Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Newspapers To Bid For Antitrust Exemption To Tackle Google and Facebook (cnbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the band-together dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The news industry is to band together to seek a limited antitrust exemption from Congress in an effort to fend off growing competition from Facebook and Google. Traditional competitors including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as a host of smaller print and online publications, will temporarily set aside their differences this week and appeal to federal lawmakers to let them negotiate collectively with the technology giants to safeguard the industry. Antitrust laws traditionally prevent companies from forming such an alliance which could see them becoming over-dominant in a particular sector. However, the media companies will be hoping that Congress will look favorably on a temporary exemption, particularly giving the recent clampdown on the technology industry which saw Google slapped with a $2.7 billion antitrust fine. The campaign is led by newspaper industry trade group News Media Alliance and it is intended to help the industry collaborate in order to regain market share from Facebook and Google, which have been swooping in on newspapers' distribution and advertising revenues. The two companies currently command 70 percent of the $73 billion digital advertising industry in the U.S., according to new research from the Pew Research Centre. Meanwhile, U.S. newspaper ad revenue in 2016 was $18 billion from $50 billion a decade ago.

116 comments

  1. Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Allowing an excemption to antitrust rules is dangerous and stupid. If you have a problem with a powerful established competitor that is abusing a market dominant position, then seek antitrust against them. Dont abuse antitrust yourself.

    But hey, maybe they know something the rest of us dont-- like how absurd it is to expect the congress cronies to actually give teeth to the laws on the books.

    1. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Sure, if Google is a monopoly. Or if Facebook is. Of course they aren't. Not taken alone anyway and nobody is claiming that they are one company.

      In this case I think the news industry needs to put on their big boy pants and realize that nothing guarantees them that they can keep making profits on an old business model forever. It seems that any industry that gets entrenched (music, news, lots more examples) thinks that they then should have a right to keep profiting even if society or technology, etc. moves on. In this case, adapt or die. It seems ingrained that we always attempt to protect ourselves. I imagine when my company is pushed out by newer stuff / better stuff I will probably be the same way - "there outta be a law!". But from outside it seems silly to think that the current news industry should have a legal recourse to continue an old school profit train.

    2. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, this is pretty much just communism in its murkiest still-identifiable form.

      Essentially, Facebook and Google deliver information. People on Facebook need stuff to talk about, so they talk about common interests. This includes ... news. Google, of course, can connect anything you're asking about to the news that's probably why you're asking about it.

      Now the newspapers aren't hot items anymore. People aren't buying newspapers, just like they're not buying physical CDs. In a generation, newspapers won't be a thing. There's all this online news from the likes of CNN and Washington Post, and it's being shared and commented on across all these Facebook feeds; you can't hold an argument in comments with strangers and friends on newspaper.

      So the newspapers essentially are asking Congress to step in and change the market place. They want the government to decide what businesses should exist and, specifically, how people should get their news.

      In our case, the government has limited power to try and shore up one industry and cut down another. The newspaper industry, of course, wants them to use what power they have to shore up newspapers and cut down online news. Part of that is the power to selectively exempt the newspaper industry from regulations which preserve capitalism from conglomerates of colluding market players who would otherwise work to shut out others from the market.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    3. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except that is the issue, Google and Facebook are not abusing their positions against the rest of the news industry. The rest of the industry is pissed that google doesn't shove eyeballs at their pay-walled news sites. https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

    4. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In this case I think the news industry needs to put on their big boy pants and realize that nothing guarantees them that they can keep making profits on an old business model forever. It seems that any industry that gets entrenched (music, news, lots more examples) thinks that they then should have a right to keep profiting even if society or technology, etc. moves on. In this case, adapt or die. It seems ingrained that we always attempt to protect ourselves. I imagine when my company is pushed out by newer stuff / better stuff I will probably be the same way - "there outta be a law!". But from outside it seems silly to think that the current news industry should have a legal recourse to continue an old school profit train.

      Well put.

      How many other industries have been turned upside down due to new technology coming along to supplant it. I'm sure the wagon wheel makers would like to put a stop to the automobile, not to mention the stagecoach makers, and horse breeders. Oh, and the buggy whip makers. Typewriter manufacturers and repair men would like to put a stop to those newfangled computers too. Not to mention adding machine makers, who are in hot water with abacus builders. And the vacuum tube producers want to put a stop to transistors as well.

    5. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by DarkOx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Arguably, the newspapers are more monopolies than the tech companies. If you want major newspaper that covers Washington, and national news you have the WaPO to choose from, the NYT isn't really a substitute.

      On the other hand if you don't like Google, there is Bing, and its an almost perfectly like substitute. If you don't like facebook there are a number of other conversation platforms like Disqus. While not perfect replacements they are social media alternatives.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    6. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

      Allowing an excemption to antitrust rules is dangerous and stupid.

      If things are going badly for a once absurdly ruthless and powerful industry, change the laws. It's the American way.

    7. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The old established media companies are nothing more than salacious rumour and opinion platforms lacking any credibility. The sooner newspapers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and their ilk are banished the better for society.

    8. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by polyp2000 · · Score: 2

      I think the UK is experiencing the same thing. This is why the government is in such a mess. The Eton educated, racist buffoons with their minority government currently havent got a clue what to do about it since their whole existence is founded on deceit and lies. Its harder for them to continue when people are able to do their own research instead of being spoonfed by the mainstream media.

