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New FTC Task Force Will Take on Tech Monopolies (theverge.com) 63

Posted by msmash from the about-time dept.
The Federal Trade Commission will be launching a task force to monitor competition in the US's technology markets, commissioners announced today. From a report: The task force will include current officials working in the agency's Bureau of Competition in order to "enhance the Bureau's focus on technology-related sectors of the economy, including markets in which online platforms compete." It will also include 17 staff attorneys who will be tasked with investigating anti-competitive behavior in the tech industry. "The role of technology in the economy and in our lives grows more important every day," FTC Chairman Joe Simons said. "As I've noted in the past, it makes sense for us to closely examine technology markets to ensure consumers benefit from free and fair competition."
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New FTC Task Force Will Take on Tech Monopolies More

New FTC Task Force Will Take on Tech Monopolies

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  • Too little too late guys (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    FTC, Your base belong to the Zuck.

    This reminds me of the wonderful idea the Australian Govt had on adding tariffs to Apple products. Lets do it _after_ the boom when the market calms down and everyone has made their money. Brilliant, lets impose taxes and watchdogging after the monopolies have been established. Gotta love politics, you know the truth be known that we should have learned from the Dotcom boom and we should have learned from the EU antitrust on MS.

    But I guess this is what happens when Obama ca

    • Lets do it _after_ the boom when the market calms down and everyone has made their money. Brilliant, lets impose taxes and watchdogging after the monopolies have been established.

      Depends on what they do.

      If they make a bunch of obfuscating rules that nibbles at the edges, it's worthless.

      If they take a tech monopoly's patent portfolio and forces it to be FRAND-licensed at a pittance or at-best-symbolic price, then said monopoly loses a significant source of income and protection from upstarts.

      If they actually start breaking up monopolies or regulate every little thing they do (a'la AT&T in the good old days before the Baby Bells), then it's probably strong enough to eventually bre

    • FTC, Your base belong to the Zuck.

      Perhaps you need to look up the definition of the word monopoly. Nothing prevents users from leaving the site for competing social media platforms, and in fact the younger generation [merriam-webster.com] doesn't really like Facebook [theguardian.com].

      • Except to look at individual platforms narrowly misses the bigger picture - Facebook buys up all potential competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp so that even if users think that they've left for a competitor, in reality, Facebook continues to vacuum up their data and build their profiles. Or the case with Google, where you have not just the classic products like GMail, Google Calendar, etc., but also all the infrastructure they control like Google Analytics, Android, Google AdSense, Chrome, etc. Yes, it

        • Except to look at individual platforms narrowly misses the bigger picture - Facebook buys up all potential competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp so that even if users think that they've left for a competitor, in reality, Facebook continues to vacuum up their data and build their profiles.

          Being able to buy up your competitors only works if they're willing to sell. What you're pointing out is the just the way capitalism is supposed to work.

          A monopoly means that a business is preventing a competitor from competing by unfair business practices. If Facebook was preventing your competing social media network from registering a domain, connecting your servers to the internet, or dissuading advertisers from doing business with your platform - then you'd have a valid case to make that they're a mo

  • Not that "tech company" is a separate category anymore what with almost every part of industry transforming [slidesharecdn.com] itself onto a technological base. But every industry from pharma [cnn.com] and insurance [opensecrets.org]to automobiles [autonews.com]to appliances [opensecrets.org] is pouring money into politicians with very predictable [techliberation.com] results. For decades. For centuries. Now I'm supposed to believe the government is actually reigning in capitalism under a Republican president and a heavily Republican-constrained congress? Pull the other one, it squeakes.

  • typo in that (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mnemotronic ( 586021 ) <mnemotronic@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @03:08PM (#58184314) Homepage Journal

    The Federal Trade Commission will be launching a task force to monitor competition in the US’s technology markets ... in order to“enhance the Bureau’s focus on technology-related sectors of the economy, especially organizations in which the owners challenge the integrity, intelligence or competence of the current administration.”

    FTFY

  • also crack down on Comcast cable card rules abuse.

    They need to stop the X1 only IPTV channels.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • First off, no, Apple does not have a monopoly. They have lock-in, which is far from being the same thing. I'm not saying that lock-in is fine, but we need to stop misusing "monopoly" if we're going to have a rational discussion on the topic.

      Second, even if they had a monopoly, a monopoly in and of itself does not necessarily mean action need be taken by regulators. It's when companies abuse their monopolies to gain an anticompetitive advantage that it becomes a problem (e.g. leveraging their monopoly in one

  • We've finally created a new federal agency to target a single entity on the president's enemies list: Amazon! Good luck with that...

    • You only think it's about monopoly rather than political donations. Most of the world runs on corruption, which for government means getting in the way so you can get paid to get back out of the way. Or pass the business model to connected cronies.

  • Their monopoly is the worst there has ever been. They have got to be broken up into a dozen or more companies. Maybe even confiscate all their IP, etc and make them public domain.

  • 5... 4... 3...
  • OMG! Does this spell the end of the road for the giant telcos' monopolies?

  • New FTC Task Force Will Take Bribes From Tech Monopolies

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