In Private, Vulnerable Senate Dems Back Off Tech Bill (politico.com) 79
A bipartisan legislative effort to rein in the nation's largest tech companies is facing fresh resistance from a faction of Senate Democrats over complaints the measure could threaten their chances of holding their slim majority, 10 people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. From a report: The internal opposition comes as Democratic leaders are pushing for a vote on the bill by summer, in an effort to pass what has become a central element of the party's broader antitrust agenda. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, S. 2992 (117) -- led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) -- would ban major tech firms like Amazon and Google from favoring their products over their competitors. For example, the legislation would bar Amazon from promoting its own private-label products over rival items on its e-commerce platform. The bill marks the most serious attempt at tightening oversight of the tech industry in years and passed the Senate Judiciary Committee with support from both parties earlier this year. Yet in the days since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Klobuchar he would hold a floor vote as early as next month, several Democratic senators have privately expressed deep reservations about voting for the legislation, particularly with a midterm election looming, in their conversations with Schumer and other Democratic offices.
Perfect politics (Score:5, Insightful)
"My job is more important than the betterment of the people."
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The Chinese actually did that awhile back
https://www.techdirt.com/2006/... [techdirt.com]
Didn't work out. I expect by the time the EU standard starts to make a difference USB-C will be getting obsolete.
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I do wish the governments of the world hadn't stepped in to mandate power and data connectors on cell phones. As the linked article pointed out the industry was already on the path to standardize on some form of USB for power and data. With the government mandate though it seems a whole lot of electronics shoved micro-USB on people when a simple barrel connector would have done nicely.
Am I the only one that noticed that nearly every electronic device has either a "big" 12 volt barrel connector or a "small
Re:Perfect politics [for money!] (Score:2)
If it was going for Funny, it didn't make it. Going for substance, it fell even shorter.
My main reaction to the summary was "Bah, humbug. Amazon will just eat a different cake." Specifically, if they aren't supposed to favor their own brands, then they'll just tweak their search results to favor whichever products have the highest profit margin for Amazon.
Which led me to a joke? That law as described would probably be more profitable for Amazon. It would encourage the suppliers to bid more aggressively agai
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If it was going for Funny, it didn't make it. Going for substance, it fell even shorter.
My main reaction to the summary was "Bah, humbug. Amazon will just eat a different cake." Specifically, if they aren't supposed to favor their own brands, then they'll just tweak their search results to favor whichever products have the highest profit margin for Amazon.
Who says they need to tweak it to get that result? :-)
Which led me to a joke? That law as described would probably be more profitable for Amazon. It would encourage the suppliers to bid more aggressively against each other as they try to earn the blessings of the Amazon Gawd. No skin off Amazon's nose to replace one bankrupt company with a fresh one that can still afford to bribe Amazon, and the joke is that each bankrupt company will have bankrupted itself only to increase Amazon's profits. (It's monopsony abuse, if you want the technical term, but with some Enron-style gaming of the books.)
The problem, at its core, is that no company should be allowed to operate a marketplace (store) and simultaneously sell their own products in that marketplace, because doing so is per se unfair competition. It creates the illusion of competition when no competition exists, because the marketplace can arbitrarily mark up the other products (or, if it does not set the prices of those other products directly, arbitrarily increase the fees for third-party s
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Sort of an ACK, sort of a "congratulations on your optimistic viewpoint".
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Offering both national brands and house brands is not per se unfair competition.
I disagree. IMO, having a house brand automatically creates an unmanageable conflict of interest, because the store gets a significantly higher profit margin from those products than when selling products that they don't manufacture, and the store is in charge of setting prices on those other products, and are almost certain to favor their own products when doing so. The only way to realistically keep stores from unfairly favoring their own brands is if every brand has its own store (which isn't really pr
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Private labels have existed for a very long time. A large portion of the time these private labels are national brands with a different label on them. You don't think Albertson's and Kroger's have factories for all these items we have, do you? It would be incredible if we did, but it just is not the reality of the situation.
With that said, people see value in the national brands and seem quite content to pay more, sometimes a lot more, for those items.
I like to try the private labels. Sometimes I enjoy the
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Yes.
I'd like to see Democrats try and go after WalMart house brand groceries, block WalMart from advertising them or prevent WalMart from pricing their house brands less than the National brands...