      --
      Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
    9. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the news industry needs to put on their big boy pants and realize that nothing guarantees them that they can keep making profits on an old business model forever.

      And yet you'll scream bloody murder about them [damn foreigners, non-union scabs, whatever] willing to do your job for less money.

    10. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, this is pretty much just communism in its murkiest still-identifiable form.

      Essentially, Facebook and Google deliver information. People on Facebook need stuff to talk about, so they talk about common interests. This includes ... news. Google, of course, can connect anything you're asking about to the news that's probably why you're asking about it.

      Now the newspapers aren't hot items anymore. People aren't buying newspapers, just like they're not buying physical CDs. In a generation, newspapers won't be a thing. There's all this online news from the likes of CNN and Washington Post, and it's being shared and commented on across all these Facebook feeds; you can't hold an argument in comments with strangers and friends on newspaper.

      So the newspapers essentially are asking Congress to step in and change the market place. They want the government to decide what businesses should exist and, specifically, how people should get their news.

      In our case, the government has limited power to try and shore up one industry and cut down another. The newspaper industry, of course, wants them to use what power they have to shore up newspapers and cut down online news. Part of that is the power to selectively exempt the newspaper industry from regulations which preserve capitalism from conglomerates of colluding market players who would otherwise work to shut out others from the market.

      No, this is pretty much just communism in its murkiest still-identifiable form.

      Essentially, Facebook and Google deliver information. People on Facebook need stuff to talk about, so they talk about common interests. This includes ... news. Google, of course, can connect anything you're asking about to the news that's probably why you're asking about it.

      Now the newspapers aren't hot items anymore. People aren't buying newspapers, just like they're not buying physical CDs. In a generation, newspapers won't be a thing. There's all this online news from the likes of CNN and Washington Post, and it's being shared and commented on across all these Facebook feeds; you can't hold an argument in comments with strangers and friends on newspaper.

      So the newspapers essentially are asking Congress to step in and change the market place. They want the government to decide what businesses should exist and, specifically, how people should get their news.

      In our case, the government has limited power to try and shore up one industry and cut down another. The newspaper industry, of course, wants them to use what power they have to shore up newspapers and cut down online news. Part of that is the power to selectively exempt the newspaper industry from regulations which preserve capitalism from conglomerates of colluding market players who would otherwise work to shut out others from the market.

      No it is not Communism. It is National Socialism. Read some Marx. Read some of the fascist theorists. Do not call everything you don't like Communism it just clouds your understanding of what is happening. The rest of your analysis is solid. What you call something matters.

    11. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The problem is that the 'news' that Facebook and Google are 'providing' still comes largely from the newspapers. Neither Facebook nor Google actually gather and writes news. The only thing Facebook and Google are providing is ACCESS to the newspapers work, and Facebook and Google keep all the revenues from that work.

    12. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Whether or not Google is a monopoly is besides the point - the answer to a monopoly is not "more monopoly", the answer is to enforce anti-trust laws. We can discuss whether or not to take action against Google/Facebook/etc, but that action shouldn't be to create an even more powerful monopoly to take them on. We don't need that; we already have it - it's called the government.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    13. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Newspapers are surprisingly full of bullshit, too.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    14. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      Why don't all these media organizations band together instead to create their own search engine that features their news articles?

      Oh, I know why! Because that would be actual hard work! Then everyone would be able to see the actual value that big internet companies bring.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    15. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

      Except, as far as news gathering goes, Google and Facebook's business model seems to be to use the content generated by these dinosaurs to keep people from venturing out of their (G's and F's) revenue-generating ecosystems. Yes, when you actually open an article from within Google or Facebook, you open the newspaper's site - and the paper gets to sell ads based on that. But the back button takes you back to Google or Facebook.

      It's not only about profit. It's about the revenue stream required to support serious journalism. News aggregators tend to give more or less equal weight to real journalism, tabloid stuff, and in some cases, out-and-out fake news/propaganda sites. I'm sure Google and Facebook would like to fix that, too.

      In any case, the 'antitrust' rule these news organizations want to bypass is the one that prevents them banding together to take on Google and Facebook. But maybe the news organizations, Google and Facebook could all get together - in a way that's not anti-competitive - and produce voluntary standards to improve the quality of online journalism. Like, say, Google and Facebook agreeing not to link to sites that have a half paragraph of 'news' followed by a stream of links to bogus lifestyle 'articles' that are merely sites that hype phony cancer cures and boner pills...

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    16. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

      I'd argue that Disqus is at least as bad a substitute for Facebook as the NY Times is for the WaPO.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    17. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Rob+Y. · · Score: 2

      Did you read the article. it's not about the newspapers asking the Government to try to shore them up. It's about asking the government not to treat their own efforts to adapt to online news aggregation as illegal collusion under anti-trust law.

