Biden To Name Google Foe Jonathan Kanter as DOJ Antitrust Chief

President Joe Biden plans to nominate Jonathan Kanter as head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, Bloomberg Law reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter, the latest sign that the administration is preparing a broad crackdown on large technology companies. From the report: Kanter, who left one of the country's biggest law firms last year to start his own firm, is a long-time foe of Alphabet's Google, representing companies that have pushed antitrust enforcers to sue the search giant.

Lineup

[Ostracus]

Maybe this one will be "recused" [slashdot.org] as well?

Re:

[spun]

You say that as if that is what actually happened. It was a request. AFAIK, the request has not been honored. Do you have new information?

Tax reform to discourage monopolies?

[shanen]

Maybe the FP problem is really a second poster problem? Yeah, the FP is often rushed and vacuous, but the SPs had more leisure to think before propagating divisive and diverting (and often stupid) Subjects such as "Lineup".

But as usual, I prefer to think in terms of solution approaches. If there is no solution, then it's time for "the strength to endure what cannot be changed".

My favorite solution approach for the google problem remains smallness. I think the tax system should be pro-freedom rather than pro

Is an opposing lawer your foe?

[jellomizer]

While they may be your adversary during the particular cases, and they may get hired for additional cases against you, because they already have experience working with you. It doesn't mean that they are your Foe. They are just following the money and/or prestige of a high profile job.

A lawyer isn't your friend or your enemy. The person may be your friend or enemy but if they are good lawyer when they are on the job they will be professional despite their personal feelings.

Re:

[SvnLyrBrto]

Why does motivation even matter? If someone attacks and you can't flee (And I doubt Google is interested in leaving the US.), you really have only the two options: fight back or surrender. If you fight, you must fight to win and neutralize the threat, ideally crushing your attacker such that he never has the ability to threaten you again; or you lose and are destroyed. And surrender is the same thing as a loss. Those choices and outcomes don't change if your enemy is a mercenary in it only for the mone

Re:

[Frank Burly]

. If you fight, you must fight to win and neutralize the threat, ideally crushing your attacker such that he never has the ability to threaten you again; or you lose and are destroyed.

Biden is not the President of Hyperborea.

Re:Is an opposing lawer your foe?

[fermion]

This was the defense of Ken Starr when he put Epstein back on the street to rape more teens and women. He was just being a good lawyer. But then he had to resign from Baylor university because he was implicated in athletes raping other students. Some lawyers are just doing a job. Some develop a skill set and talent for certain causes, like the lawyers who won against tobacco is now going after general drug dealers.

Good

[bubblyceiling]

Hope we get a more competitive tech industry at the end of it. One where companies don't compete by locking users into their ecosystems

Re:

[fermion]

Nope. MS messed up when it could not leverage its monopoly on the desktop to mobile, mostly because you canâ(TM)t force every phone manufacturer to pay protection money. Google is the only totally integrated online software that can provide an option to Apple, and Apple is cutting in to Google dominance already. If you lean too hard on Google Apple will be the monopoly so many believe it already is.

Re:

[shanen]

Actually Microsoft is the poster child for my solution approach. But I already noted that I don't see how we can get there from here.

Re:If Biden is serious about anti-trust

[Bahumat]

Wow, you did not read the story at all, did you?

The guy isn't a "google insider", he's a long-standing foe to Google. Foe means enemy. The opposite of friend.

Re:

[oldgraybeard]

You are completely right and I am wrong.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

he's a long-standing foe to Google.

So he's in Google's "Freaks" list?

We have such bigger problems than Google

[rsilvergun]

Facebook and Twitter. A handful of C-levels are buying up all the apartment complexes, houses and even trailer parks. They're also buying up all the hospitals and medical facilities. If the majority of our universities weren't public they'd be buying those. If this is just for show and biden's going to go after the much bigger and more important targets that's great, somehow I think he's not going to do that. He's still a neoliberal Democrat.

Worse, This is going to probably pan out like citizens united did, where the Republicans in the right wing out maneuver the Democrats and the left wing and the result is Facebook and Twitter and Google get to continue their antitrust behavior but we end up clamping down on Free speech online of a kind that's opposed to make a corporations and the C-levels.

Right now the plan by the Republican party seems to be to repeal section 230 and replace it with a dmca style rule that allows them to send a notice to Facebook or Twitter or Google that would allow them to take down any content they disagree with. In theory they'd be penalties for false flags but in practice the penalties would be so low they just pay them. And yeah you can fight it and maybe get your content back up but by the time you do everyone will move on and there'll be no impact from your words. You don't have to end speech you just have to stifle it.

Re:

[shanen]

Interesting comment. Probably deserved to be FP over any of the others I've seen so far. Or at least modded up.

But no solution approach I can detect?

Re:

[rsilvergun]

Yep you got me there. To be thoroughly blunt the only solution I can come up with is to stop voting Republican, and to show up at Democratic primaries so that you don't end up with Republicans like Joe manchin and Kirsten Sinema who put a d next to their name.

Basically we need to purge the people who are completely beholden to the C-levels out of our government and it needs to be done with democracy and not violence because when you try to use violence for something like that you just end up with a dict

Re:

[shanen]

Seems unlikely you looked at the tax-based solution approach in my longer comment on this story? It can be mapped to Facebook, too, though I'm not sure Twitter has any actual profits to be taxed, no matter what principles are applied. However, at some point Twitter has to produce some actual money? You'd think?

On the general issue, I think you're looking too far downstream. The biggest crooks have already bribed the cheapest politicians to rig the game in their favor. But I'd still argue for the google as t

I didn't but I don't think it'll work

[rsilvergun]

the entire point of buying up your competitors is that you can raise prices to any level you want. So if we just tax a monopoly more then they'll just raise prices.

That might not work for Google as they probably can't buy every advertising channel, but it would absolutely work for the company that bought up every apartment in a 50 mile radius of me (save for a few slums). I still need a place to live, so the only limit on what they can charge is the point where my neighbors start agreeing with me and d

Re:

[shanen]

In that latest version I didn't mention what the extra tax money should be used for:

(1) Careful regulation of the monopoly. (And that should include potential criminal penalties if the prices become too high. (However, monopoly law has been Borked and modern monopolists are usually cautious about naive and obvious price increases.))

(2) Research to break the monopoly, especially in cases where it is natural.

However the key is to create an easier path to higher retained earnings. By dividing the company into