UK To Set Up 'Pro-Competition' Regulator To Put Limits on Big Tech (techcrunch.com) 42
The UK is moving ahead with a plan to regulate big tech, responding to competition concerns over a 'winner takes all' dynamic in digital markets. From a report: It will set up a new Digital Market Unit (DMU) to oversee a "pro-competition" regime for Internet platforms -- including those funded by online advertising, such as Facebook and Google -- the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced today. It's moving at a clip -- with the new Unit slated to begin work in April. Although the necessary law to empower the new regulator to make interventions will take longer. The government said it will consult on the Unit's form and function in early 2021 -- and legislate "as soon as parliamentary time allows." A core part of the plan is a new statutory Code of Conduct aimed at giving platform users more choice and third party businesses more power over the intermediaries that host and monetize them. The government suggests the code could require tech giants to allow users to opt out of behavioral advertising entirely -- something Facebook's platform, for example, does not currently allow. It also wants the code to support the sustainability of the news industry by "rebalancing" the relationship between publishers and platform giants, as it puts it.
Limit the power of Google and FB? Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
bring it on.
Sadly, they'll already be working on ways to circumvent any rules that might limit their ability to monetise each and every one of us even if we opt out of their data slurping and ad slinging.
Re: (Score:1)
I'll carry on blocking ALL, repeat ALL adverts. That is my choice. Anything that gets through goes on my 'do not buy list' and I won't do any business with them ever again in the future but I'm just a Grumpy Old Geeza so my views don't count.
I've seen how the ad slingers manipulate us from the inside. That turned me against them for good and it has only gotten worse since I told them what to do with their job in 2012.
Re:Bringing the brilliance of government (Score:5, Insightful)
to the choosing of market successes.
No, using the gauntleted fist of government to break up monopolies thus forcing competition in markets where the tech giants don't want any competition.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In my experience, when the government swings its "gauntleted fist" there's usually a ton of collateral damage and unforeseen consequences.
Re:Bringing the brilliance of government (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, when the government swings its "gauntleted fist" there's usually a ton of collateral damage and unforeseen consequences.
People who make that argument are usually corporate sycophants so presumably you are one too. The same basically applies to the collateral damage caused by your beloved corporate masters of the universe when they stifle all competition in the scramble to corner markets and create a monopoly. Market disruption and the fall of monopolies always causes collateral damage but it also causes an upsurge in innovation much like mass extinctions cause an explosion in the variety of new life forms. I'll rather suffer the upheaval of market disruption caused by government smashing the tar out of monopolies than live under the drudgery, stagnation and oppression of the monopolies set up by the corporate aristocracy you so admire.
Re: (Score:1)
You presume too much, which makes me think that you jump to conclusions on scant information.
If I would jump to conclusions, I would say that you have an ax to grind and feel it's okay to spew a diatribe on the first person you come across that doesn't fit your myopic worldview.
Re:Bringing the brilliance of government (Score:4, Insightful)
Including the time the U.S. government split up the Bell System and opened up long distance telephone service to competitors? Was that a dark time for free market capitalism?
Re: (Score:2)
I said "usually", not "always" - and I wasn't talking about monopolies specifically, I was relating to the fact that when the government tries to implement a quick and easy solution by heavy-handed action it usually means that unintended consequences will occur - mostly because many of those actions are about politics or money, and not really in the interest of the people (for the simple reason that idealist politicians are an extremely rare bread). All this is something that is covered if you have studied
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you only suspicious when the government tries to impose a new regulation? Why not also when they try to eliminate one?
Re: (Score:1)
It produced short-term competition but in the long term AT&T and Verizon bought all the bits and a constructed an anti-competitive duopoly in phones, which they extended into cable and broadband. As they cherry pick the most profitable rich areas, with some of the slowest and most expensive broadband and cable in the world, regions in the US have third world performance.
