Economy

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.

Below is the executive summary of my new white paper, “Internet Market Failure to Protect Consumer Welfare,” which can be accessed here.

It is a timely and relevant submission to two different and current U.S. Department of Justice efforts to learn more about the impact of Internet-related issues.

1.      Submission for: the U.S. DOJ Cyber-Digital Task Force June 2018 Report to the Attorney General
 Tasked to “…ensure that Internet-based technologies remain sources of enrichment, rather than becoming forces of destruction and vectors of chaos;” and

Note: This analysis is a response to DOJ Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim’s public call last month for “fresh thinking” on antitrust approaches to digital platforms. He said: “…we should encourage fresh thinking on how our legal tools apply to new digital platforms. We need more thinking—diverse thinking—about these questions. And, we need a civil discourse on this topic.” “I believe that, as enforcers, we should be open and receptive to empirical evidence that companies in digital markets may be engaging in predatory pricing or other exclusionary conduct to drive out competition and cause long-run harm to consumers.”

Summary: Fresh Thinking on the Unfair Competition Problem of Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

Will protecting the process of fair competition be a priority of the new Simons-FTC?

Note: this post summarizes a Precursor LLC presentation filing for the record of the U.S. DOJ Antitrust Division’s 3-14-18 Roundtable on Antitrust Exemptions & Immunities. See the presentation/filing here.

Presentation Title:

“A Market Divided: U.S. Internet Policy Creates Anticompetitive Asymmetric Accountability.”
Government exemptions and immunities overwhelmingly favor regulatory arbitrage over free market competition. Accountability arbitrage harms: consumer welfare; free market forces; the process of competition; and economic growth.

Executive Summary:

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed, “America’s Bipartisan Spectrum Opportunity.”

• It spotlights the huge opportunity for Congress and the Administration to work together on a bipartisan basis to get much needed radio spectrum reallocated for licensed and un-licensed use soonest.

Google, the Internet’s lone  superpower, increasingly governs its borderless virtual geography like a supranational virtual state, with the power to increasingly arbitrage actual nations’ sovereignty.

The latest example of Google’s well-established pattern of callous corporate irresponsibility and willful blindness is reporting by the Washington Post that: “If you search Google Maps for the N-word, it gives you the White House.”

Tellingly, Google’s corporate policy of crowd-sourcing without curation/corporate supervision of Google Maps systemically yields racist labels for innumerable places per Danny Sullivan’s analysis of the pervasive problem at MarketingLand.  

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Diverging US-EU Internet Trade Visions.”

It spotlights that starkly diverging US-EU net neutrality and data protection policies complicate negotiations for the nascent and pending Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) trade agreement.

This is Part 6 of my “World Changing the Internet” research series.

***

World Changing Internet Series

Please don’t miss my new white paper that I will present Friday at a NetCompetition Capitol Hill event with the following well-known experts responding: Gene Kimmelman of Public Knowledge; Jeff Eisenach of the American Enterprise Institute; Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America; and Hal Singer of the Progressive Policy Institute. (Event details are below for anyone who wishes to attend.)

The white paper -- “Thinking and Starting Anew: Modernizing Communications Law for American Consumers” -- has a simple but critically important premise: that consumers and not technology should be the organizing principle of any update of the Communications Act.   

I believe you will find the two contrasting graphics particularly helpful:

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed “Why Chairmen Upton/Walden Plan a Communications Act Update” – here.

The op-ed provides a foundational answer to both:

• Chairman Upton/Walden’s organizing question: “…is this working for today’s communications marketplace?” and
• Representative Dingell’s core question: What is the need for change?

This is Part 21 of my Obsolete Communications Law Series.

***

FYI: See additional background below: two key PowerPoint presentations & my Obsolete Communications Law Series.