Tech Leaders Support California Bill to Stop 'Dominant Platforms' From Blocking Competition (ca.gov) 47
A new bill proposed in California "goes after big tech companies" writes Semafor. Supported by Y Combinator, Cory Doctorow , and the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future, it's called the "BASED" act — an acronym which stands for "Blocking Anticompetitive Self-preferencing by Entrenched Dominant platforms."
As announced by San Francisco state representative Scott Wiener, the bill "will restore competition to the digital marketplace by prohibiting any digital platform with a market capitalization greater than $1 trillion and serving 100 million or more monthly users in the U.S., from favoring their own products and services on the platforms they operate."
More from Scott Wiener;s announcement: For years, giant digital platforms like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta have used their immense power to promote their own products and services while stifling competitors — a practice also known as self-preferencing. The result has been higher prices, diminished service, and fewer options for consumers, and less innovation across the technology ecosystem.
Self-preferencing also locks startups and mid-sized companies out of the online marketplace unless they play by rules set by their competitors. As a new generation of AI-powered startups seeks to enter the marketplace, their success — and public access to the innovations they produce — depends on their ability to compete on an even playing field.
"Anticompetitive behavior is everywhere on the internet," said Senator Wiener, "from rigged search results, to manipulative nudges boosting the 'house' product, to anti-discount policies that raise prices, to the dreaded green bubble that 'breaks' the group chat. When the world's largest digital platforms rig the game to favor their own products and services, we all lose. By prohibiting these anticompetitive practices, the BASED Act will protect competition online, empower consumers and startups, and promote innovations to improve all our lives."
The announcement includes a quote from Teri Olle, VP of the nonprofit Economic Security California Action, saying the act would "safeguard merit-based market competition. This legislation stands for a simple principle: owning the stadium doesn't mean that you get to rig the game." Some conduct prohibited by the proposed bill includes
As announced by San Francisco state representative Scott Wiener, the bill "will restore competition to the digital marketplace by prohibiting any digital platform with a market capitalization greater than $1 trillion and serving 100 million or more monthly users in the U.S., from favoring their own products and services on the platforms they operate."
More from Scott Wiener;s announcement: For years, giant digital platforms like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta have used their immense power to promote their own products and services while stifling competitors — a practice also known as self-preferencing. The result has been higher prices, diminished service, and fewer options for consumers, and less innovation across the technology ecosystem.
Self-preferencing also locks startups and mid-sized companies out of the online marketplace unless they play by rules set by their competitors. As a new generation of AI-powered startups seeks to enter the marketplace, their success — and public access to the innovations they produce — depends on their ability to compete on an even playing field.
"Anticompetitive behavior is everywhere on the internet," said Senator Wiener, "from rigged search results, to manipulative nudges boosting the 'house' product, to anti-discount policies that raise prices, to the dreaded green bubble that 'breaks' the group chat. When the world's largest digital platforms rig the game to favor their own products and services, we all lose. By prohibiting these anticompetitive practices, the BASED Act will protect competition online, empower consumers and startups, and promote innovations to improve all our lives."
The announcement includes a quote from Teri Olle, VP of the nonprofit Economic Security California Action, saying the act would "safeguard merit-based market competition. This legislation stands for a simple principle: owning the stadium doesn't mean that you get to rig the game." Some conduct prohibited by the proposed bill includes
- Manipulating the order of search results to favor a provider's products or services, irrespective of a merit-based process,
- Using non-public data generated by third-party sellers — including sales volumes, pricing, and customer behavior — to develop competing products that are subsequently boosted above the third-party sellers' product...
And the announcement also notes that "under the terms of the bill, providers could not prevent consumers from obtaining a portable copy of their own data or restrict voluntary data sharing (by consumers) with third parties."
Read on for reactions from DuckDuckGo, Proton, Yelp, Y Combinator, and Cory Doctorow.
The proposed bill has sparked "broad support from tech leaders and open markets," according to an announcement from Senator Wiener's officer:
"This is exactly the kind of common-sense antitrust reform we need if we want the next generation of startups to have a fair shot rather than watching Big Tech pull up the ladder behind them."
— Jeremy Stoppelman CEO and Co-Founder, Yelp
"California has led the way on privacy, and now it has a chance to lead on digital competition. SB 1074 would prohibit the self-preferencing tactics that dominant platforms use to box out competitors — the same tactics that make it harder for people to discover and switch to privacy-respecting alternatives like DuckDuckGo."
— Kamyl Bazbaz, Chief Communications and Policy Officer, DuckDuckGo
"When users can freely choose privacy-focused alternatives without artificial barriers, everyone benefits — from independent developers to everyday people who deserve control over their digital lives."
