same thing. The conflict over the browser vertical integration wasn't about the rendering agent. It was about the fact that everything about it was forced and further sent you to Microsoft products. And because it was installed by default and not possible to remove people just stuck with it which cut everyone off their competitors out of the market.

> They use chromium now, and are running linux at home too, they even have a quiet little linux distro now. Things changing dramatically in there lately.

Oh trust me I know. I am a dotnet developer who has pushed my department to shift from framework to what is now dotnet 6+. All my local development is using wsl2 and runs on docker in the AWS cloud.

That doesn't change that the actual settlement agreement was that they don't force you to install their browser and with W10 they did the exact opposite by design. They changed a lot of their practices for the better but they actively went against the bound settlement they had with the US government. Their only protection being that the Apple ecosystem has been getting away with the same shit for decades now so the public perception of it is that it is the status quo.

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Justforthenuews t1_j9u7ph5 wrote

I know! It’s a rather interesting case.

Settlements are contractual sealed agreements, even if the circumstances around the settlement changes, you have to abide by it until you can go through the system to change it (assuming it’s possible at all).

And the argument against them is weaker now, because they’re using more and more open source, so they have a claim that the bundling benefits more than them, so it’s not monopolizing.

We’re in rather grey waters here, considering the army of lawyers Microsoft can throw at it again.

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[deleted] t1_j9ux536 wrote

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Justforthenuews t1_j9v218c wrote

A) My statement was a general statement about settlements, not about that specific one.

B) what you posted doesn’t prove anything about the statement being misleading, it just means that the settlement had an expiration date included (which I was unaware of) which means they are still following the letter of the settlement, assuming they didn’t start before that expiration date.

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[deleted] t1_j9u7l1c wrote

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Justforthenuews t1_j9u856h wrote

It’s not what I mean, we’re talking about the code and backend stuff, which is not microsoft exclusive anymore. Look it up, the edge browser is a chromium browser since 2018 iirc (19?). What you knew as edge before doesn’t really exist as it was anymore, and they stopped supporting it for the past two years at least.

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synthdrunk t1_j9sugi9 wrote

They didn’t really. MCI vs AT&T forced it. Something like that will never be allowed to happen again.
I had some hope with the Aereo case back about a decade ago that we were finally going to start getting some antimonopolistic leverage but SCOTUS being bought and paid for isn’t anything new.

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