Big Tech Faces an Overdue Grilling From Congress – TIME

When the heads of four of the biggest tech companies lined up for a WebEx grilling from members of the U.S. House on Wednesday, there was something decidedly retro about the whole affair. Its as if Amazon is this centurys Standard Oil a behemoth that is integral to American life yet posing very real threats incumbent in a monopoly. That risk has been out there for some time, but the coronavirus pandemic has forced lawmakers to pay attention to how quickly these companies are changing Americans day-to-day lives and the inherent threat that carries.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google chiefs were nominally visiting with a House antitrust subcommittee to answer questions about free-market competition and consumer privacy that have been simmering for years. In reality, they were defending their very right to exist as the enormous brokers of how Americans shop for goods and ideas alike. Tech companies critics have argued that they are too large to stay in their current form and need to be broken up so as not to amass too much power. Their defenders say theyre (mostly) free services and compete with each other fiercely to provide the best products and experiences.

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Congress has its own questions to answer in navigating whether these companies should be allowed to continue doing business as usual. Do lawmakers want to shut off the spigot of easy access to goods and ideas? Congress has been wary of stepping in to check these massive companies for good reason. One, theyre economic powerhouses that provide a steady stream of tax revenue. (Amazon, of course, is the exception to this, given its relatively low levels of profit and correspondingly low tax burden.) Two, the giants have armies of lobbyists ready to ding lawmakers who step out of line and to reward those who support their clients. And three, if a 2018 hearing with many of these same faces is any indicator, its clear that many of these lawmakers dont actually understand what these companies do.

But the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the depth of these companies influence. Amazon now handles half of the entire e-commerce marketplace. The iPhone is ubiquitous and Apples app platform has a choke-hold over downloads, including e-health tracking systems. Facebook has become Americas national newspaper, while lacking any editorial standards. And Google is so common that its company has become a verb for most people. Therein lies a force too powerful to continue to lurk in the shadows unquestioned.

Its easy to treat todays hearing as an academic exercise about how much power is too much. But consider your family members social media feeds. It turns out that a quarter of Americans currently believe, to some degree, the false conspiracy theory that powerful people planned and executed the coronavirus pandemic. Pew Research Center polling out last week shows 20% of Americans think its probably true that powerful interests were behind the outbreak, and 5% who say its definitely true. Among Republicans, a full third buy the conspiracy theory. But Black and Hispanic voters, who are overwhelmingly against President Donald Trump, also buy this theory more than their white or Asian neighbors.

At some point, distrust of respected institutions like the Centers for Disease Control left the fringe and became a real public health threat. This reality exists in large part because social media platforms like Facebook allow disinformation to hum along without a credible antidote. Apple decides what apps you can use to check your own health and information. Amazon decides which products including books and the ideas packed between the covers are available and at what costs to publishers and to consumers. And Google decides what answers appear at the top of your searches. At a moment of twin health and economic crises, Congress had little option but to haul these execs in to justify their existence. A quick remedy, though, is out-of-stock on Amazon.

A version of this article first appeared in The DC Brief, TIMEs politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

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Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com.

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Big Tech Faces an Overdue Grilling From Congress - TIME

Lawmakers grill 4 Big Tech CEOs but don’t land many blows – The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) Congressional lawmakers finally got a chance to grill the CEOs of Big Tech over their dominance and allegations of monopolistic practices that stifle competition. But its unclear how much they advanced their goal of bringing some of the worlds largest companies to heel.

Invective flew Wednesday as legislators questioned Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Googles Sundar Pichai and Apples Tim Cook at a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust. For the last year, that panel has probed the business practices of the Silicon Valley giants with an eye to determining if they need to be regulated more heavily or even broken up.

In nearly five hours of testimony and questioning, however, there were few startling revelations or striking confrontations. While the executives faced hostile questioning and frequent interruptions from lawmakers of both parties, little seemed to land more than glancing blows.

The CEOs testified via video to lawmakers, at times appearing together on the committee room display as tiny individual figures in a mostly empty array of squares. Most committee members were seated, masks on, in the hearing room in Washington.

The execs provided lots of data purporting to show how much competition they face and how valuable their innovation and essential services are to consumers. But they sometimes struggled to answer pointed questions about their business practices. They also confronted a range of other concerns about alleged political bias, their effect on U.S. democracy and their role in China.

The panels chairman, Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, said each platform controlled by Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple is a bottleneck for a key channel of distribution.

Whether they control access to information or to a marketplace, these platforms have the incentive and ability to exploit this power, he said. They can charge exorbitant fees, impose oppressive contracts, and extract valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them.

Simply put: They have too much power.

The four CEOs command corporations whose products are woven into the fabric of everyday life, with millions or even billions of customers, and a combined market value greater than the entire German economy. One of them, Bezos, is the worlds richest individual; Zuckerberg is the fourth-ranked billionaire.

And they had a few rough moments. Pichai and Zuckerberg appeared discomfited when pressed about unsavory aspects of their companies businesses but got respites when their inquisitors ran out of time. Bezos also acknowledged that alleged misdeeds at Amazon such as reports that the company has used data generated by independent sellers on its platform to compete against them would be unacceptable if proved to be true.

Outside observers were able to draw radically different conclusions from the event. Richard Hamilton Jr., a former Justice Department antitrust lawyer, said that everyone on the committee seemed to be in agreement on the need for tougher regulation of all four companies an ominous sign, he said. But Stephen Beck, CEO of the management consulting firm cg42, said the tech companies and their brands emerged relatively unscathed.

In particular, he said, Cook was particularly polished and well prepared, enabling the Apple CEO to put on what Beck called a master class in terms of how to handle these situations. Cook drew less attention from lawmakers than did the other CEOs after arguing that Apple isnt dominant in any of its markets.

Among the toughest questions for Google and Amazon involved accusations that they used their dominant platforms to scoop up data about competitors in a way that gave them an unfair advantage.

Bezos, who was appearing before Congress for the first time, said he couldnt guarantee that the company had not accessed seller data to make competing products, an allegation that the company and its executives have previously denied.

We have a policy against using seller specific data to aid our private label business, Bezos said in a response to a question from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat. But I cant guarantee to you that that policy hasnt been violated.

Pichai deployed an old Washington trick appealing to the specific interests of legislators. In his opening remarks, he touted Googles value to mom-and-pop businesses in Bristol, Rhode Island, and Pewaukee, Wisconsin, which just happen to be located in the home districts of Cicilline and Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the panels senior Republican.

But the Google executive struggled as Cicilline accused the company of leveraging its dominant search engine to steal ideas and information from other websites and manipulating its results to drive people to its own digital services to boost its profits.

Pichai repeatedly deflected Cicillines attacks by asserting that Google tries to provide the most helpful and relevant information to the hundreds of millions of people who use its search engine each day in an effort to keep them coming back instead of defecting to a rival service, such as Microsofts Bing.

As Democrats largely focused on market competition, several Republicans aired longstanding grievances, claiming the tech companies are censoring conservative voices and questioning their business activities in China. Big Tech is out to get conservatives, insisted Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

In its bipartisan investigation, the Judiciary subcommittee collected testimony from mid-level executives of the four firms, competitors and legal experts, and pored over more than a million internal documents from the companies. A key question: whether existing competition policies and century-old antitrust laws are adequate for overseeing the tech giants, or if new legislation and enforcement funding are needed.

Cicilline has called the four companies monopolies, although he says breaking them up should be a last resort. While forced breakups may appear unlikely, the wide scrutiny of Big Tech points toward possible new restrictions on its power.

The companies face legal and political offensives on multiplying fronts, from Congress, the Trump administration, federal and state regulators and European watchdogs. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have been investigating the four companies practices.

___

Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California, and OBrien from Providence, Rhode Island. AP Business Writer Joseph Pisani in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow Gordon on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mgordonap.

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Lawmakers grill 4 Big Tech CEOs but don't land many blows - The Associated Press

A recap of the Big Tech antitrust hearing – Arab News

DUBAI:On July 29, CEOs from the worlds biggest tech companies appeared before the US House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. Amazons Jeff Bezos, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Apples Tim Cook and Alphabet Inc.s Sundar Pichai spent hours facing questioning from lawmakers about anti-competitive monopolies.

There have been several concerns regarding the inclusion of all four companies due to their differences in business models, but subcommittee ChairDavid Cicilline addressed these by highlighting the commonalities between the companies: All are a bottleneck for a key channel of distribution; all use data and surveillance of other companies to buy, copy, or cut off potential competition; and all abuse their control over current technologies to extend their power.

Their ability to dictate terms, call the shots, upend entire sectors, and inspire fear represent the powers of a private government, said Cicilline.

Over a span of nearly six hours, lawmakers questioned the four CEOs on topics including Googles search practices, the filtering out of political viewpoints on a platform, Russian election interference, promoting racism and anti-Semitism and practices that could eliminate existing and potential competition.

Though it was Bezos first congressional testimony, he appeared the least fazed by the grilling. Cook drew fewer barbed questions than Bezos but handled them efficiently, while Zuckerberg took the most damage, stumbling a few times when confronted with internal emails. Pichai endured much heat from conservatives, and he looked the worse for it as he repeatedly told lawmakers he would be happy to look into various situations and get back to them.

Unfortunately, the Big Tech hearing was decidedly low-tech. Bezos escaped questioning for about 90 minutes in what may have been a tech issue and was caught reaching for what appeared to be a snack. Poor audio quality, flat-screen televisions switching off, and chief executives appearing together as thumbnails on a large screen all frustrated viewers and led to mockery of the virtual set-up on Twitter.

All of them indicated that they use their massive data advantages to peek into what their competitors or people who rely on their platforms are doing, said Gene Kimmelman, an adviser with the Washington-based nonprofit Public Knowledge. So, while they didnt really want to admit it, they couldnt deny it.

The hearing concluded with Cicilline saying: This hearing has made one fact clear to me: These companies, as they exist today, have monopoly power. Some need to be broken up, all need to be properly regulated and held accountable. We need to ensure the antitrust laws first written more than a century ago work in the digital age.

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A recap of the Big Tech antitrust hearing - Arab News

SCOTT GALLOWAY: This may be the beginning of the end of Big Tech we shouldn’t see it as a punishment, but a restoration of balance – Business Insider

Since the age of five I've enjoyed peeing outdoors. Forty years later, peeing has become something I must do several dozen times a day, and I don't like the outdoors. But life mimics math, and the product of two negatives is a positive. More math: Grilled cheese or tomato soup as individuals I find boring. But together, they're my favorite thing at the Crosby Hotel bar. God, I miss eating at bars alone, with strangers around me.

