11 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2023
    1. Google has argued that switching search engines is just a click away and that people use Google because it's the superior search engine. Google also argued at trial that Microsoft's failures with Bing are "a direct result of Microsoft’s missteps in Internet search."

      This is interesting - I wonder how 3rd parties like Mozilla or Vivaldi testify?

      If they say it's hard, they contradict their own marketing, and risk their main source of revenue.

      If they say it's easy, they risk undermining all their own comms around the importance of choice, and the necessity of more diverse ecosystems.

  2. Jul 2021
    1. BlackRock employs a stable of former policymakers, underscoring the importance the company occupies in both financial and policymaking ecosystems, in something akin to a shadow government entity.[157] Good government groups have documented 118 examples of “revolving door” activity by the company—cases in which a government official joined BlackRock’s roster, or vice versa.[158] In one particularly troubling example of how Washington’s revolving door operates, in 2017, a former BlackRock executive was put in charge of reviewing the FSOC’s work for the Treasury Department.[159] Unsurprisingly, the Department’s conclusion was that FSOC should “prioritize its efforts to address risks to financial stability through a process that emphasizes an activities-based or industry-wide approach,” the company’s preferred position.[160] This conclusion all but ensures that BlackRock will not be designated for greater regulation by the FSOC under the Trump administration.

      To Big To Fail? Above The Law? Shadow Government?

      The term "shadow government" comes up often when investigating Revolving Door partnerships between corporations and former government policymakers. One particular public corporation, BlackRock Investments is the poster child of revolving door activity and comparisons to a shadow government.

      BlackRock is front and center in the manipulation of todays Real Estate bubble.

      BlackRock should be marketed as;*The Largest Asset Manager and Keeper of The Neo-liberal Flame; We Kill Children to Make You Money and We Enjoy Doing It!*

  3. Mar 2021
    1. The idea is that many smaller tech companies would allow for more choice between services. This solution is flawed. For one, services like search or social media benefit from network effects. Having large datasets to train on, means search recommendations get better. Having all your friends in one place, means you don’t need five apps to contact them all. I would argue those are all things we like and might lose when Big Tech is broken up. What we want is to be able to leave Facebook and still talk to our friends, instead of having many Facebooks.

      I'd be interested to better understand this concern or critique. I think the goal of smaller, interoperable services is exactly the idea of being able to communicate with our Facebook friends even if we leave Facebook. Perhaps that is an argument for combining deconsolidation with interoperability.

  4. Feb 2021
  5. Jan 2021
    1. Monopolies, Bork believed, were generally good, as long as they delivered low prices. A monopoly would only persist if it were more efficient than its competitors.

      The shift in antitrust policy to focus solely on prices.

    2. If there were a company making super-charged monopoly profits, bankers would naturally invest in a competitor, thus addressing the monopoly problem without government intervention.

      Why wouldn't they just invest in the monopoly? It's guaranteed profits, essentially.

  6. Oct 2018
  7. Jul 2018
    1. As John Sherman, the senator who gave his name to America’s original antitrust law in 1890, put it at a time when the robber barons ruled much of America’s economy: “If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale of any of the necessaries of life.”
  8. Aug 2015
    1. Clayton Act

      "Clayton Antitrust Act, 1914, passed by the U.S. Congress as an amendment to clarify and supplement the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. It was drafted by Henry De Lamar Clayton. The act prohibited exclusive sales contracts, local price cutting to freeze out competitors, rebates, interlocking directorates in corporations capitalized at $1 million or more in the same field of business, and intercorporate stock holdings. Labor unions and agricultural cooperatives were excluded from the forbidden combinations in the restraint of trade. The act restricted the use of the injunction against labor, and it legalized peaceful strikes, picketing, and boycotts. It declared that "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." Organized labor was as heartened by the act as it had been dejected by the doctrine of the Danbury Hatters' Case, but subsequent judicial construction weakened the act's labor provisions. The Clayton Antitrust Act was the basis for a great many important and much-publicized suits against large corporations. Later amendments to the act strengthened its provisions against unfair price cutting (1936) and intercorporate stock holdings (1950)." Sourced from The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press as cited by InfoPlease.com