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House Democrats About To Uncork 5-Pronged Assault on Tech (politico.com) 107

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
House Democrats are set to introduce a package of five bills as soon as this week that would prohibit tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google from discriminating against rivals or buying potential competitors, two individuals familiar with the discussions told POLITICO -- the most serious effort yet to rein in Silicon Valley's power after years of complaints from Congress. From a report: The most controversial bill would let prosecutors sue to break up major tech companies by forcing the platforms to sell off lines of business if they represent a conflict of interest. POLITICO obtained drafts of all five bills. The legislation aims to enact the recommendations from a blockbuster House Judiciary Committee report last fall on competition in digital markets, which found that the four tech giants have monopolized various aspects of the online economy. It also represents a major test for Congress: Can the lawmakers of both parties who have condemned the tech companies as abusive monopolists come together to do something about it? Democrats on the House Judiciary antitrust panel circulated the draft bills to potential co-sponsors this week. They hope to lure at least some GOP members into supporting the bills, particularly Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, a critic of the large tech companies and the top Republican on the panel.
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House Democrats About To Uncork 5-Pronged Assault on Tech More

House Democrats About To Uncork 5-Pronged Assault on Tech

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  • And no muckraker to write a scathing expose of the tech giants...like Ida Tarbell or Upton Sinclair. Of course the tech giants can squelch opposition much like the big corporations did to the magazines (boycott on advertising) back in the early 20th century.

    From "Escape from LA" the quote "The more things change, the more they stay the same." rings true.

    JoshK.

    • From "Escape from LA" the quote "The more things change, the more they stay the same." rings true.

      JoshK.

      I don't remember Escape from LA that well, but that saying is much, much older.

      • Re: And no muckraker (Score:2, Insightful)

        by saloomy ( 2817221 )
        I do not get how they can argue four companies are a monopoly though. There is no Standard Oil with a massive market share over the others. From my viewpoint, the markets are healthy. The tech advances which proves competition to out-compete, the value improves over time (more for less), and there are multiple options in each vertical. You can get iOS or Android, you can Google or Bing. You can get on Twitter or Facebook. There is Google play, Apple Music, Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, Pandora, and a whol

        • I agree that the FAANG not really "monopolies". To a large degree, their businesses overlap, and they compete with each other.

          To the extent that they are "abusive," that abuse is mostly unrelated to any monopoly power or even "bigness". Small tech companies also spy on their users and are often even more invasive because they are scrutinized less.

          I doubt if these bills will become law. They may pass in the HoR but will die in the Senate.

          One possible outcome may be a shift of tech political donations from

          • One possible outcome may be a shift of tech political donations from Democrats to Republicans. The Dems are sinking their teeth too deeply into the hand that was feeding them.

            I don't see this happening. Their fortunes are tied too heavily towards hiring and retaining top notch talent and talented engineers are rarely fans of the GOP, especially the current iteration. I know a lot of people on this site don't like that fact, but you want conservative opinions to matter to tech companies?...learn to code, provide some value...outnumber the liberal or rational (apolitical) engineers and Google will care a lot more about your views. Unfortunately, the people smart enough to keep

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by BoB235423424 ( 6928344 )

              I know plenty of conservatives in tech. The problem is many of us don't speak about anything close to politics around co-workers out of fear of the repercussions of wrong think and the liberal mob mentality. Your view is tainted in much the same was a political polling was in 2016. When mobs threaten to destroy your career, you become silent and those same mobs start to believe you don't exist in any meaningful numbers.

              Let's also not look past all the bigotry and stereotyping you have in your post about

              • I know plenty of conservatives in tech. The problem is many of us don't speak about anything close to politics around co-workers out of fear of the repercussions of wrong think and the liberal mob mentality. Your view is tainted in much the same was a political polling was in 2016. When mobs threaten to destroy your career, you become silent and those same mobs start to believe you don't exist in any meaningful numbers.

                I know conservatives in tech as well. That's not unheard of, but finding ones with actual talent?...never met one. The ones I know were pretty fucking awful at their job and didn't last long....could be a coincidence. I just don't know anyone who knows talented engineers who are vocal conservatives. Most talented engineers are not too hardcore with either ideology. I'm personally barely a liberal...I just call out bullshit and see a lot more bullshit from the "conservative" side lately. I never talk a

              • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • "One possible outcome may be a shift of tech political donations from Democrats to Republicans. The Dems are sinking their teeth too deeply into the hand that was feeding them."

