(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Bhaskar Chakravorti, Tufts University

(THE CONVERSATION) Big tech is back in the spotlight.

The chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are testifying before Congress on July 29 to defend their market dominance from accusations theyre stifling rivals. Lawmakers and regulators are increasingly talking about antitrust action and possibly breaking the companies up into smaller pieces.

I study the effects of digital technologies on lives and livelihoods across 90 countries. I believe advocates of breaking up big technology companies, as well as opponents, are both falling prey to some serious myths and misconceptions.

Myth 1: Comparing Google with Standard Oil

Arguments for and against antitrust action often use earlier cases as reference points.

The massive 19th-century monopoly Standard Oil, for example, has been referred to as the Google of its day. There are also people who are recalling the 1990s antitrust case against Microsoft.

Those cases may seem similar to todays situation, but this era is different in one crucial way: the global technology marketplace.

Currently, there are two big tech clusters. One is in the U.S., dominated by Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. The other is in China, dominated by Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei and TikTok-maker ByteDance.

This global market is subject to very different political and policy pressures than regulators faced when dealing with Standard Oil and Microsoft. For example, the Chinese government has blocked most of the U.S. companies from entering its market. And the U.S. government has done likewise, blacklisting some Chinese outfits over perceived national security threats while discouraging others.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the Chinese government has doubled down on championing its own technology companies.

U.S. companies size and data accumulation capabilities give the country economic and political influence around the globe. If the U.S. technology giants are broken up, the result would be a vastly uneven global playing field, pitting fragmented U.S. companies against consolidated state-protected Chinese firms.

Myth 2: Antitrust is about money

There are two main views of antitrust action among legal experts.

One focuses on consumer welfare, which has been the prevailing approach federal lawyers have taken since the 1960s. The other suggests that regulators should look at the underlying structure of the market and potential for powerful players to exploit their positions.

Those two sides seem to agree that price plays a key role. People who argue against breaking up the tech giants point out that Facebook and Google provide services that are free to the consumer, and that Amazons marketplace power drives its products costs down. On the other side, though, are those who say that having low or no prices is evidence that these companies are artificially lowering consumer costs to draw users into company-controlled systems that are hard to leave.

Both sides are missing the fact that the monetary price is less relevant as a measure of what users pay in the technology industry than it is in other types of business. Users pay for digital products with their data, rather than just money.

Regulators shouldnt focus only on the monetary costs to the users. Rather, they should ask whether users are being asked for more data than is strictly necessary, whether information is being collected in intrusive or abusive ways and whether customers are getting good value in exchange for their data.

Myth 3: Trust-busting is all or nothing

There arent just two ways for this debate to end, with either a breakup of one or more technology giants or simply leaving things as they are for the market to develop further.

In my view, the best outcome is right in the middle. The errant company is sued to make necessary changes but isnt broken up. The very fact that the government filed a lawsuit leads to progress with other companies. That is exactly what happened in past cases against the Bell System, IBM and Microsoft.

In the 1956 federal consent decree against the Bell System telephone company, for example, which settled a seven-year legal saga, the company wasnt split up. Instead, Bell was required to license all its patents royalty-free to other businesses. This meant that some of the most profound technological innovations in history including the transistor, the solar cell and the laser became widely available, yielding computers, solar power and other technologies that are crucial to the modern world. When the Bell System was eventually broken up in 1982, it did not do nearly as much to spread innovation and competition as the agreement that kept the Bells together a quarter-century earlier.

The antitrust action against IBM lasted 13 years and didnt break up the company. However, as part of its tactics to avoid appearing to be a monopoly, IBM agreed to separate pricing for its hardware and software products, previously sold as an indivisible bundle. This created an opportunity for entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Paul Allen to create a new software-only company called Microsoft. The surge of software innovations that have followed can clearly trace their origins to the IBM settlement.

Two decades later, Microsoft was itself the target of an antitrust action. In the resulting settlement, Microsoft agreed to ensure its products were compatible with competitors software. That made room in the emerging internet marketplace for web browsers, the predecessors of Apples Safari, Mozillas Firefox and Google Chrome.

Even Margrethe Vestager, the European Unions top antitrust official and frequent tech-giant nemesis, has said that antitrust prosecutions are part of how technology grows. But that doesnt mean they all have to achieve their most extreme ends and be broken up.

Myth 4: COVID-19 and the end of tech bashing

The current pandemic has highlighted the value of the technological innovations of the big tech companies.

Americans are relying more than ever on the internet and online shopping and delivery, while mobility data has been critical in gauging social distancing behaviors and guiding policy. Digital tools for tracking coronavirus cases, deaths and social distancing behaviors in the smallest counties have circulated widely, and social media and smartphone videos were crucial to the recent protests and calls for social justice.

Altogether, this has led to a softening of public opinion toward big tech and calls for an end to talk of breaking them up.

But the pandemic has also revealed numerous digital fault lines: differences in access by country, race and region; the ability of tech companies to exploit labor; and potential for new kinds of misuse of data.

Far from giving the technology industry a free pass, the pandemic is an opportunity to take a more balanced view. Yes, lets celebrate the Silicon Valleys value, but lets not turn a blind eye to the problems they create or worsen.

During the hearings, youll likely hear politicians accentuate the bad stuff, while the tech CEOs will paint an overly rosy image of themselves. Antitrust is complicated enough without misconceptions clouding their judgments as well.

This is an updated and expanded version of an article originally published on July 17, 2019.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/lawmakers-keen-to-break-up-big-tech-like-amazon-and-google-need-to-realize-the-world-has-changed-a-lot-since-microsoft-and-standard-oil-143517.

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Lawmakers keen to break up 'big tech' like Amazon and Google need to realize the world has changed a lot since Microsoft and Standard Oil - Fairfield...

A congressional hearing in the United States on digital marketplace competition featuring the chief executives of four of the largest American tech companies has been rescheduled for Wednesday, a US House subcommittee said on the weekend.

The CEOs of Facebook, Amazon.com, Alphabet's Google and Apple were to have testified on Monday before the House Antitrust Subcommittee. But the hearing was postponed for the lying in state at the Capitol Building of the late Representative John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement.

A subcommittee announcement issued on Saturday said the session now would be held on Wednesday and that witnesses and members could appear in person or virtually.

All four tech company CEOs -- Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook -- are to appear virtually, the announcement said.

The subcommittee of the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether the companies actively seek to harm and eliminate smaller rivals.

"Given the central role these corporations play in the lives of the American people, it is critical that their CEOs are forthcoming," Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and David Cecilline, the subcommittee chairman, said in a joint statement.

The CEOs are expected to deflect criticism of their use of market power to damage rivals by saying they themselves face competition and by debunking claims that they are so dominant.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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Big Tech chiefs get brief reprieve from govt hearing into their growing power - ARNnet

An antitrust hearing held by the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee where Apple chief Tim Cook was set to join other big tech CEOs is likely to be postponed, according to a report on Thursday.

The hearing involving Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was supposed to happen next Monday, but two sources told CNBC that it was now unlikely to take place due to a conflict with the memorial service for the late representative John Lewis.

The hearing is meant to be the culmination of a more than year-long investigation into the four tech giants. After the hearing, lawmakers plan to publish a report based on their findings and propose legislation to bring antitrust laws up to date to deal with issues unique to digital marketplaces.

A recent report by The Information underlined Cook's initial reluctance to take part in the hearing, and how under the pressure of a potential subpoena, Cook ultimately agreed to participate.

Cook is said to have spent the better part of a month preparing for the hearing, which may touch on a wide range of subjects from App Store policies to Apple's disputes with the FBI over providing methods for law enforcement to access locked devices to Apple's relationships with China.

