[coldpie]

> Google needs to be broken up.

To make it explicit: the only way this happens is by Americans voting for it. The FTC has been more active on anti-trust issues in the past two years than at any time in the past 30. That's a direct result of the 2020 election. Elections matter.

[tomschlick]

The FTC isn't going to do anything as Google/Alphabet is a big donor to the Democrats.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/alphabet-inc/recipients?id=...

Here is them lobbying specifically around antitrust reform legislation: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/bills/specific_...

[coldpie]

So are Amazon:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/amazon-com/recipients?id=D0...

and Microsoft:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-inc/recipients?id...

And yet we see high profile activity against them from the current FTC.

[burkaman]

And Meta: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/meta/recipients?id=D0000335..., https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/0...

And Intuit: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/intuit-inc/recipients?id=D0..., https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/1...

And Epic: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/epic-systems/recipients?id=..., https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/1...

etc. etc.

[refulgentis]

? This is provably false. FTC filed 6 months ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/technology/google-ads-law...

n.b. I've found a lot of comfort by conciously rolling away from any subject that leads me to do "They"-ing, i.e. name an enormously large group, then talk about them as a unit. The more I avoid it, the more I realize how prevalent it became and drives how a lot of us feel society shifted.

[TeeMassive]

It's called saving appearances.

[refulgentis]

So your position is, they'll never do it, and if they did, it's fake. Sounds like self-peasantization.

[TeeMassive]

The people working at the FTC have been involved in revolving doors in the very industries they're trying to break up.

It's a simple observation. They don't have the interest to make it pass but they still have to do it to save face.

[minsc_and_boo]

You're right, but not because of politics.

FTC is on a losing streak, with the latest fiasco being the Microsoft Activision acquisition fiasco.

[weare138]

Republicans control the house. That's who would have to pass any legislation. FTC is non-partisan.

[soumyadeb]

Citation? FTC against Google doesn't produce much results on Google (kind of an irony :))

Have seen FTC going against Amazon because the FTC chair had published prior work against Amazon's practices. Not defending Amazon but FB/Google are a much bigger threat than Amazon.

[coldpie]

Citation for what, increased anti-trust activity from the FTC over the last two years? Sure, here's one article:

> Private equity deals and transactions in the healthcare and technology sectors continue to attract heightened antitrust scrutiny...

> The US agencies have also demonstrated an increased interest in challenging vertical transactions.

> In January 2022, for example, the FTC sued to block Lockheed Martin's US$4.4 billion proposed acquisition of Aerojet, which the parties subsequently abandoned.

> Increased enforcement, combined with the agencies' reluctance to approve remedies, has created an uncertain environment where commercial parties should be increasingly prepared to litigate mergers.

> The ramping up of antitrust enforcement in 2022...

https://www.whitecase.com/insight-our-thinking/us-ma-fy-2022...

Here's another:

> Since 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have filed multiple lawsuits against major tech companies...

> "The agencies have started laying the foundations for a more interventionist stance over the last two years, and this year is when we'll start to see some of those efforts come to fruition -- or be stopped in their tracks by the courts," Kass said.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/news/252528606/FTC-push...

I'm sure you can find more.

[kyrra]

Except they keep losing cases. ex:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-appeals-court-opens-docket-...

Or Judges fast-tracking lawsuits to allow those being prosecuted by the FTC to get things over quicker, ex: https://www.reuters.com/legal/illumina-wins-fast-track-appea...

And I think the biggest blow may actually come about because of the SEC lawsuit that will be heard this upcoming term at SCOTUS: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-decide-legali..., which will likely heavily reign in the power of administrator judges and the ability for an agency to keep initial fights in-house (blocking litigants from taking fights to the normal courts).

[coldpie]

Yeah. You can't expect every swing to be a home run, but you also miss every swing you don't take. My point is at least they're trying to do something now, unlike previous decades. It will take some time and effort to bring the agency back around to being effective after decades of inactivity. That's not going to happen if future administrations put the FTC back on the bench.

[soumyadeb]

Citation for this statement.

>The FTC has been more active on anti-trust issues in the past two years than at any time in the past 30

FTC being more active in past two years over previous 30 is a strong statement.

[Mountain_Skies]

How much of that involves the tech industry? Are you seriously claiming that Silicon Valley and Donald Trump were besties while the Democrats and tech hate each other?

[coldpie]

> How much of that involves the tech industry?

A lot. Here's a link where you can read about some recent activity in the tech industry (change it to sort by Date, I couldn't figure out how to do that in the URL): https://arstechnica.com/search/?ie=UTF-8&q=ftc You can probably find more on Google (or perhaps Duck Duck Go? :) ).

[yyyk]

>The FTC has been more active on anti-trust issues in the past two years than at any time in the past 30.... That's a direct result of the 2020 election.

Active against Google though? Remember, Google can help a certain political party in tough times (e.g. rollout of healthcare.gov).

[coldpie]

So can Microsoft and Amazon, surely? Yet they're getting a lot of scrutiny from the FTC right now.

[yyyk]

Yes, but Google has a strong existing relationship, the D party owes them for that one and some other favours. Can you find a link for any recent FTC action against Google (not against Google's competitors or some tiny subsidiary of Google)? I hope I'm wrong here.

[coldpie]

I don't see anything significant from the FTC specifically regarding Google, but there is an ongoing DOJ lawsuit. Possibly they don't want to step on that? I admit I don't really understand the roles of the DOJ versus the FTC regarding anti-trust enforcement. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl...

[Mountain_Skies]

Wake me up with they actually do something instead of making announcements of looking into the possibility of perhaps one day sending a strongly worded letter asking their tech buddies to calm down a little bit, if they're so inclined. Until then, this is campaign fodder and nothing else.

[coldpie]

Okay, here's your alarm clock going off:

"FTC rewrites rules on Big Tech mergers with aim to ease monopoly-busting"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ftc-rewrites-rul...

"FTC prepares “the big one,” a major lawsuit targeting Amazon’s core business"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-prepares-the...

"The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon today, claiming the online giant violated US law by tricking consumers into signing up for the $14.99-per-month Amazon Prime subscription service and making it annoyingly difficult to cancel."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-sues-amazon-...

"FTC files to block Microsoft’s $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition"

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/report-ftc-will-file-...

"A Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed yesterday accused Ring, the home security camera company owned by Amazon, of invading users' privacy"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-amazon-ring-...

"Microsoft will pay $20 million to settle an FTC complaint that its Xbox platform illegally collected and retained information about children without their parents' consent"

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/xbox-coppa-violations...

And that's all just from one news source, in the last three months.