Chuck Schumer is useless - I remember him waving a box of breakfast cereal in the air and demanded to know why a box of Cheerios costs more than a bushel of wheat! (Apparently product development, testing, manufacturing, packaging, storage, transportation and advertising are all supposed to be free.)
And don't get
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I'd like to see Democrats try and go after WalMart house brand groceries
Well it's good that you feel that way, Walmart has a very large online presence and this bill may apply to them. There seems to be some disagreement on that though, some articles I've read say yes, others say no. Maybe that will need to be settled in court after the bill is signed.
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Private labels have existed for a very long time. A large portion of the time these private labels are national brands with a different label on them. You don't think Albertson's and Kroger's have factories for all these items we have, do you? It would be incredible if we did, but it just is not the reality of the situation.
They're manufactured by somebody, and usually not by the store itself. Sometimes, they're made by the name brands, but more often they are made by companies that specialize in white-label manufacturing.
Either way, the difference between contract manufacturing and buying a commercial product is that you are paying only materials, labor, and a small profit margin for contract manufacturing, whereas you're paying for another company's marketing when you buy a commercial product. The margin difference is usua
Re:Perfect politics (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish we could get rid of political parties, and have a multi-tier voting system.
A political party is a hodgepodge of a bunch of stances on different issues, and we as voters need to figure out which one is the lesser of the two evils. Which aspect of the party I like, and how important is to me, or how much do I really hate an aspect of a party.
And for most people ones alliance to a political party, is akin to being a fan of your favorite sports team, despite its success or failure ability, and it just goes along family even though all the players are different, and the only thing that is the same is its name.
If you were to talk to someone who says they are Conservative and you say you are Liberal, on a topic that isn't covered and pushed scare tactics in the new, they often have a civil conversation and realize a happy medium. However, because we are being trained to think Republicans are this, and Democrats are that. We are fighting with each other over stupid stereotypes and generalization, and fighting over issues that really do not effect us, but just effect the political parties ability to maintain control.
Re:Perfect politics (Score:5, Interesting)
Freedom of association means we'll never be rid of political parties. Even if we could ban them and pass constitutional muster, they'd just come back under different names. For example, we already have congressional caucuses, which could easily grow up to fill the role of the parties.
I think a better idea would be to reform the whole system. Get rid of the first-past-the-pole system we have where 50%+1 votes mean one party utterly dominates with no checks or balances and everyone else can go get fucked. Personally, I think we'd be better off if we'd not left The Empire when we did. The Westminster parliamentary system has shown itself to be more fair and representative of citizens' (not dirt's) interests then our own. Particularly, third parties... or even fourth, fifth, and sixth parties... actually act as something besides mere spoilers in a race between the top two in a Westminster system. Instead of, for example Nader's greens in 2000 merely taking away votes from Gore and allowing the candidate that only a minority of the people wanted exploiting the weaknesses of our system to become president; the Greens could have formed a coalition government with the Democrats which would have better represented the needs and desires of more of the people on the US than did the government that we got. And... bonus... being forced to compromise with the Greens could have perhaps halted the Democrats' increasing list to starboard and gotten the rest of the party on board with Gore and fixing climate issues a couple of decades before they've finally even begun to pay lip service to the crisis. (Turns out manbearpig was real after all. Oops.)
That's not to say parliamentary governments are perfect, of course. But the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the like sure as hell do seem to suffer from much less dysfunction and bouts of vae victis than we do.
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Concurrence, though I think your response can be mostly condensed to one word: "math".
Having said that, I do think we could do better, and reforming the election system could help. I think reform should be tackled from two perspectives: Better candidates and more equal and engaged representation. I could go into detail...
But I also think the entire thread has followed a rather tangential FP, but at least it wasn't an AC brain fart. I'll probably bring the ideas back in relation to a more relevant story.
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It is possible to have no political parties, but you need the right culture, which only exists in a few places such as Nunavut which has a consensus based legislature, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and is mostly populated by Inuit.
It does seem your Presidential system gives the President way too much power with the electors being too politicized compared to your Founding Fathers vision. The first past the post system is horrible but we have it here in Canada, so does the UK and Australia doesn't seem to
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The first past the post system is horrible but we have it here in Canada, so does the UK and Australia doesn't seem to do much better.
