Monthly Archives: March 2021

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Congress is taking a hard look at Big Tech through the lens of antitrust lawand Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is leading the fight.

Sen. Klobuchar, long an advocate of strengthening antitrust law to keep markets competitive, is the new chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committees antitrust subcommittee. In early February, she rolled out a major antitrust reform proposal, and on March 11 she gaveled in the first of many Senate hearings on her bill.

We have gotten more interest in antitrust, and we are making antitrust cool again, Klobuchar told Axios before her first hearing as chairwoman.

Antitrust law can be a pretty technical subject, but it plays an essential role in keeping markets functioning smoothly and supporting competition, with the goal of protecting consumers. Heres what you need to know about Sen. Klobuchars antitrust bill.

Antitrust law is the cornerstone of free markets.

In the U.S., three lawsthe Sherman Antitrust Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Antitrust Actwork in concert to prevent any one company from becoming powerful enough to block competition in its sector, industry or market. When markets stay competitive, businesses innovate to keep prices low and quality high, which benefits consumers.

Lawmakers like Sen. Klobuchar argue that over recent decades, court rulings and inaction by regulators have eroded the ability of antitrust law to protect the market and consumers from monopolies. Theres growing bipartisan agreement that more needs to be done to reign in Big Tech companiesspecifically Facebook, Google and Amazonwhich many argue have become too powerful.

In December 2020, Facebook was sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 46 states for snapping up competitors Instagram and WhatsApp in mergers over the last decade. The FTC is aiming to unravel the acquisitions with its lawsuit. Facebook also has a long history of purchasing dozens of smaller companies that promise to become competitors if left free to grow.

Why should any dominant corporation be able to merge with any other entity? Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said during the Thursday hearing. Why should Google, for instance, or Facebook be able to buy anything else given their dominant size?

Outside of acquisitions, Google is also facing scrutiny for other anticompetitive actions, including its $12 billion yearly deal to be the default search engine on Apple products, Safari and iPhone.

In addition, lawmakers have discussed how these platforms dominate online advertising revenue and the consequences on other industries. A big focus is also on mobile platforms banning certain apps from their stores, like Parler, or services like Twitter blocking people from using their service, as in the notorious case of former President Donald Trump.

Sen. Klobuchar introduced her bill just after Facebook and Google were hit with antitrust lawsuits. Titled The Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act, her proposal aims to revamp antitrust laws and fund stronger enforcement.

Here are five key ways the bill would revamp antitrust laws:

Bill Baer, visiting fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit public policy think tank, writes in a recent blog post that the bill is a step in the right direction. But he warns the road to antitrust law reform will be a long and arduous one, with many obstacles along the way.

Baer notes that Klobuchars bill, if signed into law, wouldnt be retroactivemeaning some current companies currently under fire could be off the hook. Under current antitrust law, he writes, its unclear if Facebooks mergers violate current antitrust law.

Theres also the necessity of bipartisan agreement for any new legislation to passand though both sides of the political aisle seem to be on board right now, theres no guarantee theyll agree on the nuts and bolts of an antitrust reform law in the near future. Regardless, Baer sees the bill as starting discussiona crucial component to help regulators finally crack down on Big Tech.

But what we have is an atmosphere that makes constructive dialogue possible, Baer writes. And that dialogue is long overdue.

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Big Tech In Crosshairs As Congress Takes Up Antitrust Reform - Forbes

If you're among the billions of people globally who rely on Big Tech for information and social interaction, then you know that Facebook, Twitter, Google, et al. often include inconspicuous, verbose, and Byzantine provisions in their terms-of-service agreements. Some of the more extensive stipulations include: customer indemnification of the website for costs arising out of third-party lawsuits; customer waiver of litigation and acceptance of binding arbitration; website access to the customer's browsing history and personal data; the website's right to alter the terms without advance warning; and restrictions on cancellation by the customer.

Those agreements are called contracts of adhesion: boilerplate fashioned to favor one party, with no opportunity for the other party to negotiate a better bargain essentially, a take-it-or-leave-it deal. They're not illegal, but when the terms are too oppressive, courts will sometimes bar enforcement under a doctrine called "unconscionability."

In determining if a contract is unconscionable, a judge will usually consider the knowledge and relative bargaining power of the two parties whether the buyer has a choice, and whether the seller has deliberately misrepresented one or more terms.

