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Google Businesses Privacy The Almighty Buck Technology

Senator Orrin Hatch Asks FTC To Investigate Competitive Effects of Google's Conduct in Search and Digital Advertising (thehill.com) 110

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate whether Google's search and digital advertising practices are stifling the marketplace. From a report: Hatch sent a letter to FTC [PDF] Chairman Joseph Simons expressing concern about reports in recent years ranging from Google restricting competing advertising services to collecting data from users' Gmail inbox contents. "Needless to say, I found these reports disquieting," Hatch wrote. "Although these reports concern different aspects of Google's business, many relate to the company's dominant position in search and accumulating vast amounts of personal data." The letter comes at a time when critics of Google's market power are gaining momentum, helped along by growing concerns over data privacy. But most of the lawmakers echoing those concerns have been Democrats and Hatch, the longest-serving member of the Senate, may be the highest-profile Republican to call for the government to take antitrust action against Google.
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Senator Orrin Hatch Asks FTC To Investigate Competitive Effects of Google's Conduct in Search and Digital Advertising

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  • Well, Google is the best big corporation there. Better than Microsoft, better than Facebook. But it has money, so politics will come to hunt them.
    • Re:Hunt for Google (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 30, 2018 @01:14PM (#57226272)

      That, and it's a big target at a time where POTUS is looking for enemies he can vilify to distract from is own problems.

      • Re:Hunt for Google (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DarkRookie ( 5030953 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @01:39PM (#57226428)
        Everyone can see his problems already. They are all over twitter. He shares them
        Its just that nearly half the country believes the racist, misogynistic, gay bashing vitriol that he speaks. He is not a good or even neutral human. He is Chaotic Evil thru and thru.
        • by Dan667 ( 564390 )
          I disagree that nearly half the country believes him. People screaming can seem like a lot more than they are and they will go back to their holes once people have had enough.
      • by Hylandr ( 813770 )

        Works both ways bud.

    • They are not any better than any other tech company.
      • Well, they're better than Microsoft and Facebook. That's not saying much though, since those two companies are basically the least ethical in the entire history of companies.

  • It's a purely political move. Hatch has got his tongue so far up Trump's backside that he can taste what Trump's eating before he swallows.

    Trump puts the hate out on google, Hatch responds by saying "Hey! I hate google too!"

    I'm not saying that this isn't a smart thing to do, at least in the short term, but he's not concerned about antitrust or regulation. He's concerned about being on Trump's good side, and antitrust and regulations are the tools he happens to be using now to get that done. He's not sudd

    • "It's a purely political move. "

      Google only has itself to blame for giving in last year to corporate media news demands on filtering their news results. Same mistake Facebook made. Corporate media news created the "fake news" tag to beat them out and limit new media outlets. Trump has nothing to do with this (although they would love if he would stop using Twitter).

  • by DarkRookie ( 5030953 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @01:35PM (#57226394)
    I don't see this being a bad thing per say. Unless Google has gone thru that within the last year or so.
    But the reason to look into it cuz the president is an idiot is not.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Is just about THE most clueless Senator when it comes to technology. And he's carrying Trump's water here since Google is the latest entry on the Trump Enemy List.

  • by suman28 ( 558822 ) <suman28 AT hotmail DOT com> on Thursday August 30, 2018 @01:41PM (#57226450)
    .....and yet when Equifax collected all that data and LOST the data, he didn't feel obligated to do anything. Sounds about right!
    • Here's the very first google result [senate.gov] for https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com] .

      Please attempt an attack line next time which takes more than 5 seconds to totally disprove.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I know that it's ageist, but there needs to be mandatory retirement at age 80 for Senators, Prez & VP, and supreme court justices. I'll leave an opening for US Representative. (2 yr terms). I mean pilots are forced out at a certain age and they only control the lives of a couple hundred people.

    This is enlightening and scary:

    https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_senators_by_age.html

  • ``... in office for 18 years? You call him home.''

    -- 40+ year incumbent Orrin Hatch

    That was Hatch when he was running against his predecessor.

    Time to go home Orrin.

  • by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @02:49PM (#57226914) Homepage
    The majority of people hate Donald Trump; the results should reflect that.
  • This is the same Google that in 2017 was fined 2.4 billion Euro by the EU for manipulating search results?

    https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]

  • by rahvin112 ( 446269 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @03:23PM (#57227140)

    Orrin Hatch, one of the architects of striping both the FTC and FCC of their ability to regulate business is asking the FTC to investigate Google because they are mean to "conservatives".

    The irony is palpable with a man who's spent his career defanging governments ability to go after monopolies asking government to investigate when they don't have the authority to do a damn thing and he knows it because he was instrumental in taking those abilities away.

    But Hatch is a sycophant who finally proved he didn't have any morals and he proved it when he got down on his knees and serviced Trump. It's a good thing he's retiring because he shat all over his legacy the last 4 years.

  • Google blocks various legal firearm related links and searches so why not?

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341]

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