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U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
- adreamingsoul 6y agohttps://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20210414/111451/HMKP-117-JU00-20210414-SD001.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20210414/111451/HMKP...
- the-dude 6y agoAnd Microsoft is not in this list. Who would have predicted that?
- capableweb 6y agoProbably Reuters editors who made it so, Microsoft is mentioned plenty in the report itself (https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20210414/111451/HMKP-117-JU00-20210414-SD001.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20210414/111451/HMKP...), I'm getting 74 hits when searching for "Microsoft".
- the-dude 6y agoThanks for checking.
- PretzelPirate 6y agoMost of those references are talking about how Microsoft can’t compete with its competitors who own the market (AWS, chrome, Google search, etc...). There is some talk about Office though.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- asah 6y agoIBM and Microsoft already had their anti-trust run-ins in the 80s and 90s.
- the-dude 6y agoSo what happened?
- ohashi 6y agoWhat sector does Microsoft dominate these days? They actually are pretty good at competing. Major units at Microsoft: OS. This one is old, gone through anti trust stuff already. There's Mac / Linux. Cloud. Azure is competing against AWS, GCP, everyone else. Gaming. Xbox has Sony and Nintendo. The strongest monopoly argument is still operating system/office, but even that Google is eroding away at office. The server market is dominated by *nix. Microsoft do have enormous stockpiles of cash and are acquiring things and behaving similarly to the others. But their major monopoly has already been tested and their power is waning according to market share (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...).
- lotsofpulp 6y ago> But their major monopoly has already been tested and their power is waning according to market share (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...). I don’t see their power waning. Their control of Office and Windows lets them bundle things like Teams and OneDrive, which puts pressure on smaller companies like Slack (sold to Salesforce) and Dropbox, who have a harder time selling when MS is throwing in OneDrive for free if you’re already buying Windows/Office/Exchange/Azure/etc.
- quickthrowman 6y agoLet’s all shed a tear for the billionaire founders of slack and dropbox, if it wasn’t for Microsoft they’d have 10 billion each instead of 1-2 billion. Poor Drew, poor Stewart, the world has been cruel and unforgiving to them. Have you considered that perhaps file storage and chat rooms aren’t innovative ideas that deserve massive multi-billion dollar rewards?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y agoCould you explain why you think that they should be?
- akie 6y agoBreak up Google.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoAnd Amazon. And Microsoft. And Apple. And Netflix. And every other conglomerate...
- nightwing 6y agoAnd USA and China, they are too big and a threat to everyone else.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoImperialism and colonialism are the greatest threats to humanity. The actors don't matter, intentions don't matter. Actions matter. CCP and the US elite are the two worst group of actors by number in the world.
- odiroot 6y agoOne is unlike the others. You're probably looking at Facebook, Oracle. Netflix is a small fish.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoI'm open to discussion. My inclusion of Netflix is based upon their ownership of content and distribution, last mile excluded. Which reminds me to mention: Comcast, and co, as well as the mobile carrier companies for inclusion. I'd definitely agree that Oracle should face more scrutiny but don't know enough about their business to say much besides the fact that they're starting to look like Yahoo and IBM. Facebook is a given.
- etripe 6y agoHow do you define "last mile"? I worked at ISPs that housed Netflix storage boxes in their access layer, i.e. the last site before the cable/fibre/copper pairs went to customers' houses or mobile towers. So do you specifically mean "except the access layer" (not accurate) or "except the last mile pairs" (accurate)? I think the distinction matters when considering monopolistic behaviour, because it determines service quality (access speed, loading times, maximum throughput...)
- capableweb 6y ago> potentially barring companies like Amazon.com from operating the markets in which they also compete Absolutely bananas that this haven't been fixed yet! How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it? Obviously for-profit companies will abuse their positions if it'll earn them more money, and fines ends up being the cost of doing business instead of deterrents. How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? They should have been forced to divide their business long time ago. Of course they are gonna use metrics from competitors that only they have access to, in order to make their own product line get better. Why is Google allowed to rank their own products in front of more general results? Try searching for "Earth" on Google and see what the top hit is. Is that really a fair ranking? We don't even know, because no one knows how their algorithm is working, but one thing is clear, Google products consistently rank higher than anything else in the search engine. The list goes on. I'm happy that it's being suggested, I'm just worried how it took so long to get here.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago> How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? They should have been forced to divide their busin Depends on how you define “marketplace”. Costco/Walmart/Best Buy/Target/Home Depot/Lowe’s/grocery stores all sell their own brands next to competing brands in their stores. Is their one store the marketplace? It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website.