            Highly unlikely. This is undoubtedly like the net neutrality bill the D's put through or the corrections to NSA domestic surveillance. It will, if anything, actually legitimize and give MORE abusive power and loopholes to these entities while giving the impression of having 'done something.'

            No matter what the D's or R's, you can be s

            • It will, if anything, actually legitimize and give MORE abusive power and loopholes to these entities while giving the impression of having 'done something.' No matter what the D's or R's, you can be sure that individuals and small business will have less direct autonomy as the outcome.

              There is a lot of talk suggesting that the tech crowd are Ds by and large.... In fact, you geeks are really closet Ls. Step out of the closet and join the sane. Please.

        • 1, 2, or 5 competitors is not healthy competition when they collude via industry practice toward common interest or in the case of these tech communication monopolies to literally manipulate public perception and opinions on a variety of topics.

          Also pretending each offering from each company is somehow a unique competitor to inflate the count is disingenuous. Google play is Google using its search monopoly to leverage another market... Apple music is similar. This is the monopoly behavior Microsoft was caug

        • Re: And no muckraker (Score:5, Interesting)

          by bws111 ( 1216812 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @03:07PM (#61474674)

          They're not arguing the companies are monopolies. They are arguing that the companies use their considerable economic power (which does not require a monopoly) in one area of business to harm competitors in a different area of business.

          Yes, you can get iOS or Android. Nobody is denying that or claiming that either one is a monopoly. However, within those ecosystems Apple (and to a lesser extent Google) block competition for things NOT related to the purchase of a phone. Nobody can compete with Apple in selling iOS Apps (a completely different business than selling phones). Nobody can compete with Apple in payment processing for iOS Apps (another completely different business from either selling phones OR selling apps).

          Yes, you can use Google or Bing. Nobody is denying that or claiming a monopoly. But Google priortizes its own products (not related to search) over competitors. That hurts competition

          Funny you should use Standard Oil as an example. Standard Oil didn't get in trouble because they were massive, or even a monopoly. What they got in trouble for was using their position to hurt competitors. For example, they used their position to either buy or control railroads, so that a competitor either could not get transportation or it was at an enormous cost.

          There is nothing illegal about becoming a monopoly by providing the best, cheapest, whatever product. But once you use that product to gain an unfair advantage over competitors in an area where you might not have the best product, that is illegal.

          • Google, Amazon, and Apple have all proven themselves to be poor actors, as long as it's not legislation creating a government department for fact-checking or this isn't legislation that could be used to destroy the companies of a political enemy. I have no problem if the Democrats destroy them, they have lied so many times they probably deserve any ill-thought-out non-solution the DNC makes. Fun fact, when Standard Oil was broken up it was not at its peak of market control. It was already in the process of
        • Meanwhile, the company I work for has just completed another takeover of another competitor, and the people of Northern Europe will be paying more for the products we manufacture.
          I may have missed a few, but I think that is the fourth takeover this year and there are more in the pipeline.
          Fortunately for competition, our biggest rival (and only truly global competition) turned down a merger proposal a couple of years ago.
          The end goal of capitalism is monopoly and there are industries working hard towar

      • Re:And no muckraker (Score:5, Funny)

        by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @01:04PM (#61474222) Homepage

        You are probably thinking of the French remake, Escape From LA BASTILLE: "Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose."

      • In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose “ – the more things change, the more they stay the same

        Imagine thinking "Escape from LA" contained anything original. It is quite funny really.

  • 'Assault on tech' (Score:4)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:33PM (#61474090)
    It's an assault on big tech, to enable competition from innovative tech.

    • Re:'Assault on tech' (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:45PM (#61474146)

      Many times things that look like they would hurt big tech companies, like taxing online purchases, end up being welcomed by the largest players because it increases the barrier to entry in their market. While it certainly appears the intention is to target big tech, that is no guarantee the outcomes will turn out that way.