Update: The antitrust hearing with Apple CEO Tim Cook and other tech CEOs has been officially postponed. A new date has not been announced.

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Antitrust Hearing Involving Apple Chief Tim Cook and Other Big Tech CEOs Reportedly Postponed [Update:... - MacRumors

A Congressional deep dive into antitrust allegations against America's largest tech companies could be released by early summer.

DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images

A much-anticipated deep dive into antitrust allegations against four of the United States largest tech companies and recommendations on how to tame their market power could be released by late summer or early fall from the House of Representatives judiciary committees antitrust panel, senior committee aides said.

The committee has received 1.3 million documents from the companies so far, they said in a call with reporters on Thursday.

The panel will question the chief executives of Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. as part of its investigation into whether the companies business practices hurt smaller rivals. The hearing was supposed to be held on July 27 but has been delayed.

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On Thursday, Reuters reported that the CEOs will defend themselves by saying their companies face intense competition and by pushing back against claims they are dominant.

All four companies will testify voluntarily and no subpoenas have been issued, the committee aides said.

In May, Representative David Cicilline, chair of the judiciary committees antitrust panel, had demanded Jeff Bezos testify and threatened Amazon with a subpoena after reports surfaced that Amazon employees tapped data from small sellers in the companys marketplace to make decisions about the online retailer launching its own competing products, despite telling lawmakers it did not engage in such practices.

Addressing questions about the format of the high-profile hearing, the aides said, there will be a single panel with all four CEOs attending virtually. Members of the subcommittee led by Mr. Cicilline, however, will attend either in person or online.

The number of rounds of questioning is up to the discretion of the chair, one committee aide said.

Asked if the hearing would uncover new information, a senior aide said that despite the risk of companies not always answering questions fully it was important to hear from decision makers.

This is not like a normal oversight hearing, where we hear from the CEOs and move on.

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Congressional antitrust probe of Big Tech expected by early fall - The Globe and Mail

With 48,661 people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in a day, Indias covid-19 tally crossed 14 lakh on Sunday. Recoveries touched 8.85 lakh, and the death toll is at 32,063 with 705 fatalities in a day, the health ministry said. Meanwhile, an eight-day total lockdown began in Dimapur, the commercial hub of Nagaland, from Sunday to stem the spread of the virus. Kohima has been under lockdown from 25 July. Sikkim reported its first covid-related death, while Arunachal Pradesh has also seen a spike with more than 900 cases in the past three weeks. For the rest of the national and world news, heres Mint Lite.

Protests rise across globe

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For the past few weeks, Jerusalem residents have been protesting against the governments handling of the covid-19 crisis, with police even arresting 12 people on Sunday to disperse demonstrators. Corruption charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have further fuelled the demonstrations. After reopening of the economy in May, infections shot up with the average number of new cases 2,000 a day. In Russias Khabarovsk city, thousands took to streets to protest the arrest of regional governor Sergei Furgal on murder charges, which they see as unsubstantiated. Daily protests have gone on for two weeks reflect residents simmering discontent with Vladimir Putins rule. From New York to Los Angeles, thousands marched through cities over the weekend, injecting new life into protests over racial injustice and police violence that had largely waned in recent weeks.

New date for big tech CEOs

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Four big tech CEOsFacebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Apples Tim Cook, Amazons Jeff Bezos and Googles Sundar Pichaiwere to appear remotely before a congressional subcommittee on Monday, but the antitrust hearing has been moved to Wednesday. The hearings go into the effect of the Big Techs dominance on consumers, and on whether their business practices have been detrimental to smaller players. The committee will determine whether century-old competition policies need review. Author Scott Galloway says since the onset of covid-19, nearly every sector has shed substantial value but the four companies and Microsoft have increased in value by an average of 35%, while the remaining 495 firms in the S&P 500 are down 5%. Every firm... appears to have incurred a transfer in value and power to your firms," he says, adding that it is cause for concern that their considerable advantage pre-covid" now seems unassailable.

747s ferry more cargo now

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The iconic Boeing 747s are slowly being phased out. Last week, Qantas and British Airways retired their fleets, citing the pandemic-related downturn in air travel. Over the last few years, new generation twin-engine Airbus A350s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners have proved to be more spacious, and cost- and fuel-efficient than the four-engined 747s. The Airbus A380 superjumbo and the Airbus A340 are the other four-engined craft that are being phased out. Delta and Air France retired their 747 fleets earlier this year. That leaves Lufthansa as the passenger airline with the most 747s still in service (see chart), though Cathay Pacific and Korean Air still use them too. Most of the 400 747s still in service are cargo transporters as their size makes them ideal for the purpose.

The universe in 3D

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After five years of work, more than 100 scientists across the world have pulled together 20 years of data to create the largest 3D map of the universe. Its a map of more than two million galaxies, stretching from the Milky Way to objects that are more than 11 billion light years away. It shows how the universe has changed and expanded over billions of years .The project, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), is an international quest to map the expansion of the observable universe. The hope is to find answers to a number of cosmic questions and help astronomers piece together what happened at a period of the universes expansion known as the gap". We know both the ancient history of the universe and its recent expansion history fairly well, but theres a troublesome gap in the middle of 11 billion years," Kyle Dawson, the lead researcher, said in a statement. For five years, we have worked to fill in that gap."

Art is suffering too

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Global sales of the leading auction houses, Christies, Sothebys, and Phillips, nearly halved from the start of this year to 10 July due to the pandemic, according to a report, 2020 In Review, by London-based art market analysis firm ArtTactic. The total auction sales fell to $2.9 billion this year from $5.7 billion in the same period last year. However, since the auction houses were quick to leverage their mobile platforms, online auctions helped generate $412 million in the first half of this year, an almost 500% increase from the $69 million raised during the same period last year. Last year was also tough for the art industry, with total global auction sales falling 19% year-on-year. Christies was the hardest hit in the first half of 2020, with its auction sales falling 60% compared to the same period last year. Phillipss auction sales declined 46.7% year-on-year, while Sothebys posted a more modest decline of 37.6%.

Curated by Shalini Umachandran and Pooja Singh. Have something to share with us? Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com or tweet to @shalinimb

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Mint Lite | India covid tally, protests across globe, big tech CEOs & other news - Livemint

Big tech antitrust probe report from US Congress likely by early fall  |  Photo Credit: BCCL

Washington: A much-anticipated deep dive into antitrust allegations against four of America's largest tech companies and recommendations on how to tame their market power could be released by late summer or early fall from the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, senior committee aides said. The committee has received 1.3 million documents from the companies so far, they said in a call with reporters on Thursday. The panel will question the CEOs of Facebook Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Google parent Alphabet Inc, and Apple Inc as part of its investigation into whether the companies' business practices hurt smaller rivals. The hearing was supposed to be held on July 27 but has been delayed.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that the chief executives will defend themselves by saying their companies face intense competition and by pushing back against claims they are dominant. All four companies will testify voluntarily and no subpoenas have been issued, the committee aides said. In May, Representative David Cicilline, chair of the Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, had demanded Jeff Bezos testify and threatened Amazon with a subpoena, after reports surfaced Amazon employees tapped data from small sellers in the companys marketplace to make decisions about the online retailer launching its own competing products, despite telling lawmakers it did not engage in such practices. Addressing questions about the format of the high-profile hearing, the aides said, there will be a single panel with all four CEOs attending virtually. Members of the subcommittee led by Cicilline, however, will attend either in person or online.

"The number of rounds of questioning is up to the discretion of the chair," said one committee aide. Asked if the hearing would uncover new information, a senior aide said that despite the risk of companies not always answering questions fully it was important to hear from decision-makers. "This is not like a normal oversight hearing, where we hear from the CEO's and move on."

