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2017-08-14 Home Front: Culture Wars

Conservatives Must Regulate Google And All of Silicon Valley Into Submission

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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-14 10:36|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 If you don't like 'em, don't use 'em. There are alternatives. Right now I'm taking a test drive with the Opera browser.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2017-08-14 11:01|| 2017-08-14 11:01|| Front Page Top

#2 Resetting my cookie with Opera.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2017-08-14 11:02|| 2017-08-14 11:02|| Front Page Top

#3 We'll see how it works.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2017-08-14 11:03|| 2017-08-14 11:03|| Front Page Top

#4 The one Google product I have not found an alternative for is their street level view in Google Maps.

Posted by Glenmore 2017-08-14 11:31|| 2017-08-14 11:31|| Front Page Top

#5 That means Republicans at both the federal and the state level need to rein in the skinny-jeaned fascist social justice warriors who control Silicon Valley

The mechanism is self-correcting. Don't make rules because you can, that's how the Dems got us here.

Posted by Skidmark 2017-08-14 11:48|| 2017-08-14 11:48|| Front Page Top

#6 Hey, let's use the power of government to punish companies we don't like. Doesn't sound very conservative to me.

Seems like the problem is really the opposite - our markets are insufficiently competitive. Otherwise, alienating half your customer base would be a non-starter. So, thought experiment, what makes markets non-competitive?

Posted by Iblis 2017-08-14 11:51|| 2017-08-14 11:51|| Front Page Top

#7 So, thought experiment, what makes markets non-competitive?

Government 'support', for one?

Posted by Pappy 2017-08-14 12:29|| 2017-08-14 12:29|| Front Page Top

#8 What we need to do is Alinsky's "make em play by their own rules". Invasions of privacy and pernicious data collection should be crushed.

Posted by Frank G on the Road 2017-08-14 12:43|| 2017-08-14 12:43|| Front Page Top

#9 These who don't play by our rules are not entitled to protection of our rules.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-14 12:49|| 2017-08-14 12:49|| Front Page Top

#10 I figured it must be Schlichter. He's not very bright, is he?

Posted by KBK 2017-08-14 13:09|| 2017-08-14 13:09|| Front Page Top

#11 'Streetside' in Bing maps is sort of getting there, Glenmore. They have a ways to go for coverage, though.

Open Bing maps and select the 'Streetside' view. If the road(s) have a blue highlight, they've done the camera work.

Metro areas seem to be covered. Backwoods and rural, not so much.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2017-08-14 13:09|| 2017-08-14 13:09|| Front Page Top

#12 Just apply existing laws on monopolies. Acquiring a vertical monopoly structure seems to be a big Google feature and entry point for action.

The other entry would be to hold the company accountable for privacy information, invalidating those boilerplate user agreements. Classifying such info as inalienable property of the individual.

Posted by Procopius2k 2017-08-14 14:06|| 2017-08-14 14:06|| Front Page Top

#13 The question is how much of the 'street work' was done under a government contract.

Posted by Pappy 2017-08-14 14:07|| 2017-08-14 14:07|| Front Page Top

#14 The question is how much of the 'street work' was done under a government contract.

I know they've have Google maps for Israel (used it several times) - so, would USG pay for something like that?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-14 14:31|| 2017-08-14 14:31|| Front Page Top

#15 More than I'd like to think, Pappy.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2017-08-14 14:31|| 2017-08-14 14:31|| Front Page Top

#16 On the internet, the incremental cost of a transaction approaches zero.

Which means even pockets as deep as Microsoft's have trouble competing against market leaders.

I am a long time Chrome and Chromebook user, and the only alternative is to go back to Windows, which I won't do. There isn't anything else.

A Standard Oil/Bell style break up is needed.

Posted by phil_b 2017-08-14 18:58|| 2017-08-14 18:58|| Front Page Top

#17 Phil, I suggest a less polished version of linux, maybe one of the ones without systemd, like slackware.

