How would you answer this about Google?

[Doug Morris]

Earlier today I was having a discussion with a friend about antitrust.  She said that Google had suppressed a company that was competing with a company it owned by rigging its search algorithm to prevent the competitor from appearing.  I suggested that a possible countermeasure was to search not just with Google but also with another search engine.  She said that this would require extra time that many people would not be willing to spend.

It is of course possible to argue this in terms of basic principles and also in terms of the ambiguity and inconsistency of the antitrust laws.  I tried to at least give a hint of both, but there was not time for a full discussion.

Can anyone suggest another way of arguing this?

 

[necrovore]

Anti-trust purports to help the "little guy" by taking power away from big companies, but it merely transfers that power to the Federal government, which is far bigger, and probably less accountable.

If Google decides to suppress some company, you can go to another search engine. But if the government decides to suppress one (such as by saying it's an anti-trust violation for Google to endorse it), there is no such option.

The government is also partially responsible for Google being so big and centralized in the first place, by erecting artificial barriers that prevent thousands or millions of small businesses from even existing.

Edited February 20 by necrovore

[DavidOdden]

The rules of this debate are somewhere between unclear and non-existent. What are the exact claims and counter-claims? Is antitrust law actually relevant – e.g. is the thesis “therefore the government should nationalize Google?”. Or is the question “how do I technically overcome this limit”. I suspect it is not the latter, but if so you need to go to the dark web to find people who will reveal Google secrets to figure out how to become technically superior.

Look for her assumptions, which need checking. She rejects the idea of (unspecified person) using other search engines, based on the assumption that it would take “extra time”, therefore the assumption which you are being told to make is that everybody has the right to the best-possible search technology yet requiring the minimal contribution from the user (in time, money, knowledge etc). Apart from the fact that this is a stupid assumption, almost everybody uses Google, so urging everybody to switch to Yandex, Baidu, DuckDuckGoose, Bing and its synonyms is fairly pointless – the argument will simply become “Yeah, but people won’t use Yandex, or Bong”. The “argument” seems to be structured via implicit assumptions leading to confiscation and destruction in some form of Google. If not, at what point should the destruction of Google be limited – and why?

The underlying premise held by most – the exposure of which should be your main concern – is that the “biggest” business in an area should always be destroyed by splitting it up into numerous smaller businesses, so as to “increase competition”. What is competition? “Competition”, in this view, is the case where transactions are randomly distributed among the businesses in an area, therefore each business has an equal percentage of all transactions. If there are 5 companies selling widgets, each firm sells 20% of the widgets. Could be 22% or 30%, but definitely never 60%, that is significantly higher that an “even split”.

Microsoft is the biggest computer software company, and should be broken up into maybe a half dozen smaller companies. Amazon should be broken up into e.g. BuyBooks, WatchMovies, PurchaseHardware, FoodAreUs… each with a smaller, narrower customer and distribution base. Apple needs to be broken up into totally separate companies for phones, computers, whatever else they do, likewise CVS, Costco, JPMorgan, Ford and so on should all be subdivided.

The thing is, once you destroy all of the biggest companies in an area by forcibly dividing them to make them less competitive, some new company become the biggest, and in need of destruction. After Ford is cut down to size, the government (and the activists) can turn their attention to GM, then after the demise of Costco take on Kroger… The reductio ad absurdum of this program is a return to the good old days of mom and pop enterprises where you get the bare minimum needed, and you really would not expect to find light bulbs, bread, potting soil and aspirin in the same store. That is why Nanna spent her entire day wandering from store to store to get what is necessary for survival. The ultimate goal is to bring back the good old days that babushka had to suffer through under Stalin.

Perhaps the shared assumption is “we’re not trying to totally destroy the economy”. That might yield some practical progress.

[tadmjones]

Nanna knew a lot of business owners.

[Doug Morris]

On 2/19/2025 at 9:30 PM, DavidOdden said:

The rules of this debate are somewhere between unclear and non-existent. What are the exact claims and counter-claims?

I said that the antitrust laws should be repealed (by Congress.)  She said they are needed because big companies can suppress small ones, as in the Google example she cited.  We didn't get into any details about how she thought this should work.

 

[DavidOdden]

2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

I said that the antitrust laws should be repealed (by Congress.)  She said they are needed because big companies can suppress small ones, as in the Google example she cited.  We didn't get into any details about how she thought this should work.