The criterion of fairness is not whether there's haggling over every transaction, but whether the seller incorporated reasonable terms in his standard-form contract. Would the buyer have assented if they realized that a particular term was, or was not, part of the agreement? The buyer's awareness, in turn, can hinge on such factors as the size of the print, the length of the agreement, and the complexity of the terminology.

Consumers wrongly perceive that abusive terms will not be enforced by the courts. As a result, the typical user glosses over or disregards caveats that demand more than fleeting attention.

Yet legal doctrines such as "unconscionability" vary by jurisdiction and can change as technology evolves. Moreover, one-sided conditions are now more prevalent and widely publicized, and consequently, users are presumed to be better informed and less able to claim incomprehension or surprise.

There's a powerful economic justification for standard-form contracting: It reduces transaction costs, thus promoting economic efficiency by precluding the need for buyers and sellers to negotiate the many details of a sale each time a product is sold. So, how should law and public policy harmonize these two competing concerns maximizing aggregate welfare of buyers and sellers versus balancing the distribution of benefits between the two groups?

Customarily, we let the market decide such questions. Facebook's audience doesn't have a right to use its website except on Facebook's terms. The choice to consent, or not, is up to the user.

The counterargument, however, is that true consent isn't realistic when the terms of the bargain are too costly to unravel. Yes, customers retain the option to go elsewhere and to seek alternative channels of communication, and if Facebook were to lose enough customers in that manner, the company would likely respond by modifying its terms. When the company persists in offering take-it-or-leave-it deals, perhaps we should conclude that users are content with the bargain. After all, Facebook may enjoy a certain amount of market power, but unlike the government, it cannot force compliance.

Still, even hardcore free-marketers concede that tactics such as tiny print, thousands of words, and impenetrable legalese can more than offset the advantages of standard forms. The result: prohibitive transaction costs a market imperfection that, although short of outright fraud, can nevertheless negate the element of consent. Accordingly, government may have a legitimate role to play.

If the government acts, the worst outcome from a free-market perspective would allow federal or state authorities to dictate selected terms of service for example, no indemnity, no waivers, and no website use of personal data. More sensible, and more consistent with our time-honored belief in private ordering and freedom to contract, would be for the government to focus on reducing transaction costs, thus ensuring that users can knowledgeably accept or reject the bargain.

Such measures might be as simple as specifying a minimum type font, maximum word length, or an objective grade-level rating. Other requirements might include advance publication of material changes, and an opportunity for users to comment prior to implementation. Government might even propose one or more templates, which the website could alter, subject to appropriate notice and clarity.

Government intervention of that type may offend market purists. But simple, specific regulations directed at facilitating the bargaining process are far less intrusive than government intervention mandating inflexible, one-size-fits-all terms of service.

Ideally, Big Tech might react by offering variable terms with tradeoffs perhaps fewer ads in return for access to browser history as a market segmentation strategy. The ingenuity of the private sector is boundless when transaction costs are low and the government does no more than lubricate the wheels of commerce.

Bob Levy is chairman of the Cato Institute.

Originally posted here:

Big Tech's head-scratching terms of service agreements need simple, specific government regulation - Business Insider

Arisha Hatch is Vice President and Chief of Campaigns at Color Of Change.

Its been two months since Donald Trump was kicked off of social media following the violent insurrection on Capitol Hill in January. While the constant barrage of hate-fueled commentary and disinformation from the former president has come to a halt, we must stay vigilant.

Now is the time to think about how to prevent Trump, his allies and other bad actors from fomenting extremism in the future. Its time to figure out how we as a society address the misinformation, conspiracy theories and lies that threaten our democracy by destroying our information infrastructure.

As vice president at Color Of Change, my team and I have had countless meetings with leaders of multi-billion-dollar tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google, where we had to consistently flag hateful, racist content and disinformation on their platforms. Weve also raised demands supported by millions of our members to adequately address these systemic issues calls that are too often met with a lack of urgency and sense of responsibility to keep users and Black communities safe.

The violent insurrection by white nationalists and far-right extremists in our nations capital was absolutely fueled and enabled by tech companies who had years to address hate speech and disinformation that proliferated on their social media platforms. Many social media companies relinquished their platforms to far-right extremists, white supremacists and domestic terrorists long ago, and it will take more than an attempted coup to hold them fully accountable for their complicity in the erosion of our democracy and to ensure it cant happen again.

