Category Archives: Big Tech

Sen. Amy Klobuchar believes antitrust reform is what it will take to preserve what she calls American capitalism.

The powerful chair of the Senate antitrust subcommittee has introduced and co-sponsored legislation that could alter liability protections for digital firms, put guardrails on health data use, require online political ad transparency and give publishers leverage in negotiations with tech platforms. And when she discusses her signature issue antitrust reform the Minnesota Democrat often links it to other concepts like data privacy, media industry fairness and even the first amendment.

Technologies are controlled by a handful of companies that have amassed unprecedented power, said Klobuchar during her Jan. 29 State of the Net Conference keynote. Tech giants have control of gateways over our personal data, power over what ads we see and what news we watch and monopoly power in key digital markets.

Klobuchar has signaled support for a breakup of Facebook and Instagram, a dismantling of Googles dominant ad infrastructure and regulatory inspection of data-hungry moves like Googles FitBit acquisition. The senator took advantage of a spotlight moment for her antitrust crusade during this Mondays Senate confirmation hearing of Merrick Garland, President Joseph Bidens nominee to head up the U.S. Justice Department, one of the two federal agencies overseeing antitrust matters Klobuchar wants to empower with more money and resources.

I suggest you look at Mark Zuckerbergs email where he talked about purchasing nascent competitors, and I think the answer to that has got to come from the Justice Department. The answer, the reply to that email that this kind of exclusionary conduct is not the way capitalism works in America, Klobuchar told Garland, alluding to emails sent in 2012 by the Facebook CEO that indicate the firms aim to buy Instagram as a way to ensure market dominance.

The Federal Trade Commission in December launched its investigation into Facebook, alleging the company has maintained its monopoly on the social media industry by acquiring emerging rival Instagram in 2012 and mobile messaging app WhatsApp in 2014.

Memories of a telco monopoly and her journalist fatherTo understand why reining in the big platforms seems like a particularly personal mission for Klobuchar, it helps to consider her background. She makes a point of reminding people that her father was a journalist a Minnesota Vikings beat writer for the Minneapolis Star and later a columnist for what would become the Star Tribune.

To Klobuchar, anti-competitive behavior by the giants of tech has been fueled by a voracious appetite for personal data, which she argues helps fund disinformation and disadvantages the sorts of publishers her dad once worked for.

She evoked the memory of her dad during a September 2020 Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights hearing, claiming that Googles dominance over the buy and sell sides of the ad tech ecosystem harms publishers. Who are those publishers? Theyre content producers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, to me, given that my dad was a journalist, to me this is one of the key elements here because if you have unfairness in how that ad ecosystem is going, youre depriving these news organizations at a time when the first amendment is already under assault of the revenue that they need to keep going.

Klobuchar has also been known to harken back to her earlier days as a private-sector lawyer representing telecom company MCI (later acquired by Verizon) when talking antitrust and did so in an email exchange with Digiday. As a young law firm lawyer, I saw my client MCI being held back by local monopoly carriers, she said. MCI, along with government enforcers, took on Ma Bell, leading to the breakup of that monopoly and fostering competition that lowered long distance rates and revolutionized thetelecom industry.

A complex collaboratorDuring her failed run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Klobuchar grabbed headlines for being a mean boss to her Senate staff. A 2018 report from LegiStorm pegged her annual staff turnover rate at 36 percent, the highest in the Senate.

But her campaign played up her midwestern charms and commitment to unity, encouraging supporters to host Hot Dish House Parties, which unintentionally sparked a casserole vs. hot dish debate in Iowa. Hot dish is a great unifier just like Amy, said a Facebook event invite.

Klobuchar has emphasized bipartisanship and collaboration in her Senate career. GovTrack reported that 50 of her 79 bills and resolutions in 2019 had cosponsors from across the aisle. One legislative staffer whose office has worked with Klobuchar and spoke anonymously with Digiday said they had nothing bad to say about her.

Shes a smart, serious person, and I think shell have a lot of native authority to act in strong ways on the issues she cares about, said Cathy Gellis, an independent San Francisco-based internet lawyer who expressed concerns over a Section 230 reform bill that Klobuchar recently co-sponsored which would make platforms like Facebook and Twitter liable when paid content posted on their sites is used to target vulnerable people.

