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Tech Giants Like Amazon and Facebook Should Be Regulated, Disrupted, or Broken Up: Mozilla Foundation (venturebeat.com) 187

The Mozilla Foundation has called for the regulation of tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. From a report: Though tech giants in the U.S. and companies like Alibaba and Tencent in China have "helped billions realize the benefits of the internet," the report calls for regulation of these players to mitagate monopolistic business practices that undermine "privacy, openness, and competition on the web." They box out competitors, restricting innovation in the process, Mozilla wrote today in its inaugural Internet Health Report, "As their capacity to make sense of massive amounts of data grows through advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, their powers are likely to advance into adjacent businesses through vertical integrations into hardware, software, infrastructure, automobiles, media, insurance, and more -- unless we find a way to disrupt them or break them up." Governments should enforce anti-competitive behavior laws and rethink outdated antitrust models when implementing regulation of tech giants, the report states.
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Tech Giants Like Amazon and Facebook Should Be Regulated, Disrupted, or Broken Up: Mozilla Foundation

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  • by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:02AM (#56417625) Homepage

    ... of the Mozilla Foundation. Sit down and shut up. Stop ruining firefox.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      Stop ruining firefox.

      Stop ruining, as in you already successfully ruined it, any further efforts to foul it up are redundant.

      • by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:27AM (#56417741)

        Whether it is mere perception or not, companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc are seen to be anti-competitive and a net detriment to the overall market. But perception is usually the basis for laws and regulations despite the best intentions.

        These guys need to get out in front of the perception and "do something" (I have no idea what that would be), or when the Democrats eventually do regain the majority (and they will...it's all a cycle), we will end up with an incomprehensible mess of regulations and restrictions that nobody wants to deal with.

        It is highly likely that your little website selling wooden birdhouses would end up having to file/certify/abide by some stupid regulation that in reality has nothing to do with wooden bird houses. That is just how Washington works.

        So take heed, Facebook, Amazon, and Google. What befall you will befall us all.

        • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:55AM (#56417909) Homepage Journal

          Whether it is mere perception or not, companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc are seen to be anti-competitive and a net detriment to the overall market. But perception is usually the basis for laws and regulations despite the best intentions.

          These guys need to get out in front of the perception and "do something" (I have no idea what that would be), or when the Democrats eventually do regain the majority (and they will...it's all a cycle), we will end up with an incomprehensible mess of regulations and restrictions that nobody wants to deal with.

          04/8/18 – Facebook censors Diamond and Silk’s page, labeling them “unsafe to the community.” The outspoken sisters were were provided with no reason why their videos were labeled as unsafe.
          11/2/17 – The president’s Twitter handle, @RealDonaldTrump, is deactivated for 11 minutes.
          10/9/17 – Twitter shuts down Congressman Marsha Blackburn’s campaign’s ability to promote her announcement video because of pro-life statements.
          09/9/17 – A pro-Trump YouTube star has her song “Make America Great Again” taken down from YouTube. The company refuses to comment on this specific case.
          10/12/16 – Google’s YouTube censors conservative video channel by labeling it “restricted adult content.”
          06/22/16 – Anti-Hillary Clinton game removed from Google Play Store, but “Punch the Trump” game remains.
          06/10/16 – Investigative video released showing how Google manipulates search results to favor Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
          06/26/06 – Google begins to prioritize its own services over those of start-up competitor Foundem.com in search results.

          They are already doing something!

          • by sycodon ( 149926 )

            Ha!

            Seems like that's just making it worse for themselves in the long run.

          • Google begins to prioritize its own services over those of start-up competitor Foundem.com in search results.

            No shit? In 2006 Google didn't actively prop up its competitors? Gee thanks that's some shocking info. In other news, Target doesn't provide free Ubers taking people over to Walmart.

            As for the rest, provide links to reputable sources for those things or it's all disregarded. Not saying it didn't happen, but I need to verify that this isn't "fake news". You understand, right?

          • OMG, he found 10 videos that got kicked off of a service that happened to be pro Trump. We just don't have enough "Kick Hillary" games for our self expression!

            There's what, 2 million new videos a day on Youtube. You don't think a lot of stuff gets a hit?

            The problem with Google and Facebook is not what they censor, but the amazing detail they get to profile you. They might discover that you are 20% more likely to buy a car after seeing a picture of a steak. So companies that buy their services to socially en

        • by q4Fry ( 1322209 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @01:07PM (#56418615)

          These guys need to get out in front of the perception and "do something" (I have no idea what that would be), or...