Last I heard [youtube.com] Australia was explicitely not using first-past-the-post...
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Yes, rereading what I wrote, it is not clear that I meant "and Australia, which is not using the first past the post system, doesn't seem to do much better"
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Freedom of association means we'll never be rid of political parties. Even if we could ban them and pass constitutional muster, they'd just come back under different names. For example, we already have congressional caucuses, which could easily grow up to fill the role of the parties.
The thing is, the two party system is pretty much artificially maintained. Even in places like the UK and Australia. Both parties are entrenched and make it difficult for any third party to get in, in any sufficient number.
Then within your two large parties you end up with minor factions. Sometimes a fringe faction takes control (I.E. most "conservative" parties these days), other times you end up with factional bickering (until recently, Australia and the UK's Labor/Labour parties). What really needs to
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Take the current example of abortion. I've read polling that between 60 and 70 percent of Americans support women's choice. A clear majority. However, we are only weeks away from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
The way our government operates -- campaign finance, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, political parties, the Senate, judicial appointment, etc. -- all contribute to the powerful minority dictating
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"My job is more important than the betterment of the people."
Maybe it's just me, but... How exactly do they lose their jobs if Amazon stops pushing certain products?
Re:Perfect politics (Score:5, Interesting)
Corp are people, and money is free speech. Nothing to stop them from doing that to get the politician they want in office.
Re:Perfect politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon puts out political ads attacking the person and supporting their opponent.
And since most Americans invest about thirty nanoseconds investigating the people running outside of the ads they've been watching, these Amazon ads are insanely effective.
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People actually look at political ads on Amazon?!?
Face it, most everyone has decided who they're going to vote for by the time the Primaries are over. And the odds that more than three votes nationwide are going to be affected by Amazon is infinitesimal.
But, as is most likely, it's just a broad hint that if Amazon doesn't fall in line behind the Party, then bad things will happen after the election. So Amazon execs open their wallets and donate money to the people threatening them....
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Face it, most everyone has decided who they're going to vote for by the time the Primaries are over.
So what happens much of the time is elections are decided by who gets the voters out and/or keeps the opponents voters at home.
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Amazon could easily do something like that if they wanted too, and they have the traffic to give it impact. The only question is whether they have more to gain or to lose by doing it.
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SCOTUS made bribery legal and relabeled it "free speech". I have a better name: EVIL.
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"Hassan is up for reelection in a highly competitive race this fall, and Goldberg cited the tech antitrust bill as an example of a potentially controversial vote that senators shouldn’t be forced to take just months out from the midterms."
And this one
“Anytime a corporate accountability bill gathers steam, the concern trolling heats up and some members try to block a vote because they don’t want to alienate powerful companies,” https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
Funn
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Politicians stir up non-existent crisis so that voters will re-elect them to solve the non-existent crisis.
Re:Perfect politics (Score:4, Insightful)
A system that mostly depends on altruistic leaders will fail because it goes against human nature. It's best to find a systematic way to align job incentives to citizen betterment. But I agree such is not easy.
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If the Dems lose the Senate (Score:1, Insightful)
Getting their voters to the polls and preventing voter suppression are their main concerns right now. There's a massive, country wide push to make it difficult to vote blue going on right now. Anything that distracts from that and isn't the kind of issue that drives voters to the polls is going to be secondary. It has to be, the whole party's fighting for their lives at this point.
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. They'll lose in 2024 because, well, noone will be able to vote for them.
Lmfao this is rich. "The dominant political party is scared you won't be able to vote for them guys!!!"
Nobody believes you or this fantasy fan fiction.
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How do you square stuff like this? https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/23... [cnn.com]
Georgia passes voter suppression law and we get record turn out... I guess all those people are just maybe realizing why voting matters. Record turn out. Damn, those stupid Republicans did it wrong!!! They were suppose to suppress everyone that is not white's vote.
Good thing Republicans are THAT bad at the job, otherwise maybe we would not be seeing record turnout.
Sure, being sarcastic, but the point really does still stand. They are not su
Mostly extra GOP turnout (Score:2)
Also a lot of the voter suppression laws are designed to be selectively enforeced. That's because you can't sue to repeal the law unless you can show harm to yourself. Our current Supreme Court already ruled potential harm doesn't cover it. So they're saving it for the General rather than wasting it in a primary.