      • Yup. What ends up in the final bill (assuming it gets that far) is often very different from the original draft. Well-funded lobbyists - not to mention wealthy friends of congresscritters - are often very effective at getting a bill rewritten and/or squashed.

        I'm all for the general intent of the original bills here. Let's see if the end product somehow doesn't end up turning around and protecting these big companies, though - or getting stuffed with codicils mandating something unrelated - such as requiring

        • Everyone always goes to the "well-funded lobbyist" position, but good lobbyists only can do so much no matter what their paid. Politicians these days are driven by the winds of public opinion more than lobbyist positioning, and in this case there might be appetite to do some real things here. The Democrats typically have an anti-monopolist approach and right now the 4 big-tech they're targeting feel very much like robber barons the way they were described in the 20's against groups like Standard Oil and A

          • good lobbyists only can do so much no matter what their paid.

            Their paid?? What about MY paid, that's what I want to know....

            Yes, it still disturbs me that well-educated individuals can't spell as well as your average 8th grader.

            Though it's possible that the average 8th grader can't spell either. In which case it disturbs me that eighth graders aren't as well educated as they were in the 19th century....

            • I'm actually quite good at spelling and gramar, but people can make simple mistakes from time to time. Maybe I was tired that day, or had a simple brain fart. That just makes me human.

              However it's telling that you decided to go full a-hole and attack me over a simple grammar mistake. And it's a grammar mistake when you use an incorrect homophone, not a spelling mistake.

    • The headline says "Tech", the text says "tech giants", msmash is incompetent.

    • Prediction: these bills will end up being used on smaller companies that actually pose a threat to the big companies

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      It's posturing by a bunch of politicians who think they'll get votes by taking on Big Whatever
  • These platforms do not need to be regulated - they need to be broken up. They are too big and too powerful. They are like nations unto themselves. As such, they limit our choices and force us to live with their bad behavior.

    • Pffft! Where were you when the Microsoft monopoly trial was happening? Writing your congressperson I hope.

    • No, they need to be abandoned. Nothing needs to replace them either.

      • Indeed, I never created a Facebook account. And Google is trying to become the place where people get answers, instead of the place where people look to find things that give answers. That is a bad trend. And Twitter is mostly a wasteland. The only social media platforms I like are LinkedIn and Medium: the discourse in those seems to be at a much higher level.

        • Google has some decent tech, but really people should stop clicking their ads and stop using the majority of their services, especially the ones that allow them to extend to products outside of their search engine. They're a company that could stand to lose a lot of money and shrink a bit from atrophy. Returning to the core of what they were 20+ years ago would be an improvement.

          Agreed that Facebook and Twitter just need mass abandonment. If they lose their users, they die, and we all benefit.

    • Breaking up will do nothing. Online services that cost the user nothing (expect privacy) do not have a means to undercut competitors. With physical goods, a lesser company can offer a cheaper product. Consumers might decide the lower price is worth the lesser product. With online services, users have a choice between a free superior product and a free inferior one. There is no reason for the users to not use the best free product. One product will always be dominant. Splitting up big tech companies w

      • I don't agree. A free market does not lead to a fair and open market: it leads to monopolies and oligopolies. Yes, these get overturned eventually, but that takes decades, and meanwhile people suffer for it.

        I agree that anti-trust law is outdated.

        The government's primary economic role should be to make sure that the market is _fair_ - not "free". A free market is a free-for-all, which ends up being a power struggle in which the biggest players create tribes of second and third tier loyalist companies and do

        • Very few companies remain dominant for more than a decade or two. Most get lazy and milk the cash cow, neglecting to invest in the future. New comers eventually out innovate them and rise above. Even monopolies need to keep re-inventing themselves to remain relevant.

          • A decade is a very long time to have to put up with a monopoly. And then when they fall, they are replaced by another monopoly. Meanwhile everyone suffers every day.
  • Unless McConnell allows 10 republicans in the senate to vote for so it can be signed by POTUS. That is why the filibuster is there. To allow police bills to be presented with little hope for passage.
    • Yes. The founders expressed a fear of a "tyranny of the minority that would cripple the congress with inaction" and specifically warned against something like the filibuster. We didn't listen to them and added shortly after.

