Elizabeth Warren puts a giant tech breakup billboard in San Francisco’s face | Hacker News Reader

Elizabeth Warren puts a giant tech breakup billboard in San Francisco’s face

theverge.com

42 pointstacosx24 comments

> Her proposal also includes a plan to pass legislation that would prohibit platform owners with more than $25 billion in revenue to participate on their platforms as well. This policy would largely affect companies like Amazon that both run a sales platform and sell their own products on the site.

Seems like this proposal is essentially just anti-trust legislation. I'm all for it. What I particularly like about it is that she's demonstrating her commitment to the citizenry, not to the Democratic party. She's not only going after coal companies or traditional (R) strongholds. She's taking on tech, a left-leaning industry, too. This is the type of bipartisanship I think we need to see in candidates and politicians.

She has relentlessly fought for the public for as long as I've seen her in the spotlight (CFPB, MA Senator).

I fully support this move. And tech companies are going to fight her tooth and nail.

I wonder if that would forbid Comcast from using their internet

I really do hope we don't end up with an internet connection counting as a platform.

Her policies that are on the news are breaking up Google and reducing income inequality.

Both are dubious and shouldn't be her first priorities.

I can elaborate:

1. Breaking up Google doesn't sound like the biggest problem right now. How about Comcast? How about Equifax? Those are monopolies and act in bad faith. Why is Google the top of her list?

2. Income inequality is not an important goal. I don't care if Bezos has 100 trillion dollars. I want affordable healthcare, education and a good life.

It makes me feel reluctant to vote for her.

Other real monopolies that actually technically meet the definition of monopolies have needed attention for years and she decides to go after a web search engine.

Google ceased to be a "web search engine" over fifteen years ago.

Life as we know it depends on Google's products and services more than we ever did on Microsoft. They have Search, OS, Browser, Device and Service under one brand. Not to mention analytics and advertising on those properties and systems.

Taking advantage of that position at the expense of participants/customers is wrong and should be prevented.

That's what monopoly busting is about - AT&T, MSFT, Alphabet/Google, makes no difference.

You can apply the same principles to health care, credit and for profit colleges. She does.

Her billboard only focuses on big tech. Her priority is, at best, dubious.

One issue per billboard is a pretty fine ratio in my view.

I remember there was a chart online show how at&t was broken up by the government for being a monopoly and then showing the parts slowly reconstituting themselves back together

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner...

This will lead to some interesting discussions during election campaigns...

This is the kind of shit that Democrats focus on that loses elections. Why is this a big campaign issue? Why not break up Walmart while we're at it?

Seriously. It's like they want 4 more years of Trump. It's mind blowing.

> Why is this a big campaign issue?

It's a big campaign issue (for Warren, and simultaneously not really a big campaign issue otherwise) because Warren is far behind the leading candidates, in a distant third or fourth place depending on the poll, so she's trying to use big concrete policy proposals like this to gain traction.

> Why not break up Walmart while we're at it?

She has other policies that would target Walmart, too.

While hosting her email on Google apps. https://securitytrails.com/domain/Elizabethwarren.com/dns

What's your point?

If she breaks up Google Search and Gmail, and Google decides to shut down gmail, she'll not have an email service and lose all her email.

Yeah, because Google would totally shut it down overnight without any warning

Before she can fulfill ant campaign promises like that, her campaign email will have fulfilled its purpose, anyway. So even if that were a likely outcome, I don't see why it would be a concern.

You guys know you can download your entire Gmail archive and move it to a different service?

Perhaps someone trying to radically change the way company X does business, in ways the leaders of said business aren't going to like... shouldn't store (or even transmit) their private correspondence about it using the services of the company.

I mean, that would _normally_ be common sense. Seems weird to even have to point this out.

Is this supposed to be an indictment of her character or something? Perhaps you're suggesting she's a hypocrite?

In any case, care to elaborate?

It is generally good form that politicians put their money where their mouth is.

Using GMail while advocating breaking up some anti-competitive/monopolistic practices/companies isn't hypocrisy.

It's using a singular product to do what that singular product doe; which is fine. I can advocate Johnson and Johnson be fined for anti-competitive practices and still buy a stupid band-aid without abandoning my morals. Why would an email provider be any different?

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