> Today, millions of Americans rely on the Internet and online platforms for their daily lives. For years, there have been broad, bipartisan concerns about business practices leading to massive concentrations of economic power in our digital economy. Hearing those concerns, I have made it a primary commitment of my tenure as Attorney General for the Department of Justice to examine whether technology markets have been deprived of free, fair, and open competition.
This case has never has been a partisan issue. It was opened by a Republican DOJ and pushed through by a Democratic DOJ, and there's no reason to believe that the Republicans won't see through what they started.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2...
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-attorney-general-an...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tech-factbox/fa...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/10/18659748/t...
Trying to describe Trump on a coherent ideological level is a fool's errand, like most strongmen he's just an opportunist.
Trump is a typical power whore who praises and protects those that kiss his feet, and admonishes and punishes those who don't.
This is the same game that all these self-interested power hungry people play.
Presumably he will now want to revoke Section 230 for non-Twitter companies.
You won't see consistent application of Trump's DoJ. It'll just be a hammer that he can swing at things he doesn't like.
It could even be the case that many of the things that he swings the hammer at will deserve it. But there will be similarly deserving people, groups, and organizations who get off scot free because Trump isn't personally angry at them.
He perceives Big Tech as being an enemy, so he will use whatever tools available to punish.
Suggesting that Merrick Garland is somehow a "Democratic DOJ" is kind of laughable at this point. He's a Republican. He's been dragging his feet going after the biggest Republican crook in history. Appointing Merrick Garland is one of the biggest mistakes Biden ever made.
Garland is a donator to the Federalist Society. Garland was a gift from Obama to the Republicans, trying to put someone who's right wing enough at the Supreme Court to appease the Rs. (And it didn't even work).
At least the fact that he got a state-level conviction means the felony will stick. Had he been convicted of a felony at the federal level he'd have won anyway and just pardoned himself.
That’s far from guaranteed. He has multiple grounds to appeal that conviction both through the New York state courts - and if they don’t overturn it, then the federal courts. If it makes it to SCOTUS, odds are high the conservative majority will be looking for some federal law grounds to overturn it. But it might not ever make it that far. Legal commentators all along have been saying the prosecution’s legal theory is rather novel, and maybe the state appellate courts decide it is a novelty they don’t like. Plus, the way it uses allegations of uncharged federal crimes to upgrade a state misdemeanour to a state felony gives the federal courts an easy way to overturn it, by deciding the state courts have misconstrued the scope of those uncharged federal crimes.
What exactly would be driving your hopes here?
What exactly is driving you to think that he'd abort a mission that he and his allies started?
I have no idea what Trump's DOJ will do with this case; I doubt he knows or cares about the case himself. I won't be surprised either way they go with it.
Tax Reform, Immigration, Syria, TikTok, most of his original cabinet picks, he wanted to hang his vice president, Wikileaks and government leaks in general, the list goes on, his positions are about as fluid as any person I know.
Why are you acting like taking Net Neutrality rules off the table is a bad thing? Have you read what is in the Net Neutrality rules? Or are you just regurgitating what the news and your favorite tubers of the time were telling you to do?
I read through 100 of the 400 pages, that was enough to make me sick. I was disgusted at the crap in there. A full 2/3rds of the rules I viewed were terrible. Many of those rules clearly existed only to enshrine the largest of players from ever being challenged or having any competition. I'm convinced anybody who speaks in favor of Net Neutrality is ignorant and hasn't bothered to read any of the guidelines contained therein. I can't be convinced that any intelligent free thinking consumer would ever want that drek to exist and am appalled that it has any defenders at all.
Is this the 400 page PDF you're meaning?
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-15-24A1.pdf
That's the "Order on Remand" PDF link from this page: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-orde...
Which in turn is the "2015: FCC adopts rules..." link on this page: https://www.fcc.gov/net-neutrality
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There's a more recent 512 page thing too, though I'm not real sure where it fits in:
You didn't actually say what rules are bad, and we'd probably agree "hey this rule in this law is BS" - that's very different than "net neutrality is BS"
Feel free to go into detail about why NN is bad for consumers, I think you will find many ardent defenders here.
I have a small internet company near me. Excellent service, lightning fast internet, a decent price. They have a limited number of available static IP numbers that can be granted to customers, I pay for one because I host a server for my needs, few customers actually need this feature. Under one of the first 20 rules (2015), they would have to provide total and equal service across the board to all customers. Innocent looking on paper, but impossible for the this small company to do realistically.
Another rule I recall (9 years ago, may be off a bit on this one) required a method for any government body or customer to call up and view a full summery of data usage at whim by logging into their account. This requires an incredibly costly and unrealistic implementation for a burgeoning company.
The point is that, taken alone, these rules seem altruistic and with good intent but when you imagine the requirements of hundreds of them, it is IMPOSSIBLE for new competitors to break into the field. The big boys already collecting your fees monthly can easily afford any thing being arbitrarily required.
That company of mine got bought out by the way. One of the big 4 bought them, it was a good 5 years. But we are going back to one choice of ISP in my area again. I fully expect the customers service to go to absolute shit and the cost monthly to slowly begin to rise.
However, the world of data caps and shitty service abounds very much because of the lack of SOME of these rules, and so the middle ground in my mind isn't destroy it all, it's fixing legislation.
Laws often have unintended consequences and trample on minority viewpoints, but while in the "destroy it all" framework we do get to reject some onerous rules, the vast majority of us get bent over a barrel, get more expensive service, and have no choice.
On the other hand, he's promised to remove Khan, Kanter, etc, and end antitrust enforcement. So someone may have to actively decide to continue as is, or change tack a bit.
The third concern of course is that Trump is a crook. He might not like Google but I'm sure neither him nor Sundar would have any qualms with figuring out how to slide a billion dollars in Trump's pocket to make the case go away.
Depends on how much Google is willing to scratch Trump's back. Remember, Trump is a corrupt quid pro quo President. All he needs is something valuable in exchange for his corrupt powers.
Then administration will throw so much “anti woke” shit and the average American will forget about it.