#VideoGames#Microsoft#Xbox#USA#FTC#Antitrust#Competition: "Microsoft has had a tightly crafted image for the past few decades, with Xbox executives presenting as jovial, calm, and unpressed about the console wars. But that mask has slipped in the trial between the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft as we’ve gotten an inside look at how executives are thinking about strategically using the media, news announcements, and even how to market their cloud gