xoaArs Tribunus Angusticlaviuset Subscriptorreply2 days agoReader Favignore user
Wheels Of Confusion wrote:
Break Up Google.

No, this is stupid. The antitrust sledgehammer is a very bad choice vs actual decent consumer protection regulation. Merely having companies be smaller doesn't actually solve anything, lots of small companies are plenty nasty and that somebody can go elsewhere in theory doesn't necessarily make it any easier. In fact the "break them up so easy lol" meme is so dumb that it honestly has had me wondering if it got started as a false-flag by those opposed to any regulation at all, since it short circuits everything else. There are a lot of scalpels to try first that would be really valuable. Amongst them in no particular order (and not apply at all just to Google either):
Require read-only data access/export for a period of time. Services need to and should be able to refuse to do further business with somebody (and at scale given abuse, this necessarily requires some level of automation). But banning someone should not mean they lose any of their data, and it shouldn't require them to do any work in advance either. Unless it's due to a court order wrt illegal material, companies should be required to have a 6 month window say following a ban to allow someone to get everything. Making sure someone can get everything out would go a long way towards fixing effects and incentives.
Require paid access to a person with review powers. Human review is expensive, but if someone is willing to pay for it they should be able to get it.
Require purchase-time choice for hardware buyers to add their own certs to hardware and/or software roots. There are good reasons for App Stores and certified hardware chains and people should be able to roll with those if they want. But there are real risks too, and a legal requirement for an opt-out would be an easy requirement as a release valve.
Enshrine the notion of software ownership. Account bans and DRM should never result in the loss of purchased software, simple as that. Ongoing use of services sure, but only going forward.
No tying free OS/security updates to accounts. Doesn't need any explanation, no account should be required to receive free updates that are required for continuing functionality.
Basic warranties that match buyer expectations. The "lol 1 year but you can buy more" thing is bad. People have a rough expectation of "how long something should last" in proportion to its cost, and the price should internalize the failure rate and repair cost rather than externalize it onto an unlucky few. Maybe 1 month warranty per $20 retail up to 5 years, maybe some other formula, but while it should be up to manufacturers to figure out how to meet the goal of basic reliability, meet it they should. Lots of other issues are covered by this ("right to repair" which is a bad way). Extended warranties should only be for things like premium turnaround, enterprise level beyond EOL coverage, etc.
Spell out SLAs in standardized way, even for consumer level. Maybe the paid pro version has a 99.9% uptime guarantee and 12-hour response time etc, while in practice the consumer version only promises 95% and "here's our FAQ, or you can pay $200 per incident to talk to someone", but the latter should still be something people can understand upfront before committing.
And more, but these would be good starts. Big Companies and Big Tech in particular provide major, major benefits. They are also convenient, concentrated targets for careful, focused experiments in regulation. There is no reason we can't try to have the best of both worlds. "Break them up" is not just short sighted but lazy. We should try to make things better for everyone.