- starfallg 6y agoAntitrust legislation usually kick in when there is a dominant participant in the market that is abusing their position. So shops having their own-brand products competing with products from vendors is fine until the company in question has an effective hold on that market.
- capableweb 6y ago
- dbetteridge 6y ago"A year after initiating the investigation, we received testimony from the Chief Executive Officers of the investigated companies: Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai. For nearly six hours, we pressed for answers about their business practices, including about evidence concerning the extent to which they have exploited, entrenched, and expanded their power over digital markets in anticompetitive and abusive ways. Their answers were often evasive and non-responsive, raising fresh questions about whether they believe they are beyond the reach of democratic oversight. Although these four corporations differ in important ways, studying their business practices has revealed common problems. First, each platform now serves as a gatekeeper over a key channel of distribution. By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy. They not only wield tremendous power, but they also abuse it by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them. Second, each platform uses its gatekeeper position to maintain its market power. By controlling the infrastructure of the digital age, they have surveilled other businesses to identify potential rivals, and have ultimately bought out, copied, or cut off their competitive threats. And, finally, these firms have abused their role as intermediaries to further entrench and expand their dominance. Whether through self-preferencing, predatory pricing, or exclusionary conduct, the dominant platforms have exploited their power in order to become even more dominant." Well they're not wrong...
- lotsofpulp 6y ago> By controlling the infrastructure of the digital age, they have surveilled other businesses to identify potential rivals, and have ultimately bought out, copied, or cut off their competitive threats. Is this accurate? I would think control of the infrastructure is with companies like Comcast/ATT/Verizon/Verisign/ and others who you can’t bypass by typing in different characters into the URL bar. Would it be more accurate to write the big tech companies have control of the network of users?
- indigochill 6y agoComcast and friends are essentially utility companies. If the internet is "a bunch of tubes", they keep the tubes clear. They don't get involved at the content layer. Comcast may be a crappy provider in many ways, but they've never made the news for politically-motivated network traffic filtering. FAANG on the other hand all get their hands dirty in deciding what content people get to see and what not, which would largely be a non-issue if there was mainstream competition, but there isn't, so rather than change their behavior and support/make/demand alternatives, consumers (including politicians) want Big Brother to step in, somehow forgetting that rarely solves anything and will simply consolidate more power with those who already have it.
- LatteLazy 6y agoA lot of this just looks like punishing success to me. Or rather success combined with a lack of political involvement aka donation. If it cares about monopolies go look at comcast or Disney or big chunks of agriculture or Boeing etc. If the house really cares about privacy, it should look at the patriot act. If it cares about workers, go look at Walmart.
- capableweb 6y ago> A lot of this just looks like punishing success to me I guess if you think "success" means companies ending up as monopolies, I guess you're right. In general, capitalism gravitates to a "winner takes it all" situations as with more capital, you can also capture more of the market. But we also generally prefer to have many players in the market so competition still exists. All this work here is trying to prevent monopolies from forming, because currently the US is very much lacking in any tooling to prevent monopolies, as we see in a lot of industries, not just technology. A step in the right direction it seems to me.
- LatteLazy 6y agoThe standard in most places (US included) is that monopolies (and duopolies etc) are allowed. But they are not allowed to abuse their positions. That leaves us with 2 issues I think: 1. If people want competitive markets, that's fine but that's a new policy, and big tech is a bad place to start because it's much more competitive than many many other markets. You can pick 1001 other stores than amazon, but you will be paying with Visa or Mastercard... 2. We need to regulate a lot of new utilities. Are you sure you want the FCC deciding what innovations are allowed in search or social media? Aren't there massive free speech issues there?
- swebs 6y agoWhat market is Disney a monopoly in?
- thrav 6y agoSoon to expire copyright material (stories, characters, etc.) that they then block from ever entering the public domain. https://nyunews.com/opinion/2019/10/01/disney-public-domain-copyright/ https://nyunews.com/opinion/2019/10/01/disney-public-domain-...
- roenxi 6y agoI support anything that makes life harder for the FAANG style companies - I'm just never going to believe that the US house will do what this article signals they do. Facebook and Twitter are profound influences on politics. I look on the politically aligned mainstream news, practices like gerrymandering, the general state of political discourse, do some quick joining of dots and ... well. Political involvement isn't going to move the situation in a direction I like. FAANG is bad. I'll be on the record as saying whatever comes out of the House will be proven worse in time.
