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originally posted by: charlyv
Just the fact that a mainstream internet asset is filtering any public information is troubling.
Can you legally suppress information that is in the public domain, if you own the equipment?
originally posted by: Tardacus
sounds like BS to me, google can find 1 million obscure links to mushroom farming in the himalayas but they can`t manage to list the 3 or 4 people running for U.S. president? horse#
originally posted by: Aazadan
originally posted by: charlyv
Just the fact that a mainstream internet asset is filtering any public information is troubling.
Can you legally suppress information that is in the public domain, if you own the equipment?
Yes. Google can do very nearly anything it wants. It's a private company. In theory, you can always get information elsewhere. We could have stopped their monopolistic power grab years ago but certain people (like Mike Pence ironically enough) argued that it would be wrong to put limitations on a private company.
originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: charlyv
Eventually something is going to happen with Google. They're trying to buddy up with politicians in order to stave it off but when it comes it will likely be the biggest corporate breakup of all time. I could see the same thing happening to Apple and Facebook some day as well.
They offer extremely broad services with near total monopolies. It wasn't really all that long ago when Microsoft was nearly broken up just for bundling a browser with an operating system. Look at what happens these days with cell phones, with browsers, with search engines in browsers, with searches. Somewhere along the way the ball was dropped for the sake of the free market and we created a tech oligarchy.
A similar thing happened on the hardware side with the consolidation of ISP's as we shifted from dialup to broadband.
The real problem I think is that no one knows how to legislate it. Everyone wants to stay out of the market for the most part and just use a light touch, but it's something that requires extensive legislation in order to be broad enough.
originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Ohanka
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
some guy said that.