I don't like any of the totalitarian societies we've handed over our manufacturing to, whether they're google, apple, or China.

Google and Apple have basically made a deal with the socialists abroad and here, that the crocodile would eat them last, and they've made mountains of hundreds of billions in cash from it.

Every bit of time we've let these left-libertarians define liberty as "We get to do what we what, while the rest of you get nickel and dimed to death in the name of imaginary externalities" we wake up less free, and broke on top of things. We've reached the point where Silicon Valley can have their power, or the rest of us maybe can get to be free, but both of those conditions can't coexist now.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2017-08-14 21:43|| 2017-08-14 21:43|| Front Page Top

#18 Linux makes a perfectly good web viewer. Use DDG and maybe the Brave browser (though I use Firefox with AdBlocker). Install Linux on your Chromebook.

Posted by KBK 2017-08-14 21:45|| 2017-08-14 21:45|| Front Page Top

#19 Anti-trust action is way to slow to have any effect.

We tried that on Microsoft's windows os, and they responded by investing in the nearly bankrupt Apple os to show there was no monopoly in operating systems. And now that company, Apple, has a higher market cap than Microsoft.

These companies are smarter and quicker than government.

If you want to break tech companies, then you need a new approach that can hit them faster than they can react.

I would suggest cutting out all the tax exemptions that they use. The IRS knows all of them. Tell Congress and cancel them. This change will add competition to their business model. Most of these exemptions were put in the tax code to exclude new entrants into their business.

Additionally, we could penalize companies who fail to protect their customer's data. This would fall more heavily on those companies with more customers.

Moreover, we could create product liability for software vendors to support their software products just like we reacquire for car manufactures. If my Dodge's airbag is a hazard ten years after I bought it, then Dodge is responsible to fix it at no cost or pay for the ensuing injuries, then why shouldn't Microsoft's dodgy OS be liable for zero day bugs that compromise my computer?

There are tons of things that could be done here. We need to decide which are the right things to do.

Posted by rammer 2017-08-14 21:56|| 2017-08-14 21:56|| Front Page Top

#20 Network access and the network will change radically when Musk and SpaceX launch their 12000 sat network. (starting maybe end of 2019) On the regime sides... the great firewall of China falls... DNS (if properly configured) will be hitting a random walk of Musk sats and not google's 8.8.8.8 or comcast's # or ATT's. (^8
And that's just the start.

Posted by 3dc 2017-08-14 22:47|| 2017-08-14 22:47|| Front Page Top

#21 Antenna will be a flat phased array to multiple sats. Your antenna has a built in wifi-router that connects your actual devices...

Posted by 3dc 2017-08-14 22:49|| 2017-08-14 22:49|| Front Page Top

#22 More satellite coms are not really going to be a solution. The amount of orbits are fixed. Perhaps Musk can get into them for a while, but they will quickly be cross loaded with other sats resulting in the Kessler Syndrome throughout the useful orbits.

Either someone has to put up a robot maid satellite to clean up the mess, which could clean up regular working satellites; so, not going to happen. Or we will just lose the ability to use certain orbits because of space trash.

Tragedy of the Commons anyone?

Posted by rammer 2017-08-14 23:15|| 2017-08-14 23:15|| Front Page Top

23:51 Zenobia Floger6220
23:32 Ho Chi Sheth6137
23:19 Zenobia Floger6220
23:17 Zenobia Floger6220
23:15 rammer
22:49 3dc
22:47 3dc
22:19 Zenobia Floger6220
22:18 rammer
21:56 rammer
21:45 chris
21:45 KBK
21:43 Thing From Snowy Mountain
21:41 chris
21:29 Zenobia Floger6220
21:09 Besoeker
21:07 Glenmore
20:59 Rob Crawford
20:23 Alaska Paul
20:18 49 Pan
19:44 Skidmark
19:27 Skidmark
19:23 Skidmark
18:58 phil_b