It's interesting of how the DOJ is defining the SSNIP test and having Hal Varian be the first witness. The picture of Walker and Mr. Monopoly that Matt took is priceless. Keep up the great work!
I'm not tech and business practices educated, but even I can see what BS (and can quickly back up my assertion with examples) the response of: Google argued these agreements weren’t anti-competitive — making Google the default search engine benefitted consumers because Google was the highest-quality search engine, and consumers could easily switch to a different search engine if they disagreed.
What a load. I use different browsers and encrypted apps and still can't get anything without Google's fingerprints all over every single piece of internet traffic I view.
Great to see Rich Uncle Pennybags who is featured in Monopoly, and who just happens appear in each of the following photos captured by Matt Stoller and Win McNamee (respectively). Pennybags, AKA the Monopoly man was modeled after the American Progressive Era businessman J. P. Morgan. Cheers for the photobomber! https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/opening-act-the-stakes-of-the-google
Thanks Yosef for sharing your experiences on the court room.
How did Mr. Valerian respond to the questions regarding that correspondence? Did he seem surprised,would you say that he was reading from. A pre determined script?
This is great info. I'm curious why Varian had decided to testify in favor of the DOJ, and not his long time employer Google. Hopefully the trial will reveal.
Calling Hal Varian as the first witness carries significance due to his prominent status as a microeconomist who is presumably well-versed in technical economic terminology. It is of important for the DOJ to establish that he cautioned Google employees against using certain terms, such as "scale," and even put forth arguments against the significance of "scale" for Google, which were fundamentally flawed (as acknowledged by his colleagues at Google). The hiring of a renowned economist, essentially a household name in the field of Economics at any level, as the chief economist for a private company that clearly holds a monopoly, can potentially enable the firm to devise strategies to conceal its monopolistic practices. Therefore, calling the economist as the first witness, is precisely targeting the core of the matter.
I don't think Google thought what they were doing was "predatory capitalism"—a lot of the founders of the Tech Revolution are Utopian Libertarians who believe that free and open access to information will bring about a Golden Age that will benefit all humanity. Director/Animator Brad Bird's movie TOMORROWLAND is pretty much a paean to that mindset, as is to a lesser extent his Pixar classic THE INCREDIBLES.
I'm certain that Sergey Brin and Larry Page don't consider what they did to be "predatory", and it's likely it would never have been were it not for Eric Schmidt, the so-called "grown-up in the room". It's also likely that, were it not for Schmidt, Google wouldn't have continued to grow, and ended up being sold for parts like Yahoo! has been—so...Yay?
Extraordinary that they’re spending so much as a moment countenancing the idea that Google users are Google customers, while the issue of their actual customers (advertisers) “may come up later in the trial”.
It's interesting of how the DOJ is defining the SSNIP test and having Hal Varian be the first witness. The picture of Walker and Mr. Monopoly that Matt took is priceless. Keep up the great work!
I'm not tech and business practices educated, but even I can see what BS (and can quickly back up my assertion with examples) the response of: Google argued these agreements weren’t anti-competitive — making Google the default search engine benefitted consumers because Google was the highest-quality search engine, and consumers could easily switch to a different search engine if they disagreed.
What a load. I use different browsers and encrypted apps and still can't get anything without Google's fingerprints all over every single piece of internet traffic I view.
Great to see Rich Uncle Pennybags who is featured in Monopoly, and who just happens appear in each of the following photos captured by Matt Stoller and Win McNamee (respectively). Pennybags, AKA the Monopoly man was modeled after the American Progressive Era businessman J. P. Morgan. Cheers for the photobomber! https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/opening-act-the-stakes-of-the-google
Excellent, keep the "light of day" going Yosef! Thank you...
Thanks Yosef for sharing your experiences on the court room.
How did Mr. Valerian respond to the questions regarding that correspondence? Did he seem surprised,would you say that he was reading from. A pre determined script?
This is great info. I'm curious why Varian had decided to testify in favor of the DOJ, and not his long time employer Google. Hopefully the trial will reveal.
Thank you for your work and attention to all this, Yosef! Appreciate you.
Wake up in the morning
Browse by default
Free will streamed away
Spit out the apple
Back to Eden
Knowledge is relinquished
Calling Hal Varian as the first witness carries significance due to his prominent status as a microeconomist who is presumably well-versed in technical economic terminology. It is of important for the DOJ to establish that he cautioned Google employees against using certain terms, such as "scale," and even put forth arguments against the significance of "scale" for Google, which were fundamentally flawed (as acknowledged by his colleagues at Google). The hiring of a renowned economist, essentially a household name in the field of Economics at any level, as the chief economist for a private company that clearly holds a monopoly, can potentially enable the firm to devise strategies to conceal its monopolistic practices. Therefore, calling the economist as the first witness, is precisely targeting the core of the matter.
“Don’t be evil” was an unofficial part of the company’s 2000 corporate code of conduct.
Is predatory Capitalism evil?
I don't think Google thought what they were doing was "predatory capitalism"—a lot of the founders of the Tech Revolution are Utopian Libertarians who believe that free and open access to information will bring about a Golden Age that will benefit all humanity. Director/Animator Brad Bird's movie TOMORROWLAND is pretty much a paean to that mindset, as is to a lesser extent his Pixar classic THE INCREDIBLES.
I'm certain that Sergey Brin and Larry Page don't consider what they did to be "predatory", and it's likely it would never have been were it not for Eric Schmidt, the so-called "grown-up in the room". It's also likely that, were it not for Schmidt, Google wouldn't have continued to grow, and ended up being sold for parts like Yahoo! has been—so...Yay?
Well done reporting on this in a manner that’s easy to follow while still communicating the important narratives.
Extraordinary that they’re spending so much as a moment countenancing the idea that Google users are Google customers, while the issue of their actual customers (advertisers) “may come up later in the trial”.