In the previous Congress, Klobuchar co-sponsored the bipartisan Honest Ads Act, intended to bring transparency and accountability to digital political ads, and the bipartisan Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2019, a bill championed by news publishers that would provide a four-year safe harbor period during which newspaper companies can negotiate compensation terms as a collective with the big digital platforms.

Bipartisanship to tackle tech platforms on multiple frontsOn Feb. 2, Klobuchar introduced a bipartisan bill with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The Protecting Personal Health Data Act aims to strengthen health data privacy protections and asks the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create regulations for new health technologies such as health apps, wearables and genetic testing kits.

Klobuchars concerns regarding health data use aligned with her request two weeks prior for the Department of Justice to inspect Googles Fitbit acquisition. Googles decision to close its acquisition of Fitbit while the transaction is under review is yet another sign of the companys disregard for antitrust laws, Klobuchar tweeted on Jan. 15. I urge the DOJ to seek remedies to protect competition and consumers from anticompetitive effects caused by the transaction.

The DOJ, several states and even a publisher group have filed antitrust lawsuits against Google, arguing that aspects of its search, digital ad business and decisions about third-party cookies are anti-competitive.

A perch for tougher antitrust enforcementKlobuchar pointed to her bipartisan approach to work inside the Senate antitrust subcommittee in her 2015 memoir, The Senator Next Door. Mike Lee and I have teamed up to co-chair the Judiciary Committees Antitrust Subcommittee and nearly every letter and announcement weve produced on that important subcommittee has been the result of collaboration, she wrote regarding Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, currently the ranking member of that body.

Klobuchars antitrust reform legislation seems to get much of her attention. Shes currently writing a book on that topic, slated to publish in April.

Antitrust lawyers say her place heading that subcommittee, along with her seat on the Senate Commerce Committee which will decide on commissioners and a permanent chairman for the FTC, the other agency overseeing antitrust alongside the DOJ give her a powerful platform to push her Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act.

Today, consolidation and anti-competitive behavior disadvantage consumersand small businessesacross our economy from agriculture to pharmaceuticals, Klobuchar told Digiday. I introduced theCompetition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act to overhaul enforcement, modernize our laws, and build an economy that can compete globally and thrive in the twenty-first century.

Shes going to have the chair of the committee. I think her bill will be a jumping off point for a lot of dialog about what antitrust legislation might look like, said Haidee Schwartz, a former FTC acting deputy director of the bureau of competition and a partner in the antitrust group at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld.

The bill would give the DOJ and FTC a cash infusion and create a new Market Analysis Division that could help the FTC understand the intricacies of how acquisitions and mergers affect sometimes opaque and complex industry sectors in tech and beyond.

I think shes well-respected and she tends to be a person who can put bipartisan coalitions together, said Barry Pupkin, a senior partner focused on antitrust at law firm Squire Patton Boggs. Shes got as good a chance as any to get something like this through.

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How family ties and a history of bipartisanship inform Sen. Amy Klobuchars crusade to deplatform big tech - Digiday

During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, former President Donald Trump encouraged states to "punish" big tech if they "silence conservative voices."

Trump spoke on the final day of CPAC in Orlando, Florida. It was his first public speech since leaving the White House last month.

"All of the election integrity measures in the world will mean nothing if we don't have free speech," Trump said. "If republicans can be censored for speaking the truth and calling out corruption, we will not have democracy and we will only have left-wing tyranny."

Trump has frequently accused tech companies of censorship over his removal from both Facebook and Twitter for violating their policies.

"The time has come to break up big tech monopolies and restore fair competition," Trump said, adding that section 230 a piece of internet legislation passed into law as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 must be repealed.

Section 230 gives websites the ability to regulate the content that appears on their platforms. It also protects sites from being legally liable for content shared by users.

"If the federal government refuses to act then every state in the union where we have the votes which is a lot of them big tech giants like Twitter, Google, and Facebook should be punished with major sanctions whenever they silence conservative voices," Trump said.

Trump cited Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who announced new proposals earlier this month aimed at social media companies. One proposal aims to block the suspension of accounts of political candidates and would impose fines for each day said account is blocked.

It's unclear if the state would have the authority to enforce such laws, the Associated Press reported.

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Trump calls on states to 'punish' big tech with sanctions if they 'silence conservative voices' - Business Insider

Big Tech's dominance within the social, political, and economic spheres of life is not going unnoticed; reining it in has become a bipartisan aim, even if for competing reasons.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri argues that Facebook and Twitter are censorious. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota suggests that they are not censorious enough. In any case, both think Congress should do something.