An example of a company actually suppressing another company is when AT&T enjoyed a statutory monopoly over phone services and therefore smaller companies could not even exist. A current one is interstate passenger rail and letter-delivery. Likewise water, gas, electricity, internet service and other so-called “natural monopolies”, depending on your location.

Google does not “suppress” Yahoo search, it is just more widely chosen by users. It is the customers who are “suppressing” Yahoo, by being allowed to freely choose according to their individual interests. Similarly, in the marketplace of politics, the Demopublicans do not “suppress” the Libertarians, they are simply more successful in selling their product. Why do we tolerate consumer preference, if the goal is to make all product be “equal” with respect to market share? The government could, instead, ration access to goods and services in such a way that all businesses have an identical market share, and this is enforced by regulating customer choice, and not what the goods and services are.

This offers an alternative means of reaching the assumed goal of “equal market share”, and does a better job of aligning to the actual cause of poor market performance. Yahoo does not under-perform relative to Google because of a direct interference in Yahoo’s operation, it under-performs because Google offers a superior product and customer choice is un-regulated. The anti-monopoly assumption is that the solution to the “problem” should be some ill-defined limit on what Google can offer to customers, but why is that better than limiting customer freedom of choice?

Obviously, this is a tongue in cheek argument, but reductio ad absurdum is a legitimate tool to exposing the flaws in an opponents argument. What fact justifies putting the burden on Google, rather than on the consumer? Or, why not regulate Yahoo to force it to improve its product, for example by requiring it to put all profits into research and development? Reasons given in opposition to such alternatives can easily be turned into arguments against restricting what Google can do, and have the advantage that your opponent has granted the legitimacy of the principle.

[Doug Morris]

I sent her David Odden's speculations on her assumptions, asking her to what extent he had gotten at them and to what extent she was coming from somewhere else.

Here is her reply:

Thank you for the response! You were correct to guess that your friend online misunderstood my assumptions.

 

I tried DuckDuckGo the other day, and found it worked fairly well. The problem is getting people to change habits. This is a human factors problem. People get set in their ways. Also, Google was an excellent search engine 10 or 15 years ago. They've been coasting on their brand. For more on this, read Ted Gioia here: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-worlds-largest-search-doesnt

 

I'm going to need to find a new search engine. I'm not sure where or which one.

 

I'm not in favor of breaking up Google. I'm in favor of Google or other large companies not being allowed to quash competition, especially nascent businesses. If someone starts a local burger shack in Mableton, I don't want McDonald's to spend money to prevent new local burger from showing up in internet searches for burgers in Mableton. I want new local burger to live or die based on its product and service. I want it to show up in a restaurant search the same as any other restaurant. When Google monetized search results, it messed with the quality of its product. I searched for restaurants a couple days ago when I wrote my post about game night. I noticed several of the smaller local businesses don't show up in the Google map search for "restaurants." It takes time for users to realize Google isn't giving you what you think. Google isn't an honest index anymore. That has also led to social discord, as people argue over what is or isn't misinformation, what is or isn't harmful information.

 

I know it can be tempting to be either all or nothing on regulation. Either "all regulations are bad" or "nothing should be regulated." I think there's a middle ground. Some regulations are used to level the playing field or exist to prevent established companies with lots of capital and power from being able to stamp out competition when it is new, small, and local. I'm in favor of encouraging new competition. I'm in favor of capitalism based on let the best product or service win!

 

And here is my response to that:

 

Thank you for your response.  I understand what you are saying.  However, I consider certain additional considerations to be crucial.

 

The most fundamental ones have to do with the nature of government.  In a very brief nutshell, to do something by government is to do it by force, and force should only be used to defend against the initiation of force, direct or indirect.  (Many people have a hard time understanding that government works by force because they are used to doing what government requires without thinking about why they have to.)  This is more fully discussed in Ayn Rand's essays "Man's Rights" and "The Nature of Government".  They are in her book The Virtue of Selfishness and are an appendix in her book Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal.

 

The antitrust laws were based on misunderstandings of economics and of events caused by government subsidies.  They are so ambiguous and inconsistent that any action by a business can be deemed illegal if the enforcers see fit.  These matters are more fully discussed in Alan Greenspan's essay Antitrust, reprinted as Chapter 4 of Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal.  A more extensive discussion of antitrust is in A. D. Neale, The Antitrust Laws of the United States of America: A Study of Competition Enforced by Law, Cambridge, England; Cambridge University Press, 1960 and in Harold Fleming, Ten Thousand Commandments; A Story of the Antitrust Laws, New York; Prentice-Hall, 1951.

