New York Unveils Landmark Antitrust Bill That Makes It Easier To Sue Tech Giants (theguardian.com) 34
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: New York state is introducing a bill that would make it easier to sue big tech companies for alleged abuses of their monopoly powers. Bill S8700A, [The Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act] now being discussed by New York's senate consumer protection committee, would update New York's antiquated antitrust laws for the 21st century, said the bill's sponsor, Senator Mike Gianaris. "Their power has grown to dangerous levels and we need to start reining them in," he said.
New York's antitrust laws currently require two players to collaborate in a conspiracy to conduct anticompetitive behavior such as price setting. In other cases companies may underprice products to the point where they are even incurring a loss just to drive others out of the market -- anticompetitive behavior that New York's laws would currently struggle to prosecute. "Our laws on antitrust in New York are a century old and they were built for a completely different economy," said Gianaris. "Much of the problem today in the 21st century is unilateral action by some of these behemoth tech companies and this bill would allow, for the first time, New York to engage in antitrust enforcement for unilateral action." The bill will probably be discussed when New York's senate returns to work in August but is unlikely to pass before next year. It has the support of New York's attorney general, Letitia James. "The bill would make criminal offenses by individuals punishable by up to 15 years in prison," adds Engadget, "That's up from four years under the existing law. It's also more time than the current federal maximum sentence of 10 years."
"Corporations could be fined up to $100 million, up from the current maximum New York state penalty of $1 million. The proposed changes would also allow class action lawsuits, which could lead to an increase in private antitrust litigation."
New York's antitrust laws currently require two players to collaborate in a conspiracy to conduct anticompetitive behavior such as price setting. In other cases companies may underprice products to the point where they are even incurring a loss just to drive others out of the market -- anticompetitive behavior that New York's laws would currently struggle to prosecute. "Our laws on antitrust in New York are a century old and they were built for a completely different economy," said Gianaris. "Much of the problem today in the 21st century is unilateral action by some of these behemoth tech companies and this bill would allow, for the first time, New York to engage in antitrust enforcement for unilateral action." The bill will probably be discussed when New York's senate returns to work in August but is unlikely to pass before next year. It has the support of New York's attorney general, Letitia James. "The bill would make criminal offenses by individuals punishable by up to 15 years in prison," adds Engadget, "That's up from four years under the existing law. It's also more time than the current federal maximum sentence of 10 years."
"Corporations could be fined up to $100 million, up from the current maximum New York state penalty of $1 million. The proposed changes would also allow class action lawsuits, which could lead to an increase in private antitrust litigation."
nt (Score:3)
Now counting to see how long it takes for the feds to preempt this on grounds of interstate commerce.
Probably not long after the congress critters start asking for refills to their corporate troughs.
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CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT, for FORCED invasion of privacy targeting retail users via monopoly control of access to computing and the internet using dominant market position to force acceptance of that invasion of privacy (just ask the majority, do you feel you were given a choice or did you have no choice and you know what that answer will be and the privacy invasive tech corporations will be fucked by it). I think they are screwed right there and a bunch of them can be targeted. Lawyers will be fighting over t
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Or, how long before most of these services suddenly become inaccessible in New York.
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Google?
Oh, and the actual quote, instead of your lie, is "When fascism comes to America, they'll call it Americanism".
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How about suing somebody who matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, gotta go after Social f'ing media. Because that matters. Also because they don't like losing control of the narrative.
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Also because they don't like losing control of the narrative.
Exactly... User input is dangerous
The whole thing is a wonderful distraction, isn't it?
I mean, look;
Trump v. Biden
Up until Trump put boots on the ground (Score:1)
Trump v. Biden isn't about who's right or wrong or who's the same or who's slightly less like dog shit. It's about whether we'll still be a democracy after November.
Something like 40% of Republican voters believe Democracy is not the bes
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That means around 20% of Americans no longer believe in Democracy. That is terrifying.
With Trump v. Biden, I have my doubts. Is this really the best we can do?
Trump is dangerous, yes, his supporters are much more so, but Biden is a very big part of the process that led us to Trump. He is a 44 year incumbent, a lukewarm machine politician. If all he does is keep the chair warm, like the previous democrats, another Trump is sure to follow.
With these two sad sacks on the ballot, we should all write in Oprah/W
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Come now. You don't believe this is about the protecting the people. You think the state of New York will make any money by going after grocery stores? Get the big tech companies! Fines up to $100 million dollars. They have to find a way out of the hole their in somehow.
Worst abuse of market power: New York Government.
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I live in NY, about 400 miles from NYC. If you think the state government is bad, you should see what corporations are like ;) NY is home to some 112 billionaires, guess who really controls things around here? Don't like the way government is going? Then maybe you should get rid of their owners. Or at least muzzle them. History indeed has shown how all this is going to end up.
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NY is home to some 112 billionaires
Not for much longer.
