If you want to follow the developments in the national conversation on #BigTech's monopoly power, the House Antitrust Subcommittee is holding a field hearing in the Wittemyer Courtroom at @ColoLaw in a few minutes. Livestream here: judiciary.house.gov/calendar/event…
@ColoLaw The Washington Post on today's House field hearing on #BigTech: "Smaller technology companies ... are sharing their stories in the hope that Washington is finally getting serious about cracking down on the power of tech giants." washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost…
@ColoLaw "We strongly support the entrepreneurs and independent businesses who are standing up to challenge the dominance of Facebook, Amazon, and Google over America’s markets," said Open Markets Executive Director Barry Lynn in a statement. openmarketsinstitute.org/releases/open-…
@ColoLaw Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman @davidcicilline: "It is apparent that the dominant platforms are using their gatekeeper power in abusive and coercive ways ... The dominant platforms effectively serve as private regulators."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline .@Patrick_Spence, CEO of @Sonos, is currently testifying concerning Google and Amazon's race to capture the smart speaker market by selling heavily subsidized smart speakers or giving them away for free. For background, read about the lawsuit on the NYT: nytimes.com/2020/01/07/tec…
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos David Barnett, CEO of @PopSockets: “We had enormous amounts of fake products that were taking our sales … when #Amazon was the seller, Amazon was engaged in this illegal activity.”
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets .@dhh, co-founder and CTO of @basecamp: "#Google’s monopoly is near-total ... It uses its monopoly to extort businesses like ours. You will find no competitor ads for any of Google’s own properties."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp .@TheTileApp VP Kirsten Daru on #BigTech's app market dominance: "It’s like playing a soccer game, you might be the best team in the league but you’re playing against the team that owns the field, the ball, the stadium, and the league and they can change the rules at any time."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp .@Sonos's @Patrick_Spence: "We’ve competed against many great companies ... but the difference here is that there’s predatory pricing." #BigTech is "infringing on the intellectual property of companies like ours."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp Recap this piece by @ddayen on @ShaoulSussman, now a legal fellow @ILSR who "thinks he’s come up with a roadmap to prove that #Amazon profitably engages in predatory pricing."👇 inthesetimes.com/article/21850/…
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr .@basecamp's @dhh: "The fact that #Facebook and #Google can track you on everything, they have so much data that no one can compete against that trove of data ... They shouldn’t have been allowed to gather that data in the first place."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr .@basecamp's @dhh: "But because they were they captured 99% of the growth. If you look at that system and don’t want to be part of a privacy violation of that scale you … put yourself at a grave disadvantage against other competitors in the market."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr .@RepKenBuck: "What is the size of your lobbying budget?"
@Patrick_Spence, David Barnett, @dhh, Kirsten Daru: "Zero."
Meanwhile, at the 4 #BigTech firms: $346 mil. in lobbying and campaign contributions since the 2010 cycle; $118 mil. in 2018 alone. citizen.org/article/new-ec…
@Patrick_Spence, David Barnett, @dhh, Kirsten Daru: "Zero."
Meanwhile, at the 4 #BigTech firms: $346 mil. in lobbying and campaign contributions since the 2010 cycle; $118 mil. in 2018 alone. citizen.org/article/new-ec…
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr @RepKenBuck And #BigTech's lobbying spending amid the ongoing antitrust probes such as this one by the House Antitrust Subcommittee in Boulder, Colorado is only growing. wsj.com/articles/tech-…
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr @RepKenBuck On #Google's dominance over search, @basecamp's CTO @dhh: "The organic search term doesn’t matter anymore, only the ad matters." He talks about how companies are forced to buy ads in order to compete on Google search because as he noted "#Google's monopoly is near total."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr @RepKenBuck .@PopSockets CEO David Barnett in regards to the problem of counterfeit products: “We don’t have the resources to fight #Amazon. We spent $70,000 last year in legal battles against tiny players. Imagine what it would take to fight Amazon? The government needs to step in.”
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr @RepKenBuck .@TheTileApp VP Kirsten Daru: "We need rules that are applied to everyone consistently across the board, including #Apple..."
@ColoLaw @davidcicilline @Patrick_Spence @Sonos @PopSockets @dhh @basecamp @TheTileApp @ddayen @ShaoulSussman @ilsr @RepKenBuck .@TheTileApp VP Kirsten Daru: "... I’m here in support of Congress’s exploration of these anticompetitive practices to highlight how we can address these inequities because the future of #competition is dependent on it."