I'm staying alone in Montauk at a friend's house while he's in Portugal (something about taxes and quality of life). After my morning coffee and power shake, it's time to water the plants. Look, it's a bayberry plant, and there's a crape myrtle. I hear something and startle. I just came from Montana, where everyone tells you to be mindful of bears. My fear escalates to DEFCON 2 when I see not a bear, but five men standing in the backyard witnessing my divertissement. Four of them are wearing cargo shorts and could be quadruplets. The fifth is in a suit. The only guy that wears a suit on 92-degree Saturday morning is a real estate broker. Now I remember, the broker is showing the house this morning.

They act like my Vizsla when she's done something wrong: freeze in their tracks and avoid eye contact. Who would blame them.

The smartest and most noble people in the world according to the IRS, DC, and CNBC are really, really rich people who made their money in tech. The Jesus Christs of our generation. More than that innovators. So, taking my cues from our role models, I turn to the five men and say:

"We live in a great country. I was raised by a single mother who lived and died a secretary."

This week, the CEOs of the largest tech firms were all under consensual hallucination that an emotional opening statement absolves you of monopoly abuse. Bezos must have thought he was being filmed for his A&E biography. Pregnant teen mom, immigrant father, we get it, you were once poor.

Jesus (i.e., Elon), make them stop.

Scott Galloway

Struck me right away that the GOP seemed to be more prone to questions about a lack of patriotism when questioning the one brown guy, Pichai. The wordAmerican popped up 15 times in questions to Sundar Pichai, a US citizen born in Madurai, India. To Zuckerberg, whose platform has wreaked considerable damage on American elections, American politics, and American news, the word was only used nine times. Representatives on the panel felt the need to remind the witness what country we live in just once when questioning the guys born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Mobile, Alabama.

For the first two hours the witness who was subjected to the toughest grilling was Jack Dorsey. Of course, Mr. Dorsey wasn't there. Any problem regarding the rage machine that is Twitter has nothing to do with antitrust. Forcing the microblogging platform to divest Kanye's account, and let it trade on the NASDAQ, doesn't make much sense.

Or does it?

Many of the GOP panelists came to the wrong hearing. Twitter is worth $29 billion; the others are worth an average $1.23 trillion. I know, market cap isn't a signal of monopoly behavior that warrants antitrust. But here's the thing it is. To be fair, if Jack had testified, we'd only really understand the respective scale of the problem if Jack were 2 inches tall and weighed 4 pounds. Pretty sure the last sentence is a hate crime.

Rep. Jayapal stood out as the most effective examiner on the committee. Her questioning of Bezos around third-party seller data was pointed and effective, as well as her grilling Zuckerberg over copying apps. Politicians are sometimes overmatched in these hearings, but Rep. Jayapal demonstrated she was more than talented enough to have been in the opposite seat, testifying in front of Congress about the anticompetitive practices of her firm but instead decided to serve her country.

The Samurais of the world's greatest deliberative bodies increasingly have one thing in common: pantsuits. Reps Jayapal, Porter, Ocasio-Cortez, and Senator Warren have created a super-featherweight class whose fists of preparation and faculty make Floyd Mayweather uneasy. They will likely play a central role in the breakup of the world's most powerful firms. However, this pales in comparison to another contribution there are likely millions of young women who watch them and think, "Why not me?"

When they weren't questioning Pichai's patriotism, most of the Republicans on the committee spent their time complaining about alleged bias against conservatives, rather than addressing the actual subject of the hearing: antitrust. Were they just playing to the millions who watch Fox News? That's half right. They are playing to one person who watches Fox News. It's clear most Republicans still fear Trump and are desperate to please him. The persecution complex plays well, especially on Fox.

Scott Galloway

There is no conservative bias on Facebook. There is a "bias" (open community guidelines) against spreading dangerous health information. It's just that the two (conservative sources and misinformation) are often one and the same. But a "conservative bias" might as well mean, "the best place to get your conservative news, conservative opinion, and conservative conspiracy theories fed to you in a constant drip feed of enragement." In May, a study found that most of the top news publishers by interactions lean right (as they have for years). The top ten political publishers with highest engagement are: Ben Shapiro, Breitbart, NowThis, The Hill, The Western Journal, The Young Turks, The Blaze, IJR, Washington Examiner, and CNN Politics.

Scott Galloway

Two "oops I f----d up and told the truth, corrections coming":

David Cicilline, chairman of the committee, claims he's from the first district of Rhode Island. He's not fooling us. He's clearly from Ronkonkoma and he's a Michael, not a David. Anyway, Chairman Cicilline comes across both very smart and as someone who, when you order a frozen mai tai from a lobster stand in Westhampton, would lean over and recommend an extra rum floater. And he'd be right.

Rep. Cicilline's opening statement gave me hope: "This investigation has been bipartisan from the start As my colleague Congressman Ken Buck recently commented, and I quote, 'This is the most bipartisan effort that I've been involved with in five and a half years of Congress.'" His rhetoric was also powerful: "Our founders did not bow before a king, and we should not bow before the emperors of the online economy."

We should also stop thinking of the breakup of big tech as punishment for doing something wrong, or that they're bad people. We break companies up to restore competition to markets, which is the gangster app for a growing economy that demands better behavior. As a result, there are more options from other players who must then behave better.

So, I've decided to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge Senator Rubio in 2022. I've already drafted my closing remarks for a similar upcoming Senate panel:

"Mr. Cook, you are an inspiration and reek of grace. Mr. Pichai, you are the best of America, an exceptional young immigrant who creates greatness in the agency of others. Mr. Bezos, you are just so damn rich, and even more jacked we should roll. And Mr. Zuckerberg, you are an awful person, but a brilliant business mind. Your successes are nothing short of remarkable. It must be tremendously rewarding to know your grit, intellect, and vision took your firms to heights that made it difficult not to abuse your positions of power. Our separation of your assets will unlock tremendous value for tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people. Well done, and thank you."

This may be (and I've said this before) the beginning of the end of big tech. However, it could also be a new beginning for the country, entrepreneurs, and markets. I find it all quite exciting. It makes me want to venture outside.

READ MORE:Popular NYU professor Scott Galloway has a new course on business strategy anyone can sign up to take I took away MBA-like insights for way less money than going to business school

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SCOTT GALLOWAY: This may be the beginning of the end of Big Tech we shouldn't see it as a punishment, but a restoration of balance - Business Insider

Big tech companies continue to expand in Seattle – KING5.com

Technology companies now make up around 20% of the state's overall economic impact.

SEATTLE As Congress investigates whether big tech companies are too big, Seattle continues to see fast growth as these companies expand.

Currently, tech companies make up 20.2% of Washington state's overall economy, according to a recent study by CompTIA.

In Seattle, the overall footprint among companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook is expanding. Amazon's global headquarters is now more than 40 owned and leased buildings in Seattle.

When it comes to jobs, the impact is growing too.

Amazon currently employs around 50,000 people in the region. Apple, which is moving into two 12-story buildings on Dexter Avenue in Seattle, is planning to move in around 2,000 employees.

Google is putting the finishing touches on its new five-building campus along Mercer Street and is expected to provide around 4,500 jobs.

Facebook, which is also now growingwith five buildings in Seattle, has around 5,000 employees in the city.

But many feel that big tech growth can also do more harm than good.

"These four companies represent a private government that can overtake many countries in a way," said Hanson Hosein, co-director of the Communication Leadership master's program at the University of Washington. Hosein has been closely studying tech growth in Seattle for more than a decade.

"We're talking billions of people and trillions of dollars," he said. "That power is disproportionate, and the concern is very anti-democratic because they're not that accountable to us."

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Big tech companies continue to expand in Seattle - KING5.com

Law Decoded: Big Tech, Central Banks and the Hunt for Monopolies, July 24-31 – Cointelegraph

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the weeks critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law.

The concept of monopoly will reign in todays Law Decoded. As a fundamental principle, blockchain technology is about distributing both inputs and outputs of information securely. In its still very young lifecycle, the technology has proven to have boundless applications on the basis of this fairly simple principle.

A secondary principle is decentralization, and in this way, blockchain technology seems inherently opposed to monopolies. The big challenge of Bitcoins white paper was finding a way to move value across parties without getting lost in either that proverbial valley between two Byzantine generals OR the trap of a third party. Thats not to say that every firm working in blockchain is morally so grounded as to turn down the opportunity to monopolize its market. But the tech is promising for addressing a huge range of concentrated power especially in a digitizing world.

This week saw antitrust conflict between paeons of big tech and government. While those encounters were hostile, they will likely not result in any major damage to anyones bottom line. It also saw some new consequences for misuse of monopolized monetary power, which is a system that is also unlikely to change soon. The great thing about a monopoly, once you have it, is that its really hard for someone else to take it from you. But these are clusters of power that seem pretty obvious as places youd look to decentralize.

Kollen Post, Policy Editor, @the_postman_

CEOs for the four horsemen of U.S. tech Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook appeared virtually before Congress on Wednesday to face accusations of functionally acting as monopolies.

The Thursday release of Q2 earnings reports showing rising revenues for each of the firms except Google did nothing to gain these firms sympathy. This was despite efforts during the hearings by the CEOs to depict their companies and their individual biographies as the American dream come true.

The past half-decade has ravaged the public image of tech in the United States. Increasingly dystopian revelations of data-gathering practices and brutal campaigns to squash competition have led to a widespread backlash against Silicon Valley. The role of social media in the 2016 election and subsequent waves of disinformation (including COVID-19) has also ended whatever honeymoon period firms like Facebook and Twitter had enjoyed.

Meanwhile, China, whose digital payments providers are widely praised as ahead of those in use in the U.S., looks set to crack down on those providers based on similar antitrust principles. For China, however, that might be at least in part to clear the way for a broad launch of a digital yuan.

Many of these tech giants are entrenched enough that they may be getting too big to fail. It is undeniable that they provide services that have changed our way of life. As Mark Zuckerberg pointed out during Facebooks investor call last night, had the COVID-19 pandemic happened two decades ago, this shift to working remotely wouldnt have been possible, and many more people would be dying. However, recent events should be getting a lot of people thinking about whether these giant firms are the best we can do and whether we might be better served looking at decentralized alternatives.

Also in the U.S., the Federal Reserves printer continues to go brrr, beating out the countrys total money printing over the first two centuries of its existence in the space of a month. The dollar is, for the first time during this pandemic, looking to be on the ropes.