And with any problem this large and complex there were lots of unintended consequences. The Anti-trust agreement prohibited AT&T fr
Re: (Score:2)
"It produced short-term competition but in the long term..."
In the long term, the government allowed most of the be remerge, failing the intention of the original breakup. I inherited a bit of NYNEX stock from my grandmother who owned some AT&T. It later became Bell Atlantic, and then Verizon.
https://money.cnn.com/2014/05/... [cnn.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Damnit /. Allow us to edit our comments. This is what happens when I post before having my coffee, and forget to proofread.
Re: (Score:2)
In my experience, when the government swings its "gauntleted fist" there's usually a ton of collateral damage and unforeseen consequences.
I'm generally in agreement with this. I love an open market, where competition brings about innovation. However, monopolistic behavior is "in my experience" worse, and needs to be regulated.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of the big companies are by no means a monopoly in the traditional sense. They aren't the sole provider of a specific good. They don't actually do anything nefarious to stop people using other services. Google doesn't force you to use their search engine. There are plenty of others out there. The only reason so many people use it is simply because it's the best. But that doesn't quality them as a monopoly just because people prefer their product. Same goes for Amazon. Amazon doesn't force you to use
Re:Bringing the brilliance of government (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the big companies are by no means a monopoly in the traditional sense. They aren't the sole provider of a specific good. They don't actually do anything nefarious to stop people using other services. Google doesn't force you to use their search engine. There are plenty of others out there. The only reason so many people use it is simply because it's the best. But that doesn't quality them as a monopoly just because people prefer their product. Same goes for Amazon. Amazon doesn't force you to use their shopping site. There are plenty of other shopping sites. But they do provide one of the better shopping experiences. Even other large retailers like WalMart can't compete with them because their services just aren't as good as Amazon.
I am always fascinated by how easily free market fundamentalists who preach about free market competition will pivot to defending large dominant and abusive market players who step on every other competing business in sight before they've even had a chance become a viable competitor. That's the antithesis of competition, you can't be in favour of both. You don't have to be a complete monopoly to have a detrimental effect on competition. Once you top about 50% of market share, stomping out any and all competition gets easier and by the time you reach 75% the remaining 25% of your competition has been reduced to the status of vassals. The survivors will then fall into line and play by the rules you dictate out of simple fear of being stepped on and squashed under foot by you. Lack of competition in any market is ALWAYS bad and you do not have to gain 100% market share to have a detrimental effect on that market. You just have to become big enough. As for Google, the quality of searches for a startup search engine is hugely dependent on the amount of traffic you get. The quality of your searches grows the most when you get a greater volume of esoteric searches which is the vast majority of searches you are going to get. However, if some giant bloated, corporate whale has cornered 90% of the market and gets 90% of the searches, competing with them is not easy. If, on top of that, the bloated corporate whale goes around mounting hostile takeovers of competitors before they get too big it's even harder to grow your search quality until you can compete with the bloated corporate whale. This is why Google will never leave any internet search market willingly. The moment they do that they create a protected Google free environment where start-ups can explode into fierce competitors quickly and Google will not be able to preempt that by stepping on them.
Re: (Score:2)
> competing with them is not easy
Is competition supposed to be easy?
> If, on top of that, the bloated corporate whale goes around mounting hostile takeovers of competitors before they get too big
Did Google do this?
Look, I can't say I'm a big fan of Google and I try to avoid them wherever I can, but I don't know that they're a monopoly.
Simply being a monopoly isn't illegal (at least not in the US). It's only when said monopoly harms competition with behavior that is specifically anti-competitive.
On t
Re: (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I'm very much a free market capitalist
"Is competition supposed to be easy?"
No, but monopolistic behavior has no business in a free market.
"Did Google do this?"
Google has on numerous occasions abused its power to strongarm other companies.
"Simply being a monopoly isn't illegal (at least not in the US). It's only when said monopoly harms competition with behavior that is specifically anti-competitive."