          They are. It is called "campaign contributions."

        • How is Amazon anti-competitive? I, and I imagine most people, order from Amazon because it's a much better experience that shopping at a bricks and mortar retailer. Lots of things on Amazon are sold by third-parties as well.

          Instead of driving 10 minutes to the local Target and taking a cart down the aisles and hoping what I need is in-stock, checking out and driving home I can shop from almost anywhere via my phone and my goods will be waiting for me when I get home.

    • by DaMattster ( 977781 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:58AM (#56417935)
      Actually, FireFox has become quite good. After the major code refactor, it took a leap above Chrome in performance. I switched back to Firefox after not having used it since the early 2000s.
      • Actually, FireFox has become quite good. After the major code refactor, it took a leap above Chrome in performance. I switched back to Firefox after not having used it since the early 2000s.

        I'm still on version 56.0.2 because I don't want to give up my plugins, like Session Manager which still has no true equivalent among the nu-plugins.

        • I upgraded and gave up Session Manager. "Tab Session Manager" is ok, but screws up more often than Session Manager did.

          It has always astounded me that FF never bothered to have a session manager built-in, nor how FF has delegated everything dealing with Tab management to an extension. Opera had those basics up thru version 12 for as long as I can remember - a decade.

    • by Hylandr ( 813770 )

      The first signs of a failing organization are all the same.

      "If you can't compete, litigate."

  • by skovnymfe ( 1671822 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:14AM (#56417675)
    Is Mozilla no longer dependent on the teet that is Google? Sure was nice of Google to let Mozilla suckle for so long and now that Mozilla is all grown up it can rebel against its parents. Human nature at its finest. This is just teenage puberty. Move along.
  • >> Mozilla Foundation has called for the regulation of tech giants like Google - "break them up"

    Without Google's $330M/yr (!), Mozilla is really reminding me of a jilted first wife. ("If I can't have my old lifestyle, NO ONE will ever be happy again!")
    https://www.cnet.com/news/firefox-maker-mozilla-we-dont-need-googles-money-anymore/
  • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:15AM (#56417681)

    The Mozilla Foundation has called for the regulation of tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

    If they want to have this happen they have to show how CONSUMERS are being harmed in some tangible (mostly financial) way. The mere fact that those companies have simply out competed their rivals is not sufficient and it's clear those companies have provided a lot of value whatever their flaws might be. None of those companies are monopolies or if they are they are extremely narrow ones. Amazon may be the big gorilla in ecommerce but they aren't a monopoly. Facebook may dominate social media but proving that harms consumers is going to be a tough argument.

    Plus is it really realistic to call for regulation when the party that breaks out in hives whenever they hear the word controls both congress and the presidency? Never going to happen. This is the same party that seems to think net neutrality is some communist plot to reduce profits of big business. This is the same party that hasn't issued a single enforcement action out of the CFPB [consumerfinance.gov] in over a year. Regulate? Not bloody likely.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:33AM (#56417773)

      Your definition of a monopoly is poor. Also monopolistic behavior is what is regulated (in theory) in the US. Standard Oil engaged in monopolistic practices when it conspired with railroads to have the railroad levy charges on other oil producers and transfer the money from those charges to Standard Oil. You would say Standard was not a monopoly because there were other producers. It is the monopolistic behavior that is onerous and stifles competition. Standard Oil was a monopoly because it was big enough to engage in that behavior.

      Amazon is definitely big enough to do things as Standard Oil did. Google is big enough to do such things and HAS with the help of government institutions. Under the guise of a great central library, Google basically obtained complete immunity from copyright laws in order for them to copy anything ever published. There is no great all inclusive library available to the public as a result. But the vast library peeking from behind the Google paywall is evident. Meanwhile we go the archive.org for historical reference materials.

      So we do need enforcement of anti-trust but the corruption in government is so bad that the government actually facilitates trust and monopoly creation when they give indulgences to obvious monopoly power.

      • by lgw ( 121541 )

        Amazon is definitely big enough to do things as Standard Oil did. Google is big enough to do such things and HAS with the help of government institutions.

        And yet, most stuff sold on amazon.com is not sold by Amazon. Personally, I hate that, since I hate the flea market feel and risk of fraud from random sellers, but they certainly aren't acting like a monopoly.

        Google OTOH would hassle me to switch to Chrome every time I checked gmail, has started Chrome firmly down the path to being the next IE6, and is abusing the Android platform with their all-or-nothing demands for Google apps / app store.