Quantitative easing the formal term for the Feds use of inflation as a source of funds at the expense of all dollars already out there is a recurring villain in Bitcoin narratives. The idea is that it has to result in a monetary collapse eventually.

The extraordinary expenditures in the U.S. over recent months have seen the dollar stubbornly resisting this narrative, but according to recent analysis, thats changing. Early in the pandemic, global financial institutions and governments scrambled to stock up on dollars, buoying demand and value despite outlays. But this week, as Congress considers another huge stimulus bill, the dollar dipped to its lowest level since May 2018.

Were not witnessing a collapse in the monetary system, but certainly, a strain that, if it continues, will call into question whether the Fed really knows what its doing. At the same time, the head of the countrys major banking regulator is calling for blockchain-based challengers to the Feds central role in payments.

As China and the U.S. dominate headlines focusing on potential central bank digital currencies, and different European Union banks are launching their own trials, the remaining two of the five major currencies in the world have taken major steps indicating the same interest.

The Bank of Japan announced that it had appointed its top economist to a team doing research on the digital yen. The Bank of England, meanwhile, tapped Accenture to update technology for the U.K.s payments system not explicitly referring to a CBDC, but Accenture is deeply involved in the development of CBDCs around the world, including the digital dollar.

The dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound sterling and, as of 2016, the yuan form the basis for the International Monetary Funds Special Drawing Rights and form the backbone of global reserves. None of the five are transacting as CBDCs yet, but its clear that they are all worried about being left out. CBDC technology is not yet standard, but at the very least, research into it has become necessary to those currencies looking to maintain their prestige.

The American Enterprise Institutes visiting crypto expert, Jim Harper, talks digital dollars and new payments systems.

Coin Center, a leader in lobbying and research on decentralized networks, has updated its educational resources.

Kelman Law runs down the basics of paying taxes on both earnings in cryptocurrencies and capital gains on trading in the United States.

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Law Decoded: Big Tech, Central Banks and the Hunt for Monopolies, July 24-31 - Cointelegraph

When it comes to big tech, US government official incompetence is embarrassing and horrifying – AppleInsider

The hearing on big tech antitrust matters on Wednesday was an embarrassment, and not a single governmental official there had the ability, will, or both, to bring any of the CEOs on hand to task.

The very best you can say about Wednesday's hearing is that it was bipartisan. But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

Whether you think Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are shiny-clean saints, slightly murky figures, or outright criminal, it doesn't matter. If there's anything to get away with, they got away with it and that was it, that latest round was over with nobody but the tech CEOs scoring any points.

America originally took the basics of its legal system and its hearing procedures from the UK, where one of the authors of this editorial is from. In the UK, there is a weekly Prime Minister's Questions session, the PMQs, and it is lauded as among the greatest examples of democracy in action but only by the people involved. To the people, it is an embarrassment. Highly paid and in theory highly educated people act in it the same way schoolboys do in the yard.

And for the Americans on the staff, this was more of the same ignorance and posturing on the irrelevant that we've seen for the last 20 years. It was elected officials wrapping themselves in the flag, trying to score points for re-election campaigns. Instead of listening to answers, they'd cut off the answers, and keep reading what were pre-prepared statements in the form of the worst Jeopardy game show-like presentation possible.

Not one single person facing off against Tim Cook and the rest, did a good job and got a good answer. There was Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon who had specific questions about Amazon's alleged destruction of rival Diapers.com, but she was only able to make Jeff Bezos squirm until her time was up. And, that diapers.com example was from more than a decade ago.

But, at least Scanlon came armed with specifics and research. This hearing purportedly followed an investigation begun back in 2019 but most appeared to have been briefed for the first time on their way into the room.

More platform confusion on display belies bigger knowledge problems

As an AppleInsider reader, the difference between Twitter and Facebook is so obvious to you that it seems impossible anyone could get them mixed up. If you're not a user, though, it's all one big social media monolith and it's not your job to find out which is which.

But, knowing what the differences are in a hearing ostensibly about big tech power, it literally was the job of the committee to know the difference. You might hope that they would already know the difference between Twitter and Facebook, and that they would know what an app is. The fact that they didn't isn't shocking at this point, and the fact that they were incapable of finding out during this entire investigation is shameful.

At first, this seemed like it might be similar to the decision then-senator Steve King made when he tried to grill Google's Sundar Pichai about an iPhone issue. It might or might not have been technological ignorance, but it was certainly political maneuvering and it was playing to the crowd instead of trying to find the truth.

The representatives in this hearing did not know what they were asking either, and that is a clear abdication of responsibility. You and I can't pin Mark Zuckerberg up against the wall and get him to answer for years of Facebook's issues. This august body could, and have the power to do so and they just didn't.

Five minutes in government meetings is meaningless, no matter how many laps you take

After significant wrangling by both the committee and the tech CEOs, each committee member was granted what turned out to be three five-minute slots in round-robin and parliamentary fashion in which to ask questions. Obviously, that's inadequate. But, apparently if you give a politicians five minutes, they will take the five minutes. We counted about four minutes and ten seconds on the average per five-minute allocation, for the representatives themselves and their political agenda.

Even the ones who actually did ask questions instead of proselytizing, they tended to interrupt the answers in a handful of seconds. Sometimes that was right and necessary these four big tech people are not dumb and they know five minutes can be eaten up very quickly with some padding.

But most of the time, the interruptions were not to get back on topic or to delve or to pull a CEO up for talking nonsense and there was a fair amount of that nonsense, but discussions of all the CEOs portraying their companies as scrappy underdogs under constant threat is a topic for another day. Most of the time, a representative would interrupt an answer in order to ask their next pre-prepared question with no regard to the answer just given. Answers don't matter to them, being seen to ask your questions does.

Repeatedly, too, we had the outright offensive demand that the CEOs answer complex issues with just a yes or no. If you're allowed a complex answer, you can hide in the details but there's a chance you'll reveal the truth. With a yes or no, there isn't.

The only people who ever demand a yes or no, are ones who have no interest in the answer, or in the truth. They solely and exclusively care about how they look to their voters back home.

There used to be an office in the US designed to help with this, but it is long gone

In 1972, The United States Congress established the bipartisan Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). It was specifically established to educate and brief the House and Senate on complex scientific and technical issues of the day, and was instrumental in the early digital distribution of governmental documents to not just the feds, but to the public as well. It was governed by 12 members of Congress six Republicans and six Democrats and had a staff of 143 people, mostly scientists, with a smattering of support people.

It cost the federal government about $22 million per year in the early '90s. That's millions, not billions. It was dissolved as unnecessary and "wasteful" in 1995, with arguments saying that governmental officials were more than capable enough to understand and govern fairly on the issues and technologies of the day.

They weren't capable of doing that without the OTA then, and as the years have passed, this has only gotten worse, and the skeleton crew of mostly non-scientists doing this kind of work at the Government Accountability Office is underfunded and understaffed for the increasingly complex matters at hand. What isn't clear, is if this inability to govern on these matters without education is willful, or just incompetent.

Of course, it isn't clear how much the concept manned by a skeleton crew helps with the problem if that inability to deal with complex scientific or technological matters is willful. The European Parliamentary Technology Assessment (EPTA) performs roughly the same tasks, with roughly the same manning, and it doesn't seem to help decisions there either.

Not the first time, and it won't be the last

At first glance, this seems like more of the same that we've come to expect from the US government when it comes to technology. But, this time they went too far. Wednesday's hearing was the least productive federal hearing we've had the misfortune to have to sit through in two full decades. And yes, this includes the supreme court case discussing live video streaming service Aereo that likened the service to a parking lot and a dry cleaner's shop, somehow.

You know that each of the four CEOs had a debriefing with their executive board after the hearing. You can bet that each one of them had a stiff drink and counted their lucky stars that it went the way it did.

As CEOs, they should be relieved. As Americans, they should be scared. The House of Judiciary correctly and properly identified a huge issue, and it spoke correctly of the importance of this hearing. But then, it destroyed its authority by presenting a circus of schoolyard children. And, that comparison probably isn't fair to the children.

Maybe the next hearing, or the one after that will be better. We're not expecting it, though.

More here:

When it comes to big tech, US government official incompetence is embarrassing and horrifying - AppleInsider

Nifty-Fifty All Over Again? Why Investors Should Fear Big Tech Rally – CCN.com

Following the U.S. stock market crash of March, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Apple (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) combined have added $2.7 trillion to their market cap.

Meanwhile, the stock markets disconnect with the real economy has gotten worse.

While U.S. GDP has lost $2 trillion, the stock market has added $4 trillion to the total market cap of companies in the S&P 500.

Of course, the Federal Reserves balance sheet explosion has aided the stock market rally since March.

The Feds balance sheet expansion has been a common factor in the tech giants rallies since March. These tech companies, along with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), have carried the stock market higher over the past four months.

As the economy suffered under government lockdown orders, the big tech giants were in prime position to smash earnings expectations in Q2.

Apple shares rallied more than 10% to make new all-time highs after reporting sales growth of 11% in Q2 2020 results. Last weeks rally allowed Apple to overtake Saudi Aramco as the worlds most valuable company.

Amazons second-quarter saw the companys sales take off despite the coronavirus pandemic-induced slowdown. Its shares rallied post-earnings before undergoing a bit of profit booking.

Meanwhile, Facebook reported revenue growth of 11% despite an ad boycott from various companies. Its shares gapped up almost 7% post-earnings before a mild selloff.

Alphabet rallied 38% from the March low. After reporting an unprecedented revenue decline, its shares declined post-earnings.

High expectations from Microsoft made the stock rally 25% from the March lows. After reporting spectacular earnings, the stock continued its uptrend.

While Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple have returned 35% in 2020, the remaining 495 stocks in the S&P 500 are in the red.

These giants have carried the stock market on their shoulders; if any one of them drops abruptly, the whole market could enter a downward spiral.

Because of this, analysts at Morgan Stanley have predicted a 10% selloff in the U.S. stock market.

If the prediction comes true, the selloff would be reminiscent ofwhat happened to the Nifty-Fifty stocks back in the 1970s. Nifty-Fifty refers to the group of 50 stocks that led the markets toall-time highs in the early 1970s, followed by a 46% crash.

While these stocks had led the rallies to the top, they also led the nosedive that followed.

Back then, Forbes wrote,

The Nifty-Fifty were taken out and shot one by one.

Could the same happen to the tech giants driving the market rally in 2020?

Disclaimer: This article represents the authors opinion and should not be considered investment or trading advice from CCN.com. Unless otherwise noted, the author holds no investment position in the above-mentioned securities.

