He uses the case of the vertical search site, Foundem.com, to demonstrate the way in which Google kills competition by removing them from searches.
In 2006, Google instituted a shift in its search algorithm, known as the Big Daddy update, which penalized websites with large numbers of subpages but few inbound links. A few years later, another shift, known as Panda, penalized sites that copied text from other websites. When adjustments like these occurred, Google explained to users, they were aimed at combating āindividuals or systems seeking to āgameā our systems in order to appear higher in search results ā using low-quality ācontent farms,ā hidden text and other deceptive practices.ā
Left unsaid was that Google itself generates millions of new subpages without inbound links each day, a fresh page each time someone performs a search. And each of those subpages is filled with text copied from other sites. By programming its search engine to ignore other sites doing the same thing that Google was doing, critics say, the company had made it nearly impossible for competing vertical-search engines, like Foundem, to show up high in Googleās results.
Rather than living off their innovation, Adam and Shivaun Raff have spent the last twelve years campaigning against Google. Supported by Gary Reback, they took their case to European Commission in Brussels.
Reback had told Adam and Shivaun that it was important for them to keep up their fight, no matter the setbacks, and as evidence he pointed to the Microsoft trial. Anyone who said that the 1990s prosecution of Microsoft didnāt accomplish anything ā that it was companies like Google, rather than government lawyers, that humbled Microsoft ā didnāt know what they were talking about, Reback said. In fact, he argued, the opposite was true: The antitrust attacks on Microsoft made all the difference. Condemning Microsoft as a monopoly is why Google exists today, he said.
If such changes and challenges is dependent on individuals such as the Raffās standing up, it makes you wondering how many just throw it all in. Cory Doctorow captures this scenario in his novel, The Makers.
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Gary Tennant
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K. Sabeel Rahman takes a look at changes in construct of power. He unpacks the way in platform capitalism has come to control many elements of society. These changes can be organised into three categories:
Transmission power: The ability of a firm to control the flow of data or goods (Amazon)
Gatekeeping power: Control of the gateway to an otherwise decentralized and diffuse landscape (Google Search)
Scoring power: ratings systems, indices, and ranking databases
Rahman provides a number of suggestions for how we can respond to this situation:
Public options
Structural restraints on data and power
Big data tax
Anti-trust movements
He gives the example of the New Deal and the way it broke up the oil monopolies. Another example is the response to Microsoft at the end of the 90ās. Whatever the solution(s), it will involve rethinking the way we see technology. Something that the Luddbrarian discusses in regards to Facebook.
via Ian OāByrne
Zeynep Tufekci captures some of the complexities associated with fixing up big tech. A few things that stand out is that the answer is not splitting up big tech or simply respond to the threat of Russia. As she explains:
Instead we need to:
Nilay Patel explores the idea of reimagining anti-trust laws. At the moment there is too much grey for lawyers to argue about in regards to changes in price. Tim Wu and Hal Singer suggest that we need to think of anti-trust from the perspective of competition, not just cost. This is something that has been said about Google as much as Facebook. Cory Doctorow has also written about the problems big tech.
Cory Doctorow discusses Dina Srinivasanās new paper The Antitrust Case Against Facebook published in the Berkeley Business Law Journal. Srinivasan documents the rise of the platform and how it would not have been possible in a pre-Reagan era. The association between monopoly and surveillance is also explored:
This is a topic Tim Wu, Charles Duhigg and Lina Khan have discussed. A summary of the paper was also published by the Institute for New Economic Thinking.