Elizabeth Warren Is Right- Facebook, Google & Amazon Must Be Broken Up, Robert Reich
"Elizabeth Warren Is Right- We Must Break Up Facebook, Google and Amazon," OP, Robert Reich, The Guardian, March 10, 2019. "Monopolies aren't good for anyone except for the monopolists." -Excerpts:
..We're now in a Second Gilded Age which has spawned a handful of hi-tech behemoths and a new set of barons like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google. The answer is the same as it was before: bust up the monopolies. The current effort is bipartisan. At a Senate hearing I attended last week, the arch-conservative Missouri Republican Josh Hawley asked me, rhetorically: Is there really any wonder that there is increased pressure for antitrust enforcement activity, for privacy activity when these companies behave in the way that they do? Hawley added: Every day brings some creepy new revelation about these companies behaviors. Of course the public is going to want there to be action to defend their rights. Its only natural.
Nearly 90% of all internet searches now go through Google. Facebook and Google together account for 58% of all digital ads, which is where most ad money goes these days. Theyre also the first stops for many Americans seeking news (93% receive news online), and Amazon is now the first stop for a third of all American consumers seeking to buy anything. With such size comes the power to stifle innovation. Amazon wont let any business that sells through it sell any item at a lower price anywhere else. Its even using its control over book sales to give books it publishes priority over rival publishers. Google uses the worlds most widely used search engine to promote its own services and content over those of competitors. Facebooks purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram killed off two potential competitors.
Contrary to the conventional view of America as a hotbed of entrepreneurship, according to the Census Bureau, the rate at which new job-creating businesses have formed in the US has halved since 2004. Size also confers political power. Amazon the richest corporation in America paid nothing in federal taxes last year. Meanwhile, it is holding an auction to extort billions from states and cities eager to host its second headquarters. It also forced Seattle, its home city, to back down on a plan to tax big corporations like itself to pay for homeless shelters for a growing population that cannot afford sky-high rents caused in part by Amazon.
Facebook withheld evidence of Russian activity on its platform far longer than had been disclosed. When the news came to light, it employed an opposition research firm to discredit critics. Zuckerberg just unveiled a plan to encrypt personal information from all his platforms. The plan is likely to give Facebook even more comprehensive data about everyone. If you believe it will better guard privacy, you dont remember Zuckerbergs last seven promises to do that. The New America Foundation, an influential thinktank Google helped fund, fired researchers who were urging antitrust officials to take on the company. And Google has been quietly financing hundreds of professors to write research papers justifying Googles market dominance...
More, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/09/elizabeth-warren-break-up-facebook-google-amazon
- Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress last year.
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