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Nifty-Fifty All Over Again? Why Investors Should Fear Big Tech Rally - CCN.com

Why Big Tech Is Colliding With Washington – Foreign Policy

Here is todays Foreign Policy brief: The U.S.House Judiciary Committee plans to grill Big Tech leaders on antitrust, Taliban leaders announce a three-day cease-fire, and working level U.S.-Russian nuclear talks begin in Vienna.

If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.

Big Techs (Virtual) Showdown

At noon today in Washington, four of the worlds most powerful tech leaders will testify before a U.S. Congressional committee investigating whether their companies have become too dominant in their respective markets. The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will all testify via video conference. It will be Amazon CEO Jeff Bezoss first time appearing before Congress.

The hearing has been called by the antitrust panel of the House Judiciary Committee and is part of a year-long investigation into possible monopolistic practices of the tech giants as Chairman David Cicilline, a Democrat, attempts to build a case for updating current U.S. antitrust laws.

Appitol Hill. All four companies are immensely profitable, and any effort to break them up or impose onerous regulations will be fought aggressively by a sector becoming more and more at home in Washington. Since 2014, the amount Amazon has spent lobbying the U.S. government has more than tripled and overtook the spending of AlphabetGoogles parent companyin 2019.

What theyll say. Despite user bases in the billions, expect each tech leader to play down their companys dominance (and in Mark Zuckerbergs case, talk up TikToks competitor status). Although the hearing is ostensibly about antitrust, expect Republican lawmakers to bring up perceived censorshipofconservativeviews on web platforms and Democrats to raise concerns about disinformation headed into the U.S. presidential election.

What Were Following Today

Taliban calls cease-fire. The Taliban has announced a three-day cease-fire during the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, with the suspension of hostilities scheduled to begin this Friday. Separately, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has suggested peace talks are imminent, based on his government nearing an agreed number of prisoner releases. With this action, we look forward to the start of direct negotiations with the Taliban in a weeks time, Ghani said. The decision comes as U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is due to visit Afghanistan this week.

Russian and U.S. officials meet for nuclear talks. Working groups of government experts from Russia and the United States meet in Vienna today to begin three days of talks on the topic of nuclear arms control ahead of the expiry of the New START agreement. The meetings follow negotiations between U.S. arms control envoy Marshall Billingslea and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in June.

U.S. admits to killing civilian in Somalia. U.S. Africa Command (Africom) has admitted to killing one civilian and injuring three others in a February 2 airstrike in Somalia. It is only the second time Africom has admitted to killing civilians in its Africa operations since it began reporting. The strike took place near Jilib, an area south of Somalias capital Mogadishu. The Feb. 2 killing had been highlighted in a report by Amnesty International in March, and at the time U.S. officials maintained that only terrorists had been killed in the operation. Africoms commander, Gen. Stephen Townsend said the military did not intend to target civilians in their operations against al-Shabab. We work hard to prevent civilians from getting hurt or killed during these operations designed to bring increased security and stability to Somalia, Townsend said.

Powells view on economy. The monthly meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserves Federal Open Market Committee, which sets U.S. interest rates, takes place today in Washington. Although rates are expected to remain unchanged, Fed chief Jerome Powells subsequent press conference should give an insight into the direction central bankers see the U.S. economy going in the coming months and whether more intervention is needed.

Australia to increase cooperation with U.S. Australia has agreed to increased and regularized maritime cooperation with the United States in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean following a meeting between the countries top defense and foreign-policy officials. The declaration does not mean Australia will join U.S. freedom of navigation operations in the disputed sea, a practice that Beijing deems provocative. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne told reporters that Australia has no intention of injuringits relationship with China, its number one trade partner. A joint statement also announced the formation of a U.S.-Australian working group to respond to disinformation efforts in the region.

Biden to announce running mate. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic party nominee for president told reporters on Tuesday that he will announce his choice of running mate by next week. Biden has promised to choose a woman for the role, although there is not yet a clear frontrunner. On Tuesday, Biden was photographed with handwritten notes with a list of positive talking points about California Senator Kamala Harris. Politico also accidentally published a page on its website which named Harris as Bidens running mate, before it was swiftly updated and the claim was removed.

In a development that may have been more welcome in the earliest stage of lockdown, when bread-baking and gardening were in vogue, residents in more than a dozen U.S. states have reported receiving suspicious packages of seeds, apparently from China. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating the mystery, and has advised anyone who has received the seeds to refrain from planting them. It is speculated that the seeds may have been part of a brushing scam, whereby products are shipped to unwitting addressees in order to create a fraudulent (but authentic-looking) review online in order to drive sales. At this point in time, we dont have enough information to know if this is a hoax, a prank, an internet scam or an act of agricultural bio-terrorism, Ryan Quarles, the Kentucky agriculture commissioner, said.

Thats it for today.

For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.

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Why Big Tech Is Colliding With Washington - Foreign Policy

Republicans Are Mad At Big Tech For All The Wrong Reasons – Vanity Fair

Wednesdays House Judiciary Committee hearing represents a rare opportunity for Congress: to hold the leaders of the biggest technology companies feet to the fire, with an eye toward reining in their expansive and largely unchecked power. But a memo obtained by Politico Tuesday on the eve of the hearing suggests Republicans plan to squander that chance, with GOP members of the panel preparing to set aside the very real antitrust issues raised by Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazonand, instead, to use their time to probe the Big Four on the very not real issue of anti-conservative bias at the companies.

Political bias in big tech should be decried, the memo reads, but antitrust wont solve it.

Amazons Jeff Bezos, Apples Tim Cook, Google-parent Alphabets Sundar Pichai, and Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg are all due on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a highly-anticipated clash between the countrys most powerful tech leaders and the Congressional committee aiming to curb them. But while distrust of the Big Four is bipartisan, Republicans are attacking the companies for all the wrong reasons. Democrats are concerned about what seems to be monopolistic behavior, as well as the role of Facebook and other social media platforms in the spread of false and misleading information and in foreign election interference. These platforms have been allowed to run wild and free from really any constraints, David Cicilline, chair of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, told the Wall Street Journal. The responsibility we have is to make clear what the impacts are of the lack of competition in the digital marketplace.

But Republicans seem less concerned with the potential antitrust abuses that have led to calls from Elizabeth Warren and others on the left to break up big tech. Conservatives, instead, have based their Silicon Valley attacks on the notion that these firms and their leaders have it in for theman idea that simply isnt rooted in reality. Donald Trump and his allies have long belly-ached that social media companies are working to undermine him; just this week, he whined, ludicrously, that Twitters trending topics about him are ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair! So disgusting to watch Twitters so-called Trending, where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one, the president wrote, in the middle of a pandemic thats killed more than 150,000 Americans. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it trend. Thats not quite how it works, of course, and while Twitter chief Jack Dorsey has shown some spine recently in labeling or removing Trumps tweets that are dangerous or false, the president remains the sites most prominent user, and he continues to reap massive benefit from the megaphone it has provided him.

Of course, Zuckerberg has resisted even the kind of careful measures Dorsey has implemented to police hate and misinformation on his platform. On the contrary, Zuckerberg has courted the president and other conservatives in recent months, and his company has become a home to the right, which has used the platform as a dumping ground for conservative views and conspiracy theoriesmuch to the chagrin of rank-and-file employees, who have been increasingly open about their frustrations with Zuck, Sheryl Sandberg, and other company leaders.

Republicans are likely to point to some high-profile episodes, like Donald Trump Jr. and other Republicans having their Twitter accounts suspended and videos removed from Facebook after recklessly posting disinformation about a disproven COVID-19 therapy promoted by the president, as evidence they are being censored. Big Tech is intent on killing free expression online, Trump Jr. spokesman Andy Surabian told the Washington Post after the presidents son had his Twitter account suspended. But the president's son didnt have his account temporarily restricted over partisan speech; he got a time-out for blasting false and irresponsible claims about a public health crisis.

That these platforms, with broad and mostly unbridled power, have the potential to disseminate such dangerous lies and conspiracy theories is a far more pressing issue. Lawmakers on Wednesday have a real opportunity to challenge Americas most prominent tech leaders on their anti-competitive behavior and its impact on both democracy and everyday Americans but itll be wasted if Republicans spend their time stunting about nonexistent anti-conservative censorship and prosecuting Trumps petty crusade against Bezos.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

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Republicans Are Mad At Big Tech For All The Wrong Reasons - Vanity Fair

Are the Big Tech companies breaking antitrust rules? Their CEOs testify before Congress. – Marketplace

Amazons Jeff Bezos, Apples Tim Cook, Googles Sundar Pichai and Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, CEOs of four of the worlds most powerful companies, are testifying before Congress Wednesday.

Specifically, they are going before the Houses Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, and the issue here boils down to power. How did these companies get it? Did they do so legally, or did they break rules? Finally, do they have too much power?

Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigans Ross School of Business, spoke with host Sabri Ben-Achour. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Sabri Ben-Achour: So can you explain why this hearing is happening? And, specifically, why this question of how these companies became so powerful and whether they did so legally is an issue right now?

Erik Gordon: The hearing is happening because members of Congress think that these companies are really powerful, and that theyre abusing their power, and that Congress should look into it and maybe pass some new laws. The question you brought up is the key question. Under current antitrust law, its perfectly OK to be big and to be powerful, and, in fact, to be a monopoly, as long as you got big and powerful by lawful means, as long as you didnt do anything illegal. The government cant break you up, under current law, just for being big.

Ben-Achour: So whats an example of how, say, Google or Facebook or whichever might have accumulated power illegally?

Gordon: Suppose you have a dominant online search engine, and you use that search engine dominance to make you even more powerful in an other area. So, for example, suppose you say, You can only use my search engine, if you use my browser. Now you get big and powerful in the browser business, because you already had power in the search engine business. That would be an example of getting bigger and more powerful illegally.

Ben-Achour: Do you think anything significant will come out of these hearings? Or are they sort of theatrical?

Gordon: I have a sense that in an election year, were going to see some theater. Its an opportunity for politicians to control the questions. They get to put together some nice sound bites for their campaign. This isnt the first round of hearings we had, and in the other hearings, where there were some beat-ups of Zuckerberg and other tech people, oh, a few bills were introduced in Congress. They didnt go anywhere. Nothing much happened.

As a nonprofit news organization, our future depends on listeners like you who believe in the power of public service journalism.

Your investment in Marketplace helps us remain paywall-free and ensures everyone has access to trustworthy, unbiased news and information, regardless of their ability to pay.

