US House Committee Approves Blueprint For Big Tech Crackdown (reuters.com) 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee formally approved a report accusing Big Tech companies of buying or crushing smaller firms, Representative David Cicilline's office said in a statement on Thursday. With the approval during a marathon, partisan hearing, the more than 400-page staff report will become an official committee report, and the blueprint for legislation to rein in the market power of the likes of Alphabet's Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. The report was approved by a 24-17 vote that split along party lines. The companies have denied any wrongdoing.
Suggested legislation in the report ranged from the aggressive, such as potentially barring companies like Amazon.com from operating the markets in which they also compete, to the less controversial, like increasing the budgets of the agencies that enforce antitrust law -- the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission. The report also urged Congress to allow antitrust enforcers more leeway in stopping companies from purchasing potential rivals, something that is now difficult.
Suggested legislation in the report ranged from the aggressive, such as potentially barring companies like Amazon.com from operating the markets in which they also compete, to the less controversial, like increasing the budgets of the agencies that enforce antitrust law -- the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission. The report also urged Congress to allow antitrust enforcers more leeway in stopping companies from purchasing potential rivals, something that is now difficult.
Yep (Score:2)
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They also promote the Amazon version demote the competing version they used to promote. Put the competing corporation out of business bankrupting many investor and making those workers unemployed and jack up the prices. As a bonus, the produce the product in the country with the cheapest most exploited labour, ensuring those workers they put out of work, stay out of work for a long time, losing their houses and their children ending up in poverty.
Woohoo great victory for capitalism. You have to think it t
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There is also competition. If the seller takes ownership of the marketplace, the buyer is jacked.
Hence a modicum of regulatory lubrication to keep the relationships casual.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
duplicate the product and sell it for less.
Seems like a win for consumers.
Amazon couldn't sell for less if the originals were reasonably priced.
That’s some incredibly shortsighted thinking that misses the obvious.
At best, it’s a short-term win for consumers, but it’s a long-term loss because you’re driving innovators out of the market. The reason Amazon can price it less is generally not because the original price was unreasonable, as you suggest, but rather because they’re externalizing the costs for R&D, market research, product design, tooling, product iteration, etc. by letting independent shops do all of that hard work, then internalizing profits by undercutting the original creators with a product that benefits from all of that hard work and learning without any need to recoup the costs of those efforts.
In most of these cases, they’re taking advantage of vulnerable people and companies who have no recourse. They can’t lower prices, they oftentimes lack patents and other legal protection, and even if they do have those, Amazon will drown them in years of legal fees before they ever see a dime. They’d be betting the company on getting a win against Amazon in court instead of being able to focus on designing their next product, which is what they’d much rather be doing.
That’s a loss for us all.
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Not a win for the Uyghur slaves in Xinjiang.
Re: Yep (Score:2)
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You rang?
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Seems like a win for consumers. Amazon couldn't sell for less if the originals were reasonably priced.
So you're in favour of US jobs being exported to India, China, and Mexico then? That also fits your criteria for a "win for consumers".
Re: Yep (Score:2)
It's called globalism, and we keep electing people who think it's a good idea. That's the implicit consent and you'd need a pretty strong argument to justify tearing it all down. It's not even a left/right issue anymore, the anti-globalism crowd isn't represented by the mainstream or even by the conspiracy nutters.
How about going after the conglomerate (Score:1)
Stock market should be interesting Monday... (Score:1)
Na. People will just keep throwing cash at 'em.
Turn on, tune in, drop out and buy a retro machine (Score:1)
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That's a pretty terrible analogy. Most of these acquisitions were after the buyers had over 50% of market share in their respective consumer markets -- Apple seems out of place here because they haven't made the same kind of acquisitions, and Amazon is probably the only other exception to that -- and were acquisitions of up-and-coming companies that might have disrupted that leadership. Ford was never that dominant in automobiles, and the smaller makes you mention were never that threatening.
A good automo
Neglecting... (Score:5, Interesting)
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If your business plan is literally to... not compete, but rather to get someone else to compete for you, you aren't in the market you claim to be. You're fronting a theoretical business but your actual business is to sucker someone else into giving you a pile of cash, and then they are stuck figuring out how to make it turn a profit.
I'm all for suckering the well-moneyed, but it also illustrates a fundamental problem with such concentrations of capital: the entire business side of the market doesn't want to
Include big game publishers... (Score:1)
Anticompetitive pracrices, OK. How about speech? (Score:4, Insightful)
The guys behave like gangsters with their competitors, especially small ones. Microsoft commonly used to suck up to these people, then steal their technology and release it as a free Microsoft feature iside something larger, destroying the smaller company. It would be good to stop this. But, the elephant in the room now is these companies' current practice of censoring speech and causing people with whom they disagree to simply disappear. This is intolerable, and it is the thing that the Congress should deal with first.
How about speech? (Score:2)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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Long-standing legal precedent says that when a company does things -- like censoring speech -- because the government told them to, that counts as government action, and is bounded by the Constitution. Democrats in Congress made it clear that they wanted these companies to stamp out conservative viewpoints, and that's exactly what these companies are trying to do. For example, just this week, Twitter banner Project Veritas for reporting on CNN's partisan bias, and Facebook blocked users from linking to th
Pure Pretend (Score:2)
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It's not quite that simple.
The Ds are taking damage from the conspiracy theories and radicalizing get-mad content that these companies traffic in.
The Rs have a voter base with a persecution complex about these companies, plus many of them believe these companies are controlled by demons. Actual Satan, like with horns and shit.
Both of these things are a counterweight to any campaign funding they get. Neither of these things were huge issues until the past one or two election cycles. So yes, they do have an i
Orange Calendar (Score:2)
Please step away from MICROSOFT with your .app for the rest of us.
Bill Gates Go straight to jail
Re: Orange Calendar (Score:2)
And O.M.G. have you seen the Halloween papers? unbelievable!
Something something mumble mumble 20 year old tired old arguments.
Keep is simple, stupid (Score:2)
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Alright, you're hired. Now go buy off the legislators to get it passed...