[HN Gopher] States bring action against Google under federal and...
___________________________________________________________________
States bring action against Google under federal and state
antitrust laws [pdf]
Author : pondsider
Score : 116 points
Date : 2020-12-16 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.texasattorneygeneral.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.texasattorneygeneral.gov)
| Despegar wrote:
| The most interesting thing is the allegation of coordination
| between Google and Facebook on page 5, paragraph 12.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| The potentially interesting part seems to be redacted? What is
| under that black box could be anything from incredible to
| mundane.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Google collaborates with many of the FAANGs - like Apple and
| the contact tracing APIs - so I'm really curious what made the
| cut here with Facebook.
| nl wrote:
| Did you read the paragraph posted?
|
| It's pretty clear (in the context of a monopoly complaint):
|
| _In March2017, Google's largest Big Tech rival, Facebook,
| announced that it would throw its weight behind header
| bidding. Like Google, Facebook brought millions of
| advertisers on board to reach the users on its social
| network. In light of Facebook's deep knowledge of its users,
| Facebook could use header bidding to operate an electronic
| marketplace for online ads in competition with Google.
| Facebook's marketplace for online ads is known as "Facebook
| Audience Network" or FAN. Google understood the severity of
| the threat to its position if Facebook were to enter the
| market and support header bidding. To diffuse this threat,
| Google made overtures to Facebook. Internal Facebook
| communications reveal that [redacted]_
|
| and
|
| _In the end, Facebook curtailed its involvement with header
| bidding in return for Google giving Facebook information,
| speed, and other advantages in the auctions that Google runs
| for publishers' mobile app advertising inventory each month
| in the United States. In these auctions, Facebook and Google
| compete head-to-head as bidders... [snip].. The parties agree
| on for how often Facebook would [redacted] publishers'
| auctions--literally manipulating the auction with [redacted]
| for how often Facebook would bid and win._
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Nope, I missed that part. That definitely seems like bid
| rigging collusion if true.
| switch11 wrote:
| that is super interesting
|
| Waiting for when they realize there is a silent agreement
| between Amazon + Google + Facebook
|
| and that they do coordinated attacks against their rivals
|
| and also against any company that is growing quickly
| dang wrote:
| Related: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/technology/google-
| monopol... (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448786,
| but no comments there)
| hardtke wrote:
| The subtitle of the New York Times article is misleading if not
| flat out wrong: "The suit focuses on the advertisements that
| generate a vast majority of the company's profits." The
| DoubleClick ad exchange most certainly does not generate the
| vast majority of the the company's profits. Search ads are
| completely independent of this lawsuit.
| nl wrote:
| In the context of the article (which also talks about the
| other separate case brought against Google) the fact that
| this goes after advertising - which does "generate the vast
| majority of the company's profits" is accurate in the
| emphasis on Google's income. The fact that it only goes after
| one part doesn't make that untrue or misleading.
| vmception wrote:
| Regulate data brokers like commodities brokers.
|
| Easy peasy. Put them under CFTC jurisdiction.
|
| Series 3 NFA exams for everyone. The spot market keep limited
| oversight, the future value of data markets get complete
| oversight.
| satellite2 wrote:
| The issue is that those are future contracts that expire in a
| few milliseconds, so by definition they are almost totally
| illiquid.
|
| At the same time you cannot really force more time for the
| auction as users often spend less than a second in front of an
| ad screen. So you effectively have only a few milliseconds to
| sell them, otherwise you would have sold an already perished
| product...
|
| So I'm not sure the existing regulations regarding future
| contracts could effectively regulate this market.
| paxys wrote:
| None of this makes any sense. What even is a "data broker"? And
| how will taking a random exam help?
| Andrex wrote:
| > 16. Having reached its monopoly position, Google now uses its
| immense market power to extract a very high tax of [redacted]
| percent of the ad dollars otherwise flowing to the countless
| online publishers and content producers like online newspapers,
| cooking websites, and blogs who survive by selling advertisements
| on their websites and apps. These costs invariably are passed
| onto the advertisers themselves and then to American consumers.
