US May Soon Push Ambitious Antitrust Crackdown on Big Tech in Congress (yahoo.com) 44
America's federal government "is planning a post-midterms push for antitrust legislation that would rein in the power of the world's largest tech companies," reports Bloomberg, "a last-ditch effort to get a stalled pair of bills through Congress before a predicted Republican takeover in January."
The lame-duck period after Tuesday's U.S. election may be the last shot to pass the landmark legislation, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and Open App Markets Act. The bills, which would prevent the tech companies from using their platforms to thwart competitors, would be the most significant expansion of antitrust law in over a century.... Republicans have made it clear that they won't support the bills if they retake control of either chamber of Congress. That has supporters urging the White House to mount a push in the final weeks before a new Congress is seated early next year.
Advocates have criticized the White House for failing to prioritize the legislation, which major tech companies have spent more than $100 million to defeat. Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta all oppose the bill. "There is bipartisan support for antitrust bills, and no reason why Congress can't act before the end of the year," said White House spokesperson Emilie Simons. "We are planning on stepping up engagement during the lame duck on the president's agenda across the board, antitrust included." Versions of both bills have made it through committees but await action by the full House and Senate.
If Congress doesn't act before the end of the year, it will likely be years before U.S. lawmakers pass any legislation to crack down on the power of the tech giants.
Advocates have criticized the White House for failing to prioritize the legislation, which major tech companies have spent more than $100 million to defeat. Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta all oppose the bill. "There is bipartisan support for antitrust bills, and no reason why Congress can't act before the end of the year," said White House spokesperson Emilie Simons. "We are planning on stepping up engagement during the lame duck on the president's agenda across the board, antitrust included." Versions of both bills have made it through committees but await action by the full House and Senate.
If Congress doesn't act before the end of the year, it will likely be years before U.S. lawmakers pass any legislation to crack down on the power of the tech giants.
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To comment further, this story gets republican peepees hard because Fauci is involved. Like this is their big gotcha moment where Fauci leaves in handcuffs and they cum.
NY Post sez! [Considering the US Government ha...] (Score:1)
... a href="https://nypost.com...
I don't even bother to look at NY Post "articles". Is there an actual reputable source to link?
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Quoting the NYPost isn't exactly a bid for accuracy. Find a real news outlet and we might listen.
Pass a privacy bill, and the problem goes away (Score:5, Interesting)
Congress should pass a law that any information about you, belongs to you. You may reveal that information to a second party, for purposes and duration limited by you. The information may not be used for any other purpose, nor shared with any third party, including the government, without your permission.
Congress shall not pass any legislation that attempts an end-run around this requirement. (I'm looking at you, Third-party Doctrine)
Where does that leave the so-called monopolistic Big Tech? Without a business model. You are no longer the product, by default.
Re: Pass a privacy bill, and the problem goes away (Score:2)
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Re: Pass a privacy bill, and the problem goes away (Score:1)
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Nice thought, impossible in practice. You'd have people suing their electric company for keeping your records of energy use. People would sue their doctors for keeping their medical records.
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Nice thought, impossible in practice.
Like how GDPR is "impossible", huh?
The amazing thing about American Exceptionalism is how Americans keep insisting things that *have already been done* in other countries as "impossible"
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Another great one would be to require X number of local live support personnel for every Y number of active customers. Retail businesses wouldn't be touched but it would completely break the back of the current exploitative and corrupt business model tech companies have.
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Yes, another way for the large tech companies to squash upcoming rivals...
This is called "regulatory capture". They will easily find all that support personnel. They could even double task existing contractors into that role.
However your next startup that will uproot Meta/Twitter/Microsoft? They don't have a proper cashflow yet, let alone be able to hire and manage so many new personnel.
Sorry. this is another idea that sounds good at first, but would backfire if you think about it.
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That's not a backfire, that's working as intended. The major players will be forced to either actually be accountable or be broken, and no new corrupt fly-by-night outfits like airBNB or Uber will be able to even get started.
