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Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

bigtechnology.substack.com

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

#81

Post by throwaway0a5e »

paulpauper wrote: post #53

>The bills may change before they’re introduced, and they’ll inevitably go through a political process that will water them down. But even if only a portion of what’s written gets passed, the tech giants will lose several advantages they’ve exploited in recent years. Yeah that is the rub. It's like in 1998 "we're gonna break up Microsoft!" 2002: "ok Microsoft will agree to make some some changes to their business but…

The federal government will destabilize the economy the nanosecond it sees big tech as a bigger threat to its power than economic instability.

The question is can tech boil the frog so they never notice.

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

#82

Post by rdtwo »

zer00eyz wrote: post #73
frumper wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon claims it doesn't have liability if those Twinkie's cause harm like the grocery store would.

The sale of contaminated beef has happened many many times in my lifetime, leading to massive recalls, even lettuce has seen contamination and outbreaks. The liability has not been on the store, rather the supplier/manufacturer of those products. The local ford dealer wast at fault for your pinto exploding of the tires blowing off your SUV. You didn't get to sue the store that sold you cigarets or round up that gave…

Yeah but if the manufacturer went kaput or the store was negligent in sourcing beef you could sue. Both of these are a problem with amazon. If target sold Chinese cribs that killed kids for example you can bet folks would sue target and not the manufacturer

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

#83

Post by dreamcompiler »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #29
Cerium wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From what I've read, TJ's doesn't infringe. They simply pay the original manufacturer to make a run of the product with TJ's label on it.

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

#84

Post by N1H1L »

Cerium wrote: post #22
fhrow4484 wrote: post #4

> 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.

Costco does too - Kirkland is their own brand.

Same with Kroger's - Private Reserve

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

#85

Post by nostrademons »

mattnewton wrote: post #6
fhrow4484 wrote: post #4

> 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…

Reminds me of the Florida laws that explicitly carve out exceptions for businesses that run theme parks (cough cough Disney) https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-censorship-law-looph...

It makes me wonder why Google or Facebook hasn't bought Great America yet.

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

#87

Post by nitwit005 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #16
fhrow4484 wrote: post #4

> 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.

Some of the stock is essentially fully managed by third parties. If you see a bunch of Coke products in a store, there is likely to be a "Merchandiser" that visits and restocks it. It's a strategy by brands to get their product into more stores.

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

#88

Post by dreamcompiler »

ethbr0 wrote: post #54

I've come around and landed more on the opinion that we're now enabling our jailors. Light tech regulation was exactly the correct approach in the 1990s (and arguably the 2000s). It enabled mind-boggling rapid and stunning innovation. ... However, the massive corporate fortunes built by the winners of those times are now primarily enabling rent seeking. Google and Facebook's other work is interesting in the same way…

We need to be careful about breakups to prevent re-agglomeration. Although AT&T was broken up, the Baby Bells eventually merged back together again while nobody was looking. The winner was Southwestern Bell, which later renamed itself to AT&T. The AT&T we know today is really just Southwestern Bell with a new name. Fortunately they have competitors but not very many.

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

#89

Post by ben_w »

bogota wrote: post #33
Aissen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like this would be easily defeated by spinning amazon out into different companies? Maybe that is a good end result though.

Especially as Amazon is already many companies, in many different jurisdictions, and covering different product and service categories: https://opencorporates.com/corporate_groupings/Amazon

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

#90

Post by smolder »

flapjaxy wrote: post #9

It still baffles me how these laws have such broad support but ISPs and telcos are no where in the discussion.

The USG has a codependent relationship with its telcos and ISPs, just like it does with big tech. You can point to these bills as evidence that the USG intends to control tech giants, but remember how long people have been complaining about some of the issues these bills address, and that they still need to be voted on. Also remember that all these companies sell services to the USG.
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