The Federal Trade Commission has failed to prove Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp allowed it to illegally monopolize the social networking market, a U.S. district court ruled. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/11/19/tech/meta-ftc-antitrust-instagram-whatsapp/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #tech #meta #ftc #antitrust #instagram #whatsapp #facebook #apps #socialmedia #markzuckerberg #donaldtrump
Next was a great talk by Niamh Dunne on regulatory norms in competition law assessment at the UCL Faculty of Laws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z0fVKutDzg (4/6) #law
Next was an engaging panel on AI-supported collusion at the GW Competition & Innovation Lab with Douglas Ginsburg, Koren W. Wong-Ervin, Salil Mehra, Maurice Stucke, and Ai Deng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-DTFh_zbHQ (5/6) #economics #antitrust #law
Cory Doctorow
boosted
@pluralistic says it best:
«[Lina Khan] embodies the incredible potential of a fully operational battle-station, which is to say that she embodies the awesome power of a skilled technocrat who is also deeply ethical and genuinely interested in helping the public.
[U]nder Biden, the trustbusters that had been chosen and fought for by the Warren-Sanders wing of the party proved themselves to be both a) incredibly principled; and b) incredibly skilled.»
https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/15/unconscionability/#standalone-authority
@pluralistic says it best:
«[Lina Khan] embodies the incredible potential of a fully operational battle-station, which is to say that she embodies the awesome power of a skilled technocrat who is also deeply ethical and genuinely interested in helping the public.
[U]nder Biden, the trustbusters that had been chosen and fought for by the Warren-Sanders wing of the party proved themselves to be both a) incredibly principled; and b) incredibly skilled.»
https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/15/unconscionability/#standalone-authority
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney hails Google's antitrust settlement as a win for Android's 'open platform' vision! Lower fees and more competition are on the horizon for the app store. Do you think this will truly level the playing field for developers?
#AndroidDev #TechNews #EpicGames #Google #Antitrust
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/05/epic-games-ceo-calls-googles-antitrust-settlement-a-win-for-androids-vision-as-an-open-platform/
Lisa Melton
boosted
#OpenAI Signs $38 Billion #Cloud Computing Deal With #Amazon
After signing agreements to use computing power from #Nvidia, #AMD & #Oracle, OpenAI is teaming up with the world’s largest cloud computing company.
#tech #AI #law #antitrust #technocracy #plutocracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/technology/openai-amazon-cloud-computing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
#OpenAI Signs $38 Billion #Cloud Computing Deal With #Amazon
After signing agreements to use computing power from #Nvidia, #AMD & #Oracle, OpenAI is teaming up with the world’s largest cloud computing company.
#tech #AI #law #antitrust #technocracy #plutocracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/technology/openai-amazon-cloud-computing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Responding to a court order, the Google Play Store in the US now longer prohibits developers from using 3rd-party payment services and including links to download or pay for apps outside the Play Store... at least until the Supreme Court rules on an appeal. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/google-begins-loosening-developer-restrictions-in-play-store-against-its-will/ #Google #Antitrust #GooglePlayStore
#Google trips over its own words, when they sell you #Android it's the best computing device in the world that does everything. After you bought it Google doesn't let you do anything *you* want to.
#Sideload is a made-up term. Putting software on your computer is simply called “installing”, regardless of whether that computer is in your pocket or on your desk.
What Do You Talk About When You Talk About Sideloading?
What does Google?
Here's #FDroid: https://f-droid.org/2025/10/28/sideloading.html
Our nonprofit group's award winning, prosocial, non-violent video games were removed by #Google.
🤥 They claimed that we had misled them by classifying them as #educational. Google purported to know more about our work than we do.
🎮 Our free games about #consent and #healthyrelationships were unilaterally removed from Google Play, making it much tougher for us to reach and help young people.
🧡 The ubiquity of smartphones make game marketplaces a necessary channel for us to reach #adolescents directly.
#indiegames #publichealth #violenceprevention #DVAM #antitrust #criticalthinking #dh #undueinfluence #duopoly #education #students @stopTDV
Chewie
boosted
Regarding the last boost: Google has been found to be an illegal monopoly multiple times, and so far no judge has had the courage to impose a significant enough penalty that Google actually changes its ways. Its monopoly behavior is frequent, obvious, and damaging.