Big Tech holds the keys to the kingdom of online life. Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple had a combined valuation of more than $5 trillion as of September 2020, according to an October report from the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, accounting for more than one-third of the value of the S&P 100.

But the people and businesses whom politicians want to protect from Big Tech are the very ones who made Big Tech into what it is. Jeff Bezos became the worlds richest man because everybody wanted (and still wants) to use what he created for everything. Big Techs ascendancy is less a story about corporate formation than it is about the extraordinary evolution of the average persons social and commercial habits.

Hawley said in an October statement, Google and its fellow Big Tech monopolists exercise unprecedented power over the lives of ordinary Americans, controlling everything from the news we read to the security of our most personal information. Yet getting news from Google and Facebook is not a requirement it is a choice.

Consider this: After a New York Times opinion writer wrote a stupid joke on Twitter calling for former Vice President Mike Pence to be lynched, Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle wrote that the social and work-related costs of tweeting arent balanced by the benefits, and at this point the majority of Twitter users I know seem to agree. She added, They hate what Twitter does to their organizations and friends, they hate the pervasive fear, and so on.

Yet, she couldnt help but stay on either: Im just as guilty as anyone ... because I dont have the fortitude to quit.

As McArdle acknowledged, People feel they have to stay on because others do, and others are on for the same reason. That peer pressure is bad for all the reasons McArdle named, but it is great for Twitter.

In a recent interview with the Washington Examiner, Republican Sen. Rand Paul took on the idea of the government disrupting or breaking up these large tech companies. Dont use em. Youre a big boy, he said. Quit using Twitter. Quit using Facebook.

Its very much a party of personal responsibility argument, but Paul recognizes that Big Tech companies have so much commanding influence because consumers have so freely and so widely associated with it, even to a point of developing dependencies.

If Big Tech, with all its current momentum and market share, was poised to bring about a dystopian future, it would be Huxley, not Orwell, who would be vindicated.

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Big Tech companies thrive because consumers can't quit them - Washington Examiner

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2021 A House committee on Thursday heard of the need for strengthened antitrust measures to stem the influence of big technology companies, which are alleged to have increased its stranglehold on data on the internet.

The committee heard of Googles and Facebooks overwhelming control of the digital ad market; Amazons alleged anticompetitive practice of demanding small businesses that sell on its platform provide its proprietary information so it can make its own products; and Apple using its position as one of two app store platforms to extract taxes from competitors like Spotify and other news apps.

This is the first in a series of hearings held by the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee to consider legislative proposals to address the rise and abuse of market power online and to modernize the antitrust laws.

On Thursday, the committee played host to antitrust experts and affected businesses for the hearing titled Reviving Competition, which was intended to address market power and big techs role as gatekeeper online.

The committee also heard about recent actions by the tech giants to silence speech online. Since early October 2020, according to the testimony, Googles YouTube platform has been deleting numerous conservative channels; Facebook and Twitter have been shutting down pages, including former President Donald Trumps; and Amazon kicked the controversial social media app Parler off its web hosting service.

Google and Apple blocked the app from their app stores.

Witnesses recommended the government strengthen enforcement agencies so they have more teeth and reform how merger cases are viewed.

Antitrust gatekeepers work to promote competition between powerful and smaller digital companies, and innovative connectivity competitors should be able to compete at the same level with big tech, said Charlotte Slaiman, competition policy director at Public Knowledge.

That would involve creating a level playing field where larger players cannot leverage their own platform to one-up competitors, said Hal Singer, managing director of Econ One.

Sharing those concerns, Eric Gunderson, chief executive officer of Mapbox, said that American competitiveness and innovation are at risk with these giants controlling the sector. Antitrust reform needs to be focused on allowing other companies to be able to compete in a level playing field.

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House Committee Hears of Big Tech's Alleged Anticompetitive Behavior in New Hearing - BroadbandBreakfast.com

DES MOINES Legislation that would withdraw tax incentives to Big Tech companies found to have censored online speech advanced in the Iowa Legislature, but lawmakers acknowledged the bill needs work, and Gov. Kim Reynolds stopped short of endorsing their efforts.

House File 633 would target dominant social media companies by blocking or taking away government financial incentives for companies like Facebook and Google, which have data centers in Iowa, if it was determined in court they were limiting free speech.