To restore our systems of knowledge-sharing and eliminate white nationalist organizing online, Big Tech must move beyond its typical reactive and shallow approach to addressing the harm they cause to our communities and our democracy. But its more clear than ever that the federal government must step in to ensure tech giants act.

After six years leading corporate accountability campaigns and engaging with Big Tech leaders, I can definitively say its evident that social media companies do have the power, resources and tools to enforce policies that protect our democracy and our communities. However, leaders at these tech giants have demonstrated time and time again that they will choose not to implement and enforce adequate measures to stem the dangerous misinformation, targeted hate and white nationalist organizing on their platforms if it means sacrificing maximum profit and growth.

And they use their massive PR teams to create an illusion that theyre sufficiently addressing these issues. For example, social media companies like Facebook continue to follow a reactive formula of announcing disparate policy changes in response to whatever public relations disaster theyre fending off at the moment. Before the insurrection, the companys leaders failed to heed the warnings of advocates like Color Of Change about the dangers of white supremacists, far-right conspiracists and racist militias using their platforms to organize, recruit and incite violence. They did not ban Trump, implement stronger content moderation policies or change algorithms to stop the spread of misinformation-superspreader Facebook groups as we had been recommending for years.

These threats were apparent long before the attack on Capitol Hill. They were obvious as Color Of Change and our allies propelled the #StopHateForProfit campaign last summer, when over 1,000 advertisers pulled millions in ad revenues from the platform. They were obvious when Facebook finally agreed to conduct a civil rights audit in 2018 after pressure from our organization and our members. They were obvious even before the deadly white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville in 2017.

Only after significant damage had already been done did social media companies take action and concede to some of our most pressing demands, including the call to ban Trumps accounts, implement disclaimers on voter fraud claims, and move aggressively remove COVID misinformation as well as posts inciting violence at the polls amid the 2020 election. But even now, these companies continue to shirk full responsibility by, for example, using self-created entities like the Facebook Oversight Board an illegitimate substitute for adequate policy enforcement as PR cover while the fate of recent decisions, such as the suspension of Trumps account, hang in the balance.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many other Big Tech companies kick into action when their profits, self-interests and reputation are threatened, but always after the damage has been done because their business models are built solely around maximizing engagement. The more polarized content is, the more engagement it gets; the more comments it elicits or times its shared, the more of our attention they command and can sell to advertisers. Big Tech leaders have demonstrated they neither have the willpower nor the ability to proactively and successfully self-regulate, and thats why Congress must immediately intervene.

Congress should enact and enforce federal regulations to reign in the outsized power of Big Tech behemoths, and our lawmakers must create policies that translate to real-life changes in our everyday lives policies that protect Black and other marginalized communities both online and offline.

We need stronger antitrust enforcement laws to break up big tech monopolies that evade corporate accountability and impact Black businesses and workers; comprehensive privacy and algorithmic discrimination legislation to ensure that profits from our data arent being used to fuel our exploitation; expanded broadband access to close the digital divide for Black and low-income communities; restored net neutrality so that internet services providers cant charge differently based on content or equipment; and disinformation and content moderation by making it clear that Section 230 does not exempt platforms from complying with civil rights laws.

Weve already seen some progress following pressure from activists and advocacy groups including Color Of Change. Last year alone, Big Tech companies like Zoom hired chief diversity experts; Google took action to block the Proud Boys website and online store; and major social media platforms like TikTok adopted better, stronger policies on banning hateful content.

But were not going to applaud billion-dollar tech companies for doing what they should and could have already done to address the years of misinformation, hate and violence fueled by social media platforms. Were not going to wait for the next PR stunt or blanket statement to come out or until Facebook decides whether or not to reinstate Trumps accounts and were not going to stand idly by until more lives are lost.

The federal government and regulatory powers need to hold Big Tech accountable to their commitments by immediately enacting policy change. Our nations leaders have a responsibility to protect us from the harms Big Tech is enabling on our democracy and our communities to regulate social media platforms and change the dangerous incentives in the digital economy. Without federal intervention, tech companies are on pace to repeat history.

