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White House Considering Launching an Antitrust Probe on Google and Facebook

posted by mrpg on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:31AM   
from the mary-is-merry-cause-she's-gonna-marry dept.

chromas (from IRC) writes:

White House considering launching an antitrust probe on Google and Facebook:

The growing tension between U.S. President Donald Trump and large internet companies is not likely to peter out anytime soon. A draft executive order that could potentially target Google, Facebook, and other social media companies with an antitrust case is said to be in the early stages of work.

The draft order, obtained by Bloomberg, is meant to authorize federal regulators and law enforcers to investigate the business practices of the internet giants for potential antitrust violations. It is worth pointing out, however, that the draft is not official yet and has not been formed as part of the White House's policy-making process, according to Lindsey Walters, deputy White House press secretary.

Additionally, it has not been reviewed yet by any government agency. But once the draft is signed, specific government agencies are mandated within a month to provide recommendations for actions intended to uphold "competition among online platforms and address online platform bias." It doesn't specify the names of the companies, however.

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Original Submission

• Found a friend on FB that I hadn't seen for 33 yea Found a friend on FB that I hadn't seen for 33 yea (Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @10:28PM (1 child)

  by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 25 2018, @10:28PM (#739906) Homepage Journal

  -rs.

  I thought he was dead.

  I'm going to keep using FB.

  While I do realize that it's stylish for the neckbeards to hate on Facebook, you haven't come up with anything that my friends from high school regards as any better.

  It's not enough to have a product that has superior technology, security or privacy - you have to sell it to people like my mom.

  --
  Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]

  Parent

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• Re:Found a friend on FB that I hadn't seen for 33 (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:27PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:27PM (#739932)

  Trading your privacy and everyone else's (since Facebook has shadow profiles on non-users) so you can occasionally chat with people who are hardly relevant to your life at all isn't worth it. Hell, if you can't be bothered to find an alternate means of communications with them, then they don't mean much to you or you don't mean much to them.

  Your mom can stuff it.

  Parent