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Are the Big Tech companies breaking antitrust rules? Their CEOs testify before Congress. - Marketplace

Congress is going to ask Big Techs leaders all the wrong questions. Here are the right ones – San Francisco Chronicle

Welcome back to Tech Chronicle. If you want something thats not afraid to compete for your attention, try this fine newsletter.

The House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, after a brief delay, is summoning Big Tech to explain itself Wednesday. Called to testify are the CEOs of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Facebook.

Together, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg oversee companies worth about $6.3 trillion. They didnt get that way by being shy about crushing the competition. Remember Cuil? Quidsi? Palm? Path? Exactly.

If youre the drinking type, pour a shot every time you hear a CEO talk about obsessing about customers, not competitors; worrying about Chinese competitors waiting in the wings; making a positive difference in society; and having pathetically small market share, really, if you just count it correctly.

Expect a lot of naive, time-wasting questions from our elected representatives. If you remember Zuckerbergs four-hour House hearing in 2018, it wasnt exactly a shining moment for Congress. (You love America, we know that was one memorable quote.)

If subcommittee members were serious, heres what theyd ask:

Where do you get the data that informs your decisions to buy smaller tech companies? Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabets Google all have unique lenses into online activity, and the cloud infrastructure they are building just adds to their ability to surveil smaller rivals before they become real challengers. One clue Zuckerberg had about Instagrams early hypergrowth was the number of photos users were posting from the startups mobile app to Facebooks social network.

What tools do you have to retaliate against startups that refuse to sell to you? Amazon threatened a price war against Quidsi before buying it. After Twitter turned down a Facebook buyout offer, Facebook turned off access to its friends lists.

Do users have a reasonable way to extract their personal data and share it with competitors? Most big tech companies offer some kind of way to export user data. That doesnt mean its useful.

How do you restrain entrepreneurs who sell their startups to you from starting new competitive ventures? The best way Silicon Valley has of self-regulating against would-be monopolists is its ability to churn out new startups. Noncompete agreements prevent that from happening.

I dont expect any of these topics to come up at the Wednesday hearing, because posturing and lecturing is a lot easier. But in between shots, there might be room for hope.

Owen Thomas, othomas@sfchronicle.com

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Hopefully theyll look to the facts, understand the values of the people that theyre thinking about and understand that were in this together. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, speaking to CNBC on the prospects for public acceptance of a coronavirus vaccine

From Capitol Hill to Wall Street: Apple, Facebook and Alphabet report earnings Thursday, the day after their CEOs wrap up their congressional testimony.

Dana Mattoli and Cara Lombardo on Amazons habit of competing with startups it invests in. (Wall Street Journal)

Roland Li on Googles long-term work-from-home plans. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Teddy Schleifer on Peter Thiels latest political backing of restrictions on immigration. (Recode)

Tech Chronicle is a weekly newsletter from Owen Thomas, The Chronicles business editor, and the rest of the tech team. Follow along on Twitter: @techchronicle and Instagram: @techchronicle

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Congress is going to ask Big Techs leaders all the wrong questions. Here are the right ones - San Francisco Chronicle

What to watch today: Dow to open higher ahead of Big Tech hearing and Fed policy decision – CNBC

BY THE NUMBERS

Dow futures indicated a roughly 70-point gain at the opening bell, ahead of a blockbuster Big Tech congressional hearing, a Fed policy statement and another batch of corporate earnings reports. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures also were mildly higher. The Dow on Tuesday fell about 205 points, or .77%. The S&P 500 gave up .65% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sank 1.27%.

The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq have fallen in three of the past four trading days, although all remain on course for solid July gains. The Dow begins the new day at a more than two-week low, coming off its lowest close since July 13.

*Treasury yields edge higher ahead of Fed interest rate decision (CNBC)

The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee will issue its latest policy statement at 2:00 p.m. ET, followed by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's virtual news conference 30 minutes later.

General Electric (GE), Boeing (BA), and General Motors (GM) lead a long list of morning earnings reports; streaming service Spotify (SPOT) also reports. After the bell, PayPal (PYPL), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Yum China (YUMC) are scheduled to post quarterly earnings.

*GM swings to a loss as coronavirus shuttered factories and devastated sales (CNBC)*GE reports quarterly loss as coronavirus pandemic hits hard (Reuters)*Boeing posts net loss of $2.4 billion and slows aircraft production amid coronavirus-weakened demand (CNBC)

Total mortgage application volume fell 0.8% last week from the previous week, according to theMortgage Bankers Association's latest report.Mortgage applications to buy a home were down 2% last week compared to the prior week but 21% higher annually. (CNBC)

The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Google-parent Alphabet and Facebookare set to testify in front the House Antitrust Subcommittee later today. The blockbuster virtual hearing will be Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos' first congressional testimony. It comes as part of the House Judiciary Committee's investigation into Big Tech and potential anti-competitive practices. Mark Zuckerberg is expected to defend Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, portraying them as key to creating better services for both users and advertisers. (CNBC)

*Jeff Bezos will testify about how Amazon is the quintessential American company (CNBC)*Google CEO Sundar Pichai plans to tell Congress the company faces plenty of competition (CNBC)*Tim Cook will testify that Apple is in fierce competition with Google and Huawei (CNBC)

Biotech firm Moderna (MRNA) is planning to price its potential coronavirus vaccine at $50 to $60 per course for high-income countries, according to a Financial Times report. The price for the two-dose vaccine comes in higher than the proposed price from Pfizer(PFE) and German-based BioNTech, according to Reuters, based on the companies' $1.95 billion deal with the U.S. government to produce and deliver 100 million doses. The price for Moderna's vaccine, which entered late-stage human trials earlier this week, is not finalized, Reuters reported. (FT)

Hong Kong is increasing its restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19 as local officials warn the city is at risk of a large-scale virus outbreak. There's been an "upsurge" in local infections, said Chief ExecutiveCarrie Lam, who warned of overrunning the health-care system. The government is banning gatherings of more than two people, suspending indoor dining at restaurants and requiring face masks in public. (Reuters)

*Europe scrambles to avoid a second coronavirus wave, as infections rise (Washington Post)

The U.S. Senate will not pass a coronavirus relief bill that does not have liability shields for businesses and universities, Majority LeaderMitch McConnelltold CNBC. The Kentucky Republican said Tuesday on "Closing Bell" that the GOP was "not negotiating over liability protection," but he added the party was open to compromise with Democrats on other issues. Senate Republicans released their roughly $1 trillion legislative proposal on Monday. (CNBC)

*Most swing state voters support extending $600 weekly unemployment benefit, CNBC/Change Research poll finds(CNBC)

The Trump administration has started negotiations with the office of Oregon's governor over the presence of federal agents in Portland, according to the Associated Press, expressing a willingness to scale back if the state increases its own enforcement in the city, which has seen nearly two months of nightly protests in the wake of George Floyd's death. The talks are still in the early stages and no agreement is in place, the wire service reported. (AP)

*Portland protests bring early-morning clash with feds after more than 1,000 turn out Tuesday (The Oregonian)* Attorney General Barr, grilled by House Democrats, defends aggressive federal response in Portland (LA Times)

In a historic move,AMC Theaters(AMC) and Comcast-ownedUniversal Picturesinked an agreement to shorten the theatrical release window for Universal's movies, allowing them to head to digital streaming just 17 days after their debut on the big screen. Theaters previously would have the exclusive rights to films for about 90 days. AMC will share in some of the new revenue from the digital on-demand rentals. Comcast is parent company of CNBC and NBCUniversal. (CNBC)

Starbucks (SBUX) exceeded Wall Street expectations in its earnings report and raised its adjusted earnings outlook for the fiscal fourth quarter, sending its stock up more than 5% in premarket trading. The coffee chain expressed optimism about its recovery from the coronavirus in the U.S. and China, although it saw global same-store sales plunge 40% in the quarter. (CNBC)

*Restaurant transactions plateau as coronavirus cases surge (CNBC)

The American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers' unions in the U.S., will support any of its local chapters that decide to strike if they feel school reopening plans are not safe enough. The federation, which represents 1.7 million school employees, said in its Tuesday resolution that striking should be the last option, but it called for reopening plans to include social distancing measures and mask requirements. It also said buildings should only reopen in places where coronavirus transmission rates are low. (USA Today)

Visa (V) came in 4 cents above estimates with quarterly earnings of $1.07 per share, with revenue above estimates as well. The payments processor did say that payment volume was down 10% during the quarter with profit dropping 23%, as consumer spending was hit by rising unemployment.

Mondelez (MDLZ) reported adjusted quarterly profit of 63 cents per share, 7 cents above estimates, with the snack maker's revenue slightly above Wall Street forecasts. Strong demand for its snacks in North America helped offset other declines, and Mondelez also announced an 11% dividend increase.

FireEye (FEYE) surprised analysts who had expected a loss by reporting an adjusted profit of 9 cents per share with revenue above estimates as well. The cybersecurity company benefited from the shift to cloud-based work amid the pandemic.

Avis Budget (CAR) reported a quarterly loss of $5.60 per share, slightly smaller than the loss of $5.68 that analysts were expecting. The car rental's revenue beat estimates, with a recovering used car market and increased leisure rentals helping results.

L Brands (LB) is cutting 15% of its corporate staff, amounting to 850 jobs. The parent of Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works also projected a smaller than expected current quarter sales decline.

Spirit Airlines (SAVE) will tell its unions to be prepared for possible October furloughs of 20 to 30% of workers, according to a memo sent to employees and first reported by Reuters.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) beat estimates by 2 cents with adjusted quarterly profit of 18 cents per share, with the chip maker's revenue above estimates as well. AMD also raised its full-year forecast, as the surge in the number of employees working from home raises demands for its chips.

EBay (EBAY) reported adjusted quarterly earnings of $1.08 per share, 2 cents above estimates, with the e-commerce company's revenue also beating forecasts. It also raised its full-year outlook, amid more online shopping by people staying indoors during the coronavirus pandemic.

Amgen (AMGN) earned an adjusted $4.25 per share for its latest quarter, compared to a $3.82 consensus estimate, with revenue above forecasts as well. The biotech company was helped by stronger sales of its newer drugs.

Budweiser has unveiled its newest beer with a twist. It has no alcohol. The 50-calorie Bud Zero is now going out nationwide and was created with the help of former NBA star Dwyane Wade. The new drink gives Anheuser Busch Inbev (BUD) further exposure to the non-alcoholic beer category, which has been growing fast this year. (USA Today)

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What to watch today: Dow to open higher ahead of Big Tech hearing and Fed policy decision - CNBC

Ahead of Big Tech Hearing, Less Than Half of the Public Trusts Congress to Best Regulate the Industry – Morning Consult

July 29, 2020 at 12:01 am ET

55% of adults, including 64% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans, said they believe Congress has a lot or some understanding of how to regulate the tech industry.