| The monopoly tax Google imposes on American businesses--
| advertisers like clothing brands, restaurants, and realtors--is a
| tax that is ultimately borne by American consumers through higher
| prices and lower quality on the goods, services, and information
| those businesses provide. Every American suffers when Google
| imposes its monopoly pricing on the sale of targeted advertising.
|
| Seems like a KO punch under the Sherman Act.
| newbie578 wrote:
| Interesting, would really like to know what the ideal government
| solution would look like?
|
| Also, if Facebook and Google are charge with antitrust, I expect
| Apple and Amazon to follow suit..
| paxys wrote:
| FWIW, several states declined to participate in the lawsuit since
| the Texas AG is involved in pretty major corruption and bribery
| scandals. He is allegedly among those in line to get pardoned by
| Trump before he leaves office. He also was the one who filed the
| recent Supreme Court challenge to throw out votes from 4 swing
| states.
|
| https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/05/texas-ken-paxton-bri...
| mikysco wrote:
| This complaint (and all anti-trust) simply comes down to how the
| legal body defines the market and to what extent Google dominates
| said market, no? It'll be interesting to watch this work through
| the system.
| llacb47 wrote:
| So many redactions
| malchow wrote:
| As someone who held numerous briefings helping to put this case
| together, I think it is extremely strong -- in fact, it will be
| difficult to imagine a cognizable defense. My congratulations to
| the several states who joined together to delve deep into those
| deleterious actions in the ad market which have so harmed the
| open internet.
| jeffbee wrote:
| This comment does not exactly refute the meme that the suit is
| part of a vast right-wing conspiracy against Google.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. Google is big
| enough and manipulative enough to have fully earned its
| enemies on both sides of the political aisle.
| justicezyx wrote:
| Given the merits of the case itself, and it's long term
| importance and short-term impact, I think the inclination to
| drag the discussion into political debate is not useful
| moosey wrote:
| The problem with the colloquial 'conspiracy' (as opposed to
| the standard legal definition of people working together
| towards a generally nefarious goal), is that they are
| impossible to disprove, for the most part. Evidence to the
| contrary is disregarded, and the lack of supporting evidence
| is used as additional evidence ('the real evidence is being
| hidden by those in power').
|
| What I see in these documents, and based on responses, is
| that the case is strong. I do see that it is from states that
| disagree with me philosophically and politically. This
| information is irrelevant and is categorization error and
| outgroup bias; the same things that I would request my
| current political opposition to give up, without success.
|
| If we all suffer from these cognitive illusions and refuse to
| abandon them, then we cannot grow as a society or a people;
| we can never have a shared understanding because the
| experiences I am basing decisions on are not a real.
|
| Discussing a "Vast right-wing conspiracy against Google"
| might be falsifiable with perfect information, but what
| percentage of 'right wing' conspirators must there be before
| it is determined true? How many 'right-wing' members - of
| which there are at least 74M - would I have to poll to find
| out if the conspiracy is vast?
|
| I don't deny that we are in an [mis]information war, but the
| boundaries of that are much better known and are often
| discussed by security experts.
| grecy wrote:
| ... and what are the potential consequences for google? I slap
| on the wrist and a fine that is 0.01% of the amount of profit
| they made from all this?
| [deleted]
| barney54 wrote:
| I like to hear from a legal expert if Texas' arguments here are
| any better than in their recent election lawsuit.
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jeffbee wrote:
| How is that unrelated? The lead AG in this suit filed a
| different suit less than a week ago with some incredibly
| spurious reasoning, including that the president-elect of the
| USA stood only a 1-per-1000000000000000 chance of having won
| the election fairly.
| hexsprite wrote:
| Their election lawsuit was never heard on it's merits, so your
| comment doesn't really apply.
| dimator wrote:
| I don't understand your comment. Did the SCOTUS not read the
| whole thing before passing on it?
| mankyd wrote:
| Whether they read it or not, they didn't comment on its
| merits, but rather said plainly that Texas doesn't have
| standing. That is to say, something may be amiss, but Texas
| can't be the one to sue over it.
|
| It's like if something went missing in your house, and your
| neighbor decides to sue because they think a thief stole
| your stuff and you didn't do a good enough job
| investigating.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Wouldn't the lack of standing be an aspect of the merits
| of the suit? In any case, the supreme court isn't the
| sole judge of the merits of a case, they are just the
| arbiters of the outcome.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| In English, yes. However, "on the merits" is a term of
| art that explicitly excludes procedural matters like "can
| you even bring this case" or "did you file on time."