      They've accepted that people aren't buying newspapers any more - that's not the issue. They know that people are still consuming news, and they're actively moving their businesses online to where the people are. But various aspects of how Google and Facebook present 'news' are making it hard to distinguish between real and fake news. Yes, they need Google and Facebook to link to their articles. But they'd like to figure out how to keep those articles from being lost in a soup of real and fake news. It's a real problem - that everyone would like solved. They just don't want well-meaning anti-trust law -
        intended to stop Standard Oil from colluding with its competitors to fix prices - to keep them from working together to solve the problem.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    18. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by nnet · · Score: 1

      Except for vacuum tube mfgrs, theres still a demand for those. Marshall, Mesa-Boogie, Engl, Soldano, Crate, Peavey, and a whole host of other amp makers as an example :)

    19. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      To sum it up, some news organizations still care about journalistic integrity and Facebook doesn't. People are too stupid to know the difference, so that is what the fight is over.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    20. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2

      Industry groups work together to develop solutions to problems all the time.

      The "Fake News" part of this is a red herring. There's lots of bullshit news. There's lots of bullshit news in print newspapers. There's lots of bullshit news on Fortune, Forbes, and WSJ. More to the point, that's not really what they care about; their entire argument is that their businesses are failing and they need to somehow keep themselves relevant, bullshit news or none.

      What you describe suggests everyone wants to read these newspapers, but can't. The problem is most of everybody is more interested in their bullshit news. Whenever the real world tramples upon your little ideals, you have to reorient yourself emotionally. It's hard to go back and fix all the links to broken data; the brain doesn't want to expend that energy--and, besides, if you either just accepted when somebody told you you're wrong or sat down to verify that your head is indeed on straight, you'd do a lot of excessive thinking and your brain would find itself incapable of actually reasoning about anything--and so it responds to new facts conflicting established facts by shutting off the prefrontal cortex (reasoning) and activating the amygdala (emotion).

      In other words: the natural, hard-coded response to learning that you're wrong is to throw a tantrum. Accepting that you might be wrong hurts.

      Solution? Cake and donuts for every meal. People group together with like-minded folks who claim some facts are wrong and select the news that confirms this. Each group believes their news is right and the other guys's news is fake news.

      So, again: the problem they're working together to solve is the one of not having enough revenue for themselves. Facebook and Google deliver information in aggregate form; a bunch of industry players want to get together and do the same, classing themselves as some sort of traditional selection. I don't believe such a strategic option necessarily must violate anti-trust laws, so it's fine they do that.

      My point was that government deciding everyone is playing fair but we need to bend the rules to shore up $someone is basically government deciding on what consumers should consume--command economy. (Socialism is government owning the means to production; Communism ideals largely suggested that the people owned such things and the government handled instrumentation to get the most optimum outcome, which ... didn't work.) They're essentially asking the government to favor their industry for special reasons. There's also a reason I said it's the murkiest form of such things: we're not looking too far down the scale in that direction.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    21. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Except for vacuum tube mfgrs, theres still a demand for those.

      Yep...the BEST stereos still glow...

      :)

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    22. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Thing is, Disqus is a commenting system like spot.im, neither one demands your real name and then ban you if you refuse to hand them your passport or personally identifiable information. Neither one has their own curated news feeds and "feed-in" partnerships. There really isn't an alternative to facebook, nor is there a real alternative to google. Remember that microsoft was slapped with antitrust laws for including it's own web browser, and Intel was slapped with antitrust laws for engaging in unfair market practices.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    23. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      So the newspapers essentially are asking Congress to step in and change the market place. They want the government to decide what businesses should exist and, specifically, how people should get their news.

      This is quite wrong. Newspapers want to be able to negotiate, as a group, with Google/Facebook for how their content can be used by those two agencies. It's the exact opposite of trying to cut down on online news - they want to be compensated for their online news.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    24. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Disqus is shit. I'd say alternatives would be YouTube and Twitter.

    25. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      But they'd like to figure out how to keep those articles from being lost in a soup of real and fake news.

      They also need to figure out how to prevent the summaries of their articles from being so detailed that people don't click on them.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    26. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Entrope · · Score: 1

      Google put basically zero effort into the web content that they index and provide a search interface to. Yet Google makes money from as revenues related to those searches. Does that mean web site authors should get a "break-the-law" pass when it comes to dealing with Google?

    27. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Entrope · · Score: 1

      What else do you think the back button should do? If the media dinosaurs think that's a problem, maybe they should work harder and/or smarter to convince people that links on their pages are worth clicking. When it's hard to tell what tries to be real news from paid content, clickbait ads, and malware, they shouldn't be surprised when people leave their site so quickly.

    28. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And apparantly distort.

    29. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by bws111 · · Score: 2

      As usual, when someone brings up buggy whip manufacturers they have completely missed the point.

      Almost ALL of the news provided by Google and Facebook comes from the traditional news organizations (the ones you would like to claim are obsolete). The only thing 'new' is that some very large companies (google and facebook) have inserted themselves between the news organizations and their customers, and those companies keep most of the revenue generated by the news organzations work. That is not even remotely like buggy whip manufacturers.

    30. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      To sum it up, some news organizations still care about journalistic integrity and Facebook doesn't. People are too stupid to know the difference, so that is what the fight is over.

      "We need an anti-trust exemption to fight for journalistic integrity!" - CNN

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    31. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      Except for vacuum tube mfgrs, theres still a demand for those. Marshall, Mesa-Boogie, Engl, Soldano, Crate, Peavey, and a whole host of other amp makers as an example :)

      Yes, there are still some very specialized demand for them. But nothing like there is for transistors, or even like there was for vacuum tubes prior to the advent of the transistor.

