Less accessible, if being a YouTube TV subscriber is a prerequisite (US only). Gotta pump up those subscription numbers, I guess.

Well, your examples are phishing via email. There's a lot of that going on. Just look for "To: undisclosed-recipients:" in your mail headers.

SMS as well, I imagine. And "impersonating organizations like the IRS or the U.S. Postal Service" is pretty easy, given the weak security of our wireless infrastructure. And there are legitimate "mass SMS broadcasters", so that by itself isn't new either.

what bothers me is that Google is seeking grounds to go after these people extra-judicially. I just don't trust them not to abuse such powers.

Well, Google cares. Or should care, since they are (supposedly) selling them a secure environment. But probably the easiest solution is a bit of public service announcement user education:

Do not click on in-message links. Go to the official home page and log in from there.

You do not appear to understand what a republic or a democracy is, so I'll ignore the last sentence.

"Independent" does not mean unaccountable to the people. The President is independent of Congress, and vice versa, but both are accountable to the people. Well, the current president doesn't seem to think so, but legally he is.

The civil service is not a part of the executive but is a co-equal branch.

You are correct. In principle, presidents have no authority whatsoever to dictate how an agency runs. The executive branch should have zero authority over the civil service, which is intended to constitute a fourth co-equal branch of government.

In the US, in principle, the status of the civil service as co-equal to, and independent of, the executive should be added to the Constitution and enshrined in law for good measure. Not that that would help much with the current SCOTUS, but a Constitutional change might possibly persuade the current government that absolute authoritatian control is not as popular as Trump thinks.

That is the idea that, in Britain, entities like the NHS and the BBC have operated under. Charters specify the responsibilties and duties, and guarantee the funding needed to provide these, but the organisation is (supposed) to carry these out wholly independently of the government of the day.

It actually worked quite well for some time, but has been under increasing pressure and subject to increasing government sabotage over the past 20-25 years.

It's also the idea behind science/engineering research funding bodies the world over. These should direct funding for grant proposals not on political whim or popularity but on the basis of what is actually needed. Again, though, it does get sabotaged a fair bit.

Exactly how you'd mitigate this is unclear, many governments have - after all - the leading talent in manipulation, corruption, and kickbacks. But presumably, strategies can be devised to weaken political influence.

Movie theater seats would be a better analogy. We can seat the entire town. But we will only show what our parent company has produced.

Good point. I left that out of my list.

We have also elected officials to be empowered with the responsibility for enforcing laws. Nobody elected Google. And 'we' have put the collective rope and tree approach to law enforcement behind us.

I hope so. The Chinese group doesn't appear to be using any of Google's resources for their scams*. They aren't the Internet Police or the telecom police. If they want to play cop, I'll put a cap pistol and tin sheriffs badge under their Christmas tree.

*It seems to me that Google needs to keep their GMail users from emailing out scams first. John 8:7.

So then, nothing to do with Google account takeover. Your last statement was in error then?

SMS and other mobile technologies are notoriously insecure (read up on SS7). Anyone who requests my phone number for 2FA deserves to have their accounts pwned.

... is SMS traffic to/from my mobile devices any of Googles concern?

Buy an ad.

Why a single location? Do you want one movie theater in town?

Perhaps we need to look back at the antitrust cases, a major one involving Paramount. But now it's Netflix becoming the vertically integrated giant. Let multiple streaming companies, theaters, CATV operators and DVD producers bundle and sell studio content as they see fit. Thus allowing the consumer to select the package that is best for them.

Absent that, either Paramount or Netflix should be required to spin off their streaming business from production as a condition for acquiring Warner Brothers content.