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for example, Grocery Stores [cnn.com] that are raising their prices during a pandemic after decades of consolidation? Or the telecom companies that keep buying out competitors? Or the company that bought every apartment within 50 miles of where I live and jacked my rent up $300/mo this year?
Nope, gotta go after Social f'ing media. Because that matters. Also because they don't like losing control of the narrative.
This is a story about new legislation which could be used to target tech companies or grocery stores. The same effort to pass the legislation affects a broad range of markets. So, there is no zero-sum game in terms of favoring one market over another.
Grocery stores are important. So are social media companies, which accrue tens of billions of dollar in revenue and help to affect presidential elections.
The emphasis is clearly on tech companies (Score:2)
Remember, nothing is illegal if the law is not enforced.
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and the only anti-trust enforcement I've seen in the last 40 years is targeted at tech companies.
Remember, nothing is illegal if the law is not enforced.
We're geeks, so we pay attention to the tech cases. Furthermore, the tech cases tend to be big and written up by journalists. However, the total set of anti-trust cases pursued by the government are much greater than what we tend to think of, and these cases range far beyond just tech companies. See this DOJ link [justice.gov] for a very long list of such cases.
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God forbid those evil grocery store fat cats from raising prices during a time when they have decreased supply and increased demand. They should contribute their "fair share" and sell their food at a loss.
Perhaps the solution is to nationalize them and give the food out for free? It worked wonderfully for Venezuela.
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for example, Grocery Stores [cnn.com] that are raising their prices during a pandemic after decades of consolidation?
There can be exceptions, but rising prices during a pandemic which impacts the supply chain is usually a good thing. It's unpleasant to have to pay higher prices, but the alternative to increasing prices in times of diminished supply is usually that the item in question becomes completely unavailable.
Rising prices are a natural result of reduced supply in the face of sustained (or increased) demand, and they serve as a signal to suppliers that it's worth investing additional resources and effort into incr
Now if they would just do something (Score:3)
about those pesky privacy issues on Bookface, Google, and friends.
Good luck, no teeth here (Score:2)
Re: Good luck, no teeth here (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the concept here is it lets the State of NY launch the suit. A Civil (and sometimes criminal) means to enforce its antitrust laws
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FOSS (Score:1)
companies may underprice products to the point where they are even incurring a loss just to drive others out of the market
Free Open Source Software is underpriced and drives competitors out of the market.
Hurry before the EU scoops up all the $$$ (Score:2)
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Yep. This is just a bill for the NY Attorney General to extort stuff out of big tech companies. "Nice company you've got there. Too bad if anything happened to it. Let me introduce you to my friends..."
This matters more than anything (Score:5, Insightful)
These companies have become the masters of the universe with more power than any company in history. They have already started abusing their power to interfere in other countries elections. They already censor news and peoples communications to their own personal political views.
They have stated that they will interfere in the 2020 US presidential election. They have previously falsely testified to congress about what they do and evidence has been leaked showing that their previous testimony was false (no blacklists, political favoritism, shadowbanning etc.). Their censorship can just as effectively be turned on you and issues you care about.
Big tech certainly interfered in the 2016 election (silent contribution, manipulated and biased results). Whistleblowers have come forward with evidence and recordings of these companies abusing their power to censor conservative views and interfere in the 2020 election. Are you really okay with having a world effectively run by an oligarchy of unelected tech companies? We're effectively far closer to this than people realize.
These monopolies are as bad as any in history. Saying we'll let competition solve this is rhetorical hot air, the absurdity of doing so and barriers to entry have never been higher. Society has to bring big tech under antitrust control before it's too late.
Society already dealt with banks that were too big to fail and the disaster that led to. Don't let the same thing happen with big tech.
Re:This matters more than anything (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, with this bill will have the NY Attorney General telling big tech companies how to behave instead. I'm sure she'll be super-careful to use her new leverage to ensure there is no "hate speech" on their big platforms that doesn't toe the SJW line completely.
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These companies have become the masters of the universe with more power than any company in history. They have already started abusing their power to interfere in other countries elections. They already censor news and peoples communications to their own personal political views.
Interfering in elections? You think that makes them the most powerful ever? Clearly you've never heard of the East India company. It had a navy that could rival all but that great powers, an even larger standing arny, the ability t
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These companies have the ability to censor news, search, communications and information propagation at a level that is unparalleled in history. This gives them an ability to manipulate elections that the Soviets in the cold war could have only wished for.
This means big tech has the ability to manipulate and strongly influence the choosing of leaders of nations all over the world. Once chosen, these leaders will have public policies big tech favors. More to the point they will be well aware of the cost of b
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If you make wildly inaccurate comparisons it does not support your point.
Society is less direct now then it was in the heyday of the East India trading company. That being said, the nations where big tech picks the political leadership have their own navies, armies and air forces. The East India trading company never had that much power,
lolwut.
The East india Company had an army of 250,000 men (larger than the British army and about 1/3 of the size of Napoleon's at it's peak). They ruled the whole of India