        Hardly seems fair to group them together. And Facebook, much as

        • and is abusing the Android platform

          The same Android platform that is 95% developed by Google?

          their all-or-nothing demands for Google apps / app store

          What does that mean. Anyone can take AOSP and build a commercial product on it. There's no obligation to run Google apps or their app store.

          • by lgw ( 121541 )

            Without the app store, you'll be as successful as the Fire phone or Windows phone. But you can't just take the app store, you have to take the whole bundle. Bundling a web browser with the dominant OS - where have we seen that sort of thing before?

      • Your definition of a monopoly is poor.

        Not my definition. It's the definition used by the US government. If you think it is a poor definition your argument is with them, not me.

        Also monopolistic behavior is what is regulated (in theory) in the US.

        For it to be monopolistic behavior by definition the company has to be a monopoly first.

        You would say Standard was not a monopoly because there were other producers.

        Strawman. Stop your pathetic attempt to put words in my mouth. I said nothing of the sort nor did I even imply it.

        Amazon is definitely big enough to do things as Standard Oil did.

        That is irrelevant. They would have to DO the sorts of things that Standard Oil did. Merely being large does not equal being a monopoly. And whether a company is a m

    • Showing that harm happens to a nation (or if you prefer, to all the consumers in a nation) is perfectly sufficient, and that's precisely why zucktard is in the hotseat on capitol hill right now.
    • net neutrality is some communist plot to reduce profits of big business.

      No, no, no. It's a fascist plot to regulate up some free upstream bandwidth for content providers. Take note of who is in favor of "net neutrality".... big companies with big internet bills. Remember how all this shit started? Netflix vs Comcast and "peering"...?

      Clueless assholes are the ones keeping this "net neutrality" issue alive. Let it die, asshole.

      • by sjbe ( 173966 )

        Take note of who is in favor of "net neutrality".... big companies with big internet bills.

        The only people who are not in favor of net neutrality are large ISPs who have the ability to effectively tax all internet traffic. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc stand to make a huge amount of money at the expense of almost everyone else.

        I am strongly in favor of net neutrality and I'm certainly not a big company with a big internet bill.

        Clueless assholes are the ones keeping this "net neutrality" issue alive. Let it die, asshole.

        Fuck off troll.

        • "Tax" all internet traffic? You have no idea how the internet works.

          I guess in your magical world, internets are free, and those horrible profit-seeking entities are putting price tags on the freedom. Grow the fuck up. Every packet is paid for.... Either the Netfix's of the world charge you more for their service, or they get idiots like you to lobby the government to make the internets free, and then the ISPs have to pay (which means you pay).
          • I pay for connectivity. It's not free. Some sites charge for access. I'll either pay or not use them, no biggie. I have no problems with paying for access and possibly paying content providers for content. I don't want my ISP tacking on additional fees arbitrarily.

            • Ok, here's how it works, using Netflix and Comcast as examples (since they started all this shit).

              You, for the sake of argument, have a netflix account. so, they need to send you a lot of data when you stream movies (some say netflix composes 50% of all internet traffic in the US).
              Netflix has multiple ISP s(called a content distribution network, or CDN). Netflix pays metric shit tons of money for their internet. Their ISP bills are so high because they need rediculous bandwidth to handle all the concu
              • Here's how it works. I don't use Comcast or Netflix, but let's use your examples.

                Netflix pays a lot of money for connectivity. This is presumably factored into what they would charge me. It's actually not really my business. Netflix makes a profit on me or they don't, and that's their problem. If they screw it up, then either they go bankrupt or I get crap service and go somewhere else. Your free market in action. I pay money for connectivity. Nobody's asking anything for free. What I want is to

                • What you want is impossible and illogical. Whether or not you can connect to a web service properly depends mostly on whether or not that content provider has adequate upstream bandwidth. ISPs do not and can no differentiate between traffic sources, both for technical and legal reasons. Content providers like to point the finger at ISPs, but a traceroute will show where the real problem is.

                  I think the problem is that you, and most consumers, don't understand what it is they are buying.

                  Lets go over yo
    • by jbengt ( 874751 )

      If they want to have this happen they have to show how CONSUMERS are being harmed in some tangible (mostly financial) way.

