4 ms·

Breaking up the tech giants is not a solution to the problems that confront us. Legislation about our rights to digital privacy and related issues are; I hope t

Breaking up the tech giants is not a solution to the problems that confront us. Legislation about our rights to digital privacy and related issues are; I hope the powers that be work on that instead of this sound-byte friendly "let's break 'em up" approach. A 2-person company could compromise your privacy just as easily as a 2-trillion dollar company.

awinder 8y ago
You could even exactly pass GDPR as a first measure — there would be a head start on crafting legislation, and businesses are largely implemented against it, they just need to extend existing practice to US customers / users. Even that is going to be a hard sell in the political climate though. Twisting to take an even more abrasive and high-touch action is just not going to happen. Hopefully democrats will learn to calm themselves down and inject some degree of sanity over the next year because Americans deserve a rational alternative to the era of Donald trump. Not some Sophie’s Choice of two shock-and-awe Americas.
- ianai 8y ago
  Legislation requires a 2/3rds control of government. The republicans have a stranglehold on the US senate due to every state getting two senators. There are simply more rural, conservative states than would tolerate that change. Warrens idea points out a better idea. Presidential candidates from non-republicans can do their most work with powers the presidency already has: drug criminalization, immigration, pardon powers, etc. I’m pretty sure a president can break up companies under the trust buster acts from the late 1800s, but I'm basing that on decades old public schooling.
  - awinder 8y ago
    The platform utility stuff would all require new legislation. Maybe the argument is that you threaten antitrust cases unless tech goes along but that too would apply to gdpr or some other low touch solution.
- hindsightbias 8y ago
  Any large US organization that does international business has adopted a GDPR-everywhere model because supporting different processes by GEO becomes a nightmare (effectively impossible). It only takes treating one visting EU citizen wrong in the US to create a legal disaster. The difference is Americans can't sue, but they're already benifiting from corporate processes pounding every square process into a round hole (for better and worse).
bilbo0s 8y ago
>Legislation about our rights to digital privacy and related issues are... This! A thousand times this! What good does it do to break these companies up if they can all share my data with each other freely in any case? And if we make the sharing of data EXPLICITLY illegal with harsh repercussions, a la HIPAA, then I don't really need for them to be broken up. It's just sound bite politics that will land we the people in the same place we started. Probably a worse place, because we will have split up what was a 9mm data privacy bullet into what would effectively be a shotgun blast.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  The Apple phantom monopoly came up several times already on HN. Here is my best guess of a cause, seen from over here in Europe: I get the impression that in the US, ~everybody who can afford it chooses iPhones, so rich educated liberal types on some emotional level don't realize that "iPhone" is just one product in the smartphone market, which is plenty diverse enough.
time0ut 8y ago
I'd like to see them work on a digital bill of rights. I'm not sure what such a thing would look like, but I hope it would enshrine privacy in a way that will stand the test of time. It would benefit the individual citizen though, so it is probably damn near impossible to do at this point.
platz 8y ago
Facebook should not have been allowed to acquire Instagram. The law targeting monopoly is broken in the digital era.
- oldgradstudent 8y ago
  The law is not broken, it's just that no one has bothered enforcing it in the last few decades. One reason is that much of the mainstream economic discipline has pronounced that antitrust is "a jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance." to quote Alan Greenspan. As an example of how views changes is a quote from the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890: > Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court. But today, the business mode of almost every startup is to monopolize some part of the trade or commerce, preferably all around the world. The announce it publicly without any concern about antitrust enforcement.
ruskerdax 8y ago
Legislation about rights and digital privacy are also not answers, because they will be promptly ignored or subverted to the point of uselessness. Governments allow you to be violated, at the request of the wealthy and currently-powerful. Appealing to governments to solve this issue will not work.

awinder 8y ago

You could even exactly pass GDPR as a first measure — there would be a head start on crafting legislation, and businesses are largely implemented against it, they just need to extend existing practice to US customers / users. Even that is going to be a hard sell in the political climate though. Twisting to take an even more abrasive and high-touch action is just not going to happen. Hopefully democrats will learn to calm themselves down and inject some degree of sanity over the next year because Americans deserve a rational alternative to the era of Donald trump. Not some Sophie’s Choice of two shock-and-awe Americas.

ianai 8y ago
Legislation requires a 2/3rds control of government. The republicans have a stranglehold on the US senate due to every state getting two senators. There are simply more rural, conservative states than would tolerate that change. Warrens idea points out a better idea. Presidential candidates from non-republicans can do their most work with powers the presidency already has: drug criminalization, immigration, pardon powers, etc. I’m pretty sure a president can break up companies under the trust buster acts from the late 1800s, but I'm basing that on decades old public schooling.
- awinder 8y ago
  The platform utility stuff would all require new legislation. Maybe the argument is that you threaten antitrust cases unless tech goes along but that too would apply to gdpr or some other low touch solution.
hindsightbias 8y ago
Any large US organization that does international business has adopted a GDPR-everywhere model because supporting different processes by GEO becomes a nightmare (effectively impossible). It only takes treating one visting EU citizen wrong in the US to create a legal disaster. The difference is Americans can't sue, but they're already benifiting from corporate processes pounding every square process into a round hole (for better and worse).

bilbo0s 8y ago

>Legislation about our rights to digital privacy and related issues are... This! A thousand times this! What good does it do to break these companies up if they can all share my data with each other freely in any case? And if we make the sharing of data EXPLICITLY illegal with harsh repercussions, a la HIPAA, then I don't really need for them to be broken up. It's just sound bite politics that will land we the people in the same place we started. Probably a worse place, because we will have split up what was a 9mm data privacy bullet into what would effectively be a shotgun blast.

ahartmetz 8y ago
The Apple phantom monopoly came up several times already on HN. Here is my best guess of a cause, seen from over here in Europe: I get the impression that in the US, ~everybody who can afford it chooses iPhones, so rich educated liberal types on some emotional level don't realize that "iPhone" is just one product in the smartphone market, which is plenty diverse enough.

time0ut 8y ago

I'd like to see them work on a digital bill of rights. I'm not sure what such a thing would look like, but I hope it would enshrine privacy in a way that will stand the test of time. It would benefit the individual citizen though, so it is probably damn near impossible to do at this point.

platz 8y ago

Facebook should not have been allowed to acquire Instagram. The law targeting monopoly is broken in the digital era.

oldgradstudent 8y ago
The law is not broken, it's just that no one has bothered enforcing it in the last few decades. One reason is that much of the mainstream economic discipline has pronounced that antitrust is "a jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance." to quote Alan Greenspan. As an example of how views changes is a quote from the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890: > Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court. But today, the business mode of almost every startup is to monopolize some part of the trade or commerce, preferably all around the world. The announce it publicly without any concern about antitrust enforcement.

ruskerdax 8y ago

Legislation about rights and digital privacy are also not answers, because they will be promptly ignored or subverted to the point of uselessness. Governments allow you to be violated, at the request of the wealthy and currently-powerful. Appealing to governments to solve this issue will not work.