— Raphael Auphan, Chief Operating Officer, Proton
"[The BASED act] is about stopping market corruption — the moment when a platform uses its control over the pipes to bury rivals, tax every transaction, and quietly swallow the open web. This bill restores something simple and very American: if you build something great, you should win or lose on the merits, not on whether a gatekeeper decides to rig the rules."
— Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator
"If there's one thing we've learned from the enshittification of digital platforms, it's this: *someone* is going to regulate the way you use the internet. If governments don't step in, that regulator will be a powerful *company*, a platform that structures markets to maximize its interests, at the expense of technology makers, technology users, buyers *and* sellers."
— Cory Doctorow
Stupid solution idea: Tax monopoly profits (Score:2)
But what is your better solution proposal?
If there's any detectable interest in the idea I may explain how progressive profits taxation would be supposed to work. Unfortunately, in practice simple solution approaches never solve complicated problems, and the scammers just look for new ways to break any fixes.
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Make it apply to all company behavior, and lower the limits to $1M dollars and 100 monthly users.
Can't wait for GM to offer Ford Credit on a Corvette.
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As I imagine it, the profit tax rate would be detected by a number of criteria and I don't think size per se would become relevant unless the niche producing the profits is large and fairly well established. The first criteria would be customer choice, and when the choice first appears the customers can't even say they have no choice because it's only "try it or don't" until things start rolling.
(There are at least two more criteria that should be used, but... A second would be complaints from wannabe compe
Revenue tax (Score:3)
A top-line revenue tax on revenue brought in worldwide with no exemptions, no deductions, no depreciation, no subsidies, ... is needed.
Revenue being sales income, interest received, dividends received, interest rate differential on subsidized loans, government grants, government tax waivers, donated office space, donated facility use, ....
Preventing the many ways large companies jurisdiction shop to avoid paying taxes is needed.
The top line revenue tax would be paid at the time of sale, interest payment, di
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You were going for funny, right? Not your fault that the state of moderation on Slashdot is what it is...
Taxation is a rather complicated problem which too often turns into complicated games. Some taxes are needed to keep society running, but within that constraint, there are two basic sides to consider. Call them carrots and sticks? Sometimes you want to reduce taxes to encourage some behavior and other times you want to increase taxes to discourage behaviors. Easy case is when the behavior to be discourag
Enforce antitrust law (Score:5, Interesting)
And Facebook just inevitably buys up wherever the young people went to. They have done this over 20 times in my lifetime already. You can Google the number of companies they have bought.
Amazon did something similar but for different reasons. The reason they got so big wasn't the amazing technology it was because bezos had a lot of connections that got him a lot of capital and he used that Capital to buy up any potential competitors.
Unless and until we stop mergers and acquisitions and start breaking up these monopolies prices are going to keep going up and up and up and up. Just like they did when the robber barons were in charge.
We all got told this in 7th grade. I don't know why we all forgot it. Or why we prioritize various bits of nonsense like trans girls in sports over antitrust law enforcement.
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ACK but my solution approach is to make such mergers painful by boosting the tax rate on the resulting profits.
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Honestly, why not use progressive taxation funds to support the creation of new business startups that will compete with established business? I think this would provide founders an alternative path outside of the private investment path, which would in-turn generate more companies that are not solely focused on ROI and would have the freedom to have a product-centric focus.
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This is kind of my thinking on the topic, but focusing on the progressive taxation of the profits that are linked to monopoly positions in some market niche. The natural path to higher retained earnings would be to divide the monopoly into competing companies. Don't think of it as a penalty for too much success. Rather it is an incentive program to reproduce the good ideas into more companies.
But I'm still hoping to hear some better ideas...
(There are other response approaches, but these days I'm increasing
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If that was a good idea, VC would already be doing it. The last thing I want is more public dollars going to private firms. It's called corporate welfare and I was under the impression most people on here would be against that. I know I sure as heck am.
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If that was a good idea, VC would already be doing it.
How does that make any sense?
It's called corporate welfare and I was under the impression most people on here would be against that. I know I sure as heck am.
Buddy, our governments gives billions in public dollars to businesses each year.
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If there was an opportunity to make money by funding a particular set of small business, Venture capital would already be exploiting that untapped market. Zero need for any government involvement at all.
Buddy, our governments gives billions in public dollars to businesses each year.
Yes, I realize that. What I don't understand is why you would to do it even more. We should be ending corporate welfare, not expanding on it.
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This plan would not be about making mone. And you do it for the exact reason this article talks about. You want to manufacture competition in an industry.
Apropos (Score:2)
So, companies that violate this act are... debased?
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Mod parent funny (even though I don't understand your Subject), though the obvious response involves losing access to the large market.
But you did trigger a kind of wannabe funny response: "The greedy companies have already debased themselves far above the government's poor power to add or detract."
1. mumble
2. mumble
3. PROFIT!
What about links? (Score:3)
Does this mean that platforms will no longer be allowed to block links to competing platforms? I have seen this plenty where you will get post taken down and then be punished for posting a link to a competing platform or encouraging people to switch.
