If ain't broke ...

Maria Mavropoulou

If it' ain't broke ... applies to Google, an product set yours truly uses every day from Android running a smart phone to Chrome running on every system this rube uses as Google's environment works without question. Is it perfect? Not a chance as Google seems to not understand interface design like Apple but that's not the issue, legal types not knowing how tech operates at deep level is because Google's a company comprised of many interlocking and very complex software code sets able to work seamlessly with one another due to the billions of man hours and dollars spent in developing an system able the meet the needs of a significant portion of the total population of humanity living on planet earth. With this said, recommendations made by Herbert Hovenkamp, a prof at the Wharton School, makes a lot of sense regarding how to properly deal with a company as important at this one.

Remember, DOD created the F35 and we all know how that's working out so ... do we want to create another boondoggle like the F35? I thought so.

A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter from the 58th Fighter Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing, Eglin AFB, Fla. performs an aerial refueling mission with a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 336th Air Refueling Squadron from March ARB, Calif., May 14th, 2013 off the coast of Northwest Florida. The 33rd Fighter Wing is a joint graduate flying and maintenance training wing that trains Air Force, Marine, Navy and international partner operators and maintainers of the F-35 Lightning II.

Backgrounder ...

A recent Defense Department decision to approve full rate production of the troubled F-35 raises questions about whether Congress has the required access to the information they need to effectively oversee major defense acquisition programs and to challenge those that aren’t ready for production. A highly classified report issued by the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation to assess the initial operational capabilities of the F-35 was made available only briefly to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. Despite many deficiencies revealed in the report, DOD approved full rate production about a month after its release. The deficiencies are apparent in even the heavily redacted version of the report obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Project On Government Oversight. These deficiencies include the following: 

Failure to meet key availability and reliability requirements

Continued inaccuracy of the gun

Excessive logistics footprint, especially for the Marine Corps variant

Delays on promised improvements

The rapid approval despite serious unresolved issues highlights the need for more effective congressional oversight. Laws such as the Nunn-McCurdy Act and the Operational Test and Evaluation of Defense Acquisition Programs law are designed to guarantee Congress access to critical information about DOD acquisition programs so they can effectively oversee those programs. Unfortunately, congressional staff seem to have had limited access to and very little time with the report in which to understand the state of the F-35 program. Further, the statutes don’t explicitly provide Congress with a mechanism to object to a Pentagon decision to approve full rate production other than its power of the purse to decide how many to buy, and when.

Regarding Google ...

There’s no question that Google dominates the world of internet search. But in attempting to open up this critical industry to more competition, the government is pursuing a cure worse than the disease. If the government is successful at breaking up Google, history tells us that consumers and many enterprises tied to our vast and flourishing internet may ultimately pay a price.

Judge Amit P. Mehta of the D.C. Federal District Court ruled earlier this year that Google, which the Justice Department claims controls over 90 percent of online search, illegally maintained a monopoly by paying manufacturers such as Apple to make Google the default search engine on their products. Last week, the Justice Department and a group of states presented the judge with a plethora of proposed remedies. Not only should Google be required to stop paying others for default status, it must also sell Chrome, its popular web browser. It would also be barred from making itself the default search engine on its own products and disallowed from preferring its own products in search results.

The entire point of antitrust law is to promote competitive markets. Antitrust remedies are not designed to punish a wrongdoer but rather to correct the effects of a monopoly. The test for a successful remedy is whether the market becomes more competitive, with higher output or a better experience for consumers.

At this point, the Justice Department has not sufficiently explained why its proposed actions are an appropriate remedy. Some of the proposals were not addressed at any length in the judge’s opinion in the Google trial at all. Others would split up complementary products, which often leads to poorer quality outcomes and higher coordination costs, both of which would be passed on to consumers. If the government gets everything it wants, the result could remove some of the features that have made Google products so successful and result in a fractured system that requires greater user effort to get inferior results.

If it ain't broke ...