      Consumer financial harm is not the only bad result that can come from monopolization of markets. The view that monopolies should only be restrained if it could be proven that they harm consumers financially was put in place by the Reagan administration in order to be more friendly to the big corporations. Before that, monopolies were considered harmful to the principles of freedom, an

  • by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:17AM (#56417691) Journal

    A colon *PRECEDES* a list or a more detailed explanation of whatever was immediately before it. It can be used to indicate that someone said something, but then whoever said it should come before the colon, not after.

    I'm pretty sure, thus, that the headline should actually read "Mozilla Foundation: Tech Giants Like Amazon and Facebook Should Be Regulated, Disrupted, or Broken Up".

    While one could argue that this form of headline might be acceptable because one can still figure out what was probably meant, I am not convinced that is an acceptable reason to discard notions of proper grammar and punctuation usage.

    • The reversed order in this type of scenario is used to redirect the emphasis of the headline to the latter subject. That is to say, the structure of the title herein is directing the readers attention to the fact that the Mozilla Foundation is specifically the party which holds these views... rather than attempting to focus the readers attention on the views themselves. This type of literary tool can be useful when the author does not necessarily hold with the views and opinions expressed by the subject.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )
        There are other ways to do that than by using a colon. I remain unconvinced that the headline conforms to proper usage of punctuation and grammar.
        • Certainly there are other ways... but that doesn't necessarily make this way wrong. The "rules" of proper usage of punctuation and grammar are prone to change over the course of time, in any "living" language. To illustrate: were Shakespeare to pop his head through the veil and contemplate this (or really any) conversation, he would almost certainly be entirely unconvinced that anyone living today has even the vaguest notion of proper punctuation, grammar or spelling.
    • 100% agree.

      "Broken Up: Mozilla Foundation"

      I also agree, Mozilla Foundation should be broken up. /sarcasm

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by WallyL ( 4154209 )

        You could probably use machine learning to teach English from slashdot posts such as this. There are so many, most likely covering every common and obscure English rule in existence.

        Shh! By your announcing it, the AI now knows the real reason, and will be taking each new grammar rule with a grain of salt!

    • Yeah, I think that when it's a quote like this, the correct punctuation is an em dash, not a colon. I'm not an expert, but I think that's what I see more often.
    • A colon *PRECEDES* a list or a more detailed explanation of whatever was immediately before it.

      A colon *PRECEDES* a government virtual weener in regulatory action.

      Slow down, government! Donors to the politicians contemplating forcing a breakup haven't had enough time to financially maneuver to take advantage of a prospective forced breakup yet!

  • Maybe I'm alone, but its felt to me that increasingly the large tech companies have created internal structures which have resulted in their inability to execute on a product and see it to completion - to great fanfare they release half-baked products but never seem to complete, polish or iterate on them.

    Pure speculation - they're rewarding employee that work on new products to a greater degree than existing ones which results in people skipping from project to project.

  • ...not sure where rage against Amazon is coming from. They run their own store, they run a market that others can rent space in, they run some TV distribution, they run ebooks and an ebook reader to varying degrees of success. They also have a cloud platform that anyone could rent time on.

    None of these are monopolistic. I disagreed with the idea of a patent for 1-click shopping, and it sounds like they could do a better job with their warehousing picking staff (ie, they should be on the clock as they are

    • by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Also, does Amazon even share its mountain of data with third parties? They absolutely use it to help target products at potential customers within their store for Marketplace partners, but ultimately it seems that it's in Amazon's best interest to keep all that data to themselves as even meta access to it could potentially enable a competitor to profit at Amazon's expense. They're undeniably very good at what they do, and one of the largest players - if not THE largest - in many of the sectors they are in
    • Many years ago, I said that betting on a single internet sales company was silly, invest in the delivery services like FedEx and UPS instead! Now, Amazon is becoming their own delivery service, just to make me look wrong. And delivery services are a "natural monopoly", as in only about 3 of them can survive even in a large country. It's a business where economies of scale really kick in.
    • by Kreela ( 1770584 )

      ...not sure where rage against Amazon is coming from. They run their own store, they run a market that others can rent space in, they run some TV distribution, they run ebooks and an ebook reader to varying degrees of success. They also have a cloud platform that anyone could rent time on.

      None of these are monopolistic.

      In ebooks, they have both an overwhelming share of the market in many English-speaking countries, and a Select programme that demands ebook exclusivity. If you hang out on writers' forums you'll hear the rage. With ebooks you're (hopefully) not talking about commodities, but in terms of whether it's monopolistic, the sheer size of Amazon's market means a lot of self-publishers and smaller publishers don't feel they can turn down the exclusivity, which comes with added visibility in the store and promotiona

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Web of distrust (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:27AM (#56417737) Homepage

    I'd rather share my data with 1 Google than with 10 independent Googles.

