DoJ announces broad anti-trust review of Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The Justice Department said it’s investigating whether technology giants are harming competition, stepping up its scrutiny of the industry’s biggest companies.

Quote

The department’s antitrust division will look at concerns that consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and online retail, according to a statement Tuesday.

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Good. I do hope it is more than a partisan witch hunt for being mean to conservatives

[Firewithin]

43 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Good. I do hope it is more than a partisan witch hunt for being mean to conservatives

 

this is one of the rare cases of something good for the wrong reasons.  Of course its because the idiot thinks he being censored.

[Jason]

Twitler thinks Facebook and Google are censoring him, hates Bezos (because of WaPo???), and hates Tim Apple (for quitting his CEOs council, right?). They're all going to argue, and rightfully so, that this is politically motivated. 

[Anathema-]

Break them up

 

BREAK THEM UP

[Jason]

 

[mclumber1]

On 7/24/2019 at 4:45 AM, Anathema- said:

Break them up

 

BREAK THEM UP

 

AND THEN HAVE CHINA BUY UP THESE WEAKER SMALLER COMPANIES!

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

36 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

AND THEN HAVE CHINA BUY UP THESE WEAKER SMALLER COMPANIES!

 

You do know that when foreign companies seriously attempt to acquire US companies there is a CFIUS review process by which the transaction can be stopped or seriously altered right? Especially if there are national security or US citizen privacy concerns. 

[mclumber1]

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

You do know that when foreign companies seriously attempt to acquire US companies there is a CFIUS review process by which the transaction can be stopped or seriously altered right? Especially if there are national security or US citizen privacy concerns. 

 

https://money.cnn.com/interactive/economy/chinese-acquisitions-us-companies/

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Your point? We don't have to just let Chinese companies buy American ones. 

[Jason]

 

[Jason]

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Can't wait for Trump to get a nice emergency powers thing on the Google in July 2020, just in time for the elections 

[TwinIon]

I'm in favor of antitrust oversight of these companies, but I also think the actual implementation is supremely hard to do. For example: last year the EU fined Google $5B for how they forced OEMs and carriers to use Android. Basically the concern came down to "your giving this product away for free and using that for leverage, so that's unfair." So Google's first move? Change the licencing so that you have to pay for android, unless you use Google apps. Their next move has been to put up a search engine ballot into the Android setup process, but search engines have to pay to be on the ballot. Now Google isn't giving something away for free and using that as leverage, they're competing on a paid market, so no more foul play! Of course the EU could decide this isn't ok either, but still, it illustrates the inherent difficulty of regulating these kinds of markets.

 

Personally, I still favor the "break em up" approach. Coming up with specific fixes for individual problems that are relatively new and poorly understood seems like a surefire way to bumble into useless regulation on a growing industry. Breaking up companies like Instagram and Facebook or Google and YouTube should help increase the competition that is so terribly lacking in these markets. Also, prevent new giant mergers in uncompetitive markets. There are other issues that this doesn't solve, and it's not always clear how to split companies up (Amazon in particular seems like a challenge), but it seems like a good place to start.

 

There's also the still open question as to if these markets are inherently winner-takes-all, or if there is something about this particular situation that has lead us here. I'm sympathetic to that argument, but I don't quite buy it yet. I tend to think that it's easy for these markets to evolve that way at the beginning, but that there's nothing fundamental about them that will keep them there. Real, effective antitrust could help us get to a much more healthy and competitive state.

[Jason]

Just now, TwinIon said:

Real, effective antitrust could help us get to a much more healthy and competitive state.

 

But in the meantime, Trump is guaranteeing these antitrust investigations fail for being seen as political witch hunts. 

[TwinIon]

4 minutes ago, Jason said:

But in the meantime, Trump is guaranteeing these antitrust investigations fail for being seen as political witch hunts. 

True. Also, after seeing what the Trump FTC was willing to do to Facebook after their numerous and repeated violations, and their overall willingness to let other tech companies merge, I can't imagine anything with real teeth comes from this. They'll probably just fine them a month or two worth of profits. Maybe they make a fuss about censorship and quickly lose in court.

[SuperSpreader]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

 

you know.. you are the president (*dry heave*). you could do things about illegal activity such as hacking - you don't need Lou for that information