Re:If the Dems lose the Senate (Score:5, Insightful)
Record turnout in recent election tends to put 'voter suppression' claims in doubt.
Limiting early voting to three weeks is not voter suppression.
Preventing third-party ballot harvesting is not voter suppression.
Preventing drive-up ballot boxes is not voter suppression.
Requiring ID to vote is not voter suppression.
It really doesn't (Score:3)
1. Most of the turnout was because of Trump making the race a bellweather for his cult. He lost, but it drove extra turnout.
2. The turnout increases sound amazing, but turnout in primaries is so low that it's not really that many more voters showing up.
3. The laws are designed to be selectively enforced, and they're not using them on the primary in order to avoid drawing attention (and lawsuits) to them before the general election.
Yes, everything you listed is voter suppression.
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Yep, almost every one of those things is voter suppression.
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Requiring voter ID can be voter suppression. It really depends on how it is done.
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You can say that about anything. And it's true that how something is done matters.
We need to identify voters to know if they are eligible to vote at that place, in that election, because that's important to the integrity of the election itself.
So if there's something you know about what causes an ID check to be perceived as voter suppression, it's those aspects that need to be discussed to find a solution, because it shouldn't be that way.
Without those details, just sayi
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Well, the obvious thing is the type of ID required. The more narrow, the worse. And what alternatives there are for those who don't have ID.
I'm in Canada, ID has been required to vote for as long as I can remember. When the Conservatives were in power, they made changes, as usual due to claims of people abusing the voting system with no proof. One of the changes was limiting the types of ID to what had your current address on it. My wife's main photo ID, issued by the Federal government, doesn't have her ad
Re: If the Dems lose the Senate (Score:2)
The Georgia law that every Democrat in America lists many, many forms of valid ID that can be used, but still it's called voter suppression because, well, because it's all they have.
Per the Georgia Sec of State website:
What IDs are acceptable for in-person voting?
Any valid state or federal government-issued photo ID, including a free ID card issued by your county registrar's office or the Georgia Department of Driver Services.
A Georgia driver's license, even if expired
Student ID from a Georgia public Colleg
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Well, I did say that given reasonable ID requirements, including a way for the homeless, new residents and such without current ID, to vote, I don't see the problem. I have heard that some States do not have such broad ID acceptance.
There's still problems like how easy is it for someone who works too much and is still low income to acquire the free ID card.
Here, the Province updated our medical card (required for health care) to something very similar to a driving license some years back. My wife still hasn
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The other stories I hear about Georgia revolve around it being hard to vote if you live in the wrong part of town. Not enough polling places is a big one
Local voting precincts, counties choose the polling locations, not then state.
along with laws against doing things like simply giving someone a drink of water.
FFS, you never actually looked into this did you? The law in Georgia, just like in every other state says outside groups can't give things of value to people in line waiting to vote - poll workers can hand out water if needed
I'd be less inclined to vote if it meant taking time off of work and standing in a line for hours instead of the current 5 minutes it usually takes to vote here.
You know absentee and early voting is a thing in Georgia, right? You know that GA, after passing the the new voting law has THREE WEEKS of early voting - 21 days. If you want to avoid long lines on Election D
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The other stories I hear about Georgia revolve around it being hard to vote if you live in the wrong part of town. Not enough polling places is a big one
Local voting precincts, counties choose the polling locations, not then state.
OK, different from here where Elections-* run the election, Elections Canada for Federal, Elections BC for my Province. The elections happen at separate times.
along with laws against doing things like simply giving someone a drink of water.
FFS, you never actually looked into this did you? The law in Georgia, just like in every other state says outside groups can't give things of value to people in line waiting to vote - poll workers can hand out water if needed
No I didn't look into that much and there is still the problem that people are lining up long enough to need a drink of water
I'd be less inclined to vote if it meant taking time off of work and standing in a line for hours instead of the current 5 minutes it usually takes to vote here.
You know absentee and early voting is a thing in Georgia, right? You know that GA, after passing the the new voting law has THREE WEEKS of early voting - 21 days. If you want to avoid long lines on Election Day, vote early.
