Anyone else notice a rise in snarky comments? Are people just stressed out or something?

[Jungle Explorer]

It's time to pull a Ma Bell on Google and put them back in their place.

I agree, but the issue is that the Anti-Trust laws are exclusive to the US and Google is a global company. The internet has presented some real obstacles to enforcing national laws on international companies. The only way to effectively do it would be for the US to take control of all internet traffic and out of the US and filter out content from companies that do not comply with US anti-trust laws. China does this. But the US also has censorship and privacy laws the prevent the government from doing this so that further complicates the issue. Another factor is that companies like Google have become too big to fail. How many millions of companies have Google products so interwoven into their businesses that if they were to lose access to google, they might go out of business?

I think your right though. Google has stopped caring about the consumer. They don't need to consumer anymore, the consumer needs them, so they don't have to worry about catering to the consumer.

 

[Cephus]

I agree, but the issue is that the Anti-Trust laws are exclusive to the US and Google is a global company. The internet has presented some real obstacles to enforcing national laws on international companies. The only way to effectively do it would be for the US to take control of all internet traffic and out of the US and filter out content from companies that do not comply with US anti-trust laws. China does this. But the US also has censorship and privacy laws the prevent the government from doing this so that further complicates the issue. Another factor is that companies like Google have become too big to fail. How many millions of companies have Google products so interwoven into their businesses that if they were to lose access to google, they might go out of business?

I think your right though. Google has stopped caring about the consumer. They don't need to consumer anymore, the consumer needs them, so they don't have to worry about catering to the consumer.

Google is still based in the U.S. and is liable to follow American laws whether they like it or not. Until they move their entire company elsewhere, they can still be broken up here. If they want to go exist in China, more power to them. Breaking them up gives other companies a chance to compete in the most lucrative market on the planet.