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Big tech antitrust probe report from US Congress likely by early fall - Times Now

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Free enterprise is fundamental to preserving freedom. Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Mark Fowler once said on The Mark Levin Show: I believe as President Reagan did, that the electronic press and youre included in that the press that uses air and electrons, should be and must be as free from government control as the press that uses paper and ink, Period. He was a champion of removing the so-called fairness doctrine, which opened the door to the growth of talk radio.

Imagine if Rush Limbaugh had to give equal time on his show to the radical left? Over the years, liberals have tried to revive the fairness doctrine in hopes it would neuter the influence of talk-radio voices. Conservatives have correctly countered with arguments upholding free speech and free enterprise.

The same standards should apply to new forms of technology even though I do not always agree with some of their points of view. Conservatives must be consistent in the application of our principles.

Plus, taxpayers oppose wasteful government spending. Specifically, they believe that continuing probes of Americas technology sector are a poor use of time as well as tax dollars. Policymakers have been warned repeatedly about the lasting negative impact of antitrust investigations on economic innovation, consumer welfare and the development of technologies that make the government more efficient, more productive and more accountable to the taxpayers. Prospective antitrust investigations are a waste of time and government resources, and almost always end up making government officials look foolish.

Attention is on the federal government, but many of the threats of antitrust investigations are coming from the state level. State attorneys general have been colluding with federal lawmakers to send a signal to many of the most successful companies in the United States that they need to be worried about the heavy hand of regulators reaching into their businesses.

State policymakers should be cautious. Taxpayers across the country dont support these kinds of fishing investigations and generally hold tech innovators in much higher esteem than they do their own elected representatives. The biggest technology companies have positive approval ratings by up to 20 points approval ratings that politicians would dream of having.

New polling out of more than 3,000 voters across the country finds that investigating big tech is one of the lowest priorities that constituents have for their elected officials. The traditional responsibilities of attorneys general fraud, human trafficking, criminal prosecution and others are what voters want their officials to focus on going forward.

The coronavirus crisis is placing a significant strain on state budgets, and with limited resources, officials would be wise to heed public sentiment. Large majorities of voters in every state said that it is either not a priority at all or only a minor priority to investigate big tech. While lawmakers may be looking to score cheap points on antitrust investigations during an election year, these provocations may backfire: big tech is popular, and voters dont want to see these kinds of actions taken.

Murmurs of monopoly and antitrust always seem to crop up right at a tipping point when companies that look like monopolies begin to falter. MySpace was called a monopoly in 2007 and is now merely a blip in the memory of technology companies. Walmart was said to have been a monopoly right when Amazon began its rise. Blockbuster Video in 2005 backed out of a merger with Hollywood Video due to concerns over a Federal Trade Commission antitrust investigation and now only one Blockbuster store remains in the entire country.

Our antitrust policy should apply a light touch, not a heavy hand, and examples abound of companies that looked like monopolies and were targeted for antitrust only to have those cases collapse like a house of cards. Overzealous politicians love to focus on big business, and the most successful businesses in the new century have far and away been technology companies. These companies, however, are much more popular than politicians and the politicians could end up looking foolish.

Overall, the largest group of voters in these most recent polls suggested that a focus on combating human trafficking and price gouging were the most important priorities for their states top prosecutor. The share of voters focused on investigating companies for antitrust violations fell below the margin of error. On the flip side, voters thought the least important priorities for the state attorneys general were suing the drug manufacturers over addiction to painkillers and investigating companies for antitrust violations.

Bottom-line: Free enterprise thrives when the government gets out of the way. Overzealous regulators shouldnt try to use big government to over-regulate individuals, families and employers. Using the heavy hand of the government through antitrust investigations or similar means is a waste of taxpayers money. And the latest poll shows that the voters agree.

Scott Walker was the 45th governor of Wisconsin. You can contact him at [emailprotected] or follow him @ScottWalker.

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Overzealous government officials should stay out of big tech's way - Washington Times

Welcome to Ad Ages Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you're reading this online or in a forwarded email, here's the link to sign up for our Wake-Up Call newsletters.

While Google prepares for the U.S. Department of Justice, which is building an antitrust case against the search giant, Facebook has its own case to worry about, coming out of the Federal Trade Commission, Axios reports. The FTC is pursuing an antitrust probe into Facebook and other investigations, including a review of 10 years of tech firms' acquisitions. If the agency wants to unwind deals or take other strong action, it will need a strong legal theory demonstrating harm to consumers and markets, Axios writes.

Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple have all been in regulatory crosshairs as Washington, D.C. debates what to do about the power of Big Tech. Googles case is reportedly advancing rapidly, and will look at its dominance in areas including digital advertising. Washington is also worried about how Facebook grew so powerful through acquisitions of companies including Instagram, WhatsAppand, most recently,Giphy.

Next week, the public will get a sense of what lawmakers are after when CEOs of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple appear before Congress.

Meanwhile, Facebook has been trying to distance itself from the Trump administration, after CEO Mark Zuckerbergs relationship with the president was thought to be too cozy. Axios spoke with Zuckerberg who shot down claims that Facebook has a secret handshake with Trump. The whole idea of a deal is pretty ridiculous, Zuckerberg said.

At the same time, Popular Information reports that Facebook policies seem unusually sympathetic to conservative causes. The online publication investigated an instance in which Facebook allowed a dubious report about climate science from the conservative Daily Wire to escape its normal fact-checking process.

Also, Politico reports that Democratic lawmakers asked the FBI for help protecting against foreign interference in the 2020 election, after social media was ground zero for outside influence operations in 2016.

Zuckerberg is doing his best to shield himself from all this heat, at least. The Facebook CEO was spotted in Hawaii over the weekend with a thick layer of sunscreen while out riding waves.

Link:

Big Tech feels the heat from Washington and small agency leaders dish: Tuesday Wake-Up Call - AdAge.com

Lily Allen shared an Instagram story in which she said she feels sad seeing the row over Wileys antisemitic rants on social media.

The Metropolitan Police said yesterday (25 July) that they are investigating the posts from Wileys Twitter and Instagram accounts.

He was also dropped by his management and has been temporarily suspended from Twitter over the comments, which included one tweet that compared the Jewish community to the Klu Klux Klan.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

A number of prominent MPs and Wileys fellow musicians have spoken out to condemn his remarks.

In the Instagram video posted on Saturday 25 July, Allen sat in bed as she said she had seen Wileys tweets, and commented: Oh dear.

Im really worried about everyone just going for each other on the internet, she said.

Were all being egged on by big data and big tech. Its just really sad watching communities that should be coming together and helping each other out turn against each other.

Allen received criticism from people on Twitter for appearing to express concern for Wiley, rather than condemning his antisemitic tirades against the Jewish community.

The Independent has contacted Allens representative for comment.

(An earlier version of this story reported that Allen appeared to have deleted her video. The video was removed automatically from Instagram after Allen's story expired.)

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Lily Allen says she feels sad and calls out big tech amid Wiley antisemitism row - The Independent

WASHINGTONFour Big Tech CEOs Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Googles Sundar Pichai and Apples Tim Cook will answer for their companies practices before Congress at a hearing Wednesday by the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.

The panel has conducted a bipartisan investigation over the past year of the tech giants market dominance and their effect on consumers.

Its the first such congressional review of the tech industry. It has aimed to determine whether existing competition policies and century-old antitrust laws are adequate or if new legislation and more funding for enforcement are needed.

The four CEOs are expected to testify remotely.

The hearing originally was set for Monday. It was rescheduled to allow lawmakers who are committee members to participate in commemorations at the U.S. Capitol on Monday and Tuesday for Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon and longtime Georgia congressman who died July 17.