The bill is similar to Senate File 402, which also has been approved by a subcommittee. Senate President Jake Chapman, R-Adel, said the bill targets internet sites and digital marketplaces that seem to be blocking conservatives who voice opinions on social media platforms.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Steve Holt, R-Denison, acknowledged the practical implications of writing legislation involving the regulation of free speech.

But I am concerned about Big Tech media censorship in what now is clearly a major part of the public square, he said at a subcommittee meeting Thursday. I understand absolutely the work we have to do to make this workable. We also have to be respectful of private companies and their rights. So there are a lot of realities were dealing with.

Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls, D-Coralville, wasnt sure Republicans advancing the bills were dealing with reality.

Its obviously a very radical proposal, he said during a virtual news conference. Its based on a lie. No conservatives are being kicked off of Twitter because theyre conservative.

Proof of that was a Twitter conversation Wednesday night between Chapman and Donald Trump Jr., he said.

If conservatives were being removed from Twitter because they were conservative, Sen. Chapman would not be able to tweet at Donald Trump Jr., Wahls said.

Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, suggested lawmakers might need a primer on the First Amendment.

Your First Amendment rights are not restricted because a private company chooses not to allow you to speak, she said. The First Amendment applies to government limiting free speech.

One of the concerns voiced by Rep. Jon Jacobsen, R-Council Bluffs, was the relationship between the state and Big Tech through its cooperation such as sharing criminal information with government.

Theres also a public square question because the public square is no longer just a physical space, but a digital venue as well, Jacobsen said.

Lynn Hicks, spokesman for Attorney General Tom Miller, said if the bill becomes law it could greatly increase the workload of the office.

He also cited a 2019 Congressional Research Service report that found lawsuits predicated on these sites decisions to host or remove content have been largely unsuccessful.

House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, agreed something has to be done. He didnt endorse HF 633, but as far as the concept of whats being worked on, I think theres some things in there that our caucus can support.

Reynolds understands Republican legislators frustrations with what they see as censorship on social media.

The conversation is part of the legislative process, Reynolds said, adding that lawmakers also should consider what signal it would send to Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook Big Tech companies that have invested in Iowa if the state threatens to take away the economic development incentives used to recruit them.

Thats a discussion that needs to be had in the Legislature, she said. Thats questions that they should be asking.

The bill likely will be taken up by the full Judiciary Committee next week to beat lawmakers self-imposed March 8 funnel deadline for bills to remain eligible for consideration.

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Dems say bill targeting Big Tech not based in reality, - MDJOnline.com

VU expert: Republicans have historically been opposed to this kind of government regulation

Taking a page out of former President Donald Trumps book, Tennessee Republicans are targeting technology firms and social media companies with a series of new bills that experts and stakeholders argue run afoul of federal authority.

Among the proposals many of them sponsored by Sen. Frank Niceley are efforts to prohibit social media platforms from including political and religious speech limitations in user agreements, prohibit the removal of a political candidates social media account and ban government entities from using social media platforms that regulate political speech. Republican Sen. Paul Bailey is one sponsor of a so-far vague effort to expand the Tennessee Freedom of Speech Act.

Both Niceley and Bailey declined to discuss their proposals because, representatives for both said, the two are still "working on" the bills. A spokesperson for the House Republican Caucus deferred comment to the group's Senate counterparts.

Their effort is part of a larger push nationwide, in some cases in response to recent actions by social media companies to limit and, ultimately, remove Trump's accounts because they determined his posts had incited or could incite violence related to the presidential transfer of power earlier this year.

The Greater Nashville Technology Council, a trade group representing tech companies with a local presence, is among the organizations tracking the bills at the Tennessee General Assembly. Alex Curtis, vice president for public affairs and communications at group, said that several of the bills, if passed, would likely be held up in court because its fairly clear that federal law regulates here.

But Curtis is also concerned about the message the bills send to the business community.

Were concerned that it can send signals that Tennessee is not open for tech business, Curtis said. Organizations like that might think twice about building out capacity in places where legislation might limit their ability to conduct business. They're very counter to what probably a lot of these representatives truly believe in, which is not just free speech but free markets and having the freedom to contract.

G.S. Hans, a Vanderbilt law professor who specializes in the First Amendment and technology, echoed some of Curtis analysis. The First Amendment, he said, applies to government restriction on speech, not private restriction on speech. One problem, Hans allowed, is that some social media firms have grown so large that some users have started treating them as a public square a sort of quasi-governmental actor. But thats not what federal law and the constitution say, he added.

