Welcome to The Corner. In this issue, we discuss why Google’s “Project Nightingale” is a danger not just because Google might use the information, but because of the security risk. We also wrote a letter to the FTC calling on it to block Google’s blockbuster acquisition of wearable tech company Fitbit. And we share two articles on the need for antitrust law to foster beneficial cooperation.
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Ahead of the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing today on the perspectives of the antitrust agencies on tech monopolies, and in light of the news of Google’s undisclosed partnership with one of the largest health care systems in the United States, the Open Markets Institute along with eight other public interest groups are demanding that the Federal Trade Commission block Google’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit.
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Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller published a piece on Pro-Market on November 13, 2019 writing that the corruption exposed by Israeli antimonopolists has been a key driver of Benjamin Netanyahu’s current political woes. "If Israelis, in one of the most complex geopolitical situations in the world, can address their oligarchs, then people everywhere can do it too," Stoller writes.
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The Hill reports on Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), chairman of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, pressing top officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over Google's proposed acquisition of fitness tracking company Fitbit. Cicilline cited a letter by Open Markets and eight other public interest submitted to the FTC calling for the acquisition to be blocked.
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On November 13, 2019, the Open Markets Institute, the Center for Digital Democracy, Public Citizen, EPIC, along with Commercial-Free Childhood, Consumer Federation of America, Oakland Privacy, Media Alliance, and Consumer Action submitted a letter to the Federal Trade Commission demanding to block Google’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit.
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WIRED's Gilad Edelman writes that Google's moves into health data will test how serious antitrust enforcers are about privacy issues. “These promises about what they’re going to do with data in the context of merger approvals deserve absolutely no weight,” Open Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard told WIRED. “Especially when you’re talking about a company that has persistently violated the privacy laws, been repeatedly fined—a persistent recidivist when it comes to privacy violations.”
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Prof. Sanjukta Paul and Sandeep Vaheesan published a piece on The Nation asserting that the response to the next recession should put economic power back in the hands of the people. “Rebuilding antitrust law is an essential element of the progressive economic policy agenda,” the write. “Antitrust should be part of a suite of reforms in the Green New Deal—something that we sorely need, no matter when or how hard the next recession hits.”
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What is antitrust? Quartz's Alison Griswold provides a brief primer on the history of the term antitrust. "Standard Oil is often referred to as the first trust," she writes. "And the legal mechanism Rockefeller pioneered paved the way for an unprecedented period of monopolization in the US." She cites Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller's new book, Goliath: The 100 Year War Between Monopoly and Democracy.
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The New Republic's Maureen Tkacik writes the story of "WeWork's Adam Neumann and the great game of asset immolation." She cites Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller's latest book, Goliath: The 100 Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.
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Open Markets Food & Power reporter Claire Kelloway covers how after U.S. and Chinese trade officials reached a deal to lift China’s five-year ban on U.S. poultry imports, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) submitted a final rule permitting China to export chicken to the U.S. from birds raised and slaughtered in China for the first time in the agency’s history. She argues that the only clear winners in this grand bargain are multinational meatpackers that can profit from selling the lowest cost poultry, no matter where it came from.
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"While the FCC’s rubber-stamp of the merger is disappointing but not surprising, the group of states challenging the merger in New York next month represents our best hope of protecting our markets and making up for this massive enforcement failure," said Open Markets Reporter and Researcher Matt Buck
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Washington Post's Rachel Siegel and Tony Romm report on Google's $2.1 billion acquisition of smartwatch maker Fitbit. Open Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard told them that regulators has been "slow to the game" when it comes to looking at how data fortifies the monopoly power of corporations such as Google. “That’s a source of their dominance,” Hubbard said.
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Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller writes that American workers are increasingly bored and disillusioned, locked in increasingly centralized castles of lazy profit. Some are mistreated, but for even the most scientifically in demand, luxurious poké bowls don’t substitute for doing meaningful work. But he asserts it’s time to set American producers free once again to solve real problems. We’ve done it before. It’s called competition.
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Fast Company published an excerpt from Matt Stoller’s new book, ‘Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.’ In it, Stoller describes how Microsoft avoided the fate of IBM, which was constantly under threat by antitrust authorities.
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Last Friday, Facebook announced Facebook News, a tab for personalized news articles on the Facebook App. The feature includes content from 200 publishers, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, and BuzzFeed, some of which Facebook will pay licensing rights to. Each user’s News tab will include a compilation of articles chosen by professional journalists and tailored content based on predicting user’s interests.
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