      I sold my Mesa-Boogie stack many years ago as I stopped playing in bands and have been kicking myself ever since. I loved the sound of that thing.

    32. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      And apparantly distort.

      ALL amps distort...the trick is to get one that distorts that is in a manner pleasing to the ear, with proper harmonics, etc...

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    33. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      So, the newspapers aren't asking for any regulations to be changed or legal actions to be deferred particularly for the interest of their businesses?

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    34. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      They're not monopolies? What are viable alternatives to search? What are viable social networking alternatives? If you don't think those two companies are monopolies, you're fucking retarded. But hey, they're not alone -- AT&T, Verizon?

      Congratulations, that's the result of decades of policies and political pressures aimed at net neutrality: when you force ISPs to be simple pipes and encourage business models based on advertising instead of subscriptions, that's the kind of winner-take-all market you end up with. As usual, government regulations first break a market, and then people call for more government action to break it even further.

    35. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Viable alternative to search: duckduckgo, bing
      Viable alternative to social networking: snapchat, twitter
      Viable mobile OS platform: iOS
      don't know anything about advertising so I can't comment on that....

    36. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Well, they are asking to be able to negotiate as a cartel. That is a change to regulations. But they claim it's appropriate because they are negotiating with a different cartel (FB/Google).

      I'm not sure why that would be considered controversial. Certainly, without anti-trust laws it would have happened already. And they make the point that anti-trust laws aren't relevant to the current situation.

      Consider it akin to buggy-whip operators asking for changes in regulations on buggy-whip safety as their industry moves from one necessary for safe travel (regulated for quality) to one that makes mostly movie props (far less regulation required.)

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    37. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      when you force ISPs to be simple pipes and encourage business models based on advertising instead of subscriptions

      You realize your argument entirely breaks down if the US had a rational "last-mile" infrastructure-as-a-utility policy, right? No one would care about net neutrality if ISPs were forced to compete on services provided instead of physical infrastructure lock-in, because ISPs would be pricing their services based on customer needs instead. ISP #1 would provide Netflix-oriented pricing and services, ISP #2 would provide gaming-oriented pricing and services, etc., etc., and the customer would choose based on price and perceived quality.

      The only reason we argue about net neutrality and dumb pipes is precisely because ISPs, by and large, are not forced into this level of competition.

    38. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was a proper blind study done a number of years back that showed that listeners could not distinguish the difference between a multi-thousand dollar tube amp and a decent solid-state amp that had a 20uF-or-so capacitor placed across the speaker output terminals.

      I have to believe that between then and now (a span of 30 years) that the solid-state amp performance and resulting signal output is far better in subjective listener quality than whatever tube amp you might come up with. If you like that "rounded" sound, maybe play with an equalizer a little bit?

      By far the best audio setup I have ever seen/heard had exactly zero tubes in it. Listening to it was almost exactly like sitting in a concert hall.

    39. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because it would be illegal, ya dumb fuck.

    40. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      CNN, et. al. could start by not making it so hard to distinguish between real and fake news themselves.

      Seriously, if those newspapers didn't consistently present such a distorted caricature of the people they oppose, while giving a pass on corruption to those they agree with, people wouldn't even look for a different source in the likes of Facebook.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    41. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      What are viable alternatives to search? What are viable social networking alternatives? What's a viable mobile OS platform? What's a viable advertising platform?

      It took you a while but you actually eventually stumbled on the one thing they do have a monopoly in. ... Advertising.

      The rest as far as they are concerned they have a lot of market power, but they are not monopolies in the first three you mention.

      Mind you being a monopoly in an of itself is not bad, and being a monopoly is also not illegal either. It is what you do with the market dominant position that counts.

    42. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by speedplane · · Score: 1

      But hey, maybe they know something the rest of us dont-- like how absurd it is to expect the congress cronies to actually give teeth to the laws on the books.

      Even under the best of circumstances, bringing an antitrust suit against FB and Google will take 5-10 years. See, for example Microsoft in the 1990-2000s and Google in Europe in the early 2010s to Present. This option will likely move a lot faster.

      --
      Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
    43. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by mysidia · · Score: 0

      They're not monopolies? What are viable alternatives to search? What are viable social networking alternatives?

      There are PLENTY. Monopoly is NOT a synonym for market penetration, Or the vast majority of the population going with product X: if some product Y exists and would solve the same basic problem as product X, then it is a competing option, and if a competing option exists, then X is not a monopoly. Google might have 95% people using it, and the alternatives not as popular as Google, and the quality of alternatives might be lower, but that doesn't make Google a monopoly. It just so happens Google is not close to being a monopoly.

      Search: Yandex, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu.

      And Facebook is nowhere close to having a monopoly on Social Networking websites.

      Social Networking: LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Google Plus, Blogger, Reddit, Instagram, WhatsApp, MySpace, Twitter, Jaiku, Itsmy,

    44. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      You don't need to use Google. In fact, if you're owned lock, stock and barrel by Google you ought to slowly incorporate other platforms.

