- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
We did an analysis of the Google antitrust trial. Last week, over half of the trial was held behind closed doors because the judge, Amit Mehta, is deferring to Google on the need for secrecy.
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Lol, it’s a bit rich Google asking for privacy.
TL;dr Judge is letting the whole public trial happen in private, so the media is unable to report on key testimonies
Look, I’m a trial judge. I am not anyone that understands the industry and the markets in the way that you do. And so I take seriously when companies are telling me that if this gets disclosed, it’s going to cause competitive harm.
Not sure what a trial judge is but he sounds way in over his head.
Imagine monopoly getting sued for anti competitive behavior bitching about losing competitive edge that’s likely illegal…
Competitive harm in a fucking antitrust proceeding, lol, lmao even
Look, I’m a trial judge. I am not anyone that understands the industry and the markets in the way that you do. And so I take seriously when companies are telling me that if I find against Alphabet, it’s going to cause competitive harm.
I read to figure out why an image of Bill Gates is attached to the story
It just pulled in the first frame of the video on the website. The reason Bill Gates is in this video is because of a famous anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft that can be thought of as an equivalent of this one against Google.
It looks like it could be a frame from a deposition for the 90’s MS antitrust suit.
Were you shocked? Gates has been evil a long, long time
Important to note for any readers that the suit by the US government is related to digital advertising. they’re not alleging monopolization when it comes to search engines.
It’s really shitty that this trial is being kept secret. Even if it’s a fair trial, it sure doesn’t have the appearance of a fair trial. I guess Google would prefer the appearance of a corrupt trial if the alternative is embarrassing information getting out.
Having said that, I really don’t get the issue with this:
when Google executives used “history-off chats” to destroy conversations after 24 hours even after Google was on a litigation hold.
You’re not allowed to destroy past chats / emails after you’ve been notified you’re on a litigation hold. That makes sense. You can’t shred any documents or delete any emails. But, this seems to be about current / future communications. It sounds like they started a history-off chat after the lawsuit started, and they may (or may not) have discussed things relevant to the case. AFAIK the default is history-off for chats within Google. So, they’d have had to specifically turn on history for any new chat.
So, what does that mean. If they’re sued, any current or future communications between executives there have to be history-on communications in case in the future something they say is related to the trial? Are they allowed to chat in person? If they do, is it mandatory that those chats be recorded and transcribed?
If some communication is allowed to be off-the-record (say a personal chat with someone), it seems weird to say ok, but if you use a text-based program to chat, you can’t have to keep transcripts of that chat and give them to us.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Google is a very powerful corporation worth around $2 trillion, it controls access to the internet, and it will roll out generative artificial intelligence for billions of people.
“The Bill Gates on the courtroom screen,” reported the New York Times, “was evasive and uninformed, pedantic and taciturn, a world apart from his reputation as a brilliant business strategist, guiding every step in Microsoft Corp.'s rise to dominance in computing.”
For eight months, the Microsoft antitrust trial was front-page news, the drama of the trillion dollar personal computing revolution unveiled to the public.
One result was that Microsoft, afraid of public exposure years later, refused to use its control over the browser to kill nascent rivals, in particular a young search company called Google.
And yet, Mehta takes them seriously, which has led to an almost-entirely private trial, deadeningly boring to the public because key documents have been deleted and the important or embarrassing moments are held in secret.
Indeed, when the judge expressed a bit of frustration that exhibits were posted publicly, government lawyers immediately pulled down their website and said they would work with Google to make sure everyone was satisfied with the process.
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