Loading ...What Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple Have In Common
While you obsess over masks, socialists, democrats, Gates and a whole host of diversions, your life is constantly being shaped by what is right in front of us.
“We don’t tend to see the world as it is, we see it the way we ARE”……
On Wednesday, lawmakers squared off with the chief executives of the tech industry’s four most powerful players: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Even though each company is under antitrust scrutiny for different reasons, the committee used this week’s hearing to point out similarities between all four, making the case for future regulatory reform.
Since last June, lawmakers have been engaged in a sweeping antitrust investigation into the tech sector, honing in on how some of the most notable names in the industry have grown too big by allegedly stifling competition. Lawmakers have heard hundreds of hours of testimony and obtained over 1 million documents throughout their investigation, a process that made it difficult for CEOs like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to evade uncomfortable lines of questioning.
Throughout this process and under Rep. David Cicilline’s (D-RI) leadership, the committee found troublesome patterns of behavior that all four firms exhibit. This includes how each company controls distribution, surveils competitors, and abuses their control over tech to strengthen their power.
In his opening remarks, Cicilline, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, said, “Although these four corporations differ in important and meaningful ways, we have observed common patterns and competition problems over the course of our investigation.”
The power tech giants wield over distribution of information and products was key to the committee’s investigation. Apple and Amazon both hold tremendous power over who gets to put up apps and sell products. Rep. Val Butler Demings (D-FL) asked Apple’s CEO Tim Cook about its App Store rules, focusing in on Apple’s decision to remove third-party parental control apps that used mobile device management (MDM) tech. Apple has parental control software of its own.
Google caught fire from Cicilline for keeping a watchful eye on competitors in search. Cicilline cited emails obtained through the investigation between Google employees concerned with how competing companies were growing more dominant. For Yelp specifically, Google allegedly threatened to delist its reviews if the giant couldn’t feed them into its own products. This surveillance technique extends into the other three companies as well. For example, Facebook has allegedly kept tabs on other rising tech companies, making efforts to copy them or eventually purchasing them, like in the case of Instagram.
By gaining dominance in their respective markets, companies could make it more difficult for competing companies and products to gain traction. Amazon was the committee’s primary example of this behavior. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) pointed out Amazon’s ability to “systematically block” sellers from selling products in specific categories, citing interviews with a seller who believed she had been blocked from selling specific genres of books.
“I do not think that’s systematically what’s going on,” Bezos responded. “Third-party sellers in aggregate are doing extremely well on Amazon.”
The committee plans to issue a report at the end of the summer laying out its findings. Congress can’t do much to break up Big Tech, but it can craft legislation aimed at regulating it. Facebook and Google are already under antitrust scrutiny by law enforcement. Agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are the only bodies with the authority to penalize tech over anti-competitive behavior.
16 Ways Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon Are in Government Cross Hairs
Federal and state regulators and congressional committees are sharpening their focus on America’s tech giants, especially whether they have too much power — with too little oversight and too few safeguards — over people’s lives and personal information.
Inquiries and Investigations:8
Federal:6
State and Local: 2
The backlash over big tech is one of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans are increasingly in agreement, with President Trump, lawmakers of both parties and Democratic presidential candidates becoming more vocal in expressing their concerns about the industry’s influence.
Google and Facebook, for example, account for most online advertising. Nearly half of all Americans own an Apple iPhone, and about the same number buy products from Amazon.
After years of scrutiny by European officials, the widening inquiries into these companies in the United State could ultimately result in some of them being broken up, and in new laws that might alter the balance of corporate power. This is what they’re facing.
Google 5 pending, possible or resolved cases
Google has been under fire for the near stranglehold it has in internet search, whether it uses that power to the detriment of others and whether platforms like YouTube have gotten so large that their advertising practices have been creating harm for certain groups of people.
In Europe, Google has been fined for unfair advertising practices, for favoring its own services over those of rivals and for forcing phone makers to include its apps if they want to use its Android operating system.
Facebook 11 pending, possible or resolved cases
The world’s largest social network has attracted government attention on a number of fronts, including its policies related to users’ privacy, whether certain advertising tools enable housing discrimination, its plans to create a new form of currency and whether its sheer size has stifled potential rivals.
Facebook owns several of the world’s largest messaging and social sharing apps, including WhatsApp and Instagram, making its market power even more formidable.
Apple 3 pending or possible cases
The principal concerns about Apple appear to center on whether it is unfairly wielding the power of its App Store to hurt competitors.
After a spate of unusual negotiations, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which share authority over antitrust issues, divvied up companies to focus on, with the Justice Department taking on Apple. Separately, the department said that it would establish a task force to look at anticompetitive behavior across the industry.
Amazon 3 pending or possible cases
Concerns about the retail behemoth have focused on its marketplace and whether Amazon favor its own private-label goods over products from so-called third-party sellers. Given that Amazon controls the marketplace, lawmakers have said, it may have data, placement power and other unfair advantages over rivals.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts and a presidential candidate, is among those questioning Amazon’s power. “You can be an umpire, or you can be a player,” she said. “But you can’t be both.”