we got rick grimes over here walking into atlanta

To the contrary, the entire DOJ understands that FAANG and the three-letter-agencies are one revolving door. Any judge that attempts to defang Google's data collection may well run afoul of the American surveillance system, which this administration will fight tooth and nail to defend.

Not very different from how federal protectionism keeps Apple's App Store centralized despite trillions of dollars in ostensible market damage. Anyone trying to loosen America's grip on software distribution is crossing an ugly national security line that we're all too ashamed to admit exists.

Yes. We had the same comments about Gulf of America.

Edit: I don't know that there's an actual database served up by the US Gov, but governments control the naming of these things within their own jurisdictions. All of the big mapping products have the ability to serve up different names based on where you're viewing from.

And Apple just renamed: https://apnews.com/article/apple-lake-ontario-america-google...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/apple-maps-changes-name-lak...

Apple updated it yesterday. If I were Google I'd turn down that refresh rate and let someone else take the bad PR next time

Seems like something that should be user-configurable (like DNS servers). While the recent annoying renamings have drawn attention to the issue, landmark names have basically always been political.

I have been wondering this as well. I cannot imagine having this be autoupdated without review from a centralized database is a good idea. This is a process that needs to be frangible and have some friction in it.

In this day and age, GPS mapping tools have major implications for societal function, safety, economics, national security, healthcare, etc. I'm struggling to think of an industry where a sudden absence/subtle changes of named GPS mapping data would not have an effect.

If everyone relied on the same data base which could push changes to the map in the pocket of every resident of a nation that would be the first thing I would think to hack. Probably easier than actually jamming or spoofing GPS/GNSS over a huge area.

Democracy works best as a diffuse institution and is more than just voting. People are supposed to have rights and power themselves and I want them to try to make things better (whether I agree with them or not) and "corporations" are just groups of people. Needing to just go with the government, especially on something so clearly within their rights, is counter to the ideals of the system.

I can understand Google somewhat here (if I was running a business I wouldn't be happy wading into a political issue like this) but the idea that they are above criticism for just falling in line still doesn't resonate with me.

I do wonder how many people that criticize the renaming, were criticizing Obama when he rename Mt McKinley. What are the principles here? Or is it just names I like vs names I don't like.

Yeah it's meaningless to fight. Except not really. If the powers that be are corrupt we can simply keep calling it Lake Ontario across the board, and use the difference to find who is or isn't on my side on that issue.

The only people calling it Gulf of America or Lake America are hardcore MAGATs in my social circle. Even former Trump voters in my social circle are annoyed and not using the new names. So it's an effective way to figure out who is or isn't going along with the Administration today.

... proving the point that protecting big tech is a bipartisan work.

"long history of prevailing in court" is another way of saying "Google isn't being punished as much as they deserve"

> Their job isn't to make people happy.

Sure, but I think we can all agree the US legal system very, very, very rarely issues any ruling that materially punishes a corporation. Even the worst of the worst typically get off very easy.

Do you disagree with that?

What ruling? It isn't released yet. We have declining to breakup, based on behavioral remedies, and zero details.

As long as there are many competitors, that's better than a monopoly, even if some of the competitors are foreign. Powerful monopolists restricting our freedoms is not in the interest of Americans long-term.

If Alphabet allows a non-US competitor to replace them, isn't it their fault for failing to compete? The threat of replacement is supposed to be what motivates Alphabet to innovate.

It could also be argued that allowing Alphabet to sustain anticompetitive damages is exactly what creates the opportunity for them to be replaced. Alternatives to AdSense and YouTube can only succeed in America if Alphabet rests on their laurels and is artificially defended from natural price competition.

Stalin wishes he had this much reach

Standard Oil was sued for keeping low prices thanks to vertical integration prompting the classic quip about antitrust litigation.