| Standing is a procedural issue.
|
| So while the suit was thrown out for being obviously
| faulty, it did not fail "on its merits." Mind you, that
| does not make the objection sensible. If I write "they
| are bad because they are a poopy face" in crayon, and
| then I don't pay my filing fees and the case is thrown
| out for that reason, I am technically correct that my
| case was not heard on its merits, but that doesn't make
| it a good point.
| colonelanguz wrote:
| Standing and merits are both terms of art. Merits
| essentially means whether one side wins or not. Standing
| OTOH is a preliminary matter like jurisdiction. If the
| court lacks jurisdiction over the defendant or the
| subject matter of the dispute, they kick the case on
| jurisdiction without reaching the merits. If the
| plaintiff doesn't have standing, they kick the case on
| standing without reaching the merits.
|
| Your confusion is 100% reasonable because there is
| _conceptual_ overlap between standing and "who wins." For
| example, one aspect of standing is "injury-in-fact." That
| means "you suffered a harm recognized by the legal
| system." If the court says no standing because no injury-
| in-fact, to a layperson that's similar to saying "stop
| crying, go home." Which sounds a lot like saying "you
| lose the case."
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| The case went to the Supreme Court. It wasn't tried in
| any lower courts because cases between states have
| original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court.
|
| The Supreme Court can reject a case for lack of standing
| (the plaintiff does not have the right to sue the
| defendant) or for lack of merit (the lawsuit is obviously
| frivolous). They can also reject it if they think the
| lower court ruled correctly, but that doesn't apply here.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Whether they read it or not, they didn't comment on its
| merits, but rather said plainly that Texas doesn't have
| standing. That is to say, something may be amiss, but
| Texas can't be the one to sue over it.
|
| Sort of. Thomas and Alito said that they would hear the
| case, but wouldn't grant any of the requested relief.
| This still technically doesn't comment on the merits (the
| relief requested was not really grantable), but its more
| than just Texas can't sue over it, even if they could the
| things they were asking for couldn't be done.
| cure wrote:
| Well... let's say the reputation of the Texas AG is more than
| a little stained by that stunt. I think the skepticism is
| well deserved.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, South
| Dakota, and Utah also signed the effort to overturn the
| election results of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and
| Wisconsin (who are all absent from this action).
|
| The overlap is interesting, IMO.
| jacobolus wrote:
| The AG of Texas is an indicted fraudster whose deputies
| keep quitting as whistleblowers alleging further crimes,
| and the FBI is investigating him for bribery.
|
| The election stunt is a pretty obvious play for a pardon
| from Trump.
| whammywon wrote:
| Can pardons be given prior to conviction?
|
| Edit: According to NBC News, POTUS can pre-emptively
| issue a pardon.
|
| [0] - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-
| trump/could-trump-pa...
| whammywon wrote:
| Maybe so, but I wouldn't be surprised if it earned him
| brownie points from fervent Trump supporters. It may even
| get him re-elected by those supporters, assuming he isn't
| indicted...
| jeffbee wrote:
| You mean indicted again? He's been indicted on five
| counts of felony securities fraud for five years and is
| still being prosecuted.
| whammywon wrote:
| Ah I didn't know that he's already currently under
| indictment. Today I learned...
|
| But yes, if he has something that he can point to when
| re-election time comes around and say "Look, I tried to
| help Trump out" then it will probably guarantee him
| votes.
|
| I'm a Texas resident and didn't know he had already been
| indicted. But I tend to vote Libertarian for local and
| state positions so I didn't really look too much into his
| background.
| spdustin wrote:
| I know you're writing about the Texas lawsuit, but that suit
| was tangentially related to, among others, the lawsuit in
| Wisconsin, which made similar allegations that state laws
| were not being followed.
|
| Generously, that lawsuit in Wisconsin _was_ heard on its
| merits [0]. It was dismissed with prejudice.
