I think one solution would be to always have the parent company iname n the children company. This way you don't have github by "Github by microsoft". But any links in between should appear if a separate legal entity.
1. It makes it clear how few powerful people are owning everything.
2. It makes it obvious there's something wrong when you see that the 30 different bottles you can buy in front of you are all from coca colla
3. It makes it very obvious that there's something fishy about "chocolate chips by a france by b luxembourg by c switzerland by d ireland by big conglomerate by mondelez international"
I think using the term "by" like that at all is going to lead to serious confusion.
As we all know, GitHub is not "by" Microsoft (as in, written by them). It's under their control now, and sure, they've made a lot of changes, but the actual code was written before Microsoft purchased them.
1. It makes it clear how few powerful people are owning everything.
2. It makes it obvious there's something wrong when you see that the 30 different bottles you can buy in front of you are all from coca colla
3. It makes it very obvious that there's something fishy about "chocolate chips by a france by b luxembourg by c switzerland by d ireland by big conglomerate by mondelez international"