POLITICO's Nancy Scola covers October's Democratic Debate and reports that former Vice President Joe Biden "was the quietest person on stage on the question of how to handle Silicon Valley." She speaks with Open Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard who said of the antitrust portion of the debate “People are understanding that it’s not just some technocratic, boring area. It’s fundamentally about equality and freedom, the American way, the American dream. It’s at the heart of capitalism and what we think of core American values.”
Read More
“Non-competes strengthen the power of corporate employers at the expense of millions of workers across America,” said Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan. “This is a huge step in advancing worker freedom, and we applaud Senators Young and Murphy for taking it.”
Read More
Welcome to The Corner. In this issue, we share some reviews of Matt Stoller’s new book, Goliath. And we discuss the importance of a major new bipartisan bill in the Senate that would free workers from non-compete contracts.
Read More
In this op-ed for the New York Times, Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller spotlights how advertising revenue that used to go to quality journalism is now captured by big tech intermediaries, and some of that money now goes to dishonest, low-quality and fraudulent content. "The collapse of journalism and democracy in the face of the internet is not inevitable," he argues. "To save democracy and the free press, we must eliminate Google and Facebook’s control over the information commons."
Read More
Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced a bill today that would severely restrict the ability of employers to prevent their workers from taking a new job in a similar line of work. The Workforce Mobility Act bans non-compete clauses in employment contracts going forward and puts the Department of Labor and the Federal Trade Commission in charge of enforcing the ban.
Read More
AP's Marcy Gordon covers a speech Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made at Georgetown University on "free speech." Reporters were not allowed to ask questions — only students were given that chance, filtered by a moderator. Facebook and Georgetown barred news organizations from filming, Gordon reports. Open Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard told the AP: “It’s quite ironic.”
Read More
Uber, Facebook, and Google are increasingly behaving like the law-flouting financial empires of the 1920s, asserts Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller. We know how that turned out. "The rule of law is a precious political achievement of liberal democracy," Stoller writes. "It doesn’t just happen. We the people, along with elected public servants, have to make it happen. "
Read More
Today, Open Markets Institute Fellow Matt Stoller released his new book Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. “We are in a moment where capitalism is being seriously questioned, and Goliath explains why," said Matt Stoller.
Read More
"Demand Justice's call to elevate a diverse slate of judges who will stand up to concentrated corporate power is essential for creating a just, inclusive economy and democracy," said Open Markets Deputy Director Sarah Miller.
Read More
Simon & Schuster published Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller’s new book, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Populism on Tuesday. The book details how Americans once understood the connection between corporate monopolies and authoritarianism and successfully opposed both through antitrust and other competition policies.
Read More
The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim reports that Demand Justice will release a list of 32 suggested Supreme Court nominees for any future Democratic president as they ramp up their push for the 2020 contenders to do the same. Among their suggested nominees is Open Markets Board Chair Zephyr Teachout.
Read More
Matt Stoller’s Goliath: The 100 Year-War Between Monopoly and Power and Populism charts the shifts in American attitudes towards corporate concentration. Kyle Sammin reviews the book on the National Review.
Read More
“We strongly applaud these common-sense rules for ending dangerous concentrations of power in our economy,” said Barry Lynn, Executive Director of the Open Markets Institute. “Bernie Sanders has a simple rule. If a company is too big, it should be made smaller.”
Read More
Vox's Tara Golshan reports on Bernie Sanders' plan on corporate accountability and democracy and gets comments from Open Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller. “Saying that the FTC has failed its mission and lost its credibility as a regulatory agency is important,” Stoller said. “Bernie is coming out with a progressive platform to address monopolies, but it is actually pro-business platform. ... A lot of the pressure from the FTC is coming from the business community.”
Read More
He was America’s most powerful businessman and the Treasury secretary throughout the 1920s. His corruption would lead to an impeachment inquiry. This is an exclusive excerpt for The American Prospect from the new book 'Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy', by Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller, out this month from Simon & Schuster.
Read More
AP's Barbara Ortutay reports on how Facebook's Libra project has been battered by defections with the exit of PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, eBay, and Stripe. Sarah Miller, deputy director of Open Markets Institute, told the AP it was “insanity” to trust Facebook to launch a global cryptocurrency when it is already facing regulatory scrutiny around the world over data privacy.
Read More
Open Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller publishes an adapted excerpt of his book "Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy" on the Wall Street Journal. He asserts the loudest complaints against today’s monopolies come not from Occupy Wall Street types but from leaders of firms seeking freedom of commerce.
Read More