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Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

bigtechnology.substack.com

21–30 of 343 posts

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#21

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

I mean, those are still awful. This would be a two birds with one stone kind of situation.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#22

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

Trader Joe's is the closest to Amazon in this regard. They introduce new products as the name brand, the best sellers are cloned and then replaced with the store brands.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#24

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

They don't operate a marketplace for third party merchants.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#26
Reminds me of what Machiavelli said about coming to power using mercenaries and auxilieries the way the current crop of politicians have used tech today: "Captains of mercenaries are either able men or they are not. If they are, you cannot trust them, since they will always seek their own aggrandizement, either by overthrowing you who are their master, or by the overthrow of others contrary to your desire."

What did these companies think would happen if they became partisan mercenaries? Future reference: always back underdogs or nobody at all because when they win you still have some leverage. The platforms just made themselves disposable stepping stones and now they are being disposed of. I'm untroubled by it because it was staggeringly naive on their part to compromise themselves, and we need fresh platforms anyway, but they really walked right into that one.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#27

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

> What makes Amazon different in this regard? Safeway/Kroger/Costco do not have direct third-party merchants, do they? They are just resellers. This is fundamentally different from what Amazon is doing.

If you think that a supermarket buys products wholesale and then puts them on shelves for customers to buy, you don't understand how supermarkets work.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#28

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

The only difference is this:

> ‘covered platforms’ (companies that have a half-million monthly U.S. users and more than $600 billion in market cap)

There are only 8 companies in the world that match the market cap. Probably 6 if you add "users": Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and probably Tencent.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#29
post #22

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

Trader Joe's is the closest to Amazon in this regard. They introduce new products as the name brand, the best sellers are cloned and then replaced with the store brands.

Aldi is similar, which is kind of interesting because Trader Joes is one of the Aldis. I always wonder how they get away with blatant trademark infringement. They come up with similar product design for the purpose of confusing consumers. I assume they have deals with most of the name brand products, or their parent companies.
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