FTC Readies Lawsuit That Could Break Up Amazon 62
The Federal Trade Commission is finalizing its long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, POLITICO reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter, a move that could ultimately break up parts of the company. From the report: The FTC has been investigating the company on a number of fronts, and the coming case would be one of the most aggressive and high-profile moves in the Biden administration's rocky effort to tame the power of tech giants. The wide-ranging lawsuit is expected as soon as August, and will likely challenge a host of Amazon's business practices, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss a confidential matter. If successful, it could lead to a court-ordered restructuring of the $1.3 trillion empire and define the legacy of FTC Chair Lina Khan.
Khan rose to prominence as a Big Tech skeptic with a 2017 academic paper specifically identifying Amazon as a modern monopolist needing to be reined in. Because any case will likely take years to wind through the courts, the final result will rest with her successors. The exact details of the final lawsuit are not known, and changes to the final complaint are expected until the eleventh hour. But personnel throughout the agency, including Khan herself, have homed in on several of Amazon's business practices, said some of the people.
Khan rose to prominence as a Big Tech skeptic with a 2017 academic paper specifically identifying Amazon as a modern monopolist needing to be reined in. Because any case will likely take years to wind through the courts, the final result will rest with her successors. The exact details of the final lawsuit are not known, and changes to the final complaint are expected until the eleventh hour. But personnel throughout the agency, including Khan herself, have homed in on several of Amazon's business practices, said some of the people.
Re:Fat chance (Score:5, Insightful)
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It may be that the governments (liberal ones) are pressuring Vanguard and/or Blackrock, etc to push the agenda if they want to keep managing the retirement funds they use them for.
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Re: Fat chance (Score:2)
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- Amazon has competition. Believe it or not, there are Walmart, Target and alike. Not so long ago, there were protests against Walmart and their "monopolly", That is why there is no Walmart in NYC. It was a political decision, albeit an idiotic one, to "protect corner shops". Even online, there is Ebay, Overstock and many other shops. Amazon is no way "near monopolly".
- There are many alternatives to Microsoft Office: Libreoffice, Open Office, WPS, Gnome Office (AbiWord, Gnumeric, Evince and Evolution) and
Let Joe Biden have a couple of Supreme Court seats (Score:4, Insightful)
Both Alito and Thomas are almost 80 so they're going to be retiring soon. Probably real soon when the department of Justice starts poking around their extremely dodgy relationships. I'm not so naive I think they'll be convicted but I think that a doj investigation would inconvenience them enough that they cash out and retire. Given that it's extremely likely that if Biden has the senate in his next term we're going to see some pretty bold moves from his FTC.
Or not. It's also possible us Americans will give the Senate back to the Republicans and they'll just block Biden from appointing anyone indefinitely. Just like they did to Obama. But if you're a voter you need to start actually thinking about what your vote means to you and your bottom line and whether culture War issues are worth it anymore. You can stop trans kids from getting hormone therapy or you can break up monopolies but you can't do both.
Exact opposite actually (Score:5, Insightful)
Thomas & Alito both took bribes. It's insanely obvious. If it wasn't for partisans like yourself they'd already have been impeached and they'd be in jail. You've allowed one of our fundamental institutions to collapse so you could criminalize abortion and stick it to some college kids who's only crime was not being born between 1950 and 1980 before the large scale State & Federal subsidies to college tuition got pulled.
It'll bite you in the ass eventually Dobbs gutted all Constitutional protections for privacy and Biden v Nebraska gave the Supreme Court an entirely new power, called the "Major Questions Doctrine" that gives them unlimited Veto power over all laws in this country. The Supreme Court just did a massive government power grab while you were busy with your culture wars.
Party of Small Government my ass.
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This isn't dark money, this is the Department of Justice investigating Dark Money Groups bribing Supreme Court Justices.
Thomas & Alito both took bribes. It's insanely obvious. If it wasn't for partisans like yourself they'd already have been impeached and they'd be in jail. You've allowed one of our fundamental institutions to collapse so you could criminalize abortion and stick it to some college kids who's only crime was not being born between 1950 and 1980 before the large scale State & Federal subsidies to college tuition got pulled.
