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Elizabeth Warren Says Apple, Amazon and Google Are Trying To 'Lock Out' Competition (recode.net)

Posted by msmash on from the desire-for-level-play-field dept.

Elizabeth Warren, an American academic and member of the Democratic Party, believes that Google, Apple, and Amazon are trying to use their size to "snuff out competition." In a speech about the perils of "consolidation and concentration" throughout the economy, the Massachusetts senator singled out the three of tech's biggest players. From a report:Warren had different beefs with Google, Apple and Amazon, but the common thread was that she accused each one of using its powerful platform to "lock out smaller guys and newer guys," including some that compete with Google, Apple and Amazon. Google, she said, uses "its dominant search engine to harm rivals of its Google Plus user review feature;" Apple "has placed conditions on its rivals that make it difficult for them to offer competitive streaming services" that compete with Apple Music; and Amazon "uses its position as the dominant bookseller to steer consumers to books published by Amazon to the detriment of other publishers.""Google, Apple and Amazon have created disruptive technologies that changed the world, and ... they deserve to be highly profitable and successful," Warren said. "But the opportunity to compete must remain open for new entrants and smaller competitors that want their chance to change the world again."

35 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Just like the DNC an GOP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Do you think they even realize the deep hypocritical irony?

    1. Re:Just like the DNC an GOP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't need to get into the money for the hypocrisy.

      Both the DNC and the GOP are quite guilty of using their dominant positions in politics to keep other parties from gaining any kind of traction.

    2. Re:Just like the DNC an GOP by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      She is not being hypocritical, since she has also spoken out about the influence of big money on politics.

      And then she gets on the stage with the biggest Big Money candidate there is, and shouts, "I'm with her!"

      I'm fine with people donating to campaigns. I'm not fine with blatant hypocrisy.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  2. Business 101 by AlanBDee · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm glad to see she understands the first rule of business.

    1. Re:Business 101 by Berkyjay · · Score: 5, Insightful

      She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.

    2. Re:Business 101 by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.

      Perhaps she might also lecture her colleagues regarding what they should be focussing on - stuff like this - instead of them devoting their energies towards hobbling encryption and trying to remove their citizen's constitutional rights.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:Business 101 by chispito · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm glad to see she understands the first rule of business.

      Honestly, I don't know what you are getting at. Is it, "Make money?" Or perhaps "Grow your business?" Maybe you mean "Don't talk about Fight Club."

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    4. Re:Business 101 by Zantac69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.

      :head scratch: So Amazon, Apple, and Google should encourage their competition?

      You mean like how the two major political parties have rigged the board so as to discourage political parties outside of the two majors?

      --
      1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
    5. Re:Business 101 by Berkyjay · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What does that have to do with the subject at hand? Are you trying to say that she has no standing to talk about government regulation? Or are you just randomly railing against political parties?

  3. she's a hypocrit by dlt074 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    she wants all the consolidation and concentration going to government. so her posturing against companies that use government to shut the door behind them to keep competition out are a bit disingenuous.

    what ever happened to people who want individual liberty?

    1. Re:she's a hypocrit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you have to define a line for "individual liberty". That is, where does individual liberty meet the collective (arrangement)?

    2. Re:she's a hypocrit by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Insightful

      so her posturing against companies that use government to shut the door behind them to keep competition out are a bit disingenuous

      No, it is not. The only way a monopoly can exist is through government protection. Her "posturing" is spot on.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    3. Re:she's a hypocrit by chispito · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only way a monopoly can exist is through government protection.

      You have it exactly backwards. The only way competition exists in certain (most?) sectors is due to government protection.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    4. Re:she's a hypocrit by Boronx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Both are correct.

      --
      Play Command HQ online
    5. Re: she's a hypocrit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is that a collective (like a society) is more than just a bunch of people crammed together.

      It is a bunch of people who have to cooperate with each other. Cooperation requires limiting selfish indulgences, and defining where one person's rights end, and another's begins. Eg, if I am a home owner who is a lazy slob who harbors trash, my freedom to be a willful slob creates a haven for vermin that accosted my neighbors, bease the vermin don't stay put. To satisfy the neighbor's rights to keep their homes free of vermin, my right to be a slob has to be infringed.

      We do not live in a universe where ideal fantasies about personal liberty can be realistically entertained.

      That is what people try to tell you. You are the one not understanding.

    6. Re:she's a hypocrit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      I think the point is you can't try to consolidate all the power at the federal government (Her & The Democrats Goal) while saying the relatively tiny companies should not be allowed to consolidate power.

      What the government is afraid of, and what has actually happened recently, is a company being large enough to say NO to what the government wants, and having individual citizens agree with the Corporation and thus short circuit the "establishment" where by the government and corporations have a symbiotic relationship.

      The government uses a few minor issues that affect votes in order to gain a power to control every tiny detail - including how businesses are run. A strong government can actually mean *weaker* competition since it is easier to buy/negotiate with/control/coerce the concentrated power of the government. These companies may not form monopolies but they rely on special rules - or prevention of creating rules - to even be allowed to exist. (Think how Facebook is allowed to do so much shady shit with private information)

      A government that is strong enough to break up monopolies when they form IS necessary. The current behemoth that employs 15% of US citizens directly and many more indirectly is not necessary and is allowing special types of monopolies/abusive companies to exist that we likely would not have accepted in the past (Facebook).

    7. Re:she's a hypocrit by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >> The only way competition exists in certain (most?) sectors is due to government protection.
      >
      > That's a baldfaced lie.

