The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a bill that would bar tech giants like Apple, Google, Amazon and others from giving preference to their own businesses on their websites, despite hefty lobbying from top executives like Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Lawmakers voted on an amended version of a bill introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, and Chuck Grassley, a Republican, that expanded the definition of companies covered by the bill to include firms like the popular video app TikTok and specified that companies were not required to share data with firms that the U.S. government considers national security risks.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz said during the hearing that he spoke on Wednesday with Cook, saying he “expressed significant concerns about the bill.”
Sen. Cruz says he spent about 40 minutes on the phone yesterday with Apple CEO Tim Cook 👀
— Lauren Feiner (@lauren_feiner) January 20, 2022
The Cowen Washington Research Group said that despite the committee’s 16-6 vote to approve the measure, enough of its supporters expressed reservations that it had less than a 50% chance of becoming law.
Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, criticized the Klobuchar/Grassley measure and predicted it would not pass the Senate. “Antitrust policy should aim to promote consumer welfare – not punish specific companies,” he said in a statement.
MacDailyNews Note: For his part, Cruz this evening tweeted this:
The power that the Big Tech oligarchs wield would make John D. Rockefeller blush! pic.twitter.com/mFdbxZM1H2
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 20, 2022
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Cruz lies. Apple has no monopoly power
Apple’s monopoly is felt by its users, developers and ecosystem partners.
It’s also felt by Android users who have a plethora of competing models and accessories, but only get the best accessory experiences with premium Android smartphones from Samsung, Google and other Android makers with premium and ultra-premium features but at keener pricing, like Oppo, Motorola and few others.
Apple strongly competes with Android, but as it controls its own system, it has monopoly power there.
That walled garden continues providing many benefits to all – customers, developers, partners and of course Apple itself.
You should be able to control what happens in your store. Apple’s market power is well earned through people happily buying Apple’s products and services in huge numbers, and very profitably for Apple, which fuels the next cycle of Apple’s R&D and it’s many innovations, even if on existing ideas, given that Apple often enters a marker after others but gets it right vastly more often than otherwise, and if it dies get something wrong, Apple usually backtracks, even if it sometimes takes a while, and sometimes a lot longer than we’d like.
You correctly identify the iOS market as a market unto itself, one where Apple has anticompetitive behavior. They don’t own the devices or the 3rd party apps but do own 100% of the stores.
Wow plants from competitors. No. Apple competes with android in mobile market. Android has way more market share. But you paid stooges knew that. How’s it feel to have achieved so little in life that you’re paid to plant fake news. That’s a rhetorical question, no one cares losers. Get those other slogs clicking those tor votes. Hop to losers. Hop to.
Your first sentence is true most of the time.
Your second sentence cannot be true if device owners and 3rd party app developers are coerced into restrictive arrangements enforced solely by Apple, with no real justification other that Timmy’s profit.
See: right to repair. Consumers deserve a bill of rights
See also: iOS store versus Mac store restrictions. IOS is very bad
See also: opaque app review process, subject to Timmy’s whims
See also: pricing games by Apple and others to confuse consumers into subscriptions or other overpay situations, with no pricing transparency
See also: Apple’s retention of decryption keys necessary for users to access their own data
See also: nontechnical interoperability restraints put on hardware and software to gouge the customer, such as RAM soldering
See also: refusing to allow user to roll back iOS updates
See also: adware, now a sizeable Apple business in iOS apps
See also: Apple’s analytics business, including but not limited to tracking users locations when on Maps or Airtags at all times, for profit. You are the product!
See also: Unwanted 3rd party apps preinstalled by default, such as Google search.
See also: total lack of transparency or user control over content filtering in Apple-sold apps
Bottom line: the Mac was a personal device that left the user in control. With iOS and iCloud, Apple has been squeezing its sheep tightly into the corral, and its insane profits prove that monopoly power is being exercised. Bend over for Timmy!
As I have been advocating for a long time. Big Tech should not enjoy total immunity from lawsuits 100% granted by the passing of Section 230 law in the 1990s at the beginning of the popularity of the internet. No other businesses in the USA enjoy the same legal protections, including Big Media sued often misreporting paying out millions of dollars in settlements the last two years.
Big Tech is too big and each a monopoly in their own right on key aspects of their business. They are free to CENSOR political views they don’t agree with with the GOLD STANDARD is removal of all Hunter Biden reporting two weeks before the presidential election affecting the outcome of the election according to polls and news reports.
If this bill could include repealing Section 230 and forcing Big Tech to play on the same level playing as everyone else. Special interest carve outs need a reckoning…
“Big Tech” doesn’t sufficiently describe the pervasive control that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter have over American society. Along with mega-corps like Pfizer, Blackrock, and the major banks, they basically own the country. This situation won’t be resolved through legislation coming from an even more corrupt and evil institution, the US Congress. While as Christians we always have hope for salvation, the only “solution” to this catastrophic reality is civilizational collapse. Judging by the rap “music” masses of people listen to, the degeneracy of places like Tik Tok and the slavish obedience to “experts” forced through mass media hysteria campaigns (just to name a few indicators), the end is near.
“Big Auto” doesn’t sufficiently describe the pervasive control that GM, Exxon, Chrysler, U.S. Steel have over American society. Along with mega-corps like DuPont, Kraft, and the major banks, they basically own the country. This situation won’t be resolved through legislation coming from an even more corrupt and evil institution, the US Congress. While as Christians we always have hope for salvation, the only “solution” to this catastrophic reality is civilizational collapse. Judging by the rock and roll “music” masses of people listen to, the degeneracy of comic books and the slavish obedience to “experts” forced through mass media polio hysteria campaigns (just to name a few indicators), the end is near.