Except it's not quite bribes (particularly in Alito's case).
A bribe requires a specific quid-pro-quo (I give you X, you make your ruling Y). Not only is there no evidence that ever happened, but I doubt it would have happened just because it was unnecessary.
Instead, rich Conservative donors "befriended" the Justices (especially Thomas), and the Justices (especially Thomas) benefited in the way you'd expect having a generous billionaire friend.
This certainly influenced rulings, either because the Justices fe
It does not require specific quid pro quo (Score:3)
That said while I agree that our system is explicitly designed to prevent these powerful men from being punished for their crimes and that it's extremely unlikel
Re:Let Joe Biden have a couple of Supreme Court se (Score:4, Informative)
The courts aren't the fundamental issue here. Courts interpret the law and the competition law in America sets an extraordinarily high bar of almost having to prove beyond doubt that something will have a direct negative effect on consumer price. In many other countries the bar is much lower. It's one of the reasons that the EU goes after anticompetitive B2B practices and the USA does not, because it's almost impossible to prove e.g. the direct cost to the consumer of Google asking Samsung not to integrate Bing Search is incalculable.
You don't need different judges. That's addressing the issue from the wrong end. Write better laws and the issues in the courts resolve themselves.
The law didn't actually do that (Score:1)
Biden's FTC moved to use the new rules against Microsoft and block their Activation buyout but the corrupt courts blocked them, allowing the merger through and signaling to the FTC that it's open season on mega-mergers and you're little "laws" mean nothing to them.
So the FTC probably isn't going to try all th
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So, you actually DO NOT believe in competition. You're too stupid to realize that monopolies mean higher prices. AND they decide what you get to buy, and what you don't (like Amazon dropping their group magazine subscriptions, which is hurting a *lot* of magazines, for example).
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that was just previous administration's interpretation of the law.
An administration cannot interpret the law. I can't stress this enough, Biden, Trump, etc, it really doesn't matter what they think the law says or means. They can only pass law or repeal law. Interpretation is up to courts.
And again the law sets a high bar. It's very short. Too short. So short as to be only applicable to the most egregious violations of the concept of antitrust, and that is my point. You effectively have to borderline prove a conspiracy against the general public for it to be applicable. P
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That's not in the law. That's enforcement policy started under the Reagan administration. Before that it was sufficient to show that monopolistic business practices hurt competition, without any requirement to hurt consumers. The mega-corporation-friendly Reagan administration changed that because they knew it would be harder to
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It is indirectly.
Before that it was sufficient to show that monopolistic business practices hurt competition, without any requirement to hurt consumers.
No. You have to show that there is conspiracy to directly reduce competition. The bar for proving such a thing is incredibly high. You either need to show that the companies directly have communicated in such a way that their intent was directly to reduce competition, or you need to show beyond doubt the market effect will be such and that latter part almost universally is dependent on the impact to the consumer.
The Clayton act has been applied to companies without showing consumers were h
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> ...but I think that a doj investigation would inconvenience them enough that they cash out and retire...
They'd have to be totally idiotic to do that. In their current roles it is much harder to chase after them with endless lawsuits from the government than it would be as a legal hit squad. Additionally right now, leftist activist groups who try to sue them personally will likely have a really hard time- it'll be much easier if they were retired. Given that the current system will chase and attack a
It's not about a legal hit squad (Score:3)
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There's no chance at all that Thomas and Alito retire while Biden is in office.
Re:Fat chance (Score:4, Insightful)
AWS and Amazon are a perfect pair. AWS makes lots of money, Amazon provides a perfect tax shield due to it voracious appetite for capital. Kahn's goal here is not some trivial thing for the consumer's benefit. No, Kahn wants to break up the Amazon side and destroy that tax shield. Because if that tax shield is gone the Feds can take billions out of AWS in taxes. Since there are no legal grounds to split AWS off from Amazon, the alternative is to break up Amazon.
Breaking up Amazon will satisfy the goal of destroying the the tax shield. But the downside to this is that those shattered pieces of Amazon are all going to lose money and be capital starved. I don't see how Amazon delivery, or Amazon advertising, or Amazon's store brand or Amazon Prime video can all operate as standalone entities. The whole Amazon system relies on a web of synergistic support. The combined whole of Amazon is greater than the sum of its parts.