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Zuckerberg, Bezos, other tech CEOs to testify at anti-trust hearing - Toronto Star

Amazon Inc is in talks to buy a 9.9% stake in Reliance Retail

Amazon wants a preferred, strategic stake in Reliance Retail for JioMart

Mukesh Ambani recently highlighted that its retail unit has received a strong interest from strategic and financial investors

Almost a week after Mukesh Ambani announced that Reliance will now push for the growth of Reliance Retail, reports have surfaced that Amazon Inc is in talks to buy a 9.9% stake in Reliance Retail.

Amazon wants a preferred, strategic stake in Reliance Retail for JioMart, the report added. However, the value of this deal remains unknown. The reports bring a deja vu to April when Facebook picked up a 9.9% stake in Reliance Jio and the company went on to raise approx $20.2 Bn between April and July. Is Reliance Retail the next Jio?

Reliance Retail, founded in 2006, is the largest retail chain in India. It serves over 3.5 million customers each week through its nearly 10,000 physical stores in more than 6,500 cities and towns in the country.

Speaking at the 43rd annual general meeting (AGM) 2020, Reliances chairperson and managing director Mukesh Ambani highlighted that its retail unit has received a strong interest from strategic and financial investors. However, Ambani did not emphasise on this topic further.

Reliance Retail had recorded a turnover of INR 1.62 Lakh Cr in the financial year 2020, ending March this year. With this, Reliance has managed to widen its gap with the competitor Kishore Biyanis Future Group that has an annual turnover of INR 30,000 Cr. Both Amazon and Reliance Retail have also been locked in a battle to acquire a majority stake in Future Retail.

According to media reports, Reliance Industries may also acquire 30% stake in Future Groups Future Retails retail unit Future Retail for INR 6K Cr.

Though Ambani did not mention any elaborate platform for fundraising through Reliance Retail, Morgan Stanley, which served as the financial advisor to Reliance Industries for Jio Platforms deals, recently valued Reliance Retail at about $29 Bn.

Ambani had announced that JioMart will function closely with WhatsApp to create new opportunities for the local kirana stores and the consumers. He noted that Reliance Jio has successfully piloted the beta version of JioMart Grocery in 200 cities, delivering close to 2.50 Lakh orders daily. Therefore, it now aims to spread it across to other categories as well.

With this, JioMart will be a direct competitor to ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, who have marked their presence in all segments except pharmaceuticals.

JioMart has now enabled a multipurpose point of service (POS) service to enable smooth transactions between stores and their customers. Isha Ambani noted that the grocery delivery platform will further empower and engage kirana stores by allowing them to stay connected with their customers through multifunctional PoS.

Isha Ambani emphasised that the JioMart was built on two fundamental pillars. First, to create a powerful omnichannel tech-platform to unite customers, kiranas and producers. Second, to have a physical network of Reliance Retail that takes benefits of new commerce to every corner.

Amazon always had ambitions of consolidating with a local partner to smoothen its Indian play, but that failed after Flipkart was acquired by Walmart. Hence, with Reliance Retail, Amazon is bound to smoothen its tough times with the Indian government as well to strengthen its ecommerce foothold in the country.

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Amazon To Invest In Reliance Retail: Is Big Tech Joining Hands To Conquer India? - Inc42 Media

An antitrust hearing held by the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee where Apple chief Tim Cook was set to join other big tech CEOs is likely to be postponed, according to a report on Thursday.

The hearing involving Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was supposed to happen next Monday, but two sources told CNBC that it was now unlikely to take place due to a conflict with the memorial service for the late representative John Lewis.

The hearing is meant to be the culmination of a more than year-long investigation into the four tech giants. After the hearing, lawmakers plan to publish a report based on their findings and propose legislation to bring antitrust laws up to date to deal with issues unique to digital marketplaces.

A recent report by The Information underlined Cook's initial reluctance to take part in the hearing, and how under the pressure of a potential subpoena, Cook ultimately agreed to participate.

Cook is said to have spent the better part of a month preparing for the hearing, which may touch on a wide range of subjects from App Store policies to Apple's disputes with the FBI over providing methods for law enforcement to access locked devices to Apple's relationships with China.

It is currently unknown when the hearing will be rescheduled.

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Antitrust Hearing Involving Apple Chief Tim Cook and Other Big Tech CEOs Reportedly Postponed - MacRumors

Big Tech has become one of the most contentious issues in American politics since social media was born.

Outlets such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook started "shadow banning"conservatives immediately after President Donald Trumps election in 2016. Shadow banningis colloquially defined on the internet as the act of blocking or partially blocking a user or their content from an online community so that it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned, according to Wikipedia.

They began by targeting more people who are frequently characterized as fringe commentators. The so-called deplatforming tactics have now come for anyone whose views differ from those of the CEOs of Silicon Valley Trump andnumerous Republican U.S. senators and representativesamong them. Deplatforming is described on Wikipedia as a form of political activism or prior restraint by an individual, group, or organization with the goal of shutting down controversial speakers or speech, or denying them access to a venue in which to express their opinion."

Sympathetic conservatives were told from pundits on high that to rail against these tactics would be tantamount to slaying the sacred cow of unbridled capitalism.

Those who would dare to call for the enforcement of laws already on the books dealing with deplatformingwere nothing more than statists who wanted toinfringe on the free marketplace of ideas.

But, in recent weeks, this may be changing in a big way.

Project Veritasrecent expos on Facebook may be the push that finally gets the reluctant Republicans in Congress to start attacking censorship from Big Tech in effect, to simply not care that this may endanger BigTech'scontributions to their reelection war chests.

Project Veritas new video is entitledFacebook Content Moderator: 'If Someones Wearing MAGA Hat, I'm Going to Delete Them for Terrorism.

The new video speaks volumes, with fresh information coming from a whistleblower working on the inside of Big Tech. Zach McElroy is the whistleblower who worked at the company Cognizant, which performs content moderation for Facebook,andwent to Project Veritas to go public with the flagrant abuse of power that he saw while serving as a content moderator for the tech giant.

He is currently hosting a GoFundMe campaign to finish the fight with Facebook: https://www.gofundme.com/f/exposefacebook.

McElroy told Newsmax that his feeling of corporate bias started during the training when they disseminated their policies. I knew right away that something was wrong. I felt that I had to do something, but I did not know how I would do it. It was apparent that to stick my neck out legally would be the hardest because I thought nobody would notice.

One of the worst parts of McElroy's ordeal was that he felt so uneasy and unsafe going to major news outlets to get this story out. He specifically mentioned that he could not trust The New York Times and The Washington Post because I had this feeling that they wont take my story seriously and they would rat me out to Facebook.

In the eye of the author, the censorship at Facebook is best characterized as a deliberate attempt to suppress Trump supporters from proselytizing progressives and liberals about Joe Bidens voting record.

As the video shows, the moderators built up a personal sense of "justice"in exacting their vengeance against conservatives.

If anyone looks particularly bad in the video, it is inarguably Facebooks proverbial father, Mark Zuckerberg. He has routinely espoused that Facebook will be able to stop a lot of harm while fighting back against putting additional restrictions on speech. ... Focusing on authenticity and verifying accounts is a much better solution than an ever-expanding definition of what speech is harmful.

Clearly, Zuckerbergs grandiose vision of protectingfree speech does not apply to conservatives who use Facebook in the hopes of voicing their opinions.

While McElroy did not work directly at Facebook headquarters, he described his third-party company atmosphere as having the same systemic issues. You have an employee base that is majority Democratic and left-leaning because these companies are based all in blue cities, blue states, or both.

McElroy has yet to be targeted by Facebook, but he did say he was worried about that happening when [he] decided to go public and still is concerned about that. However, the need for the story to come to light and ensuring it gets out is the most important thing to [him].