      Vivaldi, Opera, Mozilla instead of Chrome
      Duck Duck Go, Dogpile, Yahoo instead of Google
      Outlook, Zoho instead of gMail
      Zoho has an interesting and useful office suite as well

      I'm not saying to eliminate Google - but slowly, surely, incorporate other platforms - especially if you're concerned about monopolistic practices

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    45. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly you didn't experience the days of Compuserve and AOL.

    46. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      By far the best audio setup I have ever seen/heard had exactly zero tubes in it. Listening to it was almost exactly like sitting in a concert hall.

      SS amps *have* come a long way these days...but you really gotta find a good one.

      And a lot of this is subjective. To my ear, nothing beats a quality tube amp running through some large, horn loaded speakers (Klipschorns).

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    47. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lets see here.

      1) Search: Bing

      2) Social Media: LinkedIn, Google

      3) Mobile OS: IOS

      4) Advertising Platform: Run it yourself

      Again Viable doesn't mean it is more usable. There are natural reasons companies get dominant positions in the market. If you would prefer the government assign you a product to use so everyone gets a chance to take your money... so be it - but that isn't how monopoly works.

    48. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by kqs · · Score: 0

      The only thing 'new' is that some very large companies (google and facebook) have inserted themselves between the news organizations and their customers, and those companies keep most of the revenue generated by the news organzations work.

      First: Google and Facebook didn't "insert themselves". They made products, and people have chosen to use those products.

      Second and more important: "keep most of the revenue". What revenue does Google make from Google News? You click on a story and then read that story on the news site, with ads placed by the news organization. (I don't use Facebook; do they also just link to the story or do they post the whole story on Facebook?)

      The problem is that nobody is buying news (paper, magazine, whatever) subscriptions anymore. This is a problem, because we need news and news organizations need money to make good news stories. But the solution is not to try to strong-arm Google and Facebook. I'm not sure what the right long-term solution is.

      (My current solution is to subscribe to a few newspapers and to donate money to my local NPR station, and to still find stories via Google News, but this may not scale.)

    49. Re: Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      No, the trick is to get one that distorts so little that it's imperceptible. Which is not hard, or expensive, with transistors.

      If you want distortion for aesthetic reasons, the proper time to do that is while recording/producing the music. For example, with a guitar amp. Then your recording has the desired aesthetic baked-in. If your music doesn't sound good without extra post-processing (via tube stereo), it wasn't recorded right.

      Also when you abandon tubes, you get to hear undistorted music in contexts where that's desirable, like classical or acoustic recordings.

  2. can't happen soon enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fake news as far as the eye can see , what a great idea

  3. Re:Make Antitrust Go Away by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I don't think America is ready to read news in manga format.

  4. Re: Make Antitrust Go Away by Matt.Battey · · Score: 1

    It's that whole right to left thing. Messes with a right hand view of the world.

  5. The funny thing is. . . by smooth+wombat · · Score: 0

    Google and Facebook get their news from these companies. All they're doing is redistributing the work someone else did and making money off it.

    It would seem these folks should be paying the news companies for all this work which they themselves don't have to do.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    1. Re:The funny thing is. . . by DickBreath · · Score: 2

      Google and Facebook are not redistributing anything. They are linking. Generating traffic. Maybe these news companies would like it better if Google and Facebook would never link to them ever again. We've already been through this game, more than once now, by several foreign news outlets that wanted Google to stop indexing them. Google stopped. Then those sites came back begging to be indexed.

      These news organizations simply don't like the world that the 21st century has become. One where pretty much all the world's information is hyperlinked. If they don't want to be easy to find, it is to their own detriment.

      Do these news companies think I am going to go to their site to browse for news if I don't find it linked from some other site first?

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    2. Re:The funny thing is. . . by smooth+wombat · · Score: 0

      Do these news companies think I am going to go to their site to browse for news if I don't find it linked from some other site first?

      In other words, if you're not spoon-fed whatever pablum someone else decides to hand out, you won't seek out real food?

      That just screams the typical, lazy American.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    3. Re:The funny thing is. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google and Facebook are not redistributing anything. They are linking.

      False. They copy-paste headlines and short summaries.

      If Google simply presented a series of links, _NOBODY_ would be using Google. Google knows this, and their entire business model is to find new places on the internet where they can setup their toll booth, or surveillance.

    4. Re:The funny thing is. . . by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      The series-of-links model, such as found in the Drudge Report, has already been called "fake news" by the press.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    5. Re:The funny thing is. . . by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      A system (Google) that algorithmically scans and collates all the sites offering to 'spoon feed' you information is the _opposite_ of 'spoon feeding' you.

      If you get your information from an 'internet echo chamber', then it's no better than getting all your information from one media source.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    6. Re:The funny thing is. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its not the model thats getting the moniker "fake news"

      Its the fact that drudge report is little more then a rumor/fake news aggregator.

      A quick check shows these things which are nothing but clickbait/rumor/fake news or just all around BS.

      "People getting exorcisms instead of going to doctors"
      "Man Kills self jumping into a volcano"
      "Cannibal at Steakhouse, woman gnaws on arm"
      "Teen dies using cell phone in bath"

      Sure some of the other stuff on the front page may be true, or have kernels of truth in it. But its buried in this sort of riff raff. Its like complaining that the checkout stand news rags are being denounce as fake because of where they are sold, and not based upon the fact that the front page article is about batboy.