      This is why the Sherman anti-trust act exists. Monopolies are very easy to create in an unregulated economy. Even Smith acknowledged this fact.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    8. Re:she's a hypocrit by jcr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Monopolies are very easy to create in an unregulated economy.

      Nope. In an unregulated economy, the only way to make a monopoly is by offering your products or services at a better price than your competition. Rockefeller came close, and he did so by drastically reducing his costs *and* prices.

      Even Smith acknowledged this fact.

      Smith subscribed to a common misconception. That doesn't make him right.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  4. Well yeah by Ryanrule · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.

    1. Re:Well yeah by bravecanadian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.

      Not just tech company leadership.

      A *lot* of people have had a good long drink of the greed is good/reagonomics/greenspan business philosophy koolaid.

      No amount of failure seems to convince them of the problems with it.

    2. Re: Well yeah by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Er, considering that we seem to have not been operating on an ideal version of any system, anyone could argue "well if things were done right, they would be good."

    3. Re:Well yeah by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.

      I think you meant, "Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of every company and government in the history of the universe."

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  5. what do people expect? by lkcl · · Score: 1, Insightful

    i'm sorry, but it states clearly in company's articles of incorporation, on penalty of the directors being struck off and imprisoned and/or the shareholders suing them, that they MUST maximise profits, to the absolute pathological exclusion of all else. ... so why is *anybody* surprised at the consequences? what am i missing? this is blindingly obvious to me (to the point where i'm actively doing something about it in the tech sector- see http://crowdsupply.com/eoma68) so why is everyone else simply complaining about the consequences instead of taking action to do something about it? what is it that i don't understand?

    1. Re:what do people expect? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Somewhere along the way corporations stopped being corporate citizens that gave back to the local community to being multi-national corporations that don't care about the local community of any nation. Given enough bad PR by community activists and politicians, multi-national corporations can be shamed into doing the right thing for the local community.

  6. Academic and member of the Democratic Party? by SpankiMonki · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Does whoever wrote the summary know that Elizabeth Warren's day job is as a sitting United States Senator? Apparently not.

    1. Re:Academic and member of the Democratic Party? by _xeno_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Are those numbers from before or after she backed Hillary? Because based on my Facebook feed, she's pissed off a ton her supporters by pulling that non-sequitur.

      By tying herself to the Clinton ticket, she's effectively tied her political career to Clinton. If Clinton fails to win the election, Warren's political career is over. Keep in mind her next election is a mid-term election - which means that a good chunk of her supporters simply won't show up to vote.

      Not to mention that if there's one thing the Massachusetts electorate has shown, it's that they hate being taken for granted and will happily elect a moderate Republican if they think that the Democratic candidate is ignoring them.

      Of course, if she ends up the VP candidate for Clinton, all of this is moot and her future Senate career would be over regardless.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  7. No duh by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "...Apple, Amazon and Google Are Trying To 'Lock Out' Competition"

    Oh my gawd, say it isn't so.

    Seriously, no shit, of COURSE they're trying to lock out competition. In the "Quest For More Dollars" game they'd send death squads around to the other company's Boards Of Directors if they thought they could get away with it. It's all about the benjamins, and killing off the competition (or stifling them) by whatever means necessary is Job One.

    This is "news" in the same way that "water is wet" or "criminals commit crimes" is "news".

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  8. Pocahontas is on the warpath by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Big tech execs are in big heap trouble...until they share wampum with Democrats.

    1. Re:Pocahontas is on the warpath by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Correct. Rich people are Eeeeeevil, unless they are Democrats, in which case they are great. Typical.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  9. Watch out. The DNC needs that money. by slapout · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google and Apple are big supporters of liberal causes. Someone better get Warren back on the reservation.

    --
    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
  10. Re:I don't believe that to be true!! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Fauxcohontas was hired by Harvard in an attempt to prove how diverse they were and for no other reason.

    And also by the University of Texas Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, proving that everybody's an idiot but not you, no sir, you can see right through their "consensus reality". Your mama didn't raise no fools, by-golly.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  11. Bail out GM, Chrysler and Ford by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe I'd take what Senators say more seriously if D.C. didn't have a history of bailing out big monopolies that lock out smaller competitors like the big three. It just comes off as disingenuous to me, as there is some ulterior motive at play.
    The cynic in me wonders if these tech companies aren't greasing the palms of the right people on the east coast.

  12. Fauxcohontas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    the millionaire speaks for the common man. Look at that Chocktaw jawline!

  13. Re:I don't believe that to be true!! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This fallacy rich quote proves that.

    What fallacy exactly? Businesses — or individuals — don't exist separately from society and government. We're all in this together as a country for the last 240 years.

  14. Rope-a-dope by colin_faber · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So a few weeks ago we hear stories all over ./ about Hillary (you shouldn't be able to buy a gun if you're being investigated by the FBI but running for the most powerful position on the planet is fine) getting really friendly with the big tech companies, in fact, if you look at who runs these companies and where they donate to you find they're already in bed with each other. http://www.businessinsider.com... Now rides in the Native American (very white) knight to the rescue blasting the unfair competition, which can of course only by fixed with more government interference and of course control (because it's working so well with our health care system). So should we expect Warren (who by the way made her millions throwing poor people out of their homes) to rail against the huge Wall Street banks next? I mean how many millions did Clinton receive from them? http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/... Can we expect Warren to rail against Clinton? Nope, not at all, because that doesn't provide the means to consolidate more power under her control.