So who will end up winning from breaking up Amazon? The answer is obvious. The government gets a pile of new taxes and Alibaba gets a pile of new customers. Hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees all lose.
Capital starved? Why? (Score:3)
If it's making money - which AWS and Retailing, at least in the USA, clearly are - there will be no shortage of capital for those sectors. Yes, a split might disable Prime TV, but that wouldn't be the end of the world.
Monopolists always claim that the world will end when their toys are broken up - and it almost never happens. Remember the AT&T breakup? Everyone was terribly worried - and it worked out amazingly well...
It's funny that you think AWS (Score:2)
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The 600lb gorrilla in retail is Walmart, if the FTC broke up Amazon it leaves Walmart's retail monopoly unchallenged.
I wouldn't bet on it. (Score:5, Insightful)
How many cases has Lina Kahn lost in a row now?
Bet. (Score:1)
Amazon will offer a couple millions to any FTC employee that says "let's not". Not directly, obviously.
Then, they will lobby against anti-trust laws.
We do not wait until the cancer becomes comparable in weight to the host before we decide to do something about it.
Amazon has a higher "total assets" metric than each of bp, chevron, shell or exxonmobil. Can you imagine the backlash from trying to break up exxonmobil?
I am not an economist, I am using that metric as a rough proxy of a company's size, inertia.
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Those documents were not stolen. They were on a forfeited laptop which became the property of the shop per the service contract. If you don't want your secrets exposed, don't forget that you dropped off a laptop to be repaired which is full of them.
At least the Republicans are using actual real documents and facts in their investigation. The Democrats spent four years and two impeachments using fake intel which the Democrats (the Clinton campaign and DNC) paid Russian agents (that is actual collusion) to
Re:Amazon is not the problem (Score:4, Informative)
Those documents were not stolen. They were on a forfeited laptop which became the property of the shop per the service contract.
Could OP be referring to the nuclear secrets that were taken from the White House and stored in a closet in Florida?
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It was a bathroom, and two wrongs don't make a right: let's see justice on BOTH matters, please.
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Amazon isn't scary. It's successful because we all use it every day.
I don't use it, not since they tried to scam me, and I know others who don't use it. Perhaps in your world they all do.
"Scary" is not the adjective I would use anyway, "scummy", "smug", "crooked" and "shitty" are the ones that come to my mind. I hope the courts grind the bastards into the dust.
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I see something in your rant that I sort of agree with. Our government has failed us big time. And it's not just this round of nitwits. It's been decades in the making.
That said, I'd like to see them both go after controller / owner class large companies that have bought their way into consolidated power *AND* I'd like to see them start focusing on literally *ANY* segment of society outside of Wall Street and the billionaire class. For most of my life, the only thing the politicians have shown any sign of c
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No one seems to recognize or acknowledge the role of income taxes in tilting the playing field toward the fat cats. You tax the businesses X%, and the fat cats with the mega-corps hire a phalanx of lawyers, that tell them how to conduct business all year to take advantage of every tax loophole in existence, and this is how you get mega-corps paying zero income taxes. That goes on, while the lesser corps that MIGHT actually have a better product pay those taxes 'cuz they can't afford those lawyers, and t
Huh, they [in]conveniently look away... (Score:1, Troll)
...when it comes to Google's search business or Microsoft's office suite and its closed but changing file formats.
These folks really think we're fools, right?
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Who says they're looking away? If you had three targets, each of which would require almost the entire resources of your agency, would you choose to take them all on at once? Would you choose the one engaging in the most egregious practices? Would you choose the one you could make the best case against?
I can't believe you seriously expect a single government agency to tackle three monopolies, each with more resources than entire countries, all at once.
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This should be determined by a small limited group of people/lawyers from both sides, it shouldn't take 5000 lawyers and 5000 government employees to figure this out. The fact that it does tells us that government has gotten too bloated, corporations too powerful, and lawyers - well - they're lawyers what do you expect other than more lawyers.