Are there polling stations open for those 21 days? Here. there are a couple of polling stations open on a couple of weekends before the election. Depending on where you live and such, it can be easy or not and there was one elec
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Limiting early voting to three weeks is not voter suppression.
It can be, depending on the circumstances.
Preventing third-party ballot harvesting is not voter suppression.
It can be, depending on the circumstances.
Preventing drive-up ballot boxes is not voter suppression.
It can be, depending on the circumstances.
Requiring ID to vote is not voter suppression.
It can be, depending on the circumstances.
This last one I generally would like to agree with, actually, but if and only if every single person eligible to vote is required to have, and freely provided with, an ID as a matter of course, not specifically tied to any election but as a matter of functioning within society. You will find that a large number of Republicans will scream bloo
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A driver's license or state id... You could argue that waiting in line and paying the small fee sucks, and I'd agree, but you only have to do that once every few years, and it's not tied to an election, and those ids are also used in many other contexts so part of a functioning society.
Part of being
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This is the actual "Jim crow 2.0" law in Georgia:
The Georgia law that every Democrat in America lists many, many forms of valid ID that can be used, but still it's called voter suppression because, well, because it's all they have.
Per the Georgia Sec of State website:
What IDs are acceptable for in-person voting?
Any valid state or federal government-issued photo ID, including a free ID card issued by your county registrar's office or the Georgia Department of Driver Services.
A Georgia driver's license, even if expired
Student ID from a Georgia public College or University
Valid employee photo ID from any branch, department, agency, or entity of the U.S. Government, Georgia, or any county, municipality, board, authority or other entity of this state
Valid U.S. passport ID
Valid U.S. military photo ID containing a photograph of the voter
Valid tribal photo ID containing a photograph of the voter
Bring one of these seven forms of identification to vote in person.
Source: https://sos.ga.gov/page/georgi... [ga.gov]
How can a person function in society without any of those forms of ID? Can't open a bank account, can't cash a check, can't rent an apartment, can't buy a car, drive a car, insure a car, cash a governmen
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"My job is more important than the betterment of the people."
If voting for this will cause the people to vote them out, doesn't that mean the people don't consider it to be betterment?
I'm actually not taking a position on this bill, just questioning the foundational assumption of your claim, which is that the people don't know what's good for them, and you do.
So What's New? (Score:2, Troll)
For example, the legislation would bar Amazon from promoting its own private-label products over rival items on its e-commerce platform.
Why wouldn't current antitrust law already cover this? Is this like a patent where everyone pretends something is completely different because it happens "on a computer"?
Or worse, don't tell me there's a FLAW in the "private company can do whatever it wants" argument, as soon as they're not using it for partisan censorship.
Because it's not bad enough (Score:2)
1st it has to be rather extreme before anti-trust can successfully be applied
2nd anti-trust has been ineffective when used due to the huge power mega corps over the government. There is no separation of powers in the USA outside of the government; individuals and corps can overpower the government by using what are now common exploits for those with the $$$.
3rd laws specifically crafted and clear cut are the only counter measure if they can quickly sneak bye the American oligarchs... who still can take thei
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Why wouldn't current antitrust law already cover this?
US antitrust law is focused on whether there is harm to the consumer. It generally doesn't care about competition provided the consumer isn't being harmed.
If Amazon was raising prices after beating competitors, then antitrust actions would be expected. If prices aren't getting raised or customers getting excluded or a few other things, it's not an antitrust issue.
EU antitrust laws are focused more on competition rather than whether the consumer is directly harmed.
Why is that a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would it also bar brick-and-mortar grocery stores or Walmart from promoting their private-label products over rival items? I'm not a fan of many of Amazon's business practices (particularly how they treat their employees), but this seems pretty benign and not something government should be concentrating on.
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Would it also bar brick-and-mortar grocery stores or Walmart from promoting their private-label products over rival items?
Amazon is a de-facto e-commerce monopoly. For a small business to sell something online, it comes down to Amazon or maybe eBay.
eBay does not sell its own items.
Walmart does not have 3rd party rival items that are actually sold by an independent small businesses (if Walmart does have an e-commerce platform, I am not aware of it).
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For a small business to sell something online, it comes down to Amazon or maybe eBay.
not even close to true, but sure, keep going.
