from the I-never-cared-but-now-I'm-scared dept.
The Senate bill that has Big Tech scared:
If you want to know how worried an industry is about a piece of pending legislation, a decent metric is how apocalyptic its predictions are about what the bill would do. By that standard, Big Tech is deeply troubled by the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.
The infelicitously named bill is designed to prevent dominant online platforms—like Apple and Facebook and, especially, Google and Amazon—from giving themselves an advantage over other businesses that must go through them to reach customers. As one of two antitrust bills voted out of committee by a strong bipartisan vote (the other would regulate app stores), it may be this Congress' best, even only, shot to stop the biggest tech companies from abusing their gatekeeper status.
But according to the tech giants and their lobbyists and front groups, the bill, which was introduced by Amy Klobuchar and Chuck Grassley, respectively the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, would be a disaster for the American consumer. In an ongoing publicity push against it, they have claimed that it would ruin Google search results, bar Apple from offering useful features on iPhones, force Facebook to stop moderating content, and even outlaw Amazon Prime. It's all pretty alarming. Is any of it true?
The legislation's central idea is that a company that controls a marketplace shouldn't be able to set special rules for itself within that marketplace, because competitors who object don't have any realistic place to go. [...]
Beyond that, it's difficult to say precisely what the law would do, because it leaves quite a bit unspecified. Like many federal statutes, it directs an administrative agency—in this case, the Federal Trade Commission—to turn broad provisions into concrete rules. And it gives the FTC, the Department of Justice, and state attorneys general the power to sue companies for violating those rules. [...]
This leaves plenty of uncertainty around how exactly the law would play out. Into that zone of uncertainty, the tech companies have poured dire warnings.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:27PM (17 children)
If the problem is market dominance then it's not an industry-specific problem, and then congress should amend the antitrust laws to allow for break-ups mandated on the basis of dominance alone. If the problem is gatekeeping, why is that a problem in the absence of dominance? If it isn't a problem in the absence of dominance, then we return to the solution to dominance.
Making this about the tech industry specifically proves that it's a politically-driven bandaid to someone's pet boo-boo, not an actual solution to the nature of markets. But that would involve scrutiny to all sorts of pet comapnies - basically, they should rename this the Congressional Tech Squeeze Play Bill.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:48PM (14 children)
The internet is the wild wild west. There were no laws governing the internet when the tech giants were establishing themselves. In effect, they wrote the law. "I'm the biggest kid on the block, and I'm telling you, my word is law!"
I would be happy to see a sheriff or marshal ride into town, and gun down some of those tech giants. And, I don't even care a whole lot how legal it is. We could use a hanging judge or two, to back up that renegade sheriff.
The fact is, a relatively small handful of businesses dominate everything digital, and there is little if any chance that any challenger can actually challenge them. Any challenger that meets with any measurable success is promptly bought up by one of the giants. If we can't see any other way forward, we need to drop back 20 and punt. Or, to be more specific, we need to redefine what monopoly and trusts are, so that existing tech giants are included, and regulated by the anti-trust laws.
~20 years ago, a bunch of lowlifes made up a definition of their own, so they could imprison "enemy combatants". We can do much the same today, for better reasons than we just want to torture people we don't like.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:06PM (9 children)
Google was started with a couple guys with a better idea. The entrenched search engine (at the time) was AltaVista. AltaVista was No.1 because it was better than what preceded it: lycos.
Google, the unknown, was so qualitatively better that everyone flocked to it even though AltaVista was the GOTO dominant search engine of the day. I remember when Google was first posted to the green site and people started trying it.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @10:29PM
Do you remember when Google was first starting to remove search options?
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." When something starts behaving like Ma Bell, it should end up like Ma Bell. In pieces.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 13 2022, @10:30PM (5 children)
Yep. I remember much the same. Everything sucked ass, then along came Google with little to no suck. Technologically, it was hard to fault them. And, 'Do no evil'. Google seemed a Godsend, way back then. I wrangled an invite to Google Mail and all the rest of Google Services, very early on.
Five years on, we began to notice a little bit of suck.
Ten years on, there was a lot more suck.
Today, Google is the dominant search, with excessive control over everthing they touch. And, they touch everything.
The US congress didn't award all that control to Google. Rather, Google took control of everything they touch, because no one had the foresight to see where Google would go. No parliament in Europe awarded Google all that control. In fact, Europe is fighting to take a lot of control away from Google and the other tech giants. South American governments didn't give all that cotnrol to Google, either individually, or collectively. Nor did Africa, China, Russia, the rest of Asia, or any of the little guys.
As I say above, it was the wild wild west, and Google came to town, and took control.
It is long past time that a sheriff or ten invite the Big Six Tech companies to a shoot out at OK Corral. The business models suck, and we need laws, we need law enforcement, that will put all the giants in their places.