Actually having proper accountability to your customers is part of running a business just like paying your employees. If you can't do it then by definition your business is a failure. Human history did not start when Facebook sprang fully formed from the ether. We'll be fine.
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Oh, I see... as I gather the EU laws are.
Re:Republicans really against this legislation? Or (Score:5, Informative)
I mean you can read the bills themselves, they've been written up for sometime;
The American Innovation and Choice Online Act: What it Does and What it Means [bipartisanpolicy.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I haven't found anything grievously out of scope in there or sneaky add ons that aren't related.
I know it's hard to believe but sometimes politicians (even Republicans!) can say one thing and actually act in a manner counter to what they said.
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"Decide to help the US effort in Ukraine" An interesting way to describe require payment for the continued use of his infrastructure and equipment which because of his donating freely for several months had Starlink continuously attacked by government backed hackers. How many billions have gone to paying for stuff for the "war effort" again?
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AFAIK, Apple owns and completely controls the OS API that the App Store software uses, so they can obviously make non-Apple apps unstable as calls are deprecated and security controls are tightened over time, which would probably motivate most people to stay in the Apple App Store, yes?
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Well, on Android, when you try to install an app that isn't from Google's Play store, you get a security warning. That warning is anti-competitive because it tries to scare users into staying within Google's own ecosystem. They'd have to know for sure that an app is malicious. You think they're going to start auditing apps that aren't on their store? Believe it or not, 1 benefit to these app stores really is security. I assume Apple's is similar, but I could be wrong since I don't own an iPhone.
Keep in mind
Just rebadge it as "bill to screw with california" (Score:2)
And you will get quite a bunch of right wing support to pass it.
Re:Poisoning the well (Score:4, Insightful)
There is still the filibuster thing in the Senate. The House has sent quite a bit of legislation up there to have it squashed. So don't blow us the BS of the Democrats haven't done anything.
Salt the Earth and poison the wells? Sounds like the Rep. Green's fantasies. Errr...you don't work for Fox do you? If not, you might want to see if they'll give you job, they go for fantasies about Democrats.
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This is why politicians can't be trusted with power.
Do share this obvious and i am sure very practical and realistic alternative to representative and pariliamentary democracy.
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I don't agree on your motivation, but I did get a laugh out of how petty and petulant that would be if it *was* their motivation. Like, "midnight judges" levels of pettiness and petulance.
How about doing grocery stores (Score:2)
Oh, those guys have a lot of money and power and the right wing isn't hoping to use anti-trust enforcement to seize control of them, so that's a no.
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Big juicy targets make us forget about the hidden privacy issues.
You sign up for a bank account, electric utility, or even a grocery discount card; then you implicitly allow an army of nameless companies to have free reign of your data. (Do you know why they ask for zip code in some stores? First Initial + Lastname (from CC) + Zipcode can uniquely identify more than 90%+ of the people. They don't even need a loyalty card to track you).
Some random "Mark Zuckerbergs" in the US:
https://www.usphonebook.com/ma.. [usphonebook.com]
There's no chance (Score:2)
Wrong target (Score:1)
The US should be going after Big *Telecom* instead.
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I would like the Congress to be able to do more than one thing at a time. Do both.
Why *wouldn't* the Republicans pursue anti-trust? (Score:1, Insightful)
The Republicans despise big tech because big tech despises the Republicans. Big tech has repeatedly suppressed conservative speech via bans, shadow bans, lower search placements, censorships, de-platforming, de-monetizing, labelled things as misinformation that later proved to be true, etc. And big tech has now been caught red-handed doing this in concert with the DOJ and FBI. (And other agencies with progressives in control of them are likely guilty as well. Why not just DOJ and FBI?)
"If Congress doesn
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You are on to something. The latest Musk and Twitter contretemps and the reaction to it are instructive.
Don't Count Your Takeover Until It Hatches (Score:1)
Cannot EVER work (Score:2)
Timing Would Prove it Political Issue (Score:2)
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