Walmart does not have 3rd party rival items that are actually sold by an independent small businesses (if Walmart does have an e-commerce platform, I am not aware of it).
walmart.com
now please leave this conversation for the adults in the room.
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Walmart does not have 3rd party rival items that are actually sold by an independent small businesses (if Walmart does have an e-commerce platform, I am not aware of it).
They've been doing it for quite some time now... [walmart.com]
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They've been doing it for quite some time now
A quick Google search shows that Walmart marketplace is estimated to be 1% of Amazon's (as of a 2017 article). I am not surprised that Walmart Marketplace exists, but I don't think they are relevant as of yet. Once they have bigger clout, they will be included in such legislation.
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Would it also bar brick-and-mortar grocery stores or Walmart from promoting their private-label products over rival items?
If brick and mortar hid in a back room competitor product in an effort to promote their brand, I think you might have an argument. Additionally, if say Wal-Mart was actively working to ensure that they were the only game in town, with highways especially customized to handle traffic to their storefronts, then yeah, it would absolutely be something worthy of investigation.
Amazon's signs agreements with third parties to sell product, but those paying a special fee get roughly the first five to six pages of r
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So like the way big-box stores quietly support minimum parking regulations in order to increase the cost of entry [strongtowns.org] and keep their competitors away?
And then you have cities offering tax incentives and deed restrictions [npr.org] (a tax avoidance strategy) to chain stores that they don't offer to mom & pop businesses.
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Would it also bar brick-and-mortar grocery stores or Walmart from promoting their private-label products over rival items?
If brick and mortar hid in a back room competitor product in an effort to promote their brand, I think you might have an argument.
They don't have to hide them. They just have to set the price high enough that people choose the house brand, ensure that the house brand has a larger quantity in stock, let the name brand run out every so often so that people will be forced to try the house brand, giving the house brand more prominent placement (putting the name brand on a high or low shelf), etc.
Additionally, if say Wal-Mart was actively working to ensure that they were the only game in town, with highways especially customized to handle traffic to their storefronts, then yeah, it would absolutely be something worthy of investigation.
They did that decades ago by undercutting all the small businesses, thus ensuring that there's not much competition. And yes, cities definitely
This is an anti-trust issue (Score:2)
If that ever changes (and if we have a functioning democracy) then yes, we'd pass laws to fix it.
These kind of laws are sort of the bare minimum maintenance needed to keep capitalism functioning. If you're not willing to do it then, well, you'll lose capitalism, and likely
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That was exactly my thought. But, take it a little further.
By the logic of this, why should any seller be allowed to push the product that's most profitable to them?
Camera stores pushing the brands with the most margin.
Grocery stores pushing locally grown.
Car Dealers pushing who knows what from whereever.
You get the picture. It devolves into "You will do it our way and like it"
Lame duck session is an option (Score:1)
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I am still not seeing how this could threaten their seats. Are they worried about losing big tech money during campaign season?
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Are they worried about losing big tech money during campaign season?
Yes. And the corrolary, bit tech money being funneled to their opponents.
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But their 'opposition' party is also going to vote for it anyway aren't they? It seems both sides are for this. So it doesn't really matter.
Not sure what's funnier (Score:1)
Them thinking the public cares that much about big tech,
or them thinking they have actually still have a chance to keep Congress with gas pushing $6.00 a gallon, 200,000 invaders a month coming over the border, and their favorite dementia ward patient in the white house getting dumber by the day.
How about Democrats run on the usual "hot" issues? (Score:2)
Democrats are losing people on the usual "hot" issues in elections so they are going to have to back off on a lot of things or be wiped out in the election. There's drugs, guns, abortion, gays/lesbians, energy, environment, jobs, inflation, and on and on, that keeps getting brought up when things are looking uninteresting in elections.
The Supreme Court leak that reversed Roe v. Wade isn't going to make abortion illegal nationwide, and people are catching on to this. It means this is left to the states to
Democrats lose (Score:2)
It's been the trend that the party not in the White House gains in the "off season" elections. This means Democrats lose. They think that they can pick topics to bring up to minimize the damage? Unlikely.
The Democrats screwed the pooched a long time ago. In some cases literally, and with photographic evidence.
After that the Democrats can blame things on the Republicans again. Blame them for lower energy costs, a stronger military, lower taxes, less spending, more freedom, better education, and more bet