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° President Trump attacked Google for liberal bias, and claimed Google, Facebook,
and Amazon represent “a very antitrust situation”.
° Attorney General Jeff Sessions convened a meeting of Republican state
attorneys general to discuss whether tech giants “may be hurting competition and
intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.”
° Facebook, Twitter, and Google were called to testify in front of the House and Senate
about election interference, political bias, etc. Google declined to attend.
° The FTC has begun a series of hearings on Digital Age antitrust, the first such
hearings since the 1990s.
° The FTC revealed the hiring of Lina Kahn—heralded for authoring a groundbreaking
antitrust argument against Amazon—as an advisor. (See section 5 for more.)
. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch asked the FTC to reopen a 2013
antitrust case against Google.
. Democratic Senator Mark Warner released a six-point policy proposal on regulating
the tech industry.
° Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the “BEZOS Act”, which would tax
corporations one dollar for every dollar low-wage workers receive in government health-
care benefits or food stamps.
° The E.U. Parliament voted 438 to 226 to back a draft proposal of
copyright reformsthat will impose unprecedented liability on information platforms.
° France is pushing to have “Right to be Forgotten” laws applied globally,
which Google is now fighting in court.
° Reports emerged that the E.U. is considering investigating Google’s location-
tracking practices on data privacy grounds.
We will continue to watch each development in the U.S. and E.U. closely to understand if
and when debate turns to action. For now, we agree with the analysis of NYU Stern
professor Scott Galloway, who told CNBC last week after the congressional hearings:
I don't see anything meaningful coming out of this panel, much less Washington...D.C.
lacks the domain expertise or the will to go after big tech. Where you may
see it is, one, out of Brussels and, two, out of [the FTC, the DOJ, or] a red
state whose attorney general sees the brightest path between the AG’s mansion and the
governor’s mansion is a populist argument against big tech.
Evidence of fundamental weakness could exacerbate the investor reaction to escalating
regulatory news. By all accounts, Facebook has continued to bleed
users. According to Pew Research poll results released earlier this month, more than a
quarter of U.S. Facebook users claim to have deleted the app from their phones over the
past year:
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_032808