|
| The Federal judge that issued the ruling--a Trump appointee--
| said: "This is an _extraordinary_ case. A sitting president
| who did not prevail in his bid for reelection has asked for
| federal court help in setting aside the popular vote based on
| disputed issues of election administration, issues he plainly
| could have raised before the vote occurred. This Court has
| allowed plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost
| on the merits. In his reply brief, plaintiff "asks that the
| Rule of Law be followed." (Pl. Br., ECF No. 109.) It has
| been. "
|
| [0]: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20423518/trum
| p_ca...
| wavefunction wrote:
| The argument was literally that the State of Texas has an
| interest in the elections of other states and was rejected on
| a lack of standing which is an emphatic "No" to the argument.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Standing is not merits. These are legal terms that have
| legal definitions.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Perhaps not in formal legal parlance, but if the top
| commenter was asking about merits in the common
| understanding of the term (which stands to reason given
| they are a non-lawyer) then standing is definitely an
| aspect of the merits of a case.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| "Heard on its merits" is a legal phrase as well. I think
| hexsprite knew exactly what they were trying to say.
| StillBored wrote:
| As a Texan this is really what upsets me more about these fake
| lawsuits that Texas keeps tossing out, mostly to make political
| statements. The election suit is hardly the first. Someone
| appears to have discovered that the state can't be censured or
| have its legal license revoked. So they are making a mockery of
| the actual legal power of the state.
|
| But of course anyone who digs into the jurisdictional games the
| Texas AG has been playing to avoid criminal prosecution
| wouldn't be surprised at this behavior.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Here we go I figured after the FTC filed against facebook Google
| had to be right around the corner. It is interesting that it's
| almost all conservative state filing maybe they want to avoid
| issues with the DNC and it's close relationship with Google?
| refulgentis wrote:
| This was announced a month or two back, complaint came out
| today, TL;DR the case theory is weak and perceived as rushed so
| many, many, states didn't opt-in and are working on their own
| action
|
| (side note: winks at politically-based conspiracies aren't
| something I'm used to seeing on HN, it beggers belief that
| you'd have 36 states, mixed politically, agree to collude in
| favor of the _checks notes_ DNC because _checks notes_ Google
| 's ex-CEO got involved in politics work _checks notes_ after he
| exited)
| nl wrote:
| The complaint a few months ago was different to this one.
|
| That one was pretty weak (IMHO), but this one seems narrower
| focused and much stronger.
| shemnon42 wrote:
| Not quite after he exited. It was while he was Chairman of
| the Board, and in at least one instance he used his Google
| email to engage in political work that would get any other
| Googler sanctioned, but got a pass because he's Eric Schmidt.
| Had he used personal emails in all cases it would have been
| ok per corporate rule.
|
| The rest of your claims are indeed tin-foil hat worthy.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| Simpler explanation: political relations have severely broken
| down all over the country. Maybe the (R) attorneys general and
| their offices just couldn't get along well enough with the (D)s
| to file anything together.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Texas, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri,
| North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah
|
| vs. Google
|
| And the crux of the complaint seems to be:
|
| "As internal Google documents reveal, Google sought to kill
| competition and has done so through an array of exclusionary
| tactics, including an unlawful agreement with Facebook, its
| largest potential competitive threat, to manipulate advertising
| auctions."
| wnevets wrote:
| is this the same texas ag that tried to overturn the election?
| paxys wrote:
| Yes. It was a stunt to get a pardon from Trump before he
| leaves office, considering he is involved in several lawsuits
| ranging from securities fraud to bribery.
| adrr wrote:
| Complaint is based on the Sherman act. Sherman act requires
| harm to the end customer which be interesting to see how they
| show a negative impact to the public. I have free email, web
| browser, maps and other things paid for by google.
| nl wrote:
| The end customers for advertising are businesses.
|
| The argument in the complaint is this (paragraph 16):
|
| _The monopoly tax Google imposes on American businesses--
| advertisers like clothing brands, restaurants, and realtors--
| is a tax that is ultimately borne by American consumers
| through higher prices and lower quality on the goods,
| services, and information those businesses provide. Every
| American suffers when Google imposes its monopoly pricing on
| the sale of targeted advertising._
| reidjs wrote:
| Could you make the argument that because it's nearly
| impossible to compete with their free offerings, no other
| company has a chance in that space?
