Today, Congress is having a hearing with the CEOs of Apple, Alphabet (parent of Google), Amazon, and Facebook. During the testimony, a few things were said that need to be corrected. #BigTechHearing judiciary.house.gov/calendar/event…
First, a reminder: here is a list of promises these companies made when they bought competitors and the ways they broke them.
eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
Sundar Pichai of Google spoke of Google’s commitment to privacy and competition. But Google has abused the web standards bodies to retroactively rubber-stamp the technology that it's already deployed. eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
Zuckerberg promised Congress that automated filtering would let Facebook block COVID misinformation and stop hate speech at scale. Zuckerberg is fond of claiming AI will fix all Facebook’s problems, but we know it won’t suffice to protect free expression:
eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
Tim Cook said before the app store, software was distributed on “CDs [that] had to be shipped.” Apple didn’t invent Internet distribution.
But it did introduce a locked-in platform that made it the gatekeeper for millions of iPhone users. That created a chokepoint for censorship that the Chinese government has exploited: eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
Representative Armstrong brought up the danger and unconstitutionality of geofence warrants. We agree. eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
Today Congress slammed Facebook for buying up companies to stop competition -- and they're right. Big Tech also buys up companies to get hold of our most private data: eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
Representative Sensenbrenner said he has concluded that antitrust law is not broken, it just needs to be enforced. He's wrong. It needs to be enforced AND it needs to evolve to take into account the ways tech companies harm consumers outside of price. eff.org/deeplinks/2018…
Facebook was accused of copying competitors. It goes further than that. In its ecosystem, Facebook uses "platform policies" to make sure competitors are forbidden from "replicat[ing Facebook] core functionality". eff.org/deeplinks/2018…
The issue of Amazon Fire not making HBO Max available to users is just one part of a massive monopoly problem in the world of streaming. eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
Representative Nadler grilled Google's use of Chrome browsing data for other purposes. One thing's for sure -- Chrome is a browser built with Google's bottom line in mind. eff.org/deeplinks/2018…
Facebook claimed in the hearing that this policy was when the company was "smaller" and "in the past" when they were afraid of "larger competitors." It was policy as recently as 2018.
@RepLucyMcBath tells Tim Cook that developers fear the opaque power Apple has to veto software entering the iOS app store. It's long overdue for Apple to be more transparent about app refusals and removals. eff.org/deeplinks/2020…
@RepHankJohnson about the privacy-invasive apps Facebook used to conduct research: "You tried one thing and then you got caught, made some apologies, then you did it all over again." We need strong privacy laws to protect users, not crocodile tears. eff.org/deeplinks/2019…
"When you stop sharing data with third parties, that data doesn't disappear, does it?" - Rep. Armstrong. Google collects and monetizes more personal information than ever. We need regulations that minimize data collection and use. eff.org/deeplinks/2019…