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We need to start coming to terms of the fact that our court system has been compromised and that laws need to be written taking that into account. Corpor
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Yahoo! does this. My work around is finding out the precise search words, then instructing people in a post to search "xyz" It's lame for sure but it's the only way I can add links for supporting my posts. Sometimes, I'll go search for a yahoo article that covers the topic at hand. You can link to yahoo!'s own site, but of course their own search isn't as good as 3rd parties.
Re: What about links? (Score:1)
Yahoo still exists?!?
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Yahoo Mail is still a thing, and they run news aggregation sites in a bunch of regions, often partnering with a local TV station or newspaper.
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They have a very active forums or messaging threads for each news article. They also have annoying community guidelines that everyone has to dance around. Where we get 100s of comments, many of those articles they post get 1000s.
You also get more perspectives, though Slashdot definitely seems higher brow.
How is all this stuff not ALREADY illegal? (Score:3, Interesting)
The amount of anti-competitive tactics being used by the big techs firms is ridiculous - and I thought it was illegal already but the relevant authorities were just really, really slow to take action.
Example - if you are on Windows, open Microsoft Edge and type "google chrome download" into the address/search bar.
Is the top match the page to download Chrome? Technically yes. Right under a huge "Promoted by Microsoft" section which says:
"All you need is right here
Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft."
Then a nice big prominent blue button saying "Get started" which, if clicked, takes you to a page all about how fantastic Edge is.
Can you even imagine a more blatant anti-competitive tactic? I find if absolutely incredible that big tech firms get away with this kind of crap.
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For regulators to take an interest it has to be at least somewhat effective. Microsoft has been trying for decades - Internet Explorer, MSN, Bing, and now Edge, and despite being the default and heavily promoted by Windows, they have all failed to gain much traction.
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California Votes For More Government (Score:2)
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Drive your house over sometime and you'll see why.
How do COMPANIES enforce this? (Score:2)
Let's say a company, say AMD, wants to be compliant w/ this law. How exactly do they do that?
What if they have come up w/ something new, which has no competition, and where they're not just the market leader, but the sole market player? Do they have to create a competitor for themselves b
Re: How do COMPANIES enforce this? (Score:2)
They should be more inept to avoid becoming dominant. Obviously, tssk.
If this passes (Score:1)
What's the likelihood it will be preempted by one of Trumps' executive orders?
Re: If this passes (Score:1)
Math.random()
Apparently this is actually the algorithm they use to pick their next move.
Well, there goes ... (Score:1)
This bill is extremely suspect (Score:2, Insightful)
First, it was introduced by Scott Wiener, the same guy who's responsible for legislation bangers like SB 239, where knowingly infecting someone with HIV is no longer a felony [ca.gov], SB 145, which made it easier for pedos to avoid being added to the sex-offender registry [ca.gov] because too many LGBT folks were apparently getting caught. Lets' not forget to mention other unconstitutional bills like SB 27 [wikipedia.org] to force Presidential or Governor candidates to publicly release their tax returns,
Second, SB1074 [legiscan.com] seems a little shif
This should absolutely be a thing... (Score:2)
Google should not be allowed to put messages on its websites saying "switch to Chrome instead" when you access them with a competing browser.
Apple should not be allowed to deny approval for your app store app because it competes too closely with something apple sells.
Amazon should not be able to artificially push people towards its own products (Amazon Basics etc) over other products.
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Google should be able to put whatever they want on THEIR own website. It's their website. You actively made the effort to go to it.
The apple thing is not the same as going to a website. Apple can outright block you from installing competing apps by not allowing them into their app store. Microsoft Windows doesn't even do that.
Amazon is a website that you actively choose to browse to on your own. Why would they not put their items at the top of the list when you search for stuff? They are not preventing you
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Google should be able to put whatever they want on THEIR own website. It's their website. You actively made the effort to go to it.
Sure, but only if they're prepare to give up limited liability protection.
While they have extra protections afforded to them in law, no,they do not have a moral right to do whatever they wish unregulated..
Re: This should absolutely be a thing... (Score:1)
And physical stores should give equal shelf/counter space to competitors' products.
Apple store must sell all fruit etc
Arbitrary limits make for bad laws (Score:2)
Do they have the authority? (Score:2)
States don't have the authority to set rules that hinder interstate commerce. This sounds like one. Did they come up with some way around that, or will this be struck down (should it pass)?
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A couple of things. A lot of the companies that may be headquartered in California are actually incorporated in other states, such as Delaware and Nevada. Can't they challenge California's jurisdiction over them, or will the fact that they have operational headquarters in California just override that?
Also, even if a company is California based, it could sell its products or services nationwide or even worldwide, depending on what it is. Would California then factor in whether the competitors it is dis