People are confused about the scope of the First Amendment, its protections and who the First Amendment covers, Hans said. The First Amendment applies to the government and what it can do or not do when regulating speech. It doesn't have very much to say about what private actors like social media companies are prevented or prohibited from doing, because it's targeted at government action. And social media companies are not government actors.

The push by Tennessee Republicans comes as Senate Republicans, including Bailey and Niceley, are pressuring Tennessee public universities to punish students whose speech the lawmakers disagree with.

Republicans have historically been opposed to this kind of government regulation of content management, Hans said. Republicans are generally opposed to nationalizing private companies, which is effectively what this move is trying to do. I find it a little confusing, cynical and inconsistent, but I shouldn't be looking for consistency in political life. Maybe that's my own problem.

The Republican backlash to social media companies is especially ironic, Hans said, because Republicans have long pushed legal strategies to limit governmental regulatory powers via the First Amendment.

"This has been traditionally a right-wing project, Hans said. Its the right wing and conservative judges who have embraced this really expansive deregulatory approach, and this is one of the consequences of that. You kind of reap what you sow. If we think this is a problem that conservative people are frustrated about, this is also a problem that they had a large role in creating.

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Lawmakers target 'big tech' with politically inspired bills - Nashville Post

DES MOINES Legislation seeking to withdraw tax breaks and government incentives from Big Tech companies if a court rules they have violated free speech rights by blocking conservatives from social media was advanced Wednesday despite concerns it would be costly and problematic if lawmakers weaponized Iowas economic development programs.

Senate President Jake Chapman, R-Adel, one of 30 sponsors who introduced Senate File 402, said the bill which targets internet sites and digital marketplaces with at least 20 million subscribers or members would block or take away government financial inducements for companies like Facebook and Google that have located data centers in Iowa if they were deemed to be muzzling free speech.

But representatives from business groups, education and the Iowa Attorney Generals Office warned the result could cause widespread interference with contractual arrangements, cost the state jobs and damage efforts to attract and keep high-tech companies.

By considering this legislation, the states business environment and reputation could be damaged as companies that were considering entering the state would have to weigh whether or not its worth angering the Legislature, said Tyler Diers of TechNet, a national bipartisan network of technology CEOs and senior executives during a Senate Commerce subcommittee.

Diers said companies take seriously their responsibility to remove harmful content in an unbiased manner, while keeping their services open to a broad range of ideas.

But the proposed bill perversely creates an incentive for private entities not to prohibit or remove objectionable content in order to keep tax incentives for projects that are providing jobs and economic development in Iowa.

It would be bad public policy for the Legislature to weaponize economic development programs in order to forward a political agenda at the expense of the states economic interests, he said.

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However, subcommittee member Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, said he believes social media platforms have tilted in favor of liberal ideologies to suppress conservative speech in agreeing to advance the bill to full committee for consideration.

These platforms have become weaponized by progressive ideology and moved to the point where they will leave anything inappropriate up on the progressive side of the nations ideological spectrum but seem to jump immediately like a guard dog against anything that moves toward the conservative side, Schultz said.

I think you have to let both or you have to stop both if you are a private company trying to be consistent and I dont see that, Schultz said. I dont think we should stop here today.

Nathan Blake of the Iowa Attorney Generals Office said the bill establishes some unrealistic timelines and complaint procedures without investigatory powers that would be difficult to meet without a substantial increase in state resources and creation of a new division to handle complex cases.

He said the bill likely would raise conflict of interest concerns with the attorney general responsible for enforcing provisions but also defending state government agencies that have entered into contractual agreements with technology providers.

Policing all of that is going to be just an enormous amount of volume, Blake said.

Emily Piper of the Iowa Association of School Boards said the bill could negatively disrupt the delivery of online educational services.

Keith Saunders, a lobbyist for the state Board of Regents and the University of Iowa, worried a contractual interruption with a technology provider could shut down the UIs utility plant, hospital, thousands of computers, email and phone systems, as well as the scoreboard at Kinnick Stadium.

We depend upon these technologies to deliver education, to deliver service and to do research across our campuses, he said. It would literally shut down how we do business.

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Chapman said a legislative response that sends a strong message is needed because overreaching Big Tech companies whose social networks are the public square of the 21st century have shown a feckless disregard for individual rights but are being shielded by an antiquated federal law that provides liability immunity from civil action, with no prospect for congressional action.