As he put it, telling the truth is going to get me through this.

Toward the end of the interview, McElroy told Newsmax how his story would add to the mounting evidence that Big Tech companies are doing everything in their power to stymie speech online.

We have seen how dark the Big Tech censorship is, he said, and I hope that things will be different this time. President Trump has moved on Twitter with Section 230 so maybe he will be proactive with this. Nobody is doing the kind of investigative work that Project Veritas does."

Section 230 refers to that specific section of the Communications Decency Act that states No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

In laymans terms, it is an exemption that these social media platforms use to protect both the content of what is written on their website as well as the company from legal liability. However, if the these tech giants are picking and choosing which content can be on their website, then they are in effect violating this exemption by acting as a "publisher,"as the Communications Decency Act defines it.

Moving forward into the future, it may very well be the case that courts decide that the acts perpetrated by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. are grounds to revoke their coveted legal protection, making their demise all the more likely.

(Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.)

2020 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

View original post here:

Big Tech Unmasked as Anti-conservative by Project Veritas - Newsmax

This week on The Report Doorcast, The Report Doors Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Makena Kelly, and Casey Newton join a Zoom call to discuss the upcoming big congressional antitrust Zoom call featuring CEOs from Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

Though the hearing is likely to be postponed (that news came after this episode was recorded), the discussion is still relevant. Signaling a big move to regulate Silicon Valley, the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee will talk to Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai about their potential monopoly powers in the digital marketplace and social media. The Report Door

Also, in the middle of the show, games editor Andrew Webster and reporter Megan Farokhmanesh stop by to give us a brief breakdown of what was announced at the Xbox Games Showcase from the new Halo game to the growing significance of Microsofts Xbox Game Pass subscription model.

Theres a whole lot more in between all of that like some of the weeks latest gadget rumors so listen through here or in your preferred podcast player to hear it all.

Stories from this week:

Excerpt from:

Report Doorcast: Big Tech antitrust hearing preview and the Xbox Games Showcase breakdown - Report Door

The big four tech CEOs testifying at Monday's antitrust hearing will each offer up a key point to defend their firms and deflect lawmakers' wrath.

Why it matters: No corporate leader wants to see their industry heavily regulated or their company broken up. Monday's hearing gives Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai a big platform to try to prevent that from happening.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Congress should pass better laws. Let's work together and do that!

Google CEO Sundar Pichai: We won search by doing it well why punish us for that?

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: We're big because we've always given users what they want fast delivery, wide selection and good prices.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: Our App Store creates opportunity for countless developers and Google's Android controls more of the smartphone market, anyway.

One wild card: China. All four companies have loudly or quietly warned that the U.S. shouldn't over-regulate its big tech firms because the nation needs them to be big and strong to counter threats from China.

Between the lines: Many of the loudest and most potent lines of attack on tech like the idea, promoted by President Trump and other Republicans, that it's stifling conservatives can be countered with facts, but they're too politically useful to simply be dropped.

The bottom line: The CEOs will get a chance Monday to rebut criticisms, argue that they're a net good for the nation, and tell lawmakers directly that antitrust enforcement is the wrong remedy for their ills.

Read more:

The one big thing each tech CEO will tell Congress - Axios

CNBC's Jim Cramer said Wednesday that the stock market's rally from coronavirus crisis lows shouldn't be compared with the speculation in tech stocks that precededthe bursting of the dot-com bubble.

Unlike the 1990s speculation in unproven internet firms, tech companies with demonstrated track records of success like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet are helping power today's market higher, the "Mad Money" host said.

"If you look at the top 20 companies in the Nasdaqin 1999, not one of them looked like today's winners," Cramer said, calling them "some of the most profitable companies in history."

However, Cramer stressed that there are potential developments that could stand in the way and prevent many of these large-cap tech stocks, which also includes the likes of Netflix and Facebook, from continuing to dominate the market.

The first of those risks focuses on the U.S. attempts to combat its Covid-19 outbreak, Cramer said. If the country is able to improve its response through more testing, face mask wearing and government stimulus until there's a vaccine for the novel virus, Cramer said he sees investors starting to embrace economically sensitive sectors in the S&P 500 that have lagged in 2020.

"We'll be going out, traveling, and that means the money from the Cramer Covid-19 winners will rotate into the Covid losers. It's just what happens," Cramer said. "I see this as inevitable because sooner or later we'll get a vaccine, but inevitable doesn't necessarily mean now or even in the next three months or even in the next six months."

Cramer said government regulation is another threat to the leadership from some of these tech names. He noted the upcoming congressional testimony from the CEOs of Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook.

"If there's an antitrust crackdown on Big Tech, you'll see some real declines here because then we'll have a lot less visibility into their future earnings streams," he said.

The continued escalation of tensions between the Trump administration and China presents an additional layer of risk, Cramer said. The U.S. has in recent days claimed Chinese hackers were targeting coronavirus vaccine researchand then ordered the country to shut down its consulate in Houston. Beijing has threatened retaliation.

"If the White House goes into a full bore cold war with China, and it does look like we might, many of these companies will lose a major chunk of their sales, especially Apple," Cramer said.

Even though some tech firms lack much exposure to the Chinese market, the nature of exchange-traded funds means "they all are joined," he said.

Investors also need to be mindful of inflation after trillions of dollars of stimulus was injected into the economy in response to the coronavirus, Cramer said.

"Nobody wants to pay up for growth stocks when inflation is raging. The nonindex owners will dump them because inflation destroys the value of those big earnings in the outyears," he said.

Cramer said the final risk to the current tech rally comes down to the upcoming presidential election. Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is proposing to tax capital gains like ordinary income, Cramer said, which he said has a real possibility of being enacted if the Republicans lose control of the Senate.

"Whether or not you think this is good policy, it would be extremely bad for stock prices and I'd expect a lot of people want to sell now to get out ahead of it," he said.

All of these potential challenges for tech companies are dramatically different than what caused the dot-com bubble to burst in early 2000, Cramer said.

"I don't see this market collapsing on valuation or fraud or insider selling or inflation, which is currently nonexistent," Cramer said, but risks presented by government regulation and geopolitical tensions are real.

"And, most importantly, if we get the pandemic under control and the economy comes roaring back Big Tech will go out of style as people rush for the recovery stocks," he said.

Read the rest here:

Cramer says this tech stock rally is not like 1999 but here is what could stop it - CNBC

The Capitals brings you the latest news from across Europe, through on-the-ground reporting by EURACTIVs media network. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

Before you start reading todays edition of the Capitals, feel free to have a look at the article German industry pleased with the results of the EU summit written by Phillip Grll.

To ensure EURACTIV continues to deliver top-quality content in the future, we are asking you to consider making a one-time or recurring donation and thank all of you who already have. If you are interested in investing in EURACTIVs future, all you need to do is followthis link.

In todays news from the Capitals:

PARIS | LJUBLJANA

Digital tax momentum. French President Emmanuel Macron told French TV that he envisages an EU-wide digital tax on big tech multinationals, along the lines of a digital tax, which France has said it plans to impose this year.

Macrons comments on Tuesday (21 July) come after he backed down earlier this year on levying hefty taxes on some of Silicon Valleys biggest names in January, following US President Donald Trumps tariff threats.

Slovenian PM Janez Jana also said he sees a digital tax as the EUs best resource. Subsidies will have to be repaid. One of the major shifts is contained in these few words, which speak of the EUs own resources, because in seven years time, when we negotiate the next budget, this will be a key thing, Jana said on Tuesday (21 July).

He highlighted digital taxation as probably the EUs biggest potential own resource in the future and said that taxation of emissions and plastics is a problem for those countries that have already included these resources in their national tax policy. Read more here.