It's not government bloat (Score:3)
The real world is a complicated place with lots of asterisks and exceptions.
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Every single encountered exception should be up to a jury or judge and not baked into the law. Yes I realize that citing precedents are a thing but they have gotten out of hand.
Hate to quote Marvel (Score:3)
Remembering when Bill Gates was in big trouble (Score:2, Insightful)
He even admitted he'd knowingly broke the law.
Yadda yadda yadda, nothing bad happened to Microsoft, Gates got off scott-free, and Gates money flowed like a steady stream to the benefit of those with connections to the political class, and that continues to this day.
Prediction: The parasitical offspring of those with connections will get to wet their beaks from minor tributaries flowing from the circulatory system of Amazon.
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Ultimately what saved Bill Gates was that "technically" anyone could enter the OS market. You can look at Unix and Linux even during that time. I am not saying his suppressive efforts weren't illegal, but if you could survive the API lawsuits you "could" do it.
I think it may be the same with Amazon if I am being honest. All they are is a warehouse company that uses a catalog to ship stuff to your door. Granted they own the shipping company for the last mile but they are not competing with other shipping
Re:Remembering when Bill Gates was in big trouble (Score:4, Interesting)
You also had Microsoft and Intel propping up Apple at times, so it wouldn't go bankrupt, and keep that important 5-10% or so of market share so they could argue that no, Microsoft isn't a monopoly. For that matter, Intel propped up AMD back in the day for the same reasons.
The question of "how do you split them up"? Is a good one. It's the time of the internet, "regional" isn't as big of a factor anymore. Part of the attraction of Amazon is that I can buy all sorts of things - from books to cookware to welders to computers, etc... If I want to buy something that can be shipped, odds are I can buy it off of amazon. Without having to put my credit card details into yet another site, without having to input my shipping addresses again, etc...
The problem, I think, is that Amazon isn't truly a monopoly for anything.
Storefront: Competition is still there in the form of manufacturer websites, specialty websites like newegg*, more general sites like ebay, alibaba, etc...
AWS: Google and such.
Self driving car: Zoox, apparently, but you also have all the major car companies, google, etc... Uber shut their attempt down after a fatal accident, and are now working with Waymo/google.
Streaming: Netflix, Disney, youtube, etc...
I mean, I'd love to investigate them, google, and apple for price fixing on ebooks. They're the reason why you can't buy gobs of older books published years ago in ebook form for under a buck, but something closer to hardcover prices, not even paperback. It's also the only reason why I don't have an extensive ebook library outside of baen(which has fallen tremendously since Mr. Baen died). In short, the higher prices might mean more profit per book, but I've spent drastically less money on ebooks if they were what I'd consider a "fair" price. So they've lost a lot of profit from people like me.
There's certainly practices that I'd love to have investigated and them fined over. There's some shit with them acting as competition with companies also listing/selling on amazon. Improper customer service, but as far as I'm aware, it's still relatively easy to find a human at Amazon, unlike Google, who'll do things like ban their own developers without explanation.
*I'll buy stuff off of newegg just for the superior interface in finding what I'm looking for.
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>Ultimately what saved Bill Gates was that "technically" anyone could enter the OS market.
no, that was just their argument. Economics and antitrust law has long recognized "barriers to entry" in a field that may nominally be open to entrants.
What *actually* saved Microsoft from being split was the judge, in defiance of judicial ethics, shooting off his mouth about a still on-going case, leaving the appellate court no choice in light of his clear bias but to vacate .
hawk, economist & lawyer
Yeah, sure. (Score:2)
Amazon can afford enough lawyers to bankrupt the DOJ's budget just doing delaying tactics.
The FTC ready to loose, being its new strategy (Score:1)
Do not make the good the enemy (Score:2)
Do not make the good the enemy of the crappy! It is a Danger to Democracy (tm) to have low prices and cheap fast shipping. Higher prices now! Slow shipping now!
Lawsuit Will Get at Least 1 Star, Either Way (Score:2)
Nope. It can't (Score:2)
Guess I Better... (Score:1)
... get my next order in before I have to go back to shopping at Sears... no, wait...