Under our proposal, Big Tech will be required to recognize the rights of our citizens, Chapman said last week. Failure to comply with the law will result in Iowans having a mechanism to have their complaint investigated and heard before a court of law.

If a judge determines, constitutionally protected speech has been censored, the Big Tech company will forfeit their rights to any and all tax breaks, exemptions or any other benefit they receive in our state for 20 years.

Chapman said he was disappointed that no representatives of large-tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google that have facilities in Iowa showed up to testify at Wednesdays subcommittee hearing, and he was disappointed that Iowa interests only raised economic impact concerns.

What is the value of our Bill of Rights? he asked. I think it is a very dangerous road Big Tech is going down. This is not to simply get the attention of the Big Tech. This is to change the behavior of Big Tech.

Subcommittee member Sen. Liz Mathis, D-Hiawatha, said she understood but disagreed with what sponsors of the bill were trying to get at and, while trying to make a point, may have opened a can of worms in the process.

I think there are some levels of realism that we have to take into account around this bill in regard to actual enforcement of its provisions. This is an imperfect piece of policy and to advance this could be more dangerous than you think.

Comments: (515) 243-7220; rod.boshart@thegazette.com

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Iowa bill would punish Big Tech if it blocks conservatives on social media - The Gazette

The Economic Security Project is trying to make a point about big tech monopolies by releasing a browser plugin that will block any sites that reach out to IP addresses owned by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, or Amazon. The extension is called Big Tech Detective, and after using the internet with it for a day (or, more accurately, trying and failing to use), Id say it drives home the point that its almost impossible to avoid these companies on the modern web, even if you try.

Currently, the app has to be side-loaded onto Chrome, and the Economic Security Project expects that will remain the case. Its also available to side-load onto Firefox. By default, it just keeps track of how many requests are sent, and to which companies. If you configure the extension to actually block websites, youll see a big red popup if the website youre visiting sends a request to any of the four. That popup will also include a list of all the requests so you can get an idea of whats being asked for.

Its worth keeping in mind that just because a site reaches out to one or more of the big four tech companies, it doesnt mean that its necessarily snooping or doing something nefarious. Many websites use fonts from Google Fonts, or host their sites using Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. That said, there are pages that connect to those IP addresses because they use trackers provided by one of the big four companies. The examples Im about to list were selected because theyre common sites, not necessarily because they should be shamed.

I saw the popup a lot. DuckDuckGo and Fastmail, popular non-Google alternatives for search and email, were both blocked because they loaded resources from Google, and DuckDuckGo also loaded things from Microsoft (not that this was surprising, given that the search engines ads come from it). In fact, almost every search engine I could think of was blocked: Microsofts Bing, obviously, but also Yahoo, Startpage, Ecosia, and even Ask.com. The Verge was also blocked, as it loads resources from Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

If I were trying to use the web without being able to connect to IP addresses owned by the big four, it would certainly make my job more difficult: not only could I not easily search for information, basically every news site I could think to try also came up blocked even the one for my local paper.

If I cant work, how about some entertainment? That could be tricky too. Google obviously owns YouTube, but Netflix, Hulu, Floatplane, Mangadex, and even Vimeo also all showed the big red lock screen courtesy of the Big Tech Detective extension. It was the same story with online shopping, as Etsy loads resources from all four companies. And if this extension made me want to just ditch the internet and go to the woods? The Hiking Project and AllTrails were also lost to the block.

To try to drive the point home that the takeaway from this extension should be more along the lines of the entire internet relies on basically four companies and not every website is tracking me, I tried to go to a website that I helped build and that I know isnt doing anything creepy or even showing ads. It was blocked because its hosted on AWS and uses fonts from Google.

Of course, if a browser extension can tell that trackers are present, its also possible to block them. There are quite a few extensions available that do so, and Ive used one called NoScript in the past. However, it is a balancing act between blocking things you dont want, and also not breaking the site youre trying to visit having to deal with broken sites because of super-strict settings was the reason I backed off trying that.

Big Tech Detective isnt meant to keep your data private from these companies it even says when it locks one of the pages that it isnt actually preventing the resources from loading, or collecting your data if thats their purpose. Its really meant as a visualization tool to show you that if you want to use the internet without relying on these companies, youre not going to have a good time. It does, however, let you somewhat recreate the experiment Gizmodo ran where one of its reporters tried to cut out the same four tech companies and Apple and some technology from that work helps power this extension.