      • Re:All for nought (Score:5, Informative)

        by SkonkersBeDonkers ( 6780818 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:56PM (#61474174)

        The original filibuster was much more reasonable. You had to literally keep people speaking and they could be shut down by a 2/3rds vote _of the senators present in the chamber_ which meant at least 34 of them had to legit keep it up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

        Now all you gotta to do is announce you're filibustering and that's the extent of your "cost".

      • I'm all for preventing laws from getting passed.

        The majority can do it by refusing to sign. Let the minority do it by taking up so much time nothing gets done.

        Fewer laws is almost certainly better, especially if there's a significant (even if small) dissent from what is trying to be passed. Good for them.

        So lets write laws that we can all agree with, rather than cramming shit down everyone's throats. If everyone is going to disagree on principle, then lets just stop doing things until the voting populace re

        • Re:All for nought (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @01:16PM (#61474270)

          Crafting a law that "we all agree with" doesn't work when "we" overrepresents people with no interest in governing.

          A return to the speaking filibuster would allow minority factions force the majority to the bargaining table, but would it would add costs to this obstruction: personal effort from the filibusterers, greater public awareness of the people who are blocking the will of the majority, and the purpose of the blocking.

          Right now the effort and cost of a filibuster is the same as a simple "no" vote. The effect is to require a supermajority for almost all legislation, which is not what the Founders envisioned.

          • Having said that, this legislation is probably mostly bad. But like the man said: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." So let the sponsors of this legislation make a case discuisefor it, and vote them out if they keep proposing bad legislation. (The filibuster allows people to disguise their policy votes as procedural votes, which is also bad.)

          • I'm honestly fine with all of that.

            The point being, no one is going to filibuster all day long, every single day -- it will be issues that mean a lot to them. This bill/issue won't mean much to be either way, and I'm speaking in general -- not about any one issue.

            Let the issues that a (small) group of people feel strongly enough to occupy the floor for a good-long-time cause the floor to be occupied for a good long time, if the majority is going to otherwise pass it and there is a small group that feels _ve

            • Hopefully Joe Manchin takes a clue from you re a more original-style filibuster.

              I think Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have each had their own speaking filibusters, which were just grandstanding. But some speaking filibusters have managed to delay actual and important legislation. https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]

        • I'm all for preventing laws from getting passed.

          Why? There are real problems that the majority of voters want resolved. It sounds like you've "got yours" and now you don't give a shit about what anyone else needs.

      • Not that shortly. The first filibuster occurred in 1837, or 48 years after the Constitution.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by aergern ( 127031 )

          shush. Don't tell them that. They probably also think it's in the constitution instead of a Congressional rule they themselves can change anytime. :D

          • Well...if they don't change it, they'll probably lose the Senate. And the first thing the Republicans will do is modify or eliminate the filibuster.

    • The Republicans want to hurt Big Tech over their censorship of "conservative" speech (a term now used as a euphemism for insane conspiracy theories, dangerous pseudoscience, hate speech and democracy-breaking fascist lies) so I don't think they'll have a hard time getting Republican support.

  • Yea a House Proposed bill.... (Score:3)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:38PM (#61474104)

    We all should know by now, the Proposals by the house, are just the same a normal brainstorming sessions. Most won't go anywhere, and just allow for the House members to debate something so they can get their name out.

    That said, there is a problem were large firms buy out competitors just to kill their idea. Often we get a small company create something new and interesting, and actually innovative, and probably disruptive to the big company business model. The big company may not be able to compete with the product, so they just buy the company and kill it.

    Microsoft well known Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is much like this process.
    Back in the early 1990's there was a Programming Language called Fox Pro. It was a competitor to Visual Basic and MS Access. But unlike Visual Basic, it offered some good ideas, such as more direct database integration, eg you can do a SQL call as a normal command and have its values go straight into the programs variables, also it supported better Object Orientated methodology. Also its own built in Database was much more robust than Access was, with advanced options such as indexing. So Microsoft purchased it, they kept it going for about a decade, where they put in some minor upgrades, mostly to keep it compatible with the Microsoft infrastructure, then they just killed it off and said to its users you should be using .NET or MS Access.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stikves ( 127823 )

      I agree on Microsoft in general, but FoxPro might not have been the best example.