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Big Tech companies cannot be trusted to self-regulate: We need Congress to act - TechCrunch

Mar 15th 2021

THE LIST of complaints against the leading web platforms runs long, from privileging their own products and operating both sides of an advertising exchange, to ignoring the problems that result from their activities. Applying conventional rules like antitrust law is difficult, since it is hard to show consumer harm when the service is free. But there is another way to regulate big tech: treat the companies like big banks.

The American banking industry learned much from the financial crisis of 2008, the regulatory crackdown and the collapse of return on equity as banks had to build up reserves of capital and liquidity under the new, Dodd-Frank regulations. Today, banks lend to clients and make markets for them, with occasional stresses but no panic. Although many bankers look back longingly at their pre-2008 returns on capital, they still operate lucrative businesses.

I saw this transformation first hand as an executive at Goldman Sachs. Yet I came to banking from the technology sector and today I invest in and sit on the boards of several tech companies. So I appreciate how both industries work, and how regulatory trends from one domain can usefully apply to the other. The lessons from banking offer a way forward that regulators, the public and even the web firms themselves can buy into.

Today big tech is in disrepute, not unlike banks after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the situation in 2008. In both cases, regulators marched in. The 1933 and 1934 securities-exchange laws required that investors receive financial information and prohibited deceit, misrepresentations and other fraud. It curbed the worst excesses. Since then, caveat emptor has given way to the best interest rule, which requires that broker-dealers place retail customers interests first, and creates an obligation of disclosure, diligence, care and skill to the customer.

Lawmakers and regulators should apply that ethos by imposing similar obligations on the tech titans. The state could require the companies to create and manage meaningful information barriers. For banks, this means separating mergers-and-acquisitions departments from the trading business, or the trading business from prime brokerage. For tech platforms, those barriers could limit the interactions between a logistics business and a product business, or an app store and a hardware business, or the ad-exchange operator and the advertiser- and publisher-facing units.

Cross-applying the spirit of banking regulations onto web platforms, lawmakers should ask: Does the content served up to retail users meet appropriate standards for truthfulness and accuracy? Does the digital business establish and enforce a code of conduct, with structures and practices where the customer comes first? Has the business attested that customers understand what the firm does with their data, and how its algorithms influence customer behaviour? Does the business, in its role as a common carrier of information, give fair and symmetric access to the products and services of rivals?

Next is the issue of identification and anonymity. The 1970 Bank Secrecy Act introduced anti-money-laundering rules to safeguard the financial system from abuses, such as terrorist financing and organised crime. The know your customer rules from the 2001 Patriot Act require banks to implement a client-identification programme. Similar rules should be placed on tech platforms: a global system for digital identities, perhaps along the lines of Singapores National Digital Identity or Indias Aadhaar digital identitybut with a difference: individuals can opt in to get a better, more trustworthy user experience.

For example, the rules could require digital businesses to flag content created by unverified identities and highlight content created by verified people. This would give consumers the ability to consider the source of the content and to discount it appropriately. The bots and trolls that stifle online interactions would be pushed back to a corner of the web. Anonymity and privacy are sacred rights, but just as in the financial system, there can be no digital right to cover for deliberate misinformation, incitement to violence, human trafficking and other illicit activities.

Then there are stress tests: simulating crises as a way to protect against them. The Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) programme, established under the Dodd-Frank rules, is an annual exercise to assess whether the largest American banks account for their unique risks and have the capital to continue in times of economic and financial disruption without having to turn to the government. Banks are presented with disaster scenarios and have to simulate their cash flows, income statements and balance sheets for nine quarters into the future, showing that they could continue ordinary operations. The process requires collaboration inside banks, and between banks and regulators. (CCARs rigour is one reason why banks operated smoothly amid the economic gyrations of the covid-19 crisis.)

The rules place onerous burdens on 34 major financial institutions. Tens of thousands of people, and perhaps millions of computers, work year-round to calculate and interpret the data, spurring deep and manifold changes in the decision processes that underlie mergers and acquisitions, leverage, capital- and risk-allocation, share buybacks and dividends. There is complaining and grumbling by bankers, of course. But there is also nearly universal acknowledgment that it has greatly reduced the probability of a catastrophic banking crisis.