Oh, and if youre wondering if I found any sites that didnt get blocked, the answer is yes: somehow, the iCloud site seemed to work fine. However, Apples website proper did not it made requests to Amazon.

Its possible that the webs reliance on Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon might change. This hilariously explicit website is always my go-to when I want to remind myself that the modern web is very different from what it used to be.

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This browser extension shows what the Internet would look like without Big Tech - The Verge

Australias Parliament has passed its Media Bargaining Code into law. Whats Congress waiting for?

Lawmakers from both US parties have made lots of noise about cracking down on Big Tech, but actual legislation with any hope of passage remains out of sight. The obvious first step is to copy the law from Down Under, which will force Facebook and Google to pay media companies for news content that the tech firms make big money off of.

Both companies tried to browbeat the Aussies out of moving ahead, and Facebook even blocked Australian news from its sites last week, along with an accidental blockage of vital government public-info releases. But it didnt work.

Yes, Facebook won some concessions, but the law still sets a landmark of the first legislation to force Big Tech to share the huge profits it makes off others intellectual property. The Pew Research Center reports that employment at US newspapers is down by over 50 percent since 2008, driven by plummeting ad income even as Google and Facebook together collect roughly three-quarters of all online advertising revenue.

Now Canada is looking to follow Australia; Germany, France, Finland and others are interested, too.

The House Judiciary Committee is starting to look at legislation to let small US news organizations bargain collectively with Google and Facebook, but thats small beans without a bipartisan drive toward a law like Australias.

If anything can provide the Washington unity that the president keeps talking about, its a drive to make Big Tech pay for what it now exploits for free.

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Australia led the way v. Big Tech, now Congress needs to follow - New York Post

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri on Friday urged fellow Republicans to support the break-up of Big Tech oligarchs that censor political viewpoints as well as large companies that sold us out to China.

Hawley called for a new nationalism that reclaims the trust-busting mantra of the Teddy Roosevelt-era GOP to fight large companies and Democrats, who he said jointly push a false message that the U.S. is systemically racist and founded on lies and evil.

We will not be told what to do by these modern-day oligarchs. What we need is a new nationalism, a new agenda to make the rule of the people real in this country, Hawley said in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.

I would start by breaking up the Big Tech corporations. Just break them up. Break them up in the name of the rule of the people, for the good of the American people and our liberty. We need to break those corporations up and cut them down to size.

Hawley cited censorship of conservatives on social media, including of former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

People like Google, Facebook, you heard of them? Twitter, these companies have more power than any companies in American history and theyre aligned with the radical left to try to impose their agenda on this country, he said.

They want to run this country. And if we dont do something, they are going to. And weve got a word for that. Its called oligarchy. And thats what were facing in America right now.

Hawley said the Republican Party, though long viewed as the party of business, also has a history in trust-busting recalling the Roosevelt-led charge against large companies that helped splinter the party in 1912 between factions led by Roosevelt and his successor as president, William Howard Taft.

The Republican Party, once upon a time we were the party of trustbusters, you know. I mean, we invented the concept, basically. Its time to reclaim that legacy, Hawley said.

Its time to reclaim that legacy and not just for Big Tech but for all of the huge multinational corporations that have sold us out to China, that have sold out our workers that have sold out our jobs. They need to be broken up. And we need to have free and fair competition in this country again.

Hawley said that he was unfairly attacked for objecting to certifying President Bidens electors from Pennsylvania in a bid to force a national review of voter fraud allegations.

If we cant have free and open debate in this country, were not going to have a country left, Hawley said.

If we cant have free and open debate, according to the laws in the United States Senate, what good is the United States Senate? Why do you send anybody to Washington at all? I thought it was an important stand to take. And for that the left has come after me. Theyve tried to silence me. They canceled a book a book I was writing called, The Tyranny of Big Tech. These people have no sense of irony, its still gonna get published by the way, itll be out soon.

Hawley is a leader among post-Trump conservative populists in Washington. In December he partnered with socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to push for $2,000 stimulus checks that were resisted by GOP Senate leaders, and on Friday he called for adoption of a $15 hourly minimum wage for companies with revenue over $1 billion.

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Hawley calls for breakup of Big Tech 'oligarchs,' companies that 'sold us out to China' - New York Post