Agreed, and are you arguing that Google hasn't been anti-competitive?
Re: (Score:2)
> Agreed, and are you arguing that Google hasn't been anti-competitive?
No. I don't actually know the answer to this, perhaps because of my general disgust at Google's (lack of) privacy practices, I tend to ignore them and stories about them.
Re: (Score:2)
In a healthy market, no single firm dominates the others by an absolute majority, unlike the search engine market where Google currently commands a ~60-70% share worldwide and ~90% in the USA alone. Getting both below 50% would be good for the economy.
Re: (Score:2)
In a healthy market, no single firm dominates the others by an absolute majority, unlike the search engine market where Google currently commands a ~60-70% share worldwide and ~90% in the USA alone. Getting both below 50% would be good for the economy.
Which means that we do not have a healthy market. A healthy market is an ideal that exists in the heads of armchair sitting economics theorists in universities and right wing think tanks but it will never exist in the real world. There will always be a corporate aristocracy with lawyers, lobbyists and piles of cash to pay out bribes to ensure the market will never be a healthy one. The only thing the less powerful in society can do is vote in politicians willing to shake things up, give them a gauntlet and
Re: (Score:2)
When a company controls 90+% of the market, and is engaged in monopolistic behavior (see below) they ARE a fucking monopoly. The next nearest "competitor" is Yahoo in this case with ~2% of the market.
The European Commission has also accused Google of violating antitrust laws in the online advertising space. Last year, Google was fined €1.49 billion (~$1.75 billion) after they found that the company had "abused its market dominance by imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-par
Re: (Score:2)
Bringing the brilliance of government to the choosing of market successes.
Personally, I find it interesting that my statement, which on the face of it is "pro-government", was down-graded as a troll because the "government can fix everything"-types hanging out here on /. saw the sarcasm in it.
That implies that they don't believe in government fixes as much as they claim.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There are some good articles on this but unfortunately behind the FT's [ft.com] paywall [ft.com].
Paywall? What paywall [gitlab.com]?
CMA (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The bigger problem is regulators in much larger economies like the EU and US.
Companies aren't going to want to make special versions of their products for the UK market. Any divergence in rules just creates friction for trade, i.e. non-tariff barriers.
We can't afford to be doing this shit right now. The OBR (our own government) just said that brexit will cost us at least 4% of GDP even if we get the deal we want. This is exactly the kind of thing that is wiping out billions in our economy.
We chose to be a s
Re: (Score:2)
Companies aren't going to want to make special versions of their products for the UK market.
We're in full agreement. In my last role, I was working on IT regulatory compliance for a company whose largest market was the EU. Getting them to comply with EU regulations was an uphill battle, getting them to comply with UK-specific regulations isn't likely to happen.
LOL good luck (Score:2)
The tech megacorps would sooner drop all traffic from the soon-to-be impoverished islands before being pushed around by them.
Re: (Score:2)
This is all about taxation (Score:2)
EU vs US (Score:2)
EU has missed the IT train, by a lot. And really needs to catch up.
I am biased, as I am writing this from US as a tech employee. However the last time I visited Portugal (about 20 years ago), the public terminals were limited to .eu domains, and frankly they were terrible. I am saying this as someone who came from Istanbul. Turkish Internet connections and online services were better at that time. They have fixed the connection issue, but not the services.
While EU mandated use of GSM, Qualcomm came with CDM
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent up!
Make money online from your home (Score:1)
Well, the UK is now openly corrupt... (Score:1)
Give Boris Johnson some money, you get a big contract from him.
Dido Harding, in charge of the £12 Billion test and trace programme, which has been a failure, has given billions out without tender to many conservative supporters to source PPE which has arrived six months too late, and/or not fit for purpose.
And who is the Governments "Anti corruption champion"? John Penrose.
Dido Harding's husband.
This is probably just an "invitation to bribe" by the UK Government.