(Anne Damiani/Zoran Radosavljevic, EURACTIV.com)

A message from Facebook:

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BERLIN

Halle attacker on trial. Nine months after what was termed the worst anti-Semitic attack in post-war German history, the trial of the alleged attacker, known in the German press as Stephan B., began on Tuesday (21 July). The suspect stands accused of killing two in a kebab shop in the eastern city of Halle after he had failed to get inside a synagogue, as well as 68 counts of attempted murder.

The trial is now taking place in the largest courtroom in the state to accommodate the large number of plaintiffs and media representatives. EURACTIV Germanys Sarah Lawton has more.

>> Read also: German industry pleased with the results of the EU summit

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VIENNA

Masks are back in Austria. Wearing face masks will become mandatory again as of Friday (24 July) in grocery stores, post offices and banks. Previously, masks had been mandatory in all shops up until mid-June. Several new COVID-19 clusters have started to appear, mostly in slaughterhouses and churches, pushing the number of daily infections above 100. EURACTIV Germanys Philipp Grll has more.

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BRUSSELS

Options for extinguishing local COVID-19 flare-ups. After health authorities reported a daily rise in COVID-19 infections by 89% to an average of 184, Belgiums Consultation Committee has discussed the tightening of measures and weighing scenarios for a potential second wave, including reduced social contacts, local lockdowns and increased contact tracing. EURACTIVs Alexandra Brzozowski has more details.

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LUXEMBOURG

COVID-19 found in wastewater. The virus is found in almost all wastewater and a sharp increase of its concentration is observed in the south of the country, according to a recent report published by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST).

These observations corroborate the evolution of the number of cases confirmed by clinical tests carried out on a large scale in the Grand Duchy and confirm that the water monitoring method is an effective early warning system for the resurgence of the virus in the population, the report concluded. (Anne Damiani | EURACTIV.com)

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HELSINKI

Finland content with EU deal. In line with Finlands negotiation targets, a third of all funding will be used for measures against climate change and there will be some 25% more funding for research. It was sensible to build up a whole that is sustainable and acceptable to all, but also defend national interests, said Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin at Tuesdays (21 July) press conference in Brussels.

Sanna was particularly satisfied with the extra funding of 400 million for Finlands agriculture sector and with the 100 million for the countrys northern and eastern sparsely populated areas. (Pekka Vnttinen | EURACTIV.com)

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LONDON

Britain nears abandoning Brexit trade deal hope. Britain and the EU will fail to sign a post-Brexit trade deal, with only a few days left before Prime Minister Boris Johnsons July deadline, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday (21 July).

The UK governments assumption is that there will not be a deal, though it remains possible that a basic agreement could be reached if the EU gives ground in the autumn, the newspaper said, citing government sources. London expects it will trade with Europe on World Trade Organisation terms when the transition period ends, the report added.

(EURACTIV.com)

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DUBLIN

Ireland set to ease travel restrictions with 15 European countries. The Irish government on Tuesday (21 July) said it had decided to drop the restriction for people coming from countries with a similar or lower rate of infection and was planning to drop a 14-day quarantine requirement for travellers arriving from a green list of 15 European countries.

Arrivals into Ireland from Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco, and San Marino will not have to restrict their movements. Passengers from other countries, including the US and neighbouring Britain, are asked to restrict their movements for 14 days.

(EURACTIV.com)

EUROPES SOUTH

ROME

Majority hails victory in Brussels. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was satisfied to come out with a deal which leaves the total numbers of the recovery fund unchanged and grants almost 209 billion to Italy, which is even more than anticipated.

We are satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations, Conte said, adding that now we will create a task force for the implementation of the reforms. EURACTIV Italys Alessandro Follis looks into Italian reactions.

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MADRID

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LISBON

Portugal to receive 45 billion. Portugal will collect 15.3 billion in grants from the EU recovery fund, as well as 29.8 billion in subsidies from the EUs long-term budget. The country has earmarked 300 million for the Algarve region (south) due to the drop in tourism.

Portugal is fighting to continue to contain the pandemic, to keep companies, jobs and family incomes alive said Portuguese Prime Minister Antnio Costa, adding that there is also a need to give extra energy to the country.

The Portuguese government presented on Tuesday the Strategic Vision for the 2020/2030 Recovery Plan, which serves as basis for the plan to be presented to the European Commission in October.

(Ana Matos Neves and Denise Fernandes, Lusa.pt)

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ATHENS

Ankara should halt provocations in eastern Mediterranean, German FM says. Regarding Turkeys drilling in the eastern Mediterranean, we have a very clear position international law must be respected, so progress in EU-Turkey relations is only possible if Ankara stops provocations in the eastern Mediterranean, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said during a visit to Athens. Read more here.

VISEGRAD

WARSAW

Prime minister safe in government reshuffle. The success of the negotiations has shown that our isolation in the EU is a myth; it is also a myth that we are not able to build coalitions, PiS party chief and Polands de facto leader, Jarosaw Kaczyski, told the Polish Press Agency. Read more here.

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PRAGUE

Automotive as a priority. The Czech automotive industry was severely hit by the pandemic so the government wants to support the industry with money from the recovery fund. Other investment priorities are health care and digitalisation.

We need to solve our automotive industry facing big problems. We need to restructure the health care system and invest a lot in it. We need to tackle digitisation. We need to primarily support the construction sector. We must invest to get out of the crisis, Czech PM Andrej Babi said on Tuesday (21 July).

(Aneta Zachov, EURACTIV.cz)

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BRATISLAVA

Historic deal, plagiarism and a plum cake. After Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovi came back pleased from the summit, a scandal regarding his plagiarised masters thesis was waiting for him.

After landing in Bratislava, Matovi told reporters that the media had jeopardised hundreds of millions of euros, by publishing the story while on his way to the summit on Thursday (16 July), as leaders could have not have wanted to negotiate with some plagiarist, he claimed, although he has fessed up to the accusations. EURACTIV Slovakia takes a closer look.

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BUDAPEST

Orbn proclaims himself victor. All attempts aimed at linking EU funds to the rule of law criteria have been repelled, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn told a joint press conference together with his Polish counterpart on Tuesday (21 July) morning.

We didnt just manage to get a good package of money but we defended the pride of our nation and made clear that it is not acceptable that anybody, especially those who inherited the rule of law, criticise us, the freedom fighters, Orbn added.

(Vlagyiszlav Makszimov | EURACTIV.com)

NEWS FROM THE BALKANS

ZAGREB

22 billion for Croatia. The newest EU member state has surpassed its goals at the summit by securing a total of 22 billion through recovery fund (9.4 billion) and the long-term budget 12.7 billion).

As Croatia is the only EU country to have used only one financial package in its EU membership, 400 million has also been allocated for cohesion and regional development. EURACTIV Croatias Tea Trubi Macan has more.

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SOFIA

Government survives no-confidence vote. A no-confidence vote calling for the removal of Boyko Borrissovs third cabinet on corruption grounds proposed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party was rejected by the countrys parliament. The votes from the socialist party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) turned out to be insufficient.

Although Borissov himself was not present during the parliamentary debate given that he had attended the European Council summit in Brussels, no MRF members spoke during the parliamentary vote discussions. The opposition suspects the MRF could be a hidden partner in the power of the prime minister. (Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)

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BUCHAREST

Potential regional lockdowns. As the number of new COVID-19 cases in Romania reached almost 1,000 as of Tuesday (21 July), Prime Minister Ludovic Orban warned that the authorities could start forcing local communities into quarantine if these show significant spikes in cases.