    7. Re:The funny thing is. . . by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      So you want your news aggregator to decide whats true and what isn't for you?

      It is literally links to news articles from newpapers, cable news web sites, and so on... without a filter.

      THATS WHAT A NEWS AGGREGATOR DOES

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    8. Re:The funny thing is. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google and Facebook get their news from these companies. All they're doing is redistributing the work someone else did and making money off it.

      It would seem these folks should be paying the news companies for all this work which they themselves don't have to do.

      Most of these "news companies" don't do the work themselves either. They purchase subscriptions to wire services and then pick and choose which articles to run. That is why you find the same piece of news on a hundred different sites.

      It worked well when you only had your local paper -they had to get non-local news from somewhere. They bought the stories from the wire services, and you bought a copy from them. Then came the internet, and you could go to any news site and get the same news.

  6. Another idea... by Pollux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Newspapers still provide an important and valuable service to our society. They should be paid for it. Companies like Google and Facebook shouldn't be harvesting content for free. Setup a licensing deal with Google, Facebook, and any other meta-news distributors. Newspapers get money, and they continue to provide their services.

    They should realize by now that the paradigm has shifted. People are consuming news content in new ways, and the best thing to do is adapt. Music's new distribution is streaming. News should be the same.

    1. Re:Another idea... by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah they should apply for an anti-trust exemption to let them negotiate collectively with the technology giants to safeguard the industry. You came up with a great idea!

    2. Re:Another idea... by DarkOx · · Score: 2

      "They should be paid for it"

      Wrong they should be paid for it if there is a market for it. If nobody wants a paper, than they should NOT be paid for it. If they don't want their content harvested they should put it behind a pay wall or not put it online at all. If the paywall means Google does not index them and put them near the top of the search ratings to friggin bad.

      Ultimately Google will be hurt if they don't index the content and return the results people want. On the other hand maybe it will turn out the people don't care about reporting in the form of long form articles if that is the case the newspapers loose.

      I would wager Google and Facebook have a bigger problem if they don't have those content sources than the papers have. If people want news they know where to look! Everyone has heard of the WaPo, Times, WJS, and their local Tribute, etc. If they can't get their news online or can't see any more than the headline without crossing the pay wall they will come crawling back most likely.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    3. Re:Another idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or they could do what the times does and give a small snippet that can be indexed and then paywall the rest.

    4. Re:Another idea... by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      The problem with that is people only look at the summaries than. How often do people read the linked articles here. Its hard to summarize and article that does not exist though. You have to do the research sometime.

      The real problem is the media companies are their own worst enemy. I am not sure what the answer is, but the problem is the fist news organization to do the needful and fully paywall will die. People will flock to the guys that are still 'free' and they will get all the readership. They might survive on ad revenues for a while long since they will be getting greater page views.

      The guys that pay wall will see the revenue dry up. Only when the competition is gone will the free guys close the barn door and paywall. At which point some new organization can probably enter the market. As far as the current crop of big news organizations go, the reality is probably "There can be only one" survivor of the transition away from free online content.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    5. Re:Another idea... by del_diablo · · Score: 2

      I think thats a small and simple view of it. I guess Major Print Coalition(or whatever they could be called) is really really scared that at some point, Google or Facebook will look at them, and realize they source to Reuters or other such companies, and might attempt to kill them as middlemen.
      Or they are scared that the decline in quality will eventually threaten their income for Physical papers, because it will kill of quite a bit of print and knowledge.

      Not that anybody should really care, but USA is a huge marked, so its weird to watch further Monopoly actors trying to do something weird. From a foreign viewpoint, this is weird: As a foreigner who still lives in a nation where the idea is that certain things should be decentralized via state funding, so the Nation can survive getting dragged into another World War/super famine/system collapse. This state funded decentralization still includes physical newspapers, which is why it looks odd from our angle.

    6. Re:Another idea... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Companies like Google and Facebook shouldn't be harvesting content for free.

      Oh they are harvesting content? Based on what I saw they only provide snippets of the headlines and links to content.

      Really I wonder if maybe the media companies shouldn't be getting this for free. Heck just de-list them. That will make it all better.

    7. Re:Another idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are delusional if you do not think that Google & Facebook are unable to simply delist these news organizations and roll their own news outlets.
      Google and Facebook have practically no overhead as they wouldn't offer print, only online.
      Come to think of it.. that is exactly what Facebook and Google should do.. offering the news works well within the verticals of their other products.

    8. Re:Another idea... by erapert · · Score: 1

      Newspapers still provide an important and valuable service to our society.

      The market is already quantifying just how valuable the newspapers' services are.
      If nobody's buying them or giving them any money then in what sense can you say that they're valuable to society?
      Note: you may find them valuable, but you are not society.

    9. Re:Another idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty much everything nice that exists in western society today, from social security, to the internet to roads to the police to NASA, is the result of the government taking a huge loss for the public's benefit. The "market" turns normal moral people into greedy money hungry pigs. If we let the "market" decide, you'd be paying $1 per-wipe and $2.50 per-flush as you sit on the toilet reading this, while the advertisers' spy cameras watch you take a dump and a machine learning algorithm updates itself so they know to charge you $1.25 the next time, because .. you know that's what the "market decided".