Republicans were most likely to trust the president (70%) with regulating the industry in the best way.

With the House antitrust subcommittee ready to pull out all the stops ahead of todays hearing with the chief executives of Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc., a new survey suggests that most of the public has little or no faith in Congress ability to regulate the tech industry.

More than half (55 percent) of the 2,200 adults surveyed in a Morning Consult poll conducted July 23-26 said they believe Congress had a lot or some understanding of how to regulate the technology industry, but they were 9 percentage points less likely, at 46 percent, to trust the lawmakers best to do so. Adults, regardless of party affiliation, were more likely to trust other government institutions, such as the court system (57 percent) and federal agencies (53 percent), to best regulate the sector.

The survey has a margin of error of 2 points.

Both Democrats and Republicans saw a nearly 10-point discrepancy between whether they believed Congress had at least some understanding of how to regulate tech companies and whether they trusted federal lawmakers to best approach such regulation. Among Democrats, 64 percent said they believed Congress understood the issue, while 56 percent said they had trust in the legislative branch an 8-point gap. Democrats were far more likely to trust members of their party (74 percent) and the courts (64 percent) with tech regulation than Capitol Hill.

And among Republicans, 56 percent said they believed Congress understood either a lot or some of the issues, but only 47 percent trusted them at least somewhat with doing so in the best way a 9-point dip. They were more inclined to say they trusted the president (70 percent) and fellow Republicans (67 percent).

Key members of the House Judiciary Committee will spend hours this afternoon seeking answers from the four tech executives Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg in response to a slew of allegations that their companies abuse their market power by making it harder for competitors to succeed in their respective industries. The hearing is expected to be the culmination of a nearly 14-month congressional investigation into the four tech giants, led by Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the antitrust subcommittees chairman. So far, the inquiry has yielded 1.3 million documents of evidence some of which could be unveiled during the hearing, senior congressional aides told reporters last week.

However, Congress has a history of failing to understand certain tech issues: When Googles Pichai last appeared before a congressional panel in December 2018, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) complained about a notification that appeared on his granddaughters iPhone, a product made by Apple Inc.

Underscoring the panels investigation, however, is an American public with mixed views on tech regulation. A plurality of adults (35 percent) said they didnt know or had no opinion on whether the federal government needs to regulate the tech industry more, less or exactly the same as it is doing currently. Thirty percent said the industry needs more regulation, while 24 percent said it was being regulated the right amount and 11 percent said the federal government should regulate it less.

And that sense of uncertainty goes hand-in-hand with how U.S. adults view the amount of power the tech industry has. When asked to choose which industry holds the most power and influence in America, technology in Silicon Valley ranked last: 6 percent picked tech, compared to 42 percent who chose politics in Washington. The share who picked the tech industry is statistically unchanged since the first time the question was asked in a February 2018 survey.

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Ahead of Big Tech Hearing, Less Than Half of the Public Trusts Congress to Best Regulate the Industry - Morning Consult

Cohen: It’s time to break up big tech – The Ledger

They thwart competition and abuse their power, whether it's by failing to protect users' privacy and data or controlling one of our most basic freedoms free speech in hopes of influencing, if not, swaying elections.

Monopolistic companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple and others have become far too powerful. They thwart competition and abuse their power, whether it's by failing to protect users' privacy and data or controlling one of our most basic freedoms free speech in hopes of influencing, if not, swaying elections.

These actions warrant congressional intervention, especially given Silicon Valley's well-known political bias against conservatives including the president of the United States of America. President Donald Trump's tweets are routinely "fact-checked" and censored, for example, while his political opponents are not.

This rigged system has far-reaching consequences that, among other things, shape public opinion and culture and taint America's standing in the world while diminishing our collective rights.

Take Apple. If you ask Siri what "demon" means, she says "an evil spirit or devil, especially one thought to possess a person or act as a tormentor in hell." The second definition Siri offers is "a cruel, evil, or destructive person or thing." Now, brace yourself for Siri's third definition a police officer.

This prompted a terse response from GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, who tweeted Thursday:

"Big Tech Bias in America is real and it's disgusting. Apple's Siri defines 'demon' as 'a police officer.'

"Go ahead and try it.

"Apple needs to answer for why they're instigating this kind of hate in America."

Indeed. Especially when you consider that as of April 2017 there were 728 million iPhones in use worldwide, according to Statista, including at least 100 million users in the U.S. The far-left radicals at Apple Inc. are indoctrinating users to believe law enforcement officers are demons. This not only maligns police officers' character, including black cops and other minorities in uniform, but also puts cops lives at risk given today's extremely volatile political climate.

Then there's Twitter silencing conservatives en masse. This week, the social network censored tweets by the president and his son Donald Trump Jr. for sharing a viral video of doctors speaking about the purported benefits of hydroxychloroquine, a controversial medicine that some experts claim helps COVID-19 patients.

"A Henry Ford Health System study shows the controversial anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helps lower the death rate of COVID-19 patients, the Detroit-based health system said Thursday," reported the Detroit News. "Officials with the Michigan health system said the study found the drug 'significantly' decreased the death rate of patients involved in the analysis."

Nonetheless, the overlords at Twitter still censored the tweets.

But that's not all. Google, Facebook and Twitter have also been censoring the right-leaning news site Breitbart, according to its news editor-in-chief, Alex Marlow. This week, Marlow told Tucker Carlson on his Fox News program that Breitbart's Google search traffic is down over 99% since May. "If you want to search for Joe Biden or Biden, the chances of you getting a Breitbart article are virtually zero," Marlow told Carlson.

See how election meddling works?

Conservative voices are being silenced across the spectrum leading up to the November election while those on the left continue to get full access to voters.

This corrupt system cannot stand in a democracy.

Congress must act.

Adriana Cohen is a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate.

Original post:

Cohen: It's time to break up big tech - The Ledger

Enterprise hits and misses – big tech heads to Washington to repent, the systemic risk of cloud dependency, and the future of manufacturing work -…

As Jon Reed has a break from his colleagues a well earned week away, switches off his work notifications and recoups from the madness of 2020, I have the privilege of pulling together this week's Enterprise Hits and Misses. Enjoy.

Lead story - Tech giants leaves Washington largely unscathed after a grilling from US legislators

MyPOV:As was expected, the showdown between the so-called Robber Barons' of the 21st Century and US politicians last week was less of a hauling over the coals and more of a grandstanding opportunity for legislators to show they get tech'. Opportunities were missed to get a deeper understanding of the implications of centralised power online from the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google, with Democrats and Republicans alike straying towards partisan topics of interest. Stuart's scathing write up -Big Tech goes to Washington: Big tech goes home untroubled - but what did anyone expect?- captures the mood nicely:

...the tension between the purpose of the session and the compulsion of politicians in such circumstances to posture, revel in their Perry Mason moment' and act up for the cameras as the Grand Inquisitor that most of them think they are, but emphatically are not. It's been seen time and again, both in the US and other political fora around the world, that the only way to get good' results from such sessions is to ask a series of short, to-the-point, simple questions that demand straight answers and provide no room for equivocation.

The COVID-19 pandemic meant that proceedings were carried out virtually, which brought its own unique problems. However, the tech titans largely came away unscathed, with the CEOs listening to their PR Chiefs and giving answers that were non-committal at best, avoidant at worst. But the entire event was overshadowed by President Trump taking to Twitter (the irony) to declare that he will take actions into his own hands if "Congress doesn't bring fairness to Big Tech".

Until next time though, Silicon Valley can largely sleep easy. Stuart:

I went in with low expectations so I emerged without disappointment. To be fair, there was some indication that more research had been done on this occasion by some of the sub-committee members - or their interns - with emails and past comments thrown in the face of the CEOs, particularly Zuckerberg.

But no blows landed and no serious damage was done. If looked at in a bread and circuses' sort of way, there wasn't even the sight of any of the titans losing his cool under pressure.

On this side of the Atlantic, British politicians were also dwelling on the the impact of digital business on the broader economy (or so the headlines would have you believe). The mainstream media caused some hysteria, claiming that the government would be slapping a new tax' on online sales in order to level the playing field for bricks-and-mortar businesses and help raise 2 billion a year. The truth? Stuart explains why that'snot quite the case...:

What is happening is that the UK Government, looking ahead to the 2023 re-evaluation of business rates, has issued a Call for Evidence consultation document to invite comments from interested parties- including Amazon et al - on whether there's a better way of doing things. Feedback will then be scoped into a review in 2021 - after the No Deal' Brexit deadline has passed and when who knows what will be happening COVID-wise.

So, online tax to save the economy? No. 2 billion a year from making the Amazons of the world pay their due? No. Nice bit of hyperbole to froth up the right wing mainstream media? Job done!

diginomica picks -my top stories on diginomica this week

Vendor analysis, diginomica style

Use cases galore -They're the bread and butter of diginomica content and this week we saw a swathe of use cases come in, tackling a variety of change issues.

Derek's grab bag -With all the fearmongering concern around the rise of the robots and a future that will see us ruled by AI overlords, it was refreshing to see Neil drill down this week on whyArtificial Intelligence will not resemble human intelligence. However, there will be AI that is extremely useful. Neil notes:

We are not close to "situational awareness." I see no path to an AGI that is a duplicate (and superior one) to human intelligence. Our current efforts are not much more than point solutions. Nor do I see the need. Airplanes don't flap their wings, they fly higher and faster than birds.

What I do see, however, is a third thing - an artificial intelligence that is different and superior to human intelligence. We will have the technology for this in this century. While the relentless push to AGI raises serious ethical questions, they will not moderate progress.

It's worth checking out Jerry's view on whetherCalifornia's CPRA will become the standard for national consumer privacy legislation. His take: the current system puts too much burden on users to understand and manage personal data themselves and nowhere near enough on the companies that collect and use data. And finally it wouldn't be a Hits and Misses without a bit of retail analysis from Stuart -this week he takes a look at John Lewis's post-pandemic ambitions, where the UK household name is set to put digital front and centre of its plans.

Lead story - External consultants can't fill the gap in the digital enterprise

My POV:A piece appeared this weekfrom Steve Andriole, a Professor at Villanova University, which argues the case for internal consulting teams for digital transformation and boldly tells McKinsey, Accenture and Cap Gemini to step aside!