While no Romanian town has yet recorded such surges, the countrys health authorities nevertheless confirmed that of the 39,000 cases recored since the start of the pandemic, 994 people had tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours on Tuesday (21 July), the highest daily number of new cases. When it comes to COVID-19 related deaths, Romania reported 36 new deaths of the total 2,074 on Tuesday. This is the countrys second highest daily death toll, and the largest since mid-April at the height of the pandemic.

(Bogdan Neagu | EURACTIV.ro)

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BELGRADE

Arms export creates diplomatic tensions. Commenting on the latest trade affair involving the export of Serbian arms to Armenia, Serbian Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic confirmed on Tuesday (21 July) that it had been green-lit by three ministries and Serbias Security and Information Agency (BIA) and carried out by a private company, the name of which could not be made public. The value of the shipment was under 1 million.

Azerbaijans foreign ministry expressed deep disappointment that Serbia had transferred a large quantity of grenade launchers and other various caliber arms to Armenia, which had later been used to attack Azerbaijani police officers on the border between the two countries. Azerbaijans Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov told Serbias Ambassador to Baku, Danica Veinovic, that this case casts doubt on the friendly ties and cooperation at the highest level between the two countries.

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In other news, some 350 doctors are calling for the dismissal of the National COVID-19 response team in an open letter sent to the Serbian government and other relevant institutions under the informal group known as United against COVID. In the letter, the group stresses that Serbia has been faced with a public health disaster. EURACTIV Serbia has the details.

///

Meanwhile, the Quint ambassadors and the head of the EU Delegation to Serbia told Serbian President Aleksandar Vui in a meeting that the rule of law and particularly the right to assemble and media freedom are crucial for Serbias EU path, according to the presidency. Read more here.

***

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski, Daniel Eck, Sam Morgan]

See the original post here:

EU-wide digital tax on big tech touted as best resource - EURACTIV

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a letter to Chairman Jerrold Nadler (R-N.Y.) of the House Judiciary Committee asking him to consider formally extending an invitation to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify in an upcoming subcommittee hearing.

According to the letter, Republicans previously received no response from Dorsey after they sent a request for more information about Twitters content moderation policies earlier in the month. Now, Jordan says its Chairman Nadlers turn to reach out.

I write to notify you that we are calling Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, to testify at this hearing and we expect that you will transmit an invitation to him promptly, Jordan wrote.

The invite comes as the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law gears up to hear testimonies from executives in Googles parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook about their actions moderating content early next week.

As the Committee considers large technology companies and the competitive landscape, a thorough examination cannot exclude Twitter, a market leader in social media. The upcoming hearing represents a significant and unique opportunity to explore these issues with respect to Twitter as part of the Committees investigation, the letter read. We believe there is bipartisan interest to hear from Twitter about its power in the marketplace, its role in moderating content on its platform, and the causes for its recent highly publicized security breaches.

Jordan also noted that, despite Nadlers lack of cooperation on expanding the hearing to the full judiciary committee, Republicans hope that you will be more receptive to our input on the hearings content.

To date, you have declined to grant Republican requests to expand the hearing to the full Committee. But even as you reject Republican views in what you have described as a bipartisan investigation, we believe that the Committees discussion would benefit from the perspective of Twitter, a market leader that would otherwise be noticeably absent from Mondays hearing, wrote Jordan.

Jordan Davidson is an intern for The Federalist and a recent graduate of Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

Go here to read the rest:

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Invited To Testify In Congressional Big Tech Hearing - The Federalist

In Tuesday's pre-market Amazon, Tesla, Netflix and Apple are all pointing to another strong day in the market for big-tech stocks.

Big techs billionaire boys burgeoning wealth grew substantially as stocks soared on Monday, adding close to US$300bn.

As Amazon stock rose by around US$235 or 7.93%, to reach US$3,196, founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos counted another US$13bn into his personal wealth it was the record largest increase in a single day for techs richest man.

In 2020 to date, as coronavirus locked-down bricks and mortar stores, the Amazon boss and majority shareholders wealth has ballooned by some US$74bn.

Elon Musk meanwhile also built some bank as () shares shot up US$142 or 9.47% to US$1,643, swelling the electric car makers valuation by US$26bn.

Rising US$8.72 or 4.3% to close Monday at US$211.60, Microsoft gained US$66.8bn in value (to US$1.6 trillion).

Apple Inc () gained US$8.12 or 2.11% to finish Monday at 393.43, marking its valuation at US$1.7 trillion.

Google owner Alphabet added US$47 or 3.1% to US$1,563, valuing the stock at US$1.07 trillion.

Mark Zuckerbergs Facebook advanced 1.4% higher to US$245.42, putting the social networks value just shy of US$700bn.

Inc () closed up 1.9% to US$502.41, taking the streaming business to US$220.1bn.

Read more from the original source:

Amazon-led rally boosts Jeff Bezos and Big tech"s billionaire boys - Proactive Investors USA & Canada

Though it has been lost in the mists of other scandals, back in 2014, Facebook was in the middle of what was then the biggest public relations debacle in company history. That June, a Facebook data scientist and two academics released a paper demonstrating that users could be emotionally manipulated based on the information Facebooks engineers fed into their accounts.

The conclusions of the study were alarming. But even more shocking was the means by which researchers had reached them. Facebook had used 700,000 of its users as social science guinea pigs without their consent. Not only could Facebook manipulate its users; ithad manipulated them, without any regard to the ethical implications.

A firestorm of bad press and user fury ensued. Then, in December 2015, The Guardian reported that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had harvested psychological data from millions of Facebook users for his presidential campaign, relying on a small firm known as Cambridge Analytica.

These were the days before Facebook had been weaponized to incite genocide in Myanmar or livestream mass shootings in New Zealand or proliferate the far-right propaganda that helped elect Donald Trump. But there were plenty of indications that something was amiss with the worlds most popular social network which was already under a November 2011 consent order from the Federal Trade Commission requiring the company to take better care of user data and privacy.

At that time, Kamala Harris was the top state law enforcement official overseeing Facebook and every other major tech company in Silicon Valley. As attorney general of California, she possessed sweeping powers to restrain the growing power of those tech platforms.

Theres a lot that attorneys general across the country could have done to rein in Big Tech, said Sally Hubbard, director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly think tank. Most notably, challenging the Instagram and WhatsApp mergers.

Those acquisitions took place in 2012 and 2014, during Harris tenure as AG. And yet Harris, like federal regulators in the Obama administration, never confronted these metastasizing threats to American democracy from an antitrust perspective, nor brought legal action against them on consumer protection grounds. Even well into her 2020 presidential campaign, she pursued a soft touch with Big Tech, issuing vague promises to secure consumer privacy protections as her rivals for the Democratic nomination particularly Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) vowed to break up Facebook and implement ambitious new regulatory regimes.

More than 1,400 pages of emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request help explain this inaction, showing that Harris generally viewed Big Tech as a partner rather than a threat. At times, she even teamed up with tech companies to market herself as a rising star in American politics a depiction that proved correct with her election to the Senate in 2016.

Travis LeBlanc, a special assistant AG during Harris tenure in California, challenged the idea that she was soft on tech platforms and noted the specific example of the sex advertising forum Backpage.

She prosecuted Backpage at a time when Congress wasnt doing anything. She broke up sex trafficking rings, said LeBlanc. The idea that she didnt do enough or was working too close with tech platforms instead is an absurd premise. She was arguably the national leader on the issue.

Today, Harris is a leading contender for the Democratic Partys vice presidential nomination. One of the most pressing questions for the next administration will be how it chooses to grapple with the corporate behemoths that have come to dominate American culture. This look inside Harris record with Big Tech suggests a politician who identifies with the tech elite and is wary of substantive reform.