    10. Re:Another idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can see into alternate universes O master of what-ifs?
      You must be ultra rich from all that stock market investing you're doing... being able to see into the future and all.

  7. Re:can't happen soon enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your words would have us doomed to a world dominated by Buzzfeed.

  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. In other news... by dada21 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Major fast food restaurants want to regulate and sue the roads and highways for providing their customers easy access to the competition while not compensating the major fast food restaurants for existing on those roads and highways.

  11. Re:can't happen soon enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least Buzzfeed is a central repository to see how the American liberal thinks.

  12. Why are they worried? by fred911 · · Score: 2

    Someone still sells buggy whips.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Why are they worried? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fake buggy whips, no less.

  13. Competitors, and yet....... by lfp98 · · Score: 1

    New York Times invites you, right on their front page, to "Join us on Facebook"

  14. Re:Make Antitrust Go Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even the faggot fat guy is calling out the faggot fat guys.

  15. Re:Make Antitrust Go Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because you're a lonely fat cartoon shit who's been rejected by every fatman you've tried to come on to?

  16. Screw them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Outdated, outmoded, poorly written garbage.

  17. There is a term that describes this... by rickb928 · · Score: 1

    Rent Seeking.

    That alone recommends against this and its advocates.

    --
    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    1. Re:There is a term that describes this... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure how newspapers are rent-seeking. You probably mean another term. If anything, Google/Facebook are rent seekers in this situation..

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re: There is a term that describes this... by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      Watch. These always become rent-seeking, after they go through the attempt to out muscle. The media will attempt to form a sanctioned monopoly...

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    3. Re: There is a term that describes this... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Ah, gotcha. You're not actually talking about anything currently happening, nor responding to my claim that it's Google/Facebook who are rent seeking. You've just constructed a slippery slope future you want to condemn.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    4. Re: There is a term that describes this... by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      Every one involved wants the same thing. Now or later, it will be the same.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
  18. we have this backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    we need to break up Amazon and Google and possibly Facebook. If we had a competent and functional antitrust division at DOJ this would be happening.

    It is not a trump thing, it is a crony politicians of both parties for decades thing. we need to smash these tech companies to bits like they did with Ma Bell.

    1. Re:we have this backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not a trump thing, it is a crony politicians of both parties for decades thing.

      So, Google and Facebook, two companies that became spectacularly successful without any help or involvement from the US government, need to be punished... for what? In order to help the WaPo, a company that has been in bed with Washington politicians for decades and has been acquired by a multi-billionaire as his personal propaganda machine, while running his own monopolistic business empire?

      The reason we have so much cronyism in Washington is because of idiots like you.

  19. NY Times, Wash Post, CNN, etc Are Like Pravda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Pravda-like news organizations seeking antitrust exemption. That's rich. What's next? Comcast, AT&T, Charter, etc cable companies seeking the same due to being threatened by on-line streaming and cord-cutting.

    On a related note, Google News recent changes seem to suggest something is happening behind the scenes between Google and major news organizations. In my view, it's no accident the reduced content density necessitating excessive scrolling, lack of introduction text from articles, and lack of supplemental information, such as stock market quotes gone...

    All in all, appears to be a way to encourage users to click out of Google News. That, in theory, should benefit those sites along with Google, which distributes ads on many of them. As for users, many will seek alternative news aggregators, some of which feature links to lesser known news sites. Not sure how that helps NY Times, etc. They're running scared.

    Finally, as for quality content, many of the major news organizations have gutted their operations. It's common to see numerous spelling and grammatical errors in news articles. More glaringly, seeing sentences or even entire paragraphs duplicated within. Extraneous sentences, etc are a common feature too. In short, even the so-called quality news organizations are increasingly publishing articles in a slipshod manner. And they expect the public to pay for that? Not happening.

  20. Re:Make Antitrust Go Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are you talking to yourself about yourself? Just GTFO.

  21. Re:Make Antitrust Go Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got Amazon Dot. Where are my cock eggs?

  22. here we go again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    please mr. gov, legislate our business model.

  23. They had their chance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not as if no one could see the tide turning towards digital. It is just the name of the publications that they want to use through unjustified legitimacy as they peddle the government's lies. They will most likely get what they want. It won't matter.

  24. GIGO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm surprised by all the commentary on here about markets...

    Reliable markets require exchange of goods/services/currency which is in turn dependent upon - you guessed it! - consistent information about the exchange. Getting meta, without reliable objective news as a source of information about the world, every transaction risks becoming an attempt by one side to defraud the other. Reliable, objective news cannot be gleaned from a corporate PR report; it cannot be found in spam from someone trying to pump and dump a stock; it cannot be readily discerned as signal from the noise of seven billion social commenter.

    So if your hated "newspapers" and their old dead "mainstream" media fail, where do you get your reliable information? You cannot trust any biased blogger to give you the whole truth. Nor is there time enough in the world to filter everything to suit your view. Reality WILL serve you a harsh blow when you cannot act accurately in your precious markets; in fact those markets will fail and our civilization will revert to feudalism with a few powerful lords using their might to force the rest of the people into serfdom.