- izacus 6y agoI'm not an american so can you explain if Facebook and Twitter actually have bigger sway than obviously partisan news media like Fox News? (At least in our part of the world that media seriously outstrips any kind of influence FB and Twitter yelling has.)
- redis_mlc 6y agoThe camps are Facebook/Twitter/MSM (far left/Marxist), Youtube (left), NTD/Joe Rogan/Rubin (center), Fox (center-right.) Leftists do not watch center or center-right, so they don't know anything about Jan. 6 facts, Hunter Biden, election fraud, #blm fraud, CCP non-kinetic warfare or political Islam.
- indigochill 6y ago> can you explain if Facebook and Twitter actually have bigger sway than obviously partisan news media like Fox News? More people get their news from social media than from... let's call it "big media" (CNN, Fox, etc). Sometimes that's from people linking content from those sources, but the point being people are spending a -lot- more time trawling social media than they are specifically checking their news media feeds.
- tqi 6y agoThat's like saying people don't get their news from Fox, they get it from their TV... Most of the time spent in SM is consuming/sharing content from news media and their affiliated contributors.
- jiofih 6y agoThe top 10 tech companies have collectively acquired and shut down hundreds of small, successful startups. I believe this is very detrimental to the web and the economy. Founders need to have that as an option for an exit though. What are the alternatives? Limiting ownership to 49%?
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago>Founders need to have that as an option for an exit though. What are the alternatives? Limiting ownership to 49%? No they don't. To rephrase, you're suggesting that companies are entitled to getting bought out. That's ridiculous. Owning a company is a privilege, people who abuse that privilege, billionaires, should be stripped of that power. Corporate America is cancerous, consuming and destroying everything indiscriminately for vanity, numbers on a screen, and authoritarian control over the less privileged.
- ryan93 6y agoIt's not a privilege. The company is their property. Political opinions you dont like on facebook is just something you are going to have to get over.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoYou're talking past my arguments. Owning a company is a privilege just as much as owning guns are. Companies are registered with government and violators are prosecuted. Do I need to link to articles about children getting their lemonade stands destroyed by cops or what?
- ryan93 6y agoPoint taken. I just personally feel like the reasoning for taking a company needs to be insanely strong. A lot of current talk on both sides feels very partisan.
- zepto 6y ago
- Inspiringer 6y agoI believe it is in United States interest to let Big Tech do whatever they want to complete with China.
- qweerty 6y agoThe answer is to put traitors in federal prison where they belong. The subversion of our democracy should not be taken lightly and attempts at regulatory capture must be met with harsh punishment. Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, and many more need to be incarcerated for the rest of their lives, which may seem harsh, but it's better than what most traitors get.
- redog 6y agoEat the rich?
- williesleg 6y agoJust a shakedown.
- ashneo76 6y agoCan the precedent from this be applied to AT&T and comcast??
- bradlys 6y agoSure would be nice but I don’t see it happening. This seems like political theater more than anything. You’re going to need to get an entirely new electorate to get anything real happening.
- graderjs 6y agoIf this went through, what second order effects would there be that could be business opportunities? Particularly for a bootstrapped or small startup to get into.
- shockeychap 6y agoGiven the volume and profitably of tech trading by members of Congress (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26821601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26821601) I have ZERO confidence that any useful legislation will come of it. It will just be a bunch of earnest and disingenuous theatre by the very people profiting from a bunch of companies who make Microsoft circa 1995 look like a kitten. For my part, I think the fundamental business model of profiting from user engagement (where screen time is money) is toxic, and we can’t fix anything until we find a way to effectively eliminate it.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoThey could just as easily profit from shorting tech etc. True whales make money on the up and down.
- shockeychap 6y agoFair point, but there’s less predictability (both in timing and valuations) on the way down. It’s also harder to disguise the insider nature of shorts based on upcoming legislation. On top of that, these companies spend millions on lobbying and have SO MUCH INFLUENCE among DC insiders that reform doesn’t have a chance. It’s more corrupt than anything Hollywood ever made about Big Oil.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoI’ll agree with your second point. How can we begin fixing it?
- leppr 6y agoHave citizens participate in writing legislation instead of deferring to a small entrenched elite? I believe our elders called it Democracy. Nowadays they call it decentralization.