Leaning In, Leaning Out

In February 2013, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote to Harris asking for a glossy photograph of the AG and a personal anecdote demonstrating how Harris had leaned in. Sandberg was looking for stories of powerful women proving their mettle in the male-dominated upper echelons of American power, from boardrooms to statehouses. As the top law enforcement official in the biggest state in the country, Harris was a natural target.

Sandberg was asking Harris to participate in a massive PR rollout for her soon-to-be-released book Lean In. The Lean In marketing campaign was intimately connected to Facebook itself. Ordinary women who wanted to follow the Lean In movement had to sign up through a Facebook account and like Lean In to receive further career advice.

Harris passed along a headshot and her own Lean In story a tale of how she got her start in electoral politics running for district attorney of San Francisco in 2003 as a long-shot upstart who defeated several well-connected male challengers.

Harris was far from the only public figure to join in the marketing splash. When Lean Incame out in March 2013, Sandbergs memoir was celebrated as a womens rights triumph a road map to everything women could aspire to be in the corporate hierarchy. Sandberg is not just tough, wrote Anne-Marie Slaughter in a glowing New York Times review. She also comes across as compassionate, funny, honest and likable everything an ambitious young woman could hope to be. Slaughter was a former State Department official about to be named head of the New America Foundation, a liberal think tank.

So nobody made a fuss about a state law enforcement official joining a PR push for a top official at a company she ostensibly policed. The idea that either Sandberg or her company represented any kind of public policy problem was beyond the scope of what most politicians considered political.

But there were rumblings that the platforms Google, Facebook, Twitter were losing control of what they had created. In 2013, public fury began to mount over revenge porn, a practice in which men posted nude or compromising photos or videos of ex-girlfriends hoping to humiliate them. Revenge porn specialists were typically isolated grifters, but the tech giants gave them public reach. A website in a lonely corner of the internet wouldnt get much traffic if Google, Facebook and Twitter never directed anybody to it, or refused to host such images on their platforms.

As AG, Harris made revenge porn a signature issue, eventually broadening the scope of her crackdown to include all cyber exploitation efforts to profit from abuse, particularly of women, online.

But she didnt go after the tech companies themselves. In 2013, she brought a case against Kevin Bollaert, the 27-year-old founder of UGotPosted.com, a site that invited misogynists to post photos of their exes. Bollaert was also the founder of ChangeMyReputation.com, a site that charged people a fee to take down those damaging photos. It was a clever scam: letting bad actors post material without consent on one site and then forcing victims to pay him to take it down through another site.

Harris threw the book at Bollaert, who was eventually sentenced to 18 years in prison. For womens rights activists, it was a victory free speech claims online didnt include efforts to humiliate people sexually without their consent.

She took on cyber exploitation, said Danielle Citron, a law professor at Boston University who received a MacArthur Foundation Genius grant in 2019 and took part in the meetings. No other AG in the country did that. Citron is a vice president at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, which has received funding from Facebook and Twitter.

Harriss arguments in the case explicitly shielded Silicon Valley from any potential implications of a guilty verdict. Bollaert was responsible for what happened on his site because he was a publisher, not a neutral platform.

But as it became increasingly impossible to ignore the role Big Tech was playing in the revenge porn problem, Harris sent company representatives a note on Jan. 9, 2015, inviting them to her San Francisco office for a Feb. 4 meeting. The emails dont indicate much about what occurred during that discussion, but six days later, Harris appeared onstage with Sandberg at Facebooks Menlo Park headquarters, smiling and waving to the crowd before giving a talk about cyberbullying.

Justin Sullivan via Getty ImagesKamala Harris on stage at Facebook HQ with Sheryl Sandberg on Feb. 10, 2015.

The emails show that Harris convened private meetings for her cyber exploitation program throughout most of the year, finally launching the initiative as a public campaign in October of 2015. Tech companies committed to changing the way they monitored abusive content on their platforms. Harris praised their efforts in a June 2015 Marie Claire profile, which her office repeatedly emailed out to representatives from the firms over the months ahead of the October launch.

I asked some online companies to come in for a meeting about how we could create a safer environment online, Harris told Marie Claire. They were wonderful. Many companies really want to lead on this issue.

According to a February 2019 Politico profile, Harris relied on an advocacy tactic known as interest convergence theory, which maintains that activists have better success with reform projects when they align their goals with the interests of powerful institutions. Showing Facebook and Google that revenge porn was hurting their bottom line would help bring them along.

The problem with this reasoning is that in many cases, Big Tech directly profits from socially destructive policies.

Revenge porn, election integrity, the destruction of journalism you cant fix any of these problems at Facebook without changing the way Facebook makes its money, notes Open Markets Hubbard.

On the day of the launch, Harris office described it as a nine month collaboration between Attorney General Kamala Harriss office, major tech companies, law enforcement and victims advocates.

For Harris, tech companies were part of the solution, not the problem. I cannot emphasize enough how leaders in technology have stepped up, she said during a press conference.

It was hard to miss the different approaches Harris had taken with powerful political actors and small-time crooks. Bollaert got 18 years, while Google and Facebook got a private meeting and public praise.

A Soft Touch And Big Checks

Harris initiative was not totally fruitless. Within a month of our task force launching, Google took action to de-index the names of people from their platform, notes Citron meaning the search engine would not direct queries for individual names to revenge porn sites.

Butmany victims advocates maintain that Google is still a serious problem. Whatever its formal guidelines, the search engine lets a lot of harmful material slide.

Facebook is even worse. In 2017, a nonprofit military journalism outlet reported that veteran and active-duty Marines had been using Facebook to share nude photos of ex-girlfriends and strangers without their consent including dozens of active-duty female servicemembers. Four years after its meeting with Harris in San Francisco, Facebook was still a breeding ground for revenge porn.

By 2017, Harris was no longer in state government. She was elected to the Senate in 2016, backed by roughly $214,000 in campaign contributions from Big Tech, including the maximum individual donation allowed under California law from Sandberg herself.

Two days after the election, Sandberg wrote to congratulate Harris.

Kamala,

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!! We need you now more than ever.

I just did a Facebook post about you and all the women.

Cheering you on!

Sheryl

The emails do not include a response from Harris. But as a top contender for Joe Bidens VP slot, Harris record with Big Tech is more than a historical curiosity.

For most of her tenure as California AG, Harris was aware that something was going wrong at the most powerful and profitable institutions in her state. But she chose not to pursue them, training her sights instead on bad actors who didnt carry political influence.

Meanwhile, the tech giants matured into a grave threat to American democracy. Today, Facebook is not merely a hotbed for cruel sexual vendettas, but a vector for Russian propaganda, white nationalist organizing and even terrorism.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has developed a close relationship with Trump and is bending the platform to fit far-right proclivities. Sandberg has made a point of attending photo ops with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

As a senator, Harris has been mostly quiet on policy-making issues that carry implications for Facebook and Google. She sat out the debate on a 2018 sex trafficking bill once her signature issue only entering her name as a co-sponsor after it was clear the bill would pass by a wide margin.

Last year, as other contenders for the 2020 presidential nomination called to break up Facebook and Google, Harris again suggested a lighter approach.

I believe that the tech companies have got to be regulated in a way that we can ensure and the American consumer can be certain that their privacy is not being compromised, Harris told The New York Times in January 2019.

When pressed on whether that included break-ups, Harris dodged. My first priority is going to be that we ensure that privacy is something that is intact.

For most tech experts, that approach is simply unrealistic.

All of the problems with Facebook all come down to two things, notes Hubbard. Its business model and the fact that its a monopoly power. You cant fix that with better privacy standards alone.

This story has been updated with a response from Travis LeBlanc, special assistant attorney general during Harris tenure.

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New Emails Reveal Warm Relationship Between Kamala Harris And Big Tech - HuffPost