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Oracle Google The Courts

Oracle's Hidden Hand Is Behind the Google Antitrust Lawsuits (bloomberg.com) 51

Posted by BeauHD from the pulling-the-strings dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: With great fanfare last week, 44 attorneys general hit Google with two antitrust complaints, following a landmark lawsuit the Justice Department and 11 states lodged against the Alphabet Inc. unit in October. What's less known is that Oracle Corp. spent years working behind the scenes to convince regulators and law enforcement agencies in Washington, more than 30 states, the European Union, Australia and at least three other countries to rein in Google's huge search-and-advertising business. Those efforts are paying off.

Officials in more than a dozen of the states that sued Google received what has been called Oracle's "black box" presentation showing how Google tracks users' personal information, said Ken Glueck, Oracle's top Washington lobbyist and the architect of the company's antitrust campaign against Google. Glueck outlined for Bloomberg the presentation, which often entails putting an Android phone inside a black briefcase to show how Google collects users' location details -- even when the phones aren't in use -- and confirmed the contours of the pressure campaign. "I couldn't be happier," said Glueck about the barrage of lawsuits. "As far as I can tell, there are more states suing Google than there are states." Oracle has fallen behind the tech giants in the marketplace, yet is notching one legal and regulatory win after another against them, Google especially. In response, Google spokesman Jose Castaneda denounced Oracle's "cloak-and-dagger lobbying campaign," saying "while Oracle describes itself as the biggest data broker on the planet, we're focused on keeping consumers' information safe and secure."
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Oracle's Hidden Hand Is Behind the Google Antitrust Lawsuits More

Oracle's Hidden Hand Is Behind the Google Antitrust Lawsuits

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  • Oracle suing competitors (Score:3)

    by Voice of satan ( 1553177 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @06:08PM (#60860970)

    As always. Not that i am really a fan of Google.

  • amongst thieves.

    • And this can backfire badly making Oracle next in line for antitrust attacks.

      Maybe Demolition Man was partially right, it wasn't a war among the fast food franchises that was coming but a more sinister large corporation war. The question is which corporation that will survive and become Big Brother.

  • "we're focused on keeping consumers' information safe and secure" you mean safe and secure from those that haven't paid google for it? This is yet another battle of two mega evil scumbag corporations, neither of which give a shit about users.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 )
      All opinions of Google aside, it still is better that Google is better at securing consumer information. While not selling the data is better than selling it, restricting the access to those that paid for it is better than just anyone with the desire being able to access it.

      • Does Google sell consumer information? I thought that Google merely used the information internally. At least, that's what Google claims.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Xenx ( 2211586 )
          Google says they don't. I have no clue if they do or don't. The person I replied to implies they do. I'm only saying it's still better to secure the data, even if they're selling it.
        • the actually answer is gray. they may not directly sell your data but they do facilitate its sale. a good read https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]

  • Oracle and Google (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @06:18PM (#60861000)
    They're both terrible companies, for different reasons -- but given the choice I'd have to root for Google in this particular fight.

  • Googles Worst Aspect (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @06:44PM (#60861060) Journal
    Google's worst aspect is not the privacy antitrust stuff. But let's say it's 45% of it. The other 55% is its advertising algorithms being used for searches on politics, history, opinions, etc. Since the algorithm(s) is designed to show people what it thinks they want to see, it serves them that, regardless of the context. And the more the users look at those results, the more the algorithm steers them in that direction. Until we have people completely convinced of their positions because of what their searches keep showing them. And it is destroying countries. I think most on this forum can agree on this (I hope so). So if there is some way to break up Google using the other half of their egregious behaviours so that this half can be dismantled, then good. Regardless of who caused it. If personal information were made extremely hard to get a hold of (ideally not at all, but then there is reality), then there might be a chance not to be able to steer people down these dark bipartisan holes. IMHO.

    • I have a hard time agreeing that the worst thing about Google is that it shows you what you want to see.

      I'd say rather that the worst thing about our society is that people are too fucking dumb to look for evidence against their positions. When I go looking for facts with Google, I find them. If you search both for your position and its counterpoint, then you get the whole argument.

      This is literally no different from print media. Newspapers, for example, have always displayed bias. And if you wanted both si

  • One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison?

  • Can't say it's unexpected that Oracle does something evil towards another company.
    Can't say I'm not surprised that Oracle did something good that benefits people.

  • "ORACLE" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @06:59PM (#60861098)

    One
    Rich
    Asshole
    Called
    Larry
    Ellison

    Also: "Oracle is the #1 law firm in Silicon Valley. Strangely, they seem to have a software side business" [ycombinator.com]

    • Right, "One Rich Asshole" vs "The Don't be Evil has Left the Building".

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Also: "Oracle is the #1 law firm in Silicon Valley. Strangely, they seem to have a software side business"

      Oracle laid off or fired all of their engineers and programmers over the last three years or so.
      They have no software side business.

      Oracle is the largest silicon valley law firm which has outsourced their software side business to India so they don't have to bother with anything so far away from their core business focus.

  • They've switched from a tech company to a law firm.
    Hopefully the rest of the world realises this and stops paying the Larry tax

  • with a rusty poker. But especially Oracle. Oh, and especially Google. May they both spend the remainder of their grasping disingenuous corporate lives being run by lawyers.

  • When you can't do, sue (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @08:09PM (#60861274) Journal

    Oracle has fallen behind the tech giants in the marketplace, yet is notching one legal and regulatory win after another against them

  • Oracle's not safe from antitrust either. (Score:3)

    by timjones ( 78467 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @08:11PM (#60861278) Homepage
    I think they're just pissed because Google isn't using Oracle's infernally-bad database to store all the users' data in.

  • The general public can only benefit from this activity. Legislators are not bright enough to figure out what the tech snoopers are doing, and it is a good thing that Oracle is explaining it to them. Maybe they will take some useful action as a result. Oracle's motives are another matter entirely, but I really don't care about them in this case.

  • Simple solution to kill G and FB.

  • That we literally have the best government that money can buy....

  • Amazing! Oracle somehow forced Google to illegally abuse its monopoly position. Oracle has some crazy super-powers!

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