Adriole's take is that external consultants are not only expensive but that they can't get to the heart of an organisation that is having to grapple with wide ranging complexity in the digital age. Instead internal capability must be built - you can't outsource your knowledge. A message I can fully get behind. He says:

Digital transformation requires an integrated understanding of a company's strategic strengths, weaknesses and intentions, and an understanding of the technologies necessary for it to win. Digital transformation also requires an intimate understanding of a company's language, ways of working, culture and the politics that explains what's possible. External consultants simply cannot know these things unless they move in and stay for a long while. More broadly - and this is the key point - "digital" is now the primary competitive advantage a company can exert on its competition. Digital transformation simply cannot be handed off to consultants. There is nothing more "core" than competency in this area.

Adriole calls for an internal team of consultants (in other words, invest in people and build out capability where you have gaps, don't hand off responsibility to a third party out of fear). He concludes:

But the takeaway is clear: rethink the role external consultants play at your company especially when it comes to digital transformation, and then consider how an internal team might accelerate success.

Cyber security

Honourable mentions

An honourable whiff this week goes to Domino's - a companywhich has digital cloutin the market, but might need some lessons in responding to zeitgeist trends. The pizza delivery giant had to backtrack on an offer in New Zealand to give anyone with the name Karen' a free pizza - the idea being that Karens have had a tough time online lately and the nice ones deserve a treat. However, as is the way of the internet, a backlash quickly grew over claims the company was rewarding privilege. Maybe stick tostuffed crustswhat you're good at, Domino's

However, my primary whiff this week goes to a number of people online that think that a future of work that involves distributed workforces is a terrible idea. First up I spotted this piece tweeted out by our very own Jon Reed, calledOur remote work future is going to suck'. Among the reasons cited include how remote work can stifle your career growth, how it breaks large companies and how it enables you to be forgotten. It seemsGoogle,FacebookandTwittermissed the memo on those points, ha? As Jon put it nicely:

I then spotted a slightlyless dogmatic thread from Matt Ballentineon Twitter, which prompted some very interesting responses from followers about why employees need office space. I'm probably slightly cheating here because I wouldn't class this as a full blown whiff' (sorry, Jon), but it continues on the theme and the replies are worth a read to see how strongly some people feel about it.

My main rebuttal (as someone that's worked from home for 7 years) to the above is:

Anyway, that's me done for this week's Enterprise Hits and Misses. It's been an honour and I hope I've managed to do at least half a good a job as Jon does (this is a mammoth task every week and he makes it all look so easy!). Until next time

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Enterprise hits and misses - big tech heads to Washington to repent, the systemic risk of cloud dependency, and the future of manufacturing work -...

Big Tech hearing a chance to ‘rake the ultra-rich over the coals,’ Jim Cramer says – CNBC

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Wednesday bemoaned the congressional hearing on antitrust claims in Big Tech, arguing that the companies included in the event should be considered America's "national champions" in a globalized world.

Another company in Microsoft, which was not summoned in the hearing, can also be considered among the prized group, he said.

"I come to praise the titans of tech, not bury them," the "Mad Money" host said, in an effort to "reframe" the discussion after the chief executives of Facebook, Amazon, AppleandAlphabet's Google testified Wednesday afternoon in front of a House Judiciary subcommittee.

These companies are the "best things the American economy has going for it" and the hearings "feel more like an opportunity to rake the ultra-rich over the coals," he said.

The hearing marked the first time all four executives Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai appeared before Congress at the same time.

America is the "top dog" in many parts of the technology industry, particularly those that big tech deals in, and the country needs to leverage tech to stay competitive with the rest of the world, especially an ascendant China, Cramer said.

While he's in favor of implementing regulations to reign in the business practices of the tech behemoths, including abusing their market powers, Cramer cast doubt about a divided Congress' ability to come to an agreement on a set of rules.

In Wednesday's hearing, Facebook's Zuckerberg was bashed for acquiring WhatsApp, then a nascent rival messaging app, for $19 billion in 2014.

Amazon's Bezos was questioned about using third-party seller data to gain a competitive edge on products the online retail giant sells.

Google's Pichai, who added the title of Alphabet CEO in December, was grilled on the company's China connections after dropping out of the U.S. Department of Defense's $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud project deal. The chief was also questioned about its now-abandoned work on a Chinese search engine project called Dragonfly.

Meanwhile, Apple's Cook was pressed on how the company's equal treatment of developers on its App Store. The company has been dogged for taking a 30% cut of sales on in-app payments.

Cramer, though, said he is taking the other side of the coin.

"Every other industrialized [country] has so-called national champions. These are companies that let them compete worldwide and their governments bend over backwards to give them an edge," he said. "In an increasingly globalized economy, maybe America needs some national champions of its own."

Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft.

Questions for Cramer?Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC

Want to take a deep dive into Cramer's world? Hit him up!Mad Money Twitter - Jim Cramer Twitter - Facebook - Instagram

Questions, comments, suggestions for the "Mad Money" website? madcap@cnbc.com

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Big Tech hearing a chance to 'rake the ultra-rich over the coals,' Jim Cramer says - CNBC

Why bursting the tech salary bubble is a good thing | TheHill – The Hill

In recent months, tech giants like Twitter, Shopify and Facebook have been announcing permanent remote work options for their staff, whether the COVID-19 pandemic subsides or not. It appears that the tech world and its CEOs are realizing the numerous benefits that come from giving workers more flexibility over their geographic location. According to recent surveys, 19 percent of employees want to work from home on a permanent basis after the health crisis is over.

But with Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergMark Elliot ZuckerbergFive takeaways from Big Tech's blowout earnings NYT media columnist Ben Smith calls Facebook's self-proclaimed patriotism 'very implausible' Facebook reports 11 percent revenue growth as usage surges amid pandemic MOREs announcement came what many see as a catch those Facebook employees that work remotely will have their salaries adjusted according to their location.

While this may sound unfair to some not least considering tech giants hefty profit margins this could be the much-needed salary reform that will make the tech world more accessible to workers. Going remote and adjusting wages accordingly can actually result in a more diverse tech scene, increased inclusivity in the workplace, and a change in how companies value and hold onto their workers. Heres how.

Diversity will improve

Building a diverse workforce should be a non-negotiable priority for todays businesses. We are painfully aware of the need to collectively move towards a fairer and more just society, and the role of US companies includes embracing workplace diversity and equality of opportunity. By bursting the tech salary bubble, the industry can further break the mold of its predictable tech hires.

In allowing people to apply for a job no matter where theyre based, Facebook and other companies will now be able to attract more diverse talent by sheer force of numbers. Statistics show that minorities are likely to be most affected by the financial restrictions of living in overpriced cities like San Francisco: In 2018, 1 in 5 black people residing in the United States lived below the poverty line, compared to 1 in 12 white people. Qualified candidates across the country who a few months ago would not even have been able to consider applying for a job in big tech will now come forward.

That single mom from rural Ohio who can create groundbreaking AI-powered marketing tools but doesnt have the time or money to commute to big city offices will now be able to join your talent pool. A physically disabled tech graduate who couldnt find an accessible job now has his pick of any workplace, and hell likely choose a business that has always valued diversity and inclusion.

Its worth considering that the top ten computer science schools in the United States include universities in non-traditional tech hubs like Texas, Georgia, and New Jersey. Hopefully, remote hiring will allow those skilled graduates to apply for tech jobs without uprooting from home states or hometowns.

Having a workforce that is representative of the U.S. population that includes people of color, people with disabilities, and those from low-income backgrounds inevitably leads to a better understanding of the challenges facing the country at large, beyond the confines of big tech cities. This will better inform companies as they develop their product, penetrate new market segments, and weed out the prominent problem of technology bias. Not to mention that diversity has a proven correlation to financial performance and innovation qualities that all companies hoping to survive the recession cant do without.

Work environments become more inclusive

While allowing employees to work remotely will no doubt see much of the workforce move out of tech hubs like Silicon Valley, many offices will remain open. The bursting tech bubble means that even employees who do work from the office should experience less exclusive environments due to a more accessible cost of living in traditional tech bubbles.

As fewer tech workers are drawn to the big tech locations to earn inflated salaries, the cost of living will fall. In fact, rental website Zumper recorded a record drop in San Francisco rent prices, with both one-bedroom and two-bedroom rents down 11 percent from last year. Thats in line with a wider trend of falling prices over the course of the pandemic. Reduced costs gives employees more equal access to opportunities and resources in big tech cities, making them less exclusive.

Those who take the remote opportunity to leave big cities should also benefit from more inclusive and harmonious work lives. Tech cities harbor multiple issues that induce stress and can affect workers mental wellbeing and productivity. Residents of San Francisco are antagonized by the housing crisis and excessive traffic, and a recent survey of local tech workers revealed that one third would leave the area if they could work remotely, even if it meant taking a pay cut.

Ultimately, leaving overpriced and overcrowded cities will result in a higher quality of life and better mental health and well-being for employees, even if their $300,000-a-year salary is reduced by 25 percent.

What the critics of Facebooks policy dont consider is that in the long term, the flexibility and trust created by remote work between employees and their companies will soon drown out concerns over salary shifts.

Companies will value their workers more

As the country becomes one big hiring pool for all tech companies alike, in the long run competition for the best talent will grow. And as tech salary bubbles dissipate, employers will have to attract candidates using more than just the promise of a hefty paycheck. Remote tech workers will have a broad pick of businesses seeking their expertise, and their demands will focus more on non-monetary benefits.

Tech companies will need to demonstrate how they will provide opportunities such as career progression, especially to minority communities who have historically been faced with fewer chances for advancement in STEM jobs. They should also offer wellness programs and employee benefit schemes as the world acknowledges the importance of ensuring the well-being of a remote workforce.

All of this will force employers to see their team members through a different lens: one which paints them as individuals with individual needs, not as human machines that work harder the more theyre paid. Company culture will become more centered around the non-salary-related rewards of working as part of a team, and those that are attracted to the role simply as a means to earn a big paycheck will likely be steered elsewhere.

And of course, by allowing employees to go remote, tech companies will save money on wages, office space and operational costs. This money can then be reinvested into furthering diversity and inclusion and well-being initiatives to staff.

If we do this right, the remote revolution promises to improve work culture across the board. Our productivity and mental health will improve while our carbon footprints fall. By going one step further and bursting the tech salary bubble, companies big and small will be more empowered to foster necessarily diverse and inclusive teams, in which workers feel significantly more valued as individuals.