There are useful parallels between CCAR and the regulation of big tech platforms. Regulators can require that digital businesses simulate potential disasters and develop policies to prevent them. As in banking, the online companies can be required to measure, capitalise for and compensate society for negative externalities, ranging from lost peace of mind and competitiveness, to self-harm, violence and human-rights abuses.

For example, tech platforms measure emotional resonance, engagement and outrage when they choose to increase their advertising revenue by amplifying or promoting specific content. Those companies should have to pay the equivalent of a carbon tax, estimated by their own models and governed by the regulator, if they pollute the infosphere with falsehoods and incendiary content.

Just as CCAR places limits on the leverage in derivatives portfolios by imposing capital requirements, digital regulators would insist that platforms constrain the algorithmic amplification of outrage and emotional resonance by limiting the propagation of viral content. Regulators would base their rules on a deep and shared understanding between the regulator and the regulated of how digital companies make money, just as banks simulate their complex chain of interlinked businesses into the future in a stress test.

No one would call the current financial regulations perfect. Bright lines do not divide global, systemically important banks from other institutions. Fines and remedies vary inconsistently. Still, regulators and bankers can step back and acknowledge their common efforts to create a safer, sounder financial system. And it is a systema collection of rivals and regulators working together with societys interest in mind.

The parallels between financial networks and social networks are obviously inexact. Some digital firms will balk at rules that mandate they simulate their business and capitalise for externalities (though they have computing power and financial resources to do the job). Yet just as the public deserves a banking system it can trust, why should it settle for less when it comes to sharing and accessing information, which is the basis of liberal democracy?

_________

R. Martin Chavez is a senior advisor to Sixth Street Partners and the former chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs, which he joined in the 1990s after earning a PhD in bioinformatics. He currently invests in and serves on boards of several technology startups. He is also president of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University.

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Martin Chavez on how to regulate big tech like big banks - The Economist

The World Wide Web turns 30 in August and Ottawa is finally updating key laws from the last millennium.

Bill C-10 would bring foreign streaming services under the Broadcasting Act, while Bill C-11 would update Canadas pre-Google privacy laws. They promise another bill to address harmful and/or illegal online content and yet another to compel Google and Facebook to pay for Canadian news, following Australias recent move.

Yet these erstwhile acts of resistance against Silicon Valleys overwhelming power actually reflect Canadas resignation to this power. A pattern is emerging. The government seems to have accepted that some digital businesses will cause widespread harm. Instead of trying to prevent these harms, Ottawa is creating systems to manage them consistently.

Canada may wish to appear defiant, but our approach to big tech is fundamentally defeatist.

Bill C-11 would compel tech companies to explain, upon request, how your personal data resulted in a certain recommendations. But the law would not prohibit Facebook from collecting so much personal data in the first place, even from people dont have Facebook accounts.

Bill C-10 gives YouTube, arguably Canadas largest broadcaster, a categorical exemption from the Broadcasting Act because it traffics exclusively in user-generated content. That leaves it free to show beer ads on Bugs Bunny clips or let Steve Bannon threaten to put Dr. Faucis head on a pike acts that would land any other media organization in court.

The exemption for user-generated content would also cover Pornhub, the Canadian company found to be broadcasting tens of thousands of videos depicting the sexual assault of children as young as nine.

The government promises to address the scourge of harmful material in a new bill, yet early signals suggest this law will likewise be rooted in a fundamental acceptance of widespread harms.

Media reports suggest the law would require the likes of YouTube and Pornhub to remove some illegal content within 24 hours. Yet they would not be responsible for finding offending content and face no consequences for having promoted it widely, provided they remove it when notified. This is like letting bars illegally serve middle-schoolers provided they drink light beer and get home by 11.

This defeatist approach to businesses facilitating harmful or illegal activity on a massive scale is gravely concerning. Canada is establishing a worrisome legal principle: in broadcasting, search, social media, and other major digital industries, anything goes so long as the undesirable or illegal outcome is the result of decisions taken by an algorithm on a humans behalf.

Even more worrisome is how closely the governments resigned outlook echoes Big Techs talking points.

When Pornhub got caught broadcasting illegal material at scale, they blamed an automated system that failed to detect illegal content. This was not a confession but a defence.

When Congress asked why so much illegal content appears on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg explained that Facebooks content moderation efforts relies heavily on AI that is getting good in certain areas but mostly inadequate. Zuckerberg was trying to instill the principle that companies are not responsible for the failings of their algorithms.

