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posted by Fnord666 on Friday July 31 2020, @11:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the medium-rare dept.

Big Tech CEOs grilled by Congress: Key moments from the historic antitrust meeting:

For five hours on Wednesday, the four Big Tech CEOs of the world's most powerful companies faced a grilling from US lawmakers in Washington, in an unprecedented hearing over alleged anti-competitive practices at their companies.

The hearing was the first time that Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google's parent Alphabet appeared together before Congress.

The Big Tech CEOs, appearing via video link, all faced moments in the spotlight from the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, with Pichai and Zuckerberg receiving the most attention. It was sixth and final hearing into competition in the digital market by the committee, and a culmination of more than 1.3 million documents and hundreds of hours of interviews and testimonies.

There are long-standing concerns that the four companies, worth a combined $4.85tn, have become too dominant for rivals to compete on the same level.

Antitrust regulators fear that a lack of competition will lead to higher prices for consumers. However, when digital platforms offer services for free – as Facebook and Google do – it is difficult for lawmakers to prove that consumers are worse off.

Another charge is that a lack of competition stifles innovation, which in theory could lead to subpar products and services for consumers. But given the four tech giants are known for being at the cutting edge of innovation, this is again difficult to prove.

As such, Congress is considering new antitrust laws that are appropriate for the digital age, which could prevent so much power being concentrated in so few companies.

Here are some of the key topics the Big Tech CEOs were grilled on.

Here's a couple YouTube streams of the hearing from Reuters (6½h) & C-SPAN3 (5½hr).


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @12:51PM (8 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday July 31 2020, @12:51PM (#1029252)

    My immediate question: what are the chances their law won't actually make it worse for the consumers?

    Depends on what you consider "good for consumers."

    Concerns of the past were price and innovation... seems like the antitrust laws of the early 1900s and subsequent enforcement over the last ~100 years have evolved us into a marketplace with lots of innovative products at or very near zero cost. Win?

    So, today: your data is valuable, and we're constantly bitching that the big tech companies are data vampires, giving us these innovative products "for free" but actually raping our personal - used to be private - information in exchange.

    Change is painful, a change in the anti-trust laws is going to force change in the behaviors of big companies which will affect a lot of people, and a lot of people will feel temporary pain due to the change.

    The question is: have you been voting for lawmakers you can trust to look out for the interests of the people they represent? Do they represent your interests?

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 31 2020, @01:27PM (7 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 31 2020, @01:27PM (#1029267) Journal

    So, today: your data is valuable, and we're constantly bitching that the big tech companies are data vampires, giving us these innovative products "for free" but actually raping our personal - used to be private - information in exchange.

    Mate, I know it.
    Now, please be a sport and RTFA (I did) and tell me if you think they know it ('cause I don't think so).
    I could find absofuckinglutely nothing in TFA suggesting that consumer privacy was ever a concern during the grilling but, meh, it's Friday night and I might have missed it.

    Now, I sorta don't feel that breaking, for example, google will mean more privacy for the consumers. Even if google would have competition in search or email or whateves, their income will come from ad placing. And those marketers need targeted audience (or else one doesn't get their money), so competition will only mean their paying customers will get a better deal.

    The consumers and their privacy? They are the merchandise, their privacy will be squeezed even more by more "competitors" operating in the same market.

    Do you see why I'm totally skeptical... nay, make it pessimistic, that Congress will side with the consumer?

    The question is: have you been voting for lawmakers you can trust to look out for the interests of the people they represent?

    As a matter of fact, I did - and not because voting is compulsory 'round here. You can already guess my vote is irrelevant for the US Congress.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 31 2020, @03:10PM (5 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday July 31 2020, @03:10PM (#1029319) Journal

      What is privacy for, really? Several things:

      a) Keeping the bigots guessing, so they aren't sure you're a Muslim, atheist, Socialist, feminist (or at least pro-choice), college grad, scientist, filthy rich, or anything else that isn't stunningly obvious from appearances, such as skin color. (Or, so that fair-minded people don't know you're a bigot!)

      b) Breaking of unnecessary, unfair, antiquated, or corrupt laws, and getting away with it. A lot of law exists merely to tilt the playing field, or to provide a pretext to extract revenue from citizens. Traffic and parking enforcement is a big one there. Drug enforcement is another. Among the antiquated is intellectual property law. Then there's the moral crusading ideological and bigoted stuff, such as laws against abortion, interracial marriage, gay marriage, prostitution, and so on. Drugs could be included in that last.

      c) Hiding your weaknesses. Injured animals often hide until recovered enough to resume normal activities. Young animals especially must be protected, and hiding is a major way to do that. For people, you never want apartment management to know you hurt your back and are unable to move out until it is healed, in 3 or 6 or 12 months or whatever, because they may raise your rent, figuring you are trapped.

      On point a), people are often forced to hastily take a stand, make a choice, about something they really didn't care about. If there's no record of it, it's a lot easier to change your mind later, avoid the embarrassment of being accused of hypocrisy, and to have to explain over and over and over that you had a change of heart.

      For point b) I have hopes that a loss of privacy would lead to problems with laws being resolved by swiftly changing the law, rather than the current situation of everyone continuing to break the rules and get away with it thanks to privacy, until the law is finally repealed, which can take decades, not least because there are entrenched special interests that benefit from the current law.

      I really think that privacy as we knew it, is over. The loss need not be devastating, if it leads to a cleaner, fairer legal system. If it also pushes people to be less bigoted, that too is good.

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 31 2020, @05:04PM (3 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 31 2020, @05:04PM (#1029370) Journal

        I really think that privacy as we knew it, is over. The loss need not be devastating, if it leads to a cleaner, fairer legal system. If it also pushes people to be less bigoted, that too is good.

        I don't think there's any conclusive evidence that it pushes people to be less bigoted. Neo-nazis are still neo-nazis and would kill people they don't like if they could. Antifa are still Antifa and would kill people they don't like if they could. That is so because they are convinced they are right. They will continue to hold those convictions even if they are forced to hide them; and being forced to hide them could even intensify those convictions.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:33PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:33PM (#1029434)

          Antifa are still Antifa and would kill people they don't like if they could.

          And Phoenix666, in his deepest secret hearts of hearts, still believes that antifa actually exists. So you see, it is not so much the privacy that is the problem, it is these corporations learning exactly how to get into your secret heart of hearts, and plant seeds of untruth, that later you think are your own ideas and knowledge.

          Leo DiCaprio works for Facebook. Inception.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @10:01PM (#1029503)

            still believes that antifa actually exists.

            With so many of you professing their wishes to eradicate "alt-right" (or whatever other inane name) even on this smallish site, the mock inexistence of your "antifa" is the worst kept pretense in the written history of humanity. Congratulations to your team on this stunning achievement.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:11PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:11PM (#1029769)

              Plenty of people are anti-fascist; that's what we're taught is "right" in school. Not many people are members of anti-fascist organizations.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:01AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:01AM (#1029538) Journal

        I really think that privacy as we knew it, is over.

        Weak as it may be, I'd take GDPR over nothing.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:55PM (#1029404)

      If you watch the actual hearing or read the transcript, you will see they did in fact address those things. Yay journalism.