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| From what I've read, this is the direction some anti-trust
| lawyers want the interpretation of the law to go in.
| nl wrote:
| Hopefully this doesn't work. That will cause enormous harm
| to consumers, particularly as compute and bandwidth costs
| continue to fall.
|
| Free to consumers is generally a net good, since it gives
| them access to things they wouldn't otherwise have.
| cle wrote:
| I thought this was a dead horse, but you are not the
| customer.
| godtoldmetodoit wrote:
| The customer in the context of ad buys is every business
| attempting to do online marketing. You are the product.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _customer in the context of ad buys is every business
| attempting to do online marketing_
|
| Courts interpreting SS 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act have
| generally used the term "consumer welfare," which sidesteps
| this issue. (The original text makes no reference to this
| concept.)
| ballenf wrote:
| The only service Google offers for free is showing ads.
| Everything else is just the vehicle used to improve or
| display those ads.
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| If they have helped the user through A, B, C, D and E, and
| hurt them through F, you can still take them to task for F
| specifically. The fact that they funded the rest from profits
| gained through F isn't really a valid defense.
| jeffbee wrote:
| What's it going to take for governments to produce PDFs with
| hyperlinked tables of contents?
| azuriten wrote:
| I don't think I've ever come across any legal document/lawsuit
| or otherwise, that was formatted in a way that made it easy to
| read.
|
| I know it's on purpose like with Privacy Policies/Terms of
| Service but I really want to read them and know what I'm
| getting myself into. It's just that they do such a good job of
| obfuscating everything with legalese. At least with Terms of
| Service, there's a handy extension called "Terms of Service,
| Didn't Read". https://tosdr.org/
| stordoff wrote:
| I've seen some miserable formatting in older contracts. I was
| doubling-checking the documents for a house sale a few years
| ago, and came across a sentence that was over half a page
| long without _any_ punctuation. Even though I have a law
| degree, it took me the best part of half an hour to be 100%
| confident of the intended meaning and that I hadn't
| overlooked something.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Legalese is a technical language. As far as I'm concerned,
| it's as close to plain English as SQL: close at first glance,
| but actully quite distinct.
| [deleted]
| ortusdux wrote:
| Tax money. You get what you pay for.
| [deleted]
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| >211. Google falsely told publishers that adopting AMP would
| enhance load times, but Google employees knew that AMP only
| improves the [redacted] and AMP pages can actually [redacted]
| [redacted] [redacted]. In other words, the ostensible benefits of
| faster load times for cached AMP version of webpages were not
| true for publishers that designed their web pages for speed. Some
| publishers did not adopt AMP because they knew their pages
| actually loaded faster than AMP pages.
|
| Vindication for everybody pointing out that amp pages don't
| actually load faster, they were just incompatible with things
| that commonly made sites load slower.
|
| >212. Google also [redacted] _of non-AMP ads by giving them
| artificial one second delays_ in order to give Google AMP a
| [redacted] [redacted] slows down header bidding, which Google
| uses to turn around and denigrate header bidding for being too
| slow.
|
| Seems damning. (emphasis mine)
|
| Wonder what all the redacted is.
|
| Also glad to see that google's preferring of amp sites in
| searches is going to get them in trouble, as that was basically
| the primary complaint I had with it. AMP pages would show up in
| searches for dynamic content, despite its restriction of static
| pages
| scarmig wrote:
| Entirely aside from the merits, I'd be so happy if this lawsuit
| somehow resulted in the destruction of AMP.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > they were just incompatible with things that commonly made
| sites load slower.
|
| I always thought that was the entire point.
| CivBase wrote:
| This is the first I've heard of that one-second delay. That's
| downright evil. Whoever is responsible for that should be
| ashamed.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I wonder how the team adding in that extra delay justified it
| to themselves?
|
| I always wonder this with things like the Volkswagen
| emissions cheating - how do those engineers rationalise it?
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Well, working in ad-tech is pretty much bad from the get-
| go, this just seems like more of the same to me. To be
| fair, unlike VW diesels, it's also not directly damaging
| anyone's health, but it's still a nasty business.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _it 's also not directly damaging anyone's health_
|
| I completely disagree. Have you noticed how much targeted
| advertising has sold out our world and affected peoples
| ability to rationally think?