- 6y ago
- ObserverNeutral 6y agoThey will break them up. Mark my words. People are tired, their products and services are becoming more and more pushing on a string with regards to quality of life. The iPhone is more than 10 years old and nothing new came after that. At the same time people see these mega organizations which are more powerful than nation states, with people like Bezos worth 200B. When companies are worth 2T with founders worth 200B, the whole "what have you done for me recently" thing becomes pretty extreme, very quickly. If they want to avoid being broken up they have to at least bring about nuclear fusion or landing on Mars (maybe that's why Bezos is doing Blue Origin).
- therealbilly 6y agoDoes anybody seriously expect anything to change. On Capitol Hill, they are going to posture and make grandiose statements. Later in the day, everybody will meet at one of those fancy beltway pubs and get all cozy.
- mistrial9 6y agoI suspect that France has their own version on this (years in the making) and will act in alignment with the USA as the fines and oversight begin to form.
- d33lio 6y agoRIP all my QQQ shares
- aviraldg 6y agoNot looking forward to a future where the US sabotages its best tech companies and we all end up working for Alibaba, Tencent or Baidu (or founding startups with the aim of being acquired by them.)
- potatoman22 6y agoWhat's wrong with Chinese tech companies?
- GeneralMayhem 6y agoSome of us don't want to work for the CCP.
- eric-hu 6y agoChinese tech companies have to toe the line of the CCP. A long, drawn out example is being made of Alibaba and Jack Ma precisely for not toeing the line last fall.
- eunos 6y agoEh China already made an example of Ali anyway (2.8B fine).
- bytelines 6y agoIf Apple needs to ban competing web browsers in its phones in order to be the best tech company, maybe it's not the best tech company.
- pyrophane 6y ago> Despite their ire, most Republicans have not backed the report's proposed changes in antitrust law but instead discussed stripping social media companies of legal protections they are accorded under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law gives companies immunity over content posted on their sites by users. Most of what I have heard Republicans focusing on has been "anti-Conservative bias" in social media platform, but I don't understand how limiting Section 230 protections would address that. Is the idea that any proposals would require moderation practices that follow certain standards set out to avoid "political bias?" I can't understand this push as anything other than a punitive measure to hurt tech companies.
- bobthepanda 6y agoDepending on what happens the net outcome of repealing 230 might actually hurt conservatism on online platforms, since right now Twitter, Youtube, Facebook et al are not party to things like the billion dollar Dominion lawsuit against Fox News and Newsmax. Those news networks have deplatformed Mike Lindell because him actively spewing conspiracy theories on the Dominion voting machines undermines their defense in that lawsuit.
- NationalPark 6y agoOf course it would hurt "conservatism on online platforms", repealing section 230 would effectively cause social media companies to shut their business down over night to avoid liability. Hackernews would certainly shut down. Nobody with any familiarity with the law actually supports repealing it, but for some reason it became a cause celebre of the far right. Maybe, "fuck the mods!!!" just doesn't have the same ring it used to?
- kaiju0 6y agoThey wanted to hold speech to account for things they didn't like. Right now they can't.
- root_axis 6y agoOne thing repealing section 230 would definitely do is bring big tech business operations to a screeching halt. Republicans are betting on the fact that big tech would be willing to do anything to avoid that outcome.
- hnunionthrow 6y agoAt the expense of whataboutism, I'd love to see some kind of legislation against themselves as opposed to trying to bring these business entities under their heel. Something along the lines of: "GOP and Democratic party hold a duopolistic power over significant portions of our political representation options. This duopoly moment must end" (borrowed from the article and replaced appropriately). Every business that they are trying to "crackdown" against faces varying levels of competition in almost every space they are in, and consumers either have numerous options to choose from to get a particular service, or the default that they end up using on is actually the best among the available alternatives. God forbid politicians focus on taking action against actual monopolies as opposed to these stupid theatrics.