Rachel Sheppard is the director of global marketing at global pre-seed accelerator Founder Institute and co-founder of the Female Founder Initiative, a program launched in 2016 as a means of offering support, funding, and visibility to female founders.

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Why bursting the tech salary bubble is a good thing | TheHill - The Hill

Congress looks to prove it can keep Big Tech in check – POLITICO

In the past when tech company CEOs have testified the popular review of those hearings has not been positive for lawmakers," said Duke University researcher Matt Perault, who testified before House antitrust last year on behalf of Facebook, where he served as director of public policy. "Often it seems like they dont have the kind of understanding of the products and business models that most Americans do."

And even when lawmakers do their homework, hearings with the tech leaders often lost direction, with lawmakers asking questions far afield of their purported purpose and getting caught up in partisan feuding. Theyve sometimes jumped from topic to topic for hours, with questions on everything from cryptocurrency to data privacy to hate speech and allegations of bias. And when Pichai last appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, then under GOP control, Democrats and Republicans bitterly clashed over allegations the company stifles conservative views. (Google and other major platforms deny the charges).

This time has the potential to be different. The hearing is the culmination of the Democratic-led subcommittees investigation into competition online, which has included hundreds of hours of meetings and calls and the collection of over 1.3 million documents, according to senior Judiciary aides. That makes the members of the 15-person panel set to question the CEOs uniquely prepared for the challenge, according to Gene Kimmelman, senior adviser for consumer group Public Knowledge.

Weve seen in the past high-profile hearings with CEOs that are just one-offs thats not what this is, said Kimmelman, who served in the Justice Departments antitrust unit under the Obama administration. This is the culmination of many hearings, many interviews, thousands of hours of work by the staff and engagement with the members."

Officials are also hoping to keep the hearing from straying too far off course. Democratic lawmakers and senior House Judiciary aides say they expect Wednesday's session to have a needle-like focus on the competitive concerns posed by the companies, the central premise of the hearing.

I believe that it will be largely tethered to the antitrust concerns because that is the purpose of this committees investigation, it is the driving purpose behind the hearing, said Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), vice chair of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, the 15-member panel hosting the session.

But Republicans say they are preparing for a wholly different kind of hearing: a free-wheeling event where lawmakers air their grievances on everything from competition to online misinformation and allegations of an anti-conservative bias in Silicon Valley.

Ahead of the hearing, Republican staffers on the Judiciary Committee urged lawmakers to make the bias allegations a focal point of the session, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO. And they suggested that proposing legislation to update U.S. antitrust law based off of the sessions findings would be premature dealing a blow to the prospects of a bipartisan bill emerging out of the investigation.

GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado said while he is planning to press the CEOs on whether their acquisitions or their platforms stifle competition, he expects other lawmakers to fire off questions on a wide range of fronts, including the bias charges.

I think you will see a free-for-all, Buck said.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said he anticipates Republicans will hone in particularly on Facebook and Google over accusations they stifle viewpoints on the right. Armstrong said those allegations are pressing "given how much influence they have over the general public coming into the election.

Some critics of the tech giants have voiced concern that raising issues like allegations of bias could dilute the hearing. Others say it's par for the course on Capitol Hill.

"Ive never seen a hearing not wander a bit astray," said Kimmelman. "Every lawmaker has a different angle on these things and different pet issues, but I do believe there is a desire to make sure at the very least they dot all the is and cross all the ts on antitrust and competition concerns.

To do that, lawmakers will need to pepper all four chief executives with exacting questions. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), another member of the subcommittee, said one strategy lawmakers plan to take Wednesday is to focus on issues that cut across the tech giants.

I think they can all be assured they will get a lot of love, each one of them, she said. We do intend to split our time and talk about each one of them because I do think that there are some common fact-patterns that have emerged across companies in terms of anti-competitive behavior.

Jayapal said one such area where lawmakers share concern about all four companies is their ability to box out competitors with the vast troves of consumer data they collect. Another, she said, is their ability to deploy "copy, acquire, kill" strategies to duplicate, buy out or otherwise neutralize budding rivals.

But the largely virtual format of the hearing could make it harder for lawmakers to come out on top in those exchanges, according to Daniel Schuman, policy director at the left-leaning advocacy group Demand Progress.

In a circumstance where youre going back and forth with the witness where they can pretend not to hear you, where you talk over each other, where you have a little bit of the technological confusion that goes on top of the interaction anyway it becomes more likely that the member can lose a little bit more control of the interaction," said Schuman, who has pushed for Congress to bolster its virtual offerings.

And the virtual format could lessen the overall impact of the hearing, according to Buck.

It's unfortunate that we don't have them in person," said the GOP lawmaker. "I think it would be a much more informative and impactful hearing if we were dealing with this in person.

Even if lawmakers' stick the landing on their questions, tech industry officials remain skeptical anything new will come out of them.

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Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of tech trade group NetChoice, said hes very curious to know what questions will be asked that haven't been answered. Szabo, whose tech trade group counts Facebook, Google and Amazon as members, cited the fact that the companies have already turned over scores of documents to the committee.

He added, "What this is ultimately going to do is be dragging tech CEOs before Congress and berate them in front of the cameras, not looking necessarily for answers to antitrust, but looking for publicity."

But even the act of pressing the CEOs for answers on the record could mark a victory for lawmakers, according to Mitchell, regardless of whether or not the CEOs take the bait.

I do think that theres actual real information to be gleamed, and if Bezos and the other CEOs try to dodge those questions and evade and obfuscate, it adds to the picture of these companies believing that they are in charge and that they dont have to answer to anyone, she said.

Betsy Woodruff Swan contributed to this report.

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Congress looks to prove it can keep Big Tech in check - POLITICO

Big Techs Backlash Is Just Starting – The New York Times

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

Wednesdays five-plus-hour congressional probing of the bosses of Americas tech giants did not reveal a singular gotcha moment or smoking gun email. Weve heard many of these examples of Big Tech abuse before.

But the power of this hearing and others like it was the cumulative repetition of tales of abusive behavior, and evidence of the harm this has had on peoples lives.

The spectacle also showed that the impact of congressional investigations is the digging that happens when the C-SPAN cameras are turned off.

Worries about Americas tech stars have swirled for years. Its clear now that this isnt going away. In world capitals, courtrooms and among the public, we are wrestling with what it means for tech giants to have enormous influence on our lives, elections, economy and minds.

And while what happens to the future of Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook is anyones guess, it was clear from Wednesdays hearing that Congress was pointing the way for other branches of government to pick up the digging from here.

We saw on Wednesday old emails and texts from Mark Zuckerberg, worried about Facebook losing ground to Instagram and suggesting that buying competing apps is an effective way to take out the competition. The big deal here: Trying to reduce competition by purchasing a rival is a violation of antitrust law. (Zuckerberg said that Instagrams success wasnt assured when Facebook bought it.)

Representatives said that their interviews with former Amazon employees backed up news reports that the company used private data from its merchants to make its own version of their products.

The subcommittee discussed their conversations with companies that claimed Google funneled web searches to services it owned rather than to rivals like Yelp. Through company documents and questioning, members of Congress picked apart Apples stance that it treats all app developers the same.

My colleague Kevin Roose wrote that the tech bosses seemed to be taken off guard by the rigor and depth of the questions they faced.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are also investigating whether these companies abuse their power, and I bet they watched closely. The U.S. governments antitrust case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago was built, in part, on the emails of Bill Gates and other Microsoft executives discussing how they planned to kill upstart competitors.

Heres one more sign that the backlash against Big Tech has only just begun: The shouty tech critics in Congress and the tech bosses all seemed to agree that these four companies have a meaningful impact on many peoples lives.

The tech bosses focused on the good that comes from their companies size, reach and influence. A New York bakery finds customers by buying advertisements on Google. Merchants can thrive by selling their products or apps on Amazon or Apple.

The representatives pointed out examples of the dark side of Big Techs size, reach and influence. In the pin drop moment of the hearing, a House member played an audio recording of a book seller saying her family was struggling because of a change Amazon apparently made that dried up her sales there.

The subcommittee chairman said these tech powers can pick the winners and the losers. That might be stretching it. But both sides demonstrated that these four companies have a profound say in who wins or loses.

Lawmakers of all political stripes seemed uncomfortable with the knowledge that four companies have this much influence. Beyond the legal antitrust questions at issue, its this feeling of discomfort that makes it hard to imagine that nothing will change for these tech superpowers.

Wednesdays hearing was really two hearings. The Democrats mostly asked the four tech chief executives about ways their companies wielded their power and influence. Republican members largely asked about persistent concerns that Google and Facebook in particular censor right-leaning viewpoints or treat conservative figures unfairly.

Some Republican politicians complaints about political bias arent backed by credible evidence. Regardless, suspicion of bias is a thorny problem for these companies.

In a 2018 Pew Research survey, Americans who described themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning overwhelmingly said that they believed that tech companies censor online information for partisan reasons. (A smaller, but still majority, share of Democrats said that they believed this, too.) Since then, polling has shown a growing mistrust of tech companies, particularly among conservatives.

This doesnt seem to have hurt the tech companies businesses. In fact, some Republican members on Wednesday argued that even though people dont trust Big Tech, they have no choice but to continue using these services because these companies have so much influence. It was an effective way to connect bias concerns to investigations into tech company market power. (Yes, I said earlier this week not to pay attention to bias claims. But maybe pay attention a little?)

Even if allegations of bias dont cause the companies to lose customers, the loss of faith among a large share of Americans should worry them.

Its also a problem if the tech companies overcorrect. Facebook employees and critics have said fears of being accused of bias have made the company reluctant to crack down on people, including President Trump, who spread dangerous or inflammatory messages online. Its a fine line to walk.

The really important stuff from the Big Tech hearing: House plants and bookshelves. My colleague Mike Isaac rated the tech bosses choices of backgrounds for their webcast testimony. Mike gave Amazons Jeff Bezos, who sat in front of wooden shelves with a sprinkling of books and tchotchkes, a score of 8 out of 10 for his cool Pacific Northwest dad office vibes.

Example infinity of technology as a flawed virus surveillance: A Wall Street Journal technology columnist reviewed smart watches, internet-connected thermometers and other gizmos that say our heart rate readings or other bodily data can provide early warnings of coronavirus infections. Spoiler alert: Some of this stuff holds promise but needs further research, and we still need more laboratory virus testing.

If you feel like screaming when you watch TV: Rolling Stone has a hilarious and smart rage fest on why the video streaming services can be so infuriating to use.

Best wishes forever to this tiny rabbit peeking out of a canvas bag.

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Big Techs Backlash Is Just Starting - The New York Times