    Restrict access to information, repress people's voices about bad traders in the markets, return to the dark days.

    Or maybe that's what you want? Unfortunately, your non-existent holy entity will not save you. You are stuck on this planet, in this wonderfully clockwork universe with the rest of humanity, so it's best to start exercising the golden rule since endless indicators in nature and science prove that the best outcomes are when reciprocal behavior dominates. Simply put - treat others how you want to be treated!

    1. Re:GIGO by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      where do you get your reliable information?

      Have you been asleep for the last two decades? I certainly _won't_ get reliable information from the 'newspapers' or the 'MSM'.

      That's what the newspapers are really complaining about. Wah, they're fact checking us! Wah, make them stop. Wah, journalists need to be licenced. Wah, their making their stories about our open bias.

      Newspapers need to 'get by' with online ad revenue. Everybody else can, they can too, the sooner they get to it, the sooner it gets done. If they can sell their own ads and come out ahead vs. just punting to Google, then that's what they will do.

      They, individually, need to decide whether they are propaganda outlets or new outlets, both can be viable business models. Nobody is buying the 'both' bullshit anymore.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  25. Too big to fail. by michaelcole · · Score: 1

    Why should we break up monopolies when instead we can create new ones?

  26. That is why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Google totally f***d up Google News UI recently.

    [I'm running the windows phone 8 user-agent patch but I fear it won't last long]

  27. French do it better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    French newspapers manage to get both the visibility that GN could provide them AND money for being referenced on GN.
    I guess US news want the same.

  28. Kirk... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Let them die."

  29. let's not forget by ooloorie · · Score: 2

    Washington Post: privately purchased by Bezos, one of the richest people in the world, politically active and advancing his political views and preferences through the media. Bezos also owns a company that completely dominates online shopping.

    NYT: top shareholder is Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire with strong opinions on US politics, a major beneficiary from illegal immigration to the US, and a major Clinton supporter.

    Bezos, WaPo, and the NYT symbolize what's wrong in American politics according to Democrats and progressives: foreign collusion, corruption of the political process by billionaires, and crony capitalism. And it's Democrats themselves that support these pricks.

    1. Re:let's not forget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot about the left's creed: no wrong tactics, only wrong targets. It's OK when they do it.

  30. FUCK YOU! by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    "The News Media Alliance argue that, despite their growing dominance in news distribution, Facebook and Google lack the resources and ability to guarantee the accuracy of reporting upheld by reputable news associations."

    You mean all the Russia bullshit stories you have been running only to have to retract them!

    Let's not forget the ever popular WMDs and the Iraq War cheerleading...yeah real reputable.

  31. Kick Them to the Curve by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Congress should kick them to the curve, because how they are making fake news against Trump.

  32. Fair Playing Field by FeelGood314 · · Score: 1

    (YOU ARE NOT google or facebooks customer, you are the product) Google isn't a monopolist in search but between Google and Facebook they do completely dominate online advertising.

    The newspapers want to negotiate with Google and Facebook but they can't. There is an imbalance in power because there are many newspapers and only two companies they can get advertising money from. If they don't band together it becomes a race to the bottom for them.

    1. Re:Fair Playing Field by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Unless they get every news site out there to cooperate, Google and Facebook will just switch to other sources. Besides the smaller domestic ones, there's tons of foreign news sources too. Even if they lose some traffic, it's not that big of a deal. Meanwhile, I wonder how long these news sites will last without any readers.

  33. Too Late by Scroatzilla · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, the Mainstream Media have already enjoyed a monopoly on mindshare for a long time. The reality is that the mindshare is not only draining from the Mainstream Media, but also the Internet is cultivating independent journalism.

    Independent journalism, unfettered by the fascist/propagandist/leftist narrative that went unchecked for so long, has all but completely obliterated that narrative and, therefore, the credibility of these Mainstream Media organizations.

    So, this seems more like a cry from an industry that has traditionally banked on creditbility, but can no longer do so. Screw them. Out with the old, in with the new.

  34. You laugh but they did that in my home town by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    There was a major highway closure coming up. Somebody suggested building a roadway to re-route traffic. It's be useful long and short term and stop traffic jams. Cheap too.

    The local fast food joints bought off the city council to squash it. See, if you're in traffic for 2 hours every day you're that much more likely to stop for Mickey D's or Burger King on the way home. The got caught and absolutely nothing came of it (besides the aforementioned traffic delays).

    You'd be surprised how much corruption there is locally. Local newspapers used to report on it, but then they got bought out by mega corps with no interest reporting such things.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  35. Re:Make Antitrust Go Away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ok, I'll admit it, the last 3 comments were all from me.

  36. This is NOT good news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We have so few independent news papers today as most are already owned by larger companies that control most of the major cities. This will only allow more fake news to be published without any true journalism to counter it.

    Bad, Bad, and did I mention... BAD?

  37. They don't deserve it by stolidobserver · · Score: 1

    Personally, I will not be providing any exemptions to my antitrust doctrine of the so-called news media and their complete lack of integrity at all levels, on every subject. A large portion of what they present as news is merely masked advertising. Huge amounts of content are nothing but political jabbering, fear mongering, and outright incitement of the populace over trivial/non-existent issues. I could care less if they sink back into the mud from whence they spawned.