- alexarnesen 6y agoBelow is the CV of most of the authors / contributors. I could only find one person with a technical background that is at least computing-adjacent. (I didn't produce this research, I commissioned it, so there may be factual errors.) Link to full research: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kbpQgU5YQSOmyyhOUCkmjCrrj4Cf72il/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kbpQgU5YQSOmyyhOUCkmjCrrj4C... SUBCOMMITTEE ON ANTITRUST, COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW PROFILES Technical staff: Anna Lenhart Anna Lenhart: Technologist - B.S. Civil Engineering and Engineering Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University (2011) - M.P.P., Science & Technology Policy (Artificial Intelligence), University of Michigan (2018) Non-technical staff: everyone else Slade Bond: Chief Counsel - B.A. History, Mary Washington College (2008) - J.D., University of Kansas School of Law (2011) - LL.M., Intellectual Property and Information Privacy, The George Washington University Law School (2012) Lina Khan: Counsel - B.A. Political Theory, Williams College - J.D., Yale Law School Phillip Berenbroick: Counsel - B.A. Political Science, Tufts University (2004) - Law, University of Virginia School of Law (2008) - JD, Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School Amanda Lewis: Counsel on Detail, Federal Trade Commission - B.A. Political Science; Latin American Studies, New York University - J.D. Law, Columbia Law School Joseph Ehrenkrantz: Special Assistant - B.A. English and Government & Politics, University of Maryland (2014) - J.D. Law, Georgetown University Law Center (2020) Catherine Larsen: Special Assistant - B.A. Political Science and Government, English, University of Nebraska (2014) - J.D. Law, New York University School of Law (2020) Joseph Van Wye: Professional Staff Member - B.A. Political Science and Government, Brown University (2015) COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY PROFILES Non-technical staff: everyone Perry Apelbaum: Staff Director and Chief Counsel - Bachelor General Studies, University of Michigan (1981) - J.D. Harvard University, 1984 Aaron Hiller: Deputy Chief Counsel - BS Biology & BA Philosophy, University of North Carolina (2003) - J.D., MPP, Georgetown University Law Center (2007) Shadawn Reddick-Smith: Communications Director - B.S. Communications and Public Relations, Towson University Jessica Presley: Director of Digital Strategy - Penn State University Madeline Strasser: Chief Clerk - B.A. International Politics, National Security Policy Studies, Penn State University (2017) Amy Rutkin: Chief of Staff John Williams: Parliamentarian - B.A. University of Virginia (1988) - Ph.D. Medieval History, The University of Chicago (1995) - J.D. Georgetown University Law Center (2001) Daniel Schwarz: Director of Strategic Communications - B.A. Political Science and Jewish Studies, Indiana University (2008) - MSc Politics and Communication, London School of Economics and Political Science (2011) Moh Sharma: Director of Member Services and Outreach & Policy Advisor - B.A. and M.A. Economics, University of Connecticut - M.S. Global Affairs, New York University - J.D., City University of New York School of Law John Doty: Senior Advisor - B.A. History, Middlebury College David Greengrass: Senior Counsel - BA Government, Wesleyan University (1998) - JD, Law, American University Washington College of Law Arya Hariharan: Deputy Chief Oversight Counsel - BA Law and Society, International Studies, American University (2007) - JD, The College of William and Mary – Marshall Wythe Law School (2012) Matthew Robinson: Counsel - B.A. Yale University (2003) - JD New York University School of Law (2012) Kayla Hamedi: Deputy Press Secretary - B.A. Political Science and Government, The George Washington University (2015) - M.A. Political Management, The George Washington University
- 3327 6y ago10 years too late but better late than never...
- mLuby 6y agoI hope whatever comes out of this doesn't end up creating a regulatory moat around big incumbents that start-ups can't muster the resources to cross. Only government regulation is powerful enough to counteract capitalism's natural tendency toward aggregation.
- more_corn 6y agoI'm pleased to see that Netflix has been kicked out of FAANG. Makes sense since they are facing robust competition and no-longer qualify for near monopoly status. I also support the reordering of the words as presented in the article since GAAF is way more appealing than leaving it as is with Netflix removed.
- asciident 6y agoI'm pretty sure everyone except journalists have already moved on to using GAFAM.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fnord77 6y agoI hope this help startups and small businesses.
- pdonis 6y agoThe fundamental problem here is one that the law cannot solve: we as consumers have become addicted to free tech apps that use us as the product in order to make money. That addiction comes with a price, and no amount of legislation can shield us from ultimately paying that price if we refuse to give up our addiction. The only thing the law could really do to "fix" the problem would be to outlaw the "free app that harvests people's time and attention to make money" business model altogether. And every lawmaker who voted to do that would be voted out of office by all the people who are angry that they can no longer have their free apps. The root problem is not "Big Tech". The root problem is us.
- AlexCoventry 6y agoWhy don't they link the actual report? Presumably it is a matter of public record?
- loldk 6y agoAnd here I was hoping they'd address the blight that is surveillance advertising. We need a bill of rights for our data. These companies are spying on everyone. That's fubar.