Anyway, check your Google Drive, if you use that: go to drive, then click the gear. Choose Settings -> Manage Apps, and make sue "Use by default" is checked OFF on everything you don't like, especially Gemini (Google's AI that they're pushing on everyone). This was added and turned on by default for most people, it seems.
#Google #Gemini #DarkPattern #monopoly #AI #GenAI #tying #antitrust #DefaultToOptOut
Regarding the last boost: Google has been found to be an illegal monopoly multiple times, and so far no judge has had the courage to impose a significant enough penalty that Google actually changes its ways. Its monopoly behavior is frequent, obvious, and damaging.
Anyway, check your Google Drive, if you use that: go to drive, then click the gear. Choose Settings -> Manage Apps, and make sue "Use by default" is checked OFF on everything you don't like, especially Gemini (Google's AI that they're pushing on everyone). This was added and turned on by default for most people, it seems.
#Google #Gemini #DarkPattern #monopoly #AI #GenAI #tying #antitrust #DefaultToOptOut
Tim Chambers
boosted
#BigTech Helped Bankroll the #EastWing Destruction
#Meta, #Amazon, #Microsoft, #Apple, & #Google have a lot riding on their relationships with the #Trump admin. They all cut checks for the ballroom.
#TechBros #plutocracy #billionaires #corporations #corruption #bribery #extortion #law #antitrust #regulations #AI #energy
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/white-house-east-wing-destruction-google-meta-apple-microsoft-amazone/
Then there’s the #tech companies — #Google, #Apple, #Microsoft, #Amazon, & #Meta.
The tech companies themselves have been awfully quiet about the project they’re helping to underwrite. Just to make sure they hadn’t missed it, MJ sent a photo of the demolished #EastWing — & requests for comment — to representatives of all of these companies. A Microsoft spox confirmed the company had made a contribution but offered no further comment. None of the others responded.
But #BigTech’s donations for #Trump’s pet cause come at a time when the industry’s giants have a lot riding on their relationships with the #WhiteHouse. In a marked shift from Trump’s first term, #tech leaders have spent most of the last 12 months singing the president’s praises as they navigate #antitrust cases, #tariffs, & #regulatory hurdles; fight for #contracts; & push for #policies that benefit their bottom lines.
#BigTech Helped Bankroll the #EastWing Destruction
#Meta, #Amazon, #Microsoft, #Apple, & #Google have a lot riding on their relationships with the #Trump admin. They all cut checks for the ballroom.
#TechBros #plutocracy #billionaires #corporations #corruption #bribery #extortion #law #antitrust #regulations #AI #energy
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/white-house-east-wing-destruction-google-meta-apple-microsoft-amazone/
Once again, by focusing on **monopoly power** as over-arching dynamic, Matt Stoller sees blindspots in mainstream Left
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-the-left-can-protest
What if "No Kings" clearly included *all* the oligarchs, even those associated with Democrats, like Gates and Soros and Mark Cuban, along with Kochs and Ellison and Musk And Zuck and Bezos and more…
And crazy to let robust local manufacturing and independence from China ever be claimed to be a Right-wing political view…
🚨 Another massive AWS outage just took down Roblox, Fortnite, Coinbase, Snapchat, and all Supercell games.
Half the internet has gone dark because of one Big Tech company. This is not innovation, it is monopoly risk.
💡It’s time to choose alternatives.
@Tutanota oh Amazon smh. Amirite? #AntiTrust , #AntiTrustlawsandcompetition
Next was an insightful talk by Anna Tzanaki on the EU's legal and economic challenges around addressing killer acquisitions at @Weizenbaum_Institut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-UsU4Akdjs (5/7) #economics #law #antitrust
Tim Chambers
boosted
CNBC: U.S. Supreme Court allows order forcing Google to make app store reforms. “The justices turned down Google’s request to temporarily freeze parts of the injunction won by Epic in its lawsuit accusing the tech giant of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and pay for transactions within apps.”
CNBC: U.S. Supreme Court allows order forcing Google to make app store reforms. “The justices turned down Google’s request to temporarily freeze parts of the injunction won by Epic in its lawsuit accusing the tech giant of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and pay for transactions within apps.”
This summer a US judge Google to allow third-party app stores & billing in the Google Play Store. Google asked for a temporary stay during the appeals process, but the Supreme Court said no. So expect changes starting Oct 22. https://www.theverge.com/news/793610/google-epic-android-supreme-court-stay-denied #Epic #Google #Antitrust #GooglePlayStore