 

Based on these considerations, my conclusion is that we should repeal the antitrust laws and be patient about such things as waiting for people to realize how Google has deteriorated.

 

Doug

[necrovore]

16 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Google isn't an honest index anymore.

There's the problem: fraud.

If Google represents themselves as an honest search engine when they really aren't, that's fraud. The government should properly do something about that.

But if Google represents themselves as a dishonest search engine, their customers leave.

Of course if the government twists their arms behind the scenes to make them be dishonest, that's a different sort of problem.

Antitrust is the wrong sort of law to combat fraud. It could be thrown out as unconstitutionally vague, but the reason it's so vague is that it is based on false principles, as Ayn Rand has pointed out.

Edited February 23 by necrovore

[tadmjones]

I think the fraud angle is the stonger stance, just not sure if 'search engine' is the kind of a thing to be assumed as being 'honest'. If they claimed objectivity , per use, and deliberately altered 'results' it's fraud, but if it's something that you 'click' and it gives 'feedback' , caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, 'course if it is a 'free' service, per use, the user should consider their interaction as the product and go from there.

[DavidOdden]

The problem with her statement is that they are logically unrelated to the ultimate claim about what the government should do. The only facts reported by her are assertions of her emotions – what she wants or thinks should be the case. You cannot respond to emotional claims, unless you make an absurd statement like “No, you do not want that; no, you do not feel that way”. I don’t care if you want a new local burger join to live or die based on its product and service, I don’t want you to make arguments based on forcing others to comply with your wishes. If you cannot get her to advance an actual argument rather than a report of emotion, then this simply isn’t a logical discussion. This is endemic in our culture, and it is why Trump got elected despite all the rational arguments against him as president – it came down to raw feelings and not facts and logic.

As for the claim that Google engages in fraud, that is utterly laughable. To even get to first base on that claim, you have to establish that there is some false claim which induced people to enter into a contract with the company that they would not have otherwise entered in. Google is a free service, which you do not pay for. They have made no promise to you. It is fraud to call Google’s practices fraud (by that misunderstanding both of Google’s practices and of fraud). Where is the promise about search results? This is a cousin to the socialist concept of “network neutrality” which is based on the miscreant notion that Google is a public service, not a private money-making business. I go to the local Kroger store and I see tons of “fraud” in the form of promotions for Kroger goods, but no promotions for the goods of a competitor. I read the local paper and I see only the ads of companies who pay to have ads placed, not those of companies who didn’t pay. I look at OO, which stands for Objectivism Online and I see the opposite of Objectivism, I see fraudulent representation of socialism, progressivism and statist being passed off as Objectivism – pure fraud. The government should do something to clean up this mess.

[necrovore]

1 hour ago, DavidOdden said:

The only facts reported by her are assertions of her emotions – what she wants or thinks should be the case. You cannot respond to emotional claims, unless you make an absurd statement like “No, you do not want that; no, you do not feel that way”. I don’t care if you want a new local burger join to live or die based on its product and service, I don’t want you to make arguments based on forcing others to comply with your wishes. If you cannot get her to advance an actual argument rather than a report of emotion, then this simply isn’t a logical discussion. This is endemic in our culture, and it is why Trump got elected despite all the rational arguments against him as president – it came down to raw feelings and not facts and logic.

Whether Google is honest or not is a question of fact. (It's also separate from whether Google says they are honest, which is a different question of fact, and I guess if they don't actually say they're honest, they aren't literally committing fraud by being dishonest. But if they let people think they are honest, when they aren't, it does seem kind of shady.)

What you're suggesting is that it's wrong to expect Google to be honest, because they have property rights and contract rights and the rule of law and facts and logic etc. all on their side, whereas when we want them to be honest, all we have is an emotion or a wish. I don't see that as a winning argument (or even correct).

You can respond to emotional claims, but, in order to do so, you have to try to understand the reasoning behind the emotion and address that. There is always a reason for an emotion (even if it is an incorrect reason, and even if it can be specific to the person experiencing the emotion, as opposed to being a general feeling that a lot of people have).

You can also separate the identification of a problem from the proposed solution. If the problem is a valid problem, such as a dishonest search engine, you can recommend a better solution, such as using another search engine. People often welcome suggestions of that kind. Or if you're an entrepreneur-type you could start an "honest search engine" and win people over from Google. But you cannot do that if you deny that the problem exists merely because people are emotional about it.

Edited February 23 by necrovore