“The court of public opinion” is not a court of law.

“The truth” is not sufficient in a court of law like it is in the court of public opinion. In a court of law, the well-known legal “truth” standard and oath is telling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”   

https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/19/cleland-the-internet-imperative-is-protect-people-by-restoring-a-duty-of-care/

DAILY CALLER

The Internet Imperative Is Protect People by Restoring A Duty-of-Care

SCOTT CLELAND CONTRIBUTOR                                                                      October 19, 2020 11:39 AM ET

How can American Internet law protect platforms from people but not protect people from platforms?

https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/08/cleland-discovering-googles-rule-of-scofflaw/

DAILY CALLER OPINION

Discovering Google’s Rule of Scofflaw

SCOTT CLELAND CONTRIBUTOR -- October 08, 20203:04 PM ET

Google has a discovery double standard.

Google treats the discovery of others’ information the way they don’t want discovery of their information treated, the opposite of the Golden Rule.

The evidence shows Google expects everyone else’s private or proprietary information to be publicly accessible and useful, except Google’s.

Google knows information is power.

Google and antitrust authorities also know asymmetric information advantages can create, maintain and extend market power.

This is a timely and relevant concern as the two biggest legal cases that Google has ever faced are coming to a head in public, at nearly the same time.

On October 7, the Supreme Court heard the final Oracle v. Google arguments.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/09/29/cleland-rebalancing-the-internet-imbalance-of-a-25-year-utopian-policy-experiment/

DAILY CALLER

Rebalancing the Internet Imbalance of a 25-Year Utopian Policy Experiment

SCOTT CLELAND CONTRIBUTOR                                                        September 29, 2020 11:38 AM ET

The Internet is now less a technological revolution and more of an unravelling, 25-year-old utopian policy experiment of freedom-without-responsibility.

There is no question that the Internet’s many technological innovations have been a phenomenal success given that everyone everywhere conducts everything over the Internet.

However, the Internet has also been a 25-year utopian policy experiment, and many of the Internet’s foundational utopian premises – i.e., a borderless, permissionless commons, open to everything and everyone, with no central or sovereign authority — have been unravelling or have largely collapsed.

In the 1990’s, the nascent Internet was viewed as a separate, virtual global dimension, ripe for utopian exceptions and experimentation.

IAM (Note:IAM is the world’s leading intellectual property business media platform.)

Google’s anticompetitive infringement of IP reduces innovation

By Scott Cleland

The impending public filing of the expected DOJ antitrust case against Google means big change is afoot for U.S. antitrust enforcement for Internet platforms.

As we look ahead, it’s important to not miss the forest for the trees.

The Senate is having an antitrust hearing on Google. The House is soon releasing a report on Big Tech antitrust. And the DOJ and states are expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google.

Some background on my insights and predictions below.

Thirteen years ago, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in opposition to the proposed Google-DoubleClick acquisition. I accurately warned of “the stakes of lax antitrust enforcement…” and “missing the forest for the trees,” because the merger obviously “would create extreme market concentration horizontally and vertically, and also tip the online advertising market to a bottleneck.” Since then, I have copiously chronicled Google’s antitrust issues on Googleopoly.net.   

Please don’t miss my Daily Caller Op-Ed (PDF here) on America’s Internet Reset Opportunity for a Responsible, Prosperous Internet.

It explains how America can and must do much better than a Wild West, Winner-Take-All, Internet law.

And it spotlights a bipartisan, popular Internet reset opportunity for Congress to restore a legal duty of care online to revitalize America’s civil society, competitive commerce, and productive prosperity.

Our polarized Internet world has generated at least one area of extraordinary bipartisan consensus: 77 percent of Americans agree Google, Facebook, and Amazon have too much power according to a Gallup survey.  

The near unanimous participation of Federal, State and Congressional antitrust authorities in probing  Google, Facebook, and Amazon, indicates extraordinary concern that their unchecked market power threatens competition for the consumer market.

Both political parties agree that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which grants Internet platforms with immunity from liability for good faith moderation of online content, in practice provides Internet platforms unaccountable power that warrants reform.

Section 230’s intermediary impunity loophole provides these dominant consumer gatekeepers with anticompetitive advantages that facilitate the monopolization of access to consumer demand online, thus undermining competition for U.S. consumer spending that comprises 68% of U.S. GDP.

These gatekeepers, which do their best to avoid competing directly with each other, dominate competitive access to the online U.S. consumer market, leaving most potential competitors dependent on them to broadly reach online consumer demand.

How could this happen?

Big Tech tales that the Coronavirus Crisis somehow will mitigate their Techlash problem, totally miss the mark.

They miss that the crisis is not good and not about tech. They miss that to whom much is given, much is expected.

They miss how many other industries and companies have contributed and sacrificed during this crisis without expecting something in return.

Spontaneously this past week, a tech op-ed chorus broke out singing a new tune and tale, that the Coronavirus Crisis could benefit Big Tech and save it from much of the Techlash.

Consider: Coronavirus gives Big Tech an opportunity to shine – Axios 3-18-20; Has the coronavirus killed the Techlash? Wired 3-20-20; Big Tech has the cash to expand after crisis, Regulatory threat also likely to recede for now, FT 3-20-20; and What Techlash? Virus Could Remake Industry Giants Image, The Information 3-23-20.  

Like some catchy new tunes lyrics, these don’t make sense.

Why is the Coronavirus Crisis no cure for the Techlash?

First, Americans strong bipartisan views undergird the Techlash in the U.S.

Consider a recent Gallup poll of Americans published 3-11-20.

Government scrutiny of Internet platform unaccountability is here to stay because it is a strong bipartisan concern and interest.   

Yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on “Transparency & Accountability: Examining Google and its Data Collection, Use and Filtering Practices” featured Google CEO Sundar Pichai as the lone witness.

The hearing provided a ~30 congressperson data-set and proxy for where Google specifically, and Internet platforms generally, stand politically at this point in the techlash gauntlet.