The world has forgotten that business, any business, exists at the sufference of the people doing business with it. When we don't like the deal, we can change the deal.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @04:29AM (1 child)
I, as a consumer, choose to use google. So I gave them that control. We all did willingly. Don't like it? Choose another search engine.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 14 2022, @02:55PM
I think that you are mistaken, at least on the grand scale. Relatively few consumers understand just how much data they are giving away, for free. It's not like a high school kid is given a semester in maintaining privacy. They aren't taught how all those interconnected networks suck up and share data. They aren't taught to jealously guard their data. Sign up for this, sign up for that, enroll in this program, accept the cookies, on and on it goes. Be sure to get your rewards card, at the grocery, at the gas station, at all the gas stations! And, we prefer that you pay with a card, you'll get an extra $0.01 reward per $10 purchase!
It's been an ongoing, creeping thing, for about 30 or 40 years now.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Thursday April 14 2022, @09:42PM (1 child)
Search dominance isn't the problem, the problem with Google is the same as Apple: The phone/tablet operating system. No matter what brand of phone or tablet, Apple or Google have full control over it. Microsoft was the problem during the Clinton administration, who were going to split MS in two, but the Bush administration let them off with a stern warning.
This seems bipartisan, which is usually the best kind of legislation.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday April 15 2022, @02:08PM
I find it quite funny now that Republicans argue to break up Google or reign it in. Yet they were so strongly against reigning in or breaking up Microsoft. The guilty verdict was in hand. Then the government just stopped pursuing it. (Yes, there was that bit about the judge prematurely speaking to a reporter prior to the verdict being published.)
Similarly in the early 1980s the government finally had IBM about to be brought under control after decades of monopolist abuse. Then a Republican administration just dropped it all as being "without merit".
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:13PM
They were between Altavista and Google and were actually quite good for a time (at least three years, '98-00 or '01). Their failing was much the same as google's today: they started placing ads inline with the actual search results which started to annoy customers as they found themselves ending up on irrelevant sites (the first 1 then 2 pages of search results), then started charging too much for their ads. Then SEO too off in a big way and next thing you know google is the dominant player and Infoseek is going under.
That said, from everything I remember it was mostly popular in the US and people were still using Lycos and Altavista and even Yahoo after that, each with its own weaknesses.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Thursday April 14 2022, @02:27PM (1 child)
I was at a talk a few years ago about the evolution of VMs and containers. One of the things the speaker showed was a copy of the invoice for Google's first 'datacenter'. The whole thing would fit in a single rack, with some space spare. As I recall, AltaVista was originally a tech demo showing what a handful of Alpha machines could do. It was very easy to create a new search engine when the hardware costs were in the tens of thousands of dollars: come along with a slightly better idea, buy a small pile of computers, implement it. Now, the Internet has grown sufficiently that Google and Bing require millions of dollars of computers to work and have huge operating costs. The barriers to entry for a new search engine are such that you'd need something *vastly* better to be able to afford it. The only 'new' players, like DuckDuckGo, are reliant on indexes maintained by the existing players.
AltaVista's main competition was Yahoo!, which worked by having humans index the web into a useful directory. That's how small the Internet was when Google started.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 15 2022, @02:23PM
Yes. I remember all of that.
I always thought that Yahoo's approach of human curators was not going to scale. And it didn't.
I realize that Google grew into a giant castle with a 250 mile wide moat. All of the free goodies are that moat. Advertising is the castle.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @10:48PM (1 child)
The internet is a cheap, badly made, cardboard holodeck. It is being managed like any other mass media, full of people that perform stupid human tricks for nothing
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 15 2022, @02:09PM
Meta aims to build a cheap badly made cardboard holodeck -- without safety features. So people can fall and get broken bones while exploring "meta".
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 14 2022, @02:29AM
Still sounds like lowlifes making up shit. I'd rather have rule of law. Make them pass a real law and survive the inevitable court challenges.
I don't see anything here that warrants legal action in the first place (market dominance just isn't a real problem for me) much less Bush-league dissembling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15 2022, @04:24PM
Well nobody gunned down Microsoft for tricking people into installing Windows 10. That's basically unauthorized modification of a computer system which is a crime in some countries.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/414929/how-microsofts-nasty-new-windows-10-pop-up-tricks-you-into-upgrading.html [pcworld.com]
See also:
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3075018/microsoft-breaks-own-design-rules-in-dupe-the-user-windows-10-upgrade-tactic.html [computerworld.com]
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/229040-microsofts-latest-trick-clicking-x-to-dismiss-windows-10-upgrade-doesnt-stop-upgrade-process [extremetech.com]
If what Microsoft did was 100% legal then lots of malware/badware producers/users can use the same trick to _legally_ get their stuff installed on other people's computers.
If I got caught installing software onto thousands of other people's computers against their wishes I'd probably end up in prison, so who in Microsoft is going to prison for what they did?
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:51PM (1 child)
but you don't argue for an amputation when a Band-Aid might do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 14 2022, @02:30AM
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @06:26PM (10 children)
Truthy: Pointing out how all regulations in this country are promulgated as if that is a flaw in any specific bill is disingenuous.
False: Prime would not be outlawed. Forcing sellers to use Amazon slave warehouses and pee trucks if they want to use the Amazon website, would.
True: “What the bill would do in that case would be to force Amazon to develop a system on its marketplace so that sellers can choose alternative fulfillment partners, like DHL or FedEx or USPS or whatever,” says Sumit Sharma, a senior researcher at Consumer Reports. “And then they’ll have to ensure that what they show in the search results is not influenced by who’s fulfilling the order, as long as I’m getting it within a day or two or whatever. They can still have Prime membership.”