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| They justified it by earning very high salaries. Turned
| around, it is very difficult for a person to see a problem,
| if their salary depends on not seeing the problem.
| jefftk wrote:
| It looks to me like the design for this was
| https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/3133
|
| (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, and I'm friends with
| some of the people at the link)
| three_seagrass wrote:
| So tl;dr: Traditional HTML+JS ads have always needed an
| extra second delay to load because of cross-domain UX
| degredation, but because AMP is pre-caching pages, they're
| able to pre-cache the ads too?
|
| Is that what I'm reading?
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I believe that the idea is that if the ad is amp, you can
| be sure it will load fast and not impede the ux of the
| page, whereas if it's html/js, you can't. It isn't about
| whether it is cached or not.
| mtgx wrote:
| People are way too quick to defend Google around here - and
| I'm saying that as a former Google _evangelist_.
|
| Google does a LOT of crap like that these days. Most people
| just aren't aware just how "evil" they've become, or prefer
| to defend them with nonsensical arguments like "see, Google
| still throws the Don't Be Evil motto somewhere at the very
| end of their multi-page work of conduct document, so
| technically they still believe in it!"
| absolutelyrad wrote:
| Name and shame every employee that contributed to these
| things. Then break up Google.
| redisman wrote:
| What good do these witch hunts accomplish? Punish the
| senior leadership that demanded this feature
| absolutelyrad wrote:
| If you don't speak up, you're complicit.
| calcifer wrote:
| > What good do these witch hunts accomplish? Punish the
| senior leadership
|
| I believe this line of thought and justification was
| addressed for good in the Nuremberg Trials.
| edgyquant wrote:
| That is beyond hyperbole. These are people implementing a
| caching feature not individuals leading human being into
| death camps. A false equivalency seldom matched.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Whoever is responsible for that should be ashamed._
|
| Isn't it the CEO?
| stefan_ wrote:
| > Google also provided Facebook with a [...]. Google subjects
| other marketplaces competing for publishers' inventory in Open
| Bidding to 160 millisecond timeouts. Competitors have actively
| complained that is not enough time to recognize users in auctions
| and return bids before they are excluded. By comparison, Google
| [...]. The longer timeouts granted by Google were presumably
| designed to aid FAN win more auctions to abide by the spirit of
| the agreement.
|
| Not sure why these were redacted but it seems pretty clear what
| happened. Is Google actually running the monopoly marketplace and
| tilting the scales in its own favor? That seems like a knockout
| right there.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Note: quote above is paragraph 186.
|
| Google started by giving Facebook longer timeout, but they went
| further. Paragraph 194 says:
|
| > The agreement allocated a portion of publishers' auction wins
| to Facebook, subverting the free operation of supply and
| demand.
|
| Now wins are simply allocated to Facebook without competition.
| xxpor wrote:
| I can't read the pdf because for some reason it flashes every
| second on whatever brave is using for pdf rendering.
|
| Do they discuss why states have standing to sue for violations of
| the Sherman act? Maybe this is a common thing but states trying
| to enforce federal law in federal court seems strange.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > Maybe this is a common thing but states trying to enforce
| federal law in federal court seems strange
|
| Any inter-state action would be in federal court. Think about
| it for a minute ...
| jerbs wrote:
| It's fairly common in antitrust. Section 16 of the Clayton Act
| [1] gives states power to bring federal antitrust suits on
| behalf of their residents, and states will often bring both
| federal antitrust claims and state antitrust/unfair and
| deceptive trade practices claims in the same suit, as the
| states here are doing. Incidentally, if you're interested in
| the surprisingly expansive role of state attorneys general, the
| National Association of Attorneys General has published a
| fascinating (though pricy) book that goes into the common
| powers of state AGs in more detail than anybody would want.[2]
| The website for James Tierney's State AGs course at Columbia
| also has a lot of interesting readings.[3]
|
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/15c [2]
| https://www.naag.org/publication/state-attorneys-general-pow...
| [3] https://www.stateag.org/syllabus-2020
| gnz00 wrote:
| It doesn't seem to touch on the most glaring abuse in my opinion,
| which is the widgets on their search page that directly competes
| with websites bidding for page ranking.
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