      Microsoft, or any other big company, is actually a combination of multiple smaller ones. Specifically for them, there was a lot of infighting, and that is well known in the industry. Actually with respect to .Net vs Windows, there was a huge fight that took about a decade: https://www.cnet.com/news/stev... [cnet.com] . It ended with Sinofsky giving an ultimatum, but being pushed out of the company for it. He was actually one of the conten

  • How careful would legislation need to be written? (Score:3)

    by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:41PM (#61474130)

    This is likely to be a very difficult thing to legislate without unintended consequences. The same behavior which could reign in a big technology company (like mergers) could also hinder a smaller company from competing. And even definitions of small and large companies will be hard. A company like Salesforce is certainly very large ($220 billion market cap), but would they be hindered from making acquisitions to compete with Microsoft ($1.9 trillion market cap)? If so, things like this could even help the largest companies.

    I think we definitely need more regulation here, but this sure seems like a very hard thing to get right.

    • My thoughts too. Personally if there is a company that only hurts itself through acquisition it would be MS. I say let them buy whoever as they make of a mess of it.

    • Re:How careful would legislation need to be writte (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tsqr ( 808554 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @02:13PM (#61474460)

      From TFA:
      Under four of the bills, the Justice Department or the FTC would first be required to designate "covered platforms" — those with at least 500,000 U.S. users, $600 billion in revenue or market cap and a “critical trading partner” for other businesses. Those platforms would then have limitations on their conduct, mergers and data use.

      Interesting that they consider revenue and market cap as so closely related that the same threshold should be used for both. Wikipedia's list [wikipedia.org] of the largest tech companies, ordered by revenue, doesn't include a single corporation with 2020 revenue anywhere close to $600 billion. This list [companiesmarketcap.com] of largest tech companies, ordered by market cap, has 5 US companies (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook, in that order) with market cap over $600 billion, with one more (Tesla) approaching that threshold.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by theCoder ( 23772 )

        According to this list of the largest companies by revenue [wikipedia.org], there are no companies in the world with $600 billion in annual revenue. Walmart comes the closest at $560 billion.

        I guess the authors of the bill have been in Congress too long, where you're not talking real money until you get to 1,000 billion (i.e., a trillion) dollars.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

      To create more competition, what's needed is lower barriers to entry, not breaking up already large corporations. If you say broke Microsoft into 3 companies, you've created 2 competitors, but it's still a tiny group who are in all likelihood very friendly with each other. If on the other hand, you force Microsoft to release their Windows 2000 code into the public domain, it would actually create competitors.

  • How about non-tech companies? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kmahan ( 80459 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:42PM (#61474136)

    Seems like this shouldn't just be for tech companies.
    - financial
    - energy
    - food production
    - automakers

    just to name a few sectors that have a few giant companies that work to crush all competition

  • How has Apple "...monopolized various aspects of the online economy" exactly? Apple has a minority share of the smartphone OS market; Android is the market leader. By definition, a company with a minority share can't exercise monopoly control of a market.

    Go ahead and break-up Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Those are actual monopolies. Apple has a monopoly over one thing: it's own app store. Nobody is talking about breaking-up Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft, and those companies also exercise monopoly control ov

    • How has Apple "...monopolized various aspects of the online economy" exactly? Apple has a minority share of the smartphone OS market; Android is the market leader. By definition, a company with a minority share can't exercise monopoly control of a market.

      Go ahead and break-up Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Those are actual monopolies. Apple has a monopoly over one thing: it's own app store. Nobody is talking about breaking-up Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft, and those companies also exercise monopoly control over their own app stores. But none of those three companies has a majority share of the console gaming market.

      You know, I completely despise Apple and everything they do and stand for. I especially despise people that love Apple.

      But you are correct. I am living proof that you are not forced to buy anything from them.

      • I use a ton of Apple products, but they brought this on themselves with their greed. Once their 30% cut exceeded the $1B they needed to run the store, they should've begun reducing that 30% each year until it reached zero. This was an unforced error.

    • App store, basically. They've shut software vendors out of their hardware/OS environment unless the vendor agrees to pay a 30% tax just to be installed on Apple devices. I don't agree with the premise necessarily, but I why they're saying it.

