Publications
Reuters reports Alphabet Inc's, Google's holding company's, quarterly results which are under the shadow of a major antitrust probe by over 40 U.S. attorneys general. Open Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard told Reuters five years later the Google practices concerning investigators has not abated. “But the political winds have shifted,” said Hubbard, who worked for the New York AG from 2005 to 2012. “There’s a lot more momentum to fix the situation.”
Read MoreFast Company's Talib Visram profiles Open Markets Institute Executive Director and Founder Barry Lynn. Lynn talks about his “vision of an alternative political economy” based on the nation’s founding principles. Regarding monopolies, Lynn told Fast Company: it is not just the tech companies. They’re just the problem on steroids.”
Read MorePOLITICO'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 MoreIn 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 MoreUber, 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 MoreOpen 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 MorePOLITICO's Steve Overly reports that investigations from state attorneys general and federal agencies are causing a rift between free market conservatives and the party's more populist voices. He talks to Open Markets fellow Matt Stoller about the tech industry's waning influence. “People aren't afraid of them anymore" said Stoller. "It’s not that they don’t have power, they do have power. They don't carry the same level of fear."
Read MoreAt a Senate oversight hearing last month, antitrust subcommittee Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, reacted to reports of disagreements between the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice over who would investigate Facebook for antitrust violations. The whole exchange, however, revealed a deep misunderstanding of American’s antimonopoly tradition and political philosophy generally. Read the latest piece from The Corner newsletter.
Read MoreGQ Magazine's Elle Hardy writes that over the past decade, some of Silicon Valley's brightest ideas have evolved into the biggest, most powerful companies on the planet. Sarah Miller, deputy director of the Open Markets Institute, a think tank devoted to curbing big tech’s economic dominance, told her that firms are uniquely equipped to get away with breaching our trust. “Consumers don’t have any power in the way that they would in a functioning market, where if they’re unhappy with the way customers or workers are being treated, they can take their business elsewhere.”
Read MoreIn Washingtonian magazine, reporter Luke Mullins exposes Big Tech’s number one enemy: Open Markets Institute. As Mullins details, founder Barry Lynn and his team are shifting the debate over Big Tech, presenting potential antitrust solutions to challenge Silicon Valley’s monopoly power. The anti-trust movement has reached critical mass in Washington, writes Mullins. Barry Lynn and his allies helped put it there.
Read MoreThe L.A. Times' Suhauna Hussain reports on the announcement that 50 attorneys general from 48 states and two U.S. territories have launched a probe into Google's monopolistic power and asks Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan to weigh in. “I think the states have sort of lost their patience” with the federal government, Vaheesan told her. “They’ve realized the administration might make some noises, but aren’t expecting any meaningful action. They believe they have to act or nobody will act against Facebook or Google.”
Read MoreThe Verge reports that 50 attorneys general from US states and territories signed onto an antitrust investigation into Google, placing even more pressure on the major tech firm that is already facing intense scrutiny over its market dominance from the government. They cite Open Markets' Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard's statement on the news: “We haven’t seen a major monopolization case against a tech giant since Microsoft was sued in 1998. Today’s announcement marks the start of a new era.”
Read MoreOpen Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller published a piece on The Guardian on the heels of news that U.S. state attorneys general are launching a bipartisan investigation into Facebook and Google. “These corporations have become too powerful to be contained by democratic societies,” he writes. “We must work through our government to break them up and regulate our information commons, or they will end up becoming our government and choosing what we see and know about the world around us.”
Read More“We applaud the 50 attorneys general for taking this unprecedented stand against Big Tech by uniting to investigate Google’s destruction of competition in search and advertising,” said Open Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy in a statement. “Today’s announcement marks the start of a new era.”
Read MoreOpen Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard speaks with The Telegraph about what a big tech probe by the U.S. attorneys general would mean and how the law could be leveraged against Google. Any upcoming probe into Google would also rely on the Sherman Act, and proving that the search giant has both “monopoly power and exclusionary conduct” says Hubbard.
Read MoreThe FTC could do more to punish companies like Google and Facebook over privacy violations. But the bigger problem is that Congress continues to do nothing at all. "Often the problem with privacy issues is that the FTC's authority is limited, but here the FTC's authority under COPPA is ample," says Sally Hubbard, director of strategic enforcement at the nonprofit Open Markets Institute told WIRED.
Read More"The FTC has shown time and again that it is unwilling to stand up to corporate monopolies despite some window-dressing type announcements," said Open Markets Chief of Staff Laura Hatalsky in a statement.
Read More