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @06:57PM (6 children)
Sellers can already choose between using Amazon fulfillment and handling shipping and inventory themselves. The costs of using Amazon fulfillment and the Amazon website are itemized. So I don't think this analysis is correct. If the bill did nothing (which is what you are claiming, because they already do the things you say they would be required to do), then Amazon wouldn't oppose it.
Most businesses choose Amazon fulfillment because customers strongly prefer it. As a Prime subscriber, it is a major disincentive to buy anything that isn't fulfilled by Amazon, because with Prime I have already paid for shipping and now I have to pay for it again (even if the seller offers "free" shipping). Even if I didn't have Prime, I would still prefer fulfillment by Amazon because Amazon is reliable and a known quantity if something goes wrong, and can combine them with orders from other sellers, and other shipping options don't and can't.
Yes, I know fulfillment here should only have one L, but my phone doesn't.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @07:33PM (4 children)
That option is n longer available according to the article.
But you could do that not too long ago and Amazon really doesn't want us to make them bring it back!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @07:42PM (3 children)
I was able to disprove this easily. Here is an item which "ships from and sold by" a non-Amazon company. You can see it is not Prime eligible as well and the delivery window is five days out. If it were Prime, I'd get it by Friday.
https://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultrastar-3-5-Inch-Enterprise-0F14683/dp/B007VL8WU6 [amazon.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @07:58PM (2 children)
Now find a prime eligible item that allows 3rd party shipping.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:46PM (1 child)
That took all of one minute to find.
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WD40EZAZ-5400RPM-Internal/dp/B087QTVCHH/ [amazon.com]
It is offered for sale new from Amazon and prime eligible third party sellers like "247365Deals."
It is offered for sale new and shipped directly from third party sellers like "One Stop Storage."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @04:53AM
Well, no. That item is sold by Amazon. Maybe there's another shipper/seller of the same item, that happens all the time. Prime is only available for items shipped by Amazon. It is one of the advantages of using Fulfilment By Amazon.
What is stupid - beyond stupid, nonsensical - is trying to extend Prime to non-FBA items. Amazon is able to offer Prime to FBA items because it is responsible for their shipping. It is such a ridiculous idea that it's difficult to come up with an obvious analogy, because it's just that stupid. It is expecting Amazon to subsidize, and guarantee the results of, something done by a completely different company with no involvement by Amazon.
Suppose you hire a plumber to come fix your drain, and they screw it up. Then you call another, completely different plumber, and tell them you expect them to fix it for free because they should stand behind their work. Except they didn't actually do that work in the first place. It's like that. It really doesn't matter that you can find both of those plumbers on Angie's List. If this sounds ridiculous, it is. But that's what they're asking Amazon tod o.
BTW, I, not the immediate parent, am the poster who posted the link to the first hard drive for sale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @03:56AM
But, if you don't use FBA, then your store can't get prime real estate where people are most likely to click. The best spot to click only goes to partners that are being fulfilled by Amazon.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:07PM (1 child)
How about letting them charge what they want, but providing some basic worker protections (and you know, athletic training) for their "industrial atheletes" [theverge.com]?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:25PM
They can charge whatever they want. It's using the dominance in one domain to force people to use their products in another domain that people have a problem with.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @05:38AM
Prime is a distraction because Amazon doesn't want you to know what they are really worried about: house brands and vertically-integrated products. Amazon has various house brands and products that they prominently feature on in the market place. With those, Amazon makes the most money and you may not even know it is Amazon making all the money. With this law passed, Amazon will no longer be able to feature their own brands or artificially increase their product visibility beyond what the general algorithm allows.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday April 13 2022, @07:52PM
No matter what industry and regulation we're talking about, they always wail that it will cause bankruptcy and disaster, to them and the whole world. Automakers cry that they can't make cars that get 54 mpg, chemical manufacturers that they can't function if so much as one chemical is banned, and so on. Telecoms companies always scream that public internet is such very unfair competition. Take the screams of anguish with a large grain of salt.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by oumuamua on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:43PM (1 child)
We want fair markets, then this is how you get them. It is very hard to know how to counteract late capitalism, but this is one step. Realize, in most all cases, it is a trillion dollar company controlling these markets; they don't need anything tipped to their advantage.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:01PM
That's certainly a nice piece of legislation. Now, what boat anchors are attached to it?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @11:22PM
Require senators to report their donations separately from folks that could vote for them and others.
Both donations are 1st ammendment protected, but one tends to put the senator in a conflict of interest in his duty to represent the folks that voted for him.
It is easier to fix other folks problem than your own.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @04:36AM
They would stop allowing companies to tie a processor to a motherboard or motherboard vendor killing the aftermarket.
What about not allowing companies to glue batteries ot chassis so you can't fix your own stuff.
Reduce the copy protection term limit so things enter the public domain sooner.
Allow consumers to directly buy drugs from Canada and Europe.
This bill is about destroying the one thing that does kinda work for the consumer.