This is obviously ridiculous. Algorithms dont cash cheques. Yet the Trudeau government seems poised to entrench this philosophy in law. Instead of telling Facebook to operate legally or not at all, Canada is accepting that Facebook et al can violate Canadians privacy and even criminal law, so long as they manage the resulting harms in a prescribed manner, such as providing an explanation.

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A sovereign, moral approach would start from the premise that illegal activity is unacceptable. Remove the blanket exemption for social media companies from Bill C-10. Prohibit business activities that depend upon the non-consensual collection of personal data. Executives should be held personally liable for their companys transgressions, including possible jail time. Fines may be part of the cost of doing business for big tech companies. Personal ruin and prison are not.

When a business is offside, we should blow the whistle. Instead, Canada is proposing to move the blue line. Those of us who are concerned by Canadas defeatist approach should speak up now, before Canada submits to another 30 years of digital lawlessness in service of Silicon Valley.

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Opinion | Canada's approach to regulating big tech is fundamentally defeatist - Toronto Star

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Chinas market regulator has imposed fines on some of the countrys biggest tech companies relating to 10 deals that violated anti-monopoly laws, it said on Friday.

Separately the watchdog is reportedly weighing a record fine of more than $975 million on Alibaba, according to the Wall Street Journal, as Chinas antitrust crackdown continues. The reports have been denied by Beijing.

The State Administration of Market Supervision (SAMR) said it had issued 500,000 yuan ($77,000) fines to twelve companies, including WeChat owner Tencent, search engine Baidu, ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and Japans SoftBank.

The deals investigated by the watchdog include Tencents 2018 investment in online tutoring start-up Yuanfudao and Baidus 2014 acquisition of smart home robot manufacturer Ainemo.

A joint venture set up by Didi Mobility Pte, a unit of Didi Chuxing, and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank was also probed.

The investigation found that none of the deals eliminated or restricted competition, but that they all breached anti-monopoly rules by failing to notify the authorities.

Read:Chinese Retailer JD.com Beats Sales Estimates. The Online Boom May Be Here to Stay.

The fines come as part of a wider antitrust crackdown by Beijing on Chinas internet giants. In December the SAMR fined JD.com, Alibaba Vipshop 500,000 yuan each for pricing irregularities. The watchdog also opened an antitrust investigation into Jack Mas Alibaba at the end of last year shortly after Beijing halted the IPO of internet finance giant Ant Group.

Read:Ant Group Has a Deal With Regulators. What It Could Mean for Its IPO.

The regulator released new anti-monopoly guidelines in February, following a draft law in November, tightening restrictions. The SAMR said the new rules would stop monopolistic behaviours in the platform economy and protect fair competition in the market.

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Chinas Antitrust Regulators Fine Tencent, Baidu and 10 Others as Big Tech Crackdown Intensifies - Barron's

WASHINGTON There's a growing bipartisan appetite in Congress to crack down on big tech, with progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans preparing to flex the federal government's anti-monopoly powers.

The Senate began hearings this week on antitrust law. Senators expressed different philosophies and concerns, but they all agreed on at least one key point: Tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have become too powerful.

It's the latest sign that Congress is ready to jump into a decadeslong vacuum created by marginal action from federal regulators as the tech sector became increasingly concentrated. Lawmakers discussed ways both to stop tech giants from growing larger in the future and steps that could be taken to chip away at their existing dominance.

Why should any dominant corporation be able to merge with any other entity? Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, said in a Thursday hearing after rattling off a long list of companies owned by Google. Why should Google, for instance, or Facebook be able to buy anything else given their dominant size?

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, also a Republican, blasted tech giants for cornering the online ad market while local newsrooms endure round after round of cuts. Three companies Google, Facebook, and Amazon take in about two-thirds of all online advertising dollars. Every one of these newsrooms have experienced the loss of reporters, which is the loss of journalism, which is the loss of insight of the people into issues, said Blackburn.

But politicians still dont agree about exactly what should be done. The Senate Antitrust subcommittees new Democratic chair, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, is sponsoring legislation to beef up government antitrust enforcement, tighten rules on which mergers are permissible, and force merging parties to prove their merger would not violate the law, among other measures. Shes trying to get bipartisan support for that and other reforms, which could include Australia-style requirements on tech giants to pay media outlets for producing news. Republicans are leery.

