Tag: antitrust

Silicon Valley expects a chillier relationship with Biden than Obama

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Now that the Biden administration has announced a transition team and is gradually announcing key advisory and cabinet appointments, the posture of the new administration toward Silicon Valley is becoming clearer. And it’s not the look of a budding friendship. When Biden last worked at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the White House had an open and friendly relationship with Silicon Valley. For example, the Obama administration also recruited talent from Silicon Valley to form the U.S. Digital Service , the elite technology “startup” within the White House that helped government agencies streamline systems and exploit new agile development methods. Obama also created the position of U.S. chief technology officer within the Office of Science and Technology Policy. From a regulatory standpoint, the tech industry enjoyed a light touch during the Obama years. Its relationship with the Biden administration will likely be different and less trusting. That’s one of the reasons it’s closely watching the formation of the new Biden administration, now in its beginning stages. There’s a lot to watch, since so many government agencies now impact the business of tech. Some high-level appointments, such as Ron Klain as chief of staff, will deal with a broad spectrum of issues, many of which don’t touch tech directly. But others, like the appointment of Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary could, for example, have implications for digital currencies and other financial tech. “There are enormous fintech issues that will be facing the financial regulators, most principally the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, but some issues that’ll touch upon the FDIC, Federal Reserve ,and Treasury as well,” says Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, which tracks presidential appointees who come from various industries. Antitrust under Biden Of chief concern to Big Tech is the Biden administration’s thinking on antitrust. Proposals for breaking up big tech companies in the last couple of years from people such as Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren have ridden a wave of populist feeling in the country. The Department of Justice has already filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in federal court, and the Federal Trade Commission is reportedly in the final stages of deciding whether to file its own suit against Facebook. The agencies are also conducting investigations into alleged anticompetitive aspects of marketplaces run by Amazon and Apple. The Valley is waiting for Biden to announce his attorney general and FTC chair , which could tell a lot about the new administration’s plans to control Big Tech. I don’t think this administration is going be kind to Big Tech in general.” Eric White, Seismic Capital Company Biden said precious little about antitrust on the campaign trail, but his statements on adjacent issues give some clues to his thinking Read More …

Big Tech was already dominant. Has coronavirus made it unstoppable?

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People often ask me what stocks I own. My investing advice is simple: I only invest in unregulated monopolies. They aren’t supposed to exist, but our antitrust laws were written in the era of steam engines, and enforcement has been nonexistent. Big tech is the twenty-first century version of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, and there is no trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt on the horizon to rein them in. How have they done it? The algorithm is this: innovate, obfuscate, and exploit. Especially in a pandemic. Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity by Scott Galloway Put simply, COVID-19 has been an effective weapon of mass distraction from big tech’s bad behavior. No news story survives 12 hours while a pandemic coupled with a national display of incompetence renders everything else what it is, less important. But whether we are paying attention or not, unchecked growth and market dominance lead to a slew of problems. Inevitably, companies without serious competition become less innovative and capture more profits and share from exploiting their position, and less from creating real value. And to protect that position, they perform infanticide on other innovators. No wonder that Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook have added hundreds of billions in market value since March Read More …

Amazon is selling its no-checkout tech to other stores, and we have questions

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After two years of running its own cashierless “ Amazon Go ” stores, Amazon now wants other retailers to start using the tech. The “ Just Walk Out ” service, which launched this week, lets retailers equip their stores with cameras, weight sensors, and other technology to detect what people grab from the shelves. Shoppers scan a credit card when they enter the store, and the system automatically bills them for each item when they exit, with an optional kiosk allowing them to enter an email address for receipts. It’s unclear what size of stores Amazon is targeting, but the company says it’s ideal for places where customers are in a rush and have long lines. The company told Reuters that it has “several” unnamed retail customers on board already. If Just Walk Out takes off, it could upend the entire brick-and-mortar retail system even without shifting ever-greater amounts of shopping online . Yet in announcing the new program, Amazon has chosen not to discuss many fundamental issues, such as how it’ll affect jobs and what it will do with all the data it collects. The company declined to answer most questions for this story, instead referring to a brief question-and-answer section on its website . Will Just Walk Out stores accept cash? Although Amazon says it can retrofit existing stores with its tech, the company isn’t saying whether those stores could (or should) continue to accept cash Read More …