perpetual3

People don’t make as much money in Europe in the US, and they pay more money in taxes, in exchange for education, health care, and retirement.  In the South if France (Nice), the average dual family income is €2000 per month.  So, I’m not surprised if iPhones are not as popular as cheaper androids. 


However, I lived in Monaco, and travelled frequently to Paris and Amsterdam.  In those cities I can’t say I saw any less iPhones than in the Cincinnati, OH (where I am currently living). Certainly in some situations, I only saw iPhone.

 In My opinion, iPhone is definitely a status symbol in Europe.  A luxury good. In the States, most freshman college students have iPhones.   

gatorguy said:

perpetual3 said:

gatorguy said:

maciekskontakt said:

perpetual3 said:

I think Google influences the media quite a bit.  This was covered in the news awhile back.  

I also agree that Apple stock is manipulated.  I can’t prove it, but the pattern has been happening for awhile now.  

"A bit". Biasing searches is known techique.

Yes biased searches would be a known technique, but I don't think there any evidence for Google promoting negative Apple stories and downplaying stories about their own perceived product fails...
But if ya got 'em post 'em. 

IMHO Apple is more than capable with their own marketing, much of it free. Tooting their own horn is not something Apple fails at. 

https://gizmodo.com/yes-google-uses-its-power-to-quash-ideas-it-doesn-t-li-1798646437

Ah, there is that one! Thanks for the reminder.

I assume you read the link (widely reported and easy to find with a Google search BTW) and the reason the author states Google wanted the story removed by Forbes. It was not because it was a negative story about them, heck plenty of those out there regularly surfaced with a Google Search. Her article relied on a meeting covered by a confidentiality agreement with the publication, something not even the writer disputes. If Google wanted to quash her follow-up claims of wrongdoing and coverup and unfair pressure applied, which would be the far bigger story than a +1 button, they're doing an awful job of it with plenty of search results for anyone looking for it... via a Google search. 

Google is a monopoly wielding enormous power.  Here is the link to the NYT article described in the first few paragraphs of the story I originally linked to: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-google-new-america.html?_r=0

Here are the excerpts from the Gizmodo article I focus on:
 

“After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.”

...

”After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.”

...

 I was told by my higher-ups at Forbes that Google representatives called them saying that the article was problematic and had to come down. The implication was that it might have consequences for Forbes, a troubling possibility given how much traffic came through Google searches and Google News.

...


”the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next: Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all.”

...

”Deliberately manipulating search results to eliminate references to a story that Google doesn’t like would be an extraordinary, almost dystopian abuse of the company’s power over information on the internet. I don’t have any hard evidence to prove that that’s what Google did in this instance, but it’s part of why this episode has haunted me for years: The story Google didn’t want people to read swiftly became impossible to find through Google.”

If the meeting was confidential, why didn’t they are the journalist sign and NDA or CA before or after the meeting especially after she identified herself as a journalist?  Why didn’t the public relations team and press office tell her not to publish the article?  Why didn’t Forbes tell her the reason it was taken down was because of the NDA in the first place?

My stance is to always scrutinize those who wield power. Google wields tremendous power and influence over the media, more than Apple. If you want to take their word for it, that’s your prerogative.  

But Google also wields enormous power and influence within the US government. It’s called regulatory capture:

“But it is in the area of “regulatory capture” that Google has really excelled. Regulatory capture, according to Nobel laureate George Stigler, is the process by which regulatory agencies eventually come to be dominated by the very industries they were charged with regulating. Putting aside the fact that Google chairman Eric Schmidt has visited the Obama White House more than any other corporate executive in America and that Google chief lobbyist Katherine Oyama was associate counsel to Vice President Joe Biden, the list of highly placed Googlers in the federal government is truly mind-boggling. • The US chief technology officer and one of her deputies are former Google employees. • The acting assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division is a former antitrust attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the Silicon Valley firm that represented Google. • The White House’s chief digital officer is a former Google employee. • One of the top assistants to the chairman of the FCC is a former Google employee and another ran a public lobbying firm funded in part by Google. • The director of United States Digital Service, responsible for fixing and maintaining Healthcare.gov, is a former Google employee. • The director of the US Patent and Trademark Office is the former head of patents at Google. And of course the revolving door goes both in and out of the government, as the Google Transparency Project (an independent watchdog report) clearly stated. • There have been fifty-three revolving-door moves between Google and the White House. • Those moves involved twenty-two former White House officials who left the administration to work for Google and thirty-one Google executives (or executives from Google’s main outside firms) who joined the White House or were appointed to federal advisory boards. • There have been twenty-eight revolving-door moves between Google and government that involve national security, intelligence, or the Department of Defense. Seven former national security and intelligence officials and eighteen Pentagon officials moved to Google, while three Google executives moved to the Defense Department. • There have been twenty-three revolving-door moves between Google and the State Department during the Obama administration. Eighteen former State Department officials joined Google, while five Google officials took up senior posts at the State Department. • There have been nine moves between either Google or its outside lobbying firms and the Federal Communications Commission, which handles a growing number of regulatory matters that have a major impact on the company’s bottom line. Here one can sense that Google has a type of insurance policy: at key agencies such as the FCC, the Office of Management and Budget, the patent office, and the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Google will always have a seat at the table and be able to access critical intelligence if its interests are threatened.” - Move Fast, Break Things, Johnathan Taplin