Sen. Mike Lee, the Republican ranking member on the Antitrust subcommittee, said at the beginning of the hearing he opposed government intervention and a sweeping transformation of antitrust laws. But before long he, too, was talking about the need to curtail big tech companies.

Lee outlined his concerns about what happened to Parler, a social media platform favored by conservatives that was removed from the Apple app store and briefly taken offline altogether.

Lee questioned whether its even possible for upstart competitors to challenge platforms like Facebook and Twitter in the current environment. Build your own sounds really nice in theory, but in this instance, Im not sure it works in practice. Do we have an entry problem? he asked.

One recurring theme from witnesses during the hearing was the once-robust enforcement of antitrust legislation that dramatically broke up rail and telecom monopolies, had fallen into disuse in modern times. At one point, Open Markets Institute Executive Director Barry Lynn argued that Amazon should be barred from both running a marketplace and selling products on that marketplace competing against other sellers all while being able to use their sales information against them.

There should never be competition between the provider of services and the customer of those services, said Lynn. Its a conflict of interest. Traditionally we have always prohibited this we can trace it back in US federal law to baking policy in the 1860s. Theres nothing new here, whats new is that we havent applied these kinds of rules to these corporations today.

The political movement toward cracking down on tech companies is anything but an organized coalition. Many Republicans have accused social media platforms of discriminating against conservative voices. Democrats have mostly rolled their eyes at this and argued that the real problem is a lack of moderation allowing disinformation and hate speech to flourish.

Klobuchar told BuzzFeed News before the hearing that she believes there is enough common ground to craft reforms that could get enough bipartisan support to pass a narrowly split Congress. This is exactly what was going on in the Gilded Age, she said, drawing a comparison from small companies trying to compete with the likes of Amazon to local farmers trying to negotiate with rail monopolies a century ago.

She closed the meeting Thursday by saying the subcommittee will hold more hearings on how to curtail monopoly power. It feels like every century we take on laws in this way, said Klobuchar. And this is our moment.

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Democrats And Republicans Alike Are Talking About Breaking Down Big Tech Monopolies - BuzzFeed News

Constellation Research founder Ray Wang on his outlook for technology stocks like Coupang and Roblox.

The Dow Jones Industrial Averageand the S&P 500 rallied to record highs Friday as tech and other high-flying growth stocks succumbed to rising bond yields.

The Dow climbed 291points, or 0.9%, and the S&P added 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, meanwhile, slumped 0.59%.

The mixed session came as aggressive selling of longer-dated U.S. Treasurys caused the 10-year yield to rise 11basis points to 1.63%, making for the highest close since February 2020.

Looking at stocks, high-growth companies including mega-cap technology names like Tesla Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Facebook Inc. were all lower.

Financials, which benefit from a steepening of the yield curve, all gained with Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. finishing among the top performers.

Meanwhile, Novavax Inc.s COVID-19 vaccine was found to be 96% effective against the original version of the virus, according to a U.K. study. However, the vaccine was 86% effective against the U.K. variant and only 55% effective against the South African strand. Shares soared on the developments.

AstraZeneca plc and Oxford Universitys COVID-19 vaccine was suspended in Thailand due to blood clots in some recipients. The vaccine has also been put on hold in eight European countries, including Norway and Denmark.

In earnings, Ulta Beauty Inc. reported quarterly earnings and revenue that exceeded Wall Street estimates but issued disappointing full-year guidance amid concern masking and social-distancing orders will remain in place for much of 2021. The company also announced that CEO Mary Dillon will step down in June and be replaced by President Dave Kimbell.

In commodities, West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell 41cents to $65.61a barrel and gold slumped $2.80to $1,719.50 an ounce.

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European markets ended mixed with Germanys DAX 30 down 0.46%, Frances CAC 40 inching up 0.21% and Britain's FTSE 100 climbing by 0.36%.

In Asia, Hong Kongs Hang Seng index lost 2.2% while Chinas Shanghai Composite Index and Japans Nikkei 225 advanced 0.47% and 1.73%, respectively.

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Dow, S&P hits record as big tech retreats and bond yields surge - Fox Business