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Comment by echelon

3 days ago

I think the single biggest bad thing Google does (Android and YouTube bad practices [2] aside):

Google taxes every brand and registered trademark.

The URL bar is no longer a URL bar. It's a search bar. Google used monopoly power to take over 90% of them.

Now every product, every brand, every trademark competes in a competitive bidding process for their own hard-earned IP and market. This isn't just paying a fee, it's a bidding war with multiple sides.

If you want to strike Google at their heart, make it illegal to place ads against registered trademarks.

I'm going to launch "trademark-extortion.org" (or similar) and run a large campaign to reach F500 CEOs and legislators. This needs to end. This is the source that has allowed Google to wreak incredible harm on the entire tech sector. Happy to send this to Sam Altman and Tim Sweeny as well.

[1] Rug-pulling web installs; leveraging 3rd party vendors to establish market share and treating them like cattle; scare walls and defaults that ensure 99.99% of users wind up with ads, Google payment rails, etc. ; Google ads / chrome / search funnel ; killing Microsoft's smartphone by continually gimping YouTube and Google apps on the platform ; etc. etc. etc. The evilest company.

4 comments

echelon

Reply
xnx  2 days ago

Counterpoint: This allows competitors visibility in a space where consumers would otherwise blindly stick with overpriced brand names.

  • echelon  2 days ago

    Is it?

    Google isn't exposed in such a way.

    Hundreds of billions of dollars are being deflected to a single entity, adding to customer costs.

    This turns into a game of who has the bigger ad budget.

    Companies can compete on product and win in the court of public opinion. TikTok marketing and reviews showcase this masterfully. Even Reddit reviews.

    Yet when you go to search for those things, the Google tax bridge troll steps in and asks for their protection money.

    They're a cancer on capitalism and fair competition.

    We tell business people it's illegal to perform bribery. Yet that's exactly what this is. It's zero sum multi-party bidding, so it's even more lucrative to the single party receiving the bribes.