    • What if one of those other 9 googles charged you a small subscription instead of invading your privacy?
      • I would be ok with this in principal. But the issue is most people won't use fee-based services because they are poor or do not value their privacy. Which in turn means network services with fees will be unable to reach critical mass.

        I really, really wish people would be willing to pay for a few high quality things rather than trying to maximize the number of things they have, but that's not how our society, culture, or economy is setup.

  • by omfglearntoplay ( 1163771 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:28AM (#56417743)

    Whoever is saying "so they are almost monopolies, what is the big deal?". Well, it is a big deal. The government in the US is starting to pay more and more attention. They don't want to hurt business in general, but they also do not want these near-monopolies to rule the US and much less the planet.

    Mozilla is making this statement to educate the people. As much as I hated history as a youngster, the cliche of history repeating itself is very real. Go see how the public eventually is guaranteed to get screwed when there is a monopoly. Basic econ 101 states that monopolies will eventually charge more for crappier services because there is no competition. Smaller businesses are snuffed out, so those guys hate monopolies. Employees are taken advantage of, think Walmart employing so many in the US and the poor wages. Consumers get less choice, worse service, and higher prices, think one ISP in your town.

    • One day in the future, Facebook could look around and realize they have such a stranglehold on people's social lives that they start to charge a subscription fee *and* sell your privacy. That will be awesome.
    • The lesson of the 207/2008 recession was, "If they are 'too big to fail', then break them up into smaller companies and let them fail!" Not sure that applies to Amazon; other than shipping, most of the businesses they are in have low barriers to entry and they could be easily replaced if they failed. The shipping business is problematic, since it is a natural monopoly.
    • It wasn't all that long ago that people said IBM was too powerful, same with Microsoft. We don't hear that talk anymore. The world changes, in a few years the same thing will happen to these "monopolies".
  • by crow ( 16139 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:33AM (#56417777) Homepage Journal

    Sure, we could break up the American tech companies, but that would just leave the Chinese tech companies at the top of the heap.

  • by Wrath0fb0b ( 302444 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:39AM (#56417823)

    The fixed costs of regulation are spread against the total scale of the business being regulated. The larger the fixed costs, the more this implicitly helps the largest incumbents and disadvantages upstarts with small market share.

    The GDPR is 261 pages of incomprehensible legalese (and people still can't figure basic questions about it), which will cost you the same in lawyer fees to understand whether you have 1M customers or 1B.

    So yeah, Facebook has no damned problem if you regulate and probably stands to gain in the long terms whatever they lose in the short term.

  • Why not Google?

  • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:42AM (#56417831) Journal

    Amazon - There are still local shops and individual web stores a like. There are even other major everything store - AliExpress for one (dubious as that might be). Don't like AWS Microsoft and a whole tone of other guys like Rackspace offer compute and storage.

    facebook - Many tentacles sure but few 'essential services' You can still login pretty much everywhere without a facebook account, you communicate without facebook using e-mail, WWW forums, and for you nerds IRC and news.

    On the other hand just try and do anything on the net without Google something or other. If nothing else half the pages you visit probably use googleapis. You have essentially one other smart phone vendor to choose from if you don't want a Google account. Even if you do use another e-mail provider, chances are good your recipient is on GMAIL or Google for Domains. Search is there any serious competition that isn't re-branding Google? Bing? sort of if you don't care about getting terrible results comparatively.

    Of the big three Google is nearly impossible to avoid, Amazon and facebook can be avoided with some effort if you desire to do so.

    • Half the web sites I read news from REQUIRE a Facebook account to post comments -- that has got to change! I deleted my Facebook account, so now i just STFU.
      • by hjf ( 703092 )

        Well yeah but this is for a different reason. Spammers ruin everything. Any form you put online WILL be hammered by spammers 24/7. Facebook takes care of that for you.
        And yes, there are things like Disqus too. The problem is that if Disqus became the standard of comment posting, Facebook or Google would buy them ASAP.

        • by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

          Well yeah but this is for a different reason. Spammers ruin everything.

          Just require messages to be signed with PKI. For a while, you'll only get messages from nerds and extremely motivated commenters. Then you'll get messages from nerds and bots, but by that point you should be able to have a reasonable user base of actual nerds to make your own WOT. And if you don't have that user base, your blag didn't need comments in the first place.