      • I don't know about that. Apple and Google now charge 15% up to $1M in revenue, and then 30% after that. Between them, that's pretty much the whole mobile app market.

        What is a developer supposed to do if he or she doesn't want to pay 15%? I have no idea.

        • That is really the point, isn't it? There are no alternatives for Apple at all, and if you use an alternative store on Android then you risk low exposure and/or being flagged as "unsafe" (never mind the unsafe/scammy apps on the Play Store).

          Users would benefit from an even playing field between stores, sort of the way it was back when software was brick n' mortar or mail order. Sure publishers gave up 40% of their gross for distribution/publishing, but at the same time, if you could publish and get your so

  • Devil in the details (Score:4)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @12:46PM (#61474148)

    This isn't much different from what we do now. Mergers and acquisitions can be denied by the FTC based on their harm to competition or consumers. But the major players can afford armies of economists to author studies which conclude that no harm will be done. Even if that turns out to be bullshit later on.

    Try to reverse FTC permission and unwind such a merger after the fact. Good luck with that. The parent company usually ends up gutting its prey and saddling it with debt. So nobody would be interested in the rotting corpse of a once viable company.

    Just deny all mergers and acquisitions outright. You want to buy the assets of a company? You wait for the Chapter 7 liquidation sale.

  • When They Come Out (Score:3)

    by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @01:06PM (#61474234) Journal
    Will be a good time to discuss what they are actually proposing to enact. Not before.

  • Cerberus (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @01:06PM (#61474236)

    A Cerberus with two dicks is headed for Big Tech and there will be offspring.

    Looks like this one:
    https://1funny.com/wp-content/... [1funny.com]

  • Not an attack on tech (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @01:26PM (#61474316)

    It is an attack on tech-companies that basically are leeches on society.

    • No they aren't. They are just companies, not unlike any other company they exist to make profit within the bounds of the rules and regulations that govern them. That's the absurdity of all of this. The FTC is already required to analyse the market conditions prior to approving a merger. Rules and regulations already exist. This here is currently little more than saying "${industry_X} isn't following the non-existent rules and we're upset about it!"

      You want to fix the problem you have to fix the rules, not g

      • Rules and regulations already exist.

        And those rules and regulations allowed those mergers. That's why they're trying to tweak the rules.

        • Of course. I wasn't saying otherwise. I was saying that this problem isn't to do with tech companies who are no different to any other company unlike implied by the OP.

    • How are companies providing thousands of high paying jobs leeches on society? Companies that provide goods and services that improve our standard of living?

      • Because their market dominance and shady practices are preventing hundreds of new companies providing hundreds or thousands of jobs each.

        Also, competition is good. If you like the free market, then you must ensure the free market is actually a market, and not just one company. One company is not a market, and one company free to do whatever they like is not a free market.

  • Pretty dramatic language, the kind you expect from flimflam publishers. Let's have a realistic look:

    "Democrats are set to introduce a package ..." What does this mean? It means they are thinking about it. Sending out feelers to see if anything like this might be acceptable. It means also that they are looking forward to meeting with the representatives of these companies for some help with their re-election campaign. It means that POLITICO has given them some nice free publicity that makes them look as thou

  • If you have prongs on your corks, you've got some pretty unusual tastes in wine.

  • I was an early adopter of the Penpoint/Go operating system, which Microsoft destroyed. Penpoint was far, far superior to Windows. It was tragic.

  • 9 times out of 10, bills like this enact regulations on large companies, while also making it nearly impossible for anyone else to compete with them.

  • Top Democrats are soliciting campaign contributions from Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google

  • How about changing the tax system so that the objective of increasing retained earnings makes the companies want to divide themselves into smaller companies? NOT a penalty for success, but rather an incentive to reproduce the good ideas within smaller companies. My original idea was to link the higher tax rates to market share, but now I think total profit should be considered, too.

    Here's a relatively simple example (though I've considered ways to apply it to others such as Amazon and the google). If Micros

  • I hope this doesn't pass before google buys my company.

  • "But we censored your political opponents for you! WHYYY?!?!???"

  • Buck is a bastard who can be easily bought.
    This will most likely not go through if it depends on Buck joining them.

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