          Spammers ruin everything. [...] Facebook takes care of that for you.

          Didn't spammers ruin Facebook, too? I think the Americans are convening their parliament over it.

  • by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @10:49AM (#56417873)
    I'll use the same argument I used to make about Microsoft: having an 800 pound gorilla in the room is very good for driving standards. Google brought us Android. Amazon prospers by having enough money to throw a bunch of ideas at the wall and see what sticks; they don't actually have a monopoly in any one industry. Facebook will go the way of MySpace and Yahoo in a few years anyway, no need to worry about them, but what we need is an open source universal login to replace what many web sites use Facebook for now.
  • by DeplorableCodeMonkey ( 4828467 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @11:06AM (#56417975)

    Zuckerberg could not explain why Facebook thought "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day" and "Diamond and Silk" were such gross violations of "community standards" that they had to be banned. He also could not think of a single time that someone in their community guidelines enforcement had nuked a prominent left wing group on Facebook.

    If a business as easily replaced as a local bakery cannot choose to impose its own standards on how it does business, a business as uniquely situated to exploit the market and block competition as Facebook sure as shit should not be able to do that. By law. (And before anyone cries "well what about a gay couple in Appalachia that can't find a baker." To that I would point out, if a gay couple can't find a baker willing to work with them where they live, they might want to first consider the OPSEC issues with having their "wedding" in that region if it's really that opposed to their orientation)

  • by zarmanto ( 884704 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @11:08AM (#56417985) Journal

    It really sounds to me like the few people still remaining at the Mozilla Foundation are expressing some passive aggressive bitterness, over their own loss of prominence in the market. Firefox (and even more-so, Netscape before it) was once a genuine player in the browser market, but now they've been relegated by most measurements to a weak second (or third) in the desktop market, and a veritable non-entity in the mobile market.

    You had your heyday, Mozilla, but that's in the past and the digital world has changed in several strong leaps and bounds, since that time. Regardless of what you think the reasons were, there's not really much point in griping about the guys who now have what you lost... and no amount of finger pointing and gesticulating is going to change that.

  • ..because all social media is cancerous. Late-stage symptoms of the disease include incessant attention-whoring and rampant social justice warrior behavioural patterns. Early detection of the disease is key in it's treatment, which involves router-level blocking, behavioral therapy by way of closely-monitored internet usage, and in some extreme cases, a pair of wirecutters to the ethernet cable.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Imagine a mesh network of protocols, where by you can use whatever client you want (web, gui, or text application) with whatever look 'n feel you want. Want to post some thoughts, post them tagged for relevance. Want to see some thoughts, query them based on relevance.. recency.. individuals or whatever.

    It is a travesty that we have given others control of our user interfaces and computing resources so they can show us what they want us to see and they can use our computational power and memory for what t

  • As their capacity to make sense of massive amounts of data grows through advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing

    Wow! I had no idea quantum computing was ready for prime time!

    I thought it was still a lab experiment of a handful of bits, with nobody sure if it was even working or not.

  • They don't need to be broken up, but they do need to do something with patents that keep them from becoming too powerful.

    Say cut the patent length in half it is transferred or companies above a certain size may not hold more than a set number of patents.

    That'll keep them from building up a war chest of patents to smack down their smaller competitors.

  • by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @02:00PM (#56418939) Homepage

    I'll go farther, much farther. To prevent the "too big to fail syndrome", and excesses of corporate power, any big company should be broken up, or forced to divest. Pick a size, based on turnover, or market capitalization, or whatever.

    Set that value relatively low. If market cap, then no more than $100 billion, possibly a lot less. Hitting that value should be extraordinarily painful, possibly including immediate closure. That way, that companies will divest voluntarily, in an organized fashion, long before they hit it.

    As a corollary, I think acquisitions should be severely penalized. Too many big companies buy up the small companies that would eventually be their competition. Which makes the big company bigger, and stifles innovation.

  • ...says a less successful competitor. Uh, huh.
  • Quantum computing isn't even able to find its way out of a closet. No, really, quantum computing? Is this bullshit? Fake news?
  • ... disrupt.

  • The problem with saying that these companies should be broken up is that there is that the United States is not the only country in the world.

    Companies that operate internationally are all competing on the same playing field, but depending on which country their HQ is in, they are not necessarily playing by the same rules. The reason outsourcing is a thing is because those countries do not have the same labour laws.

    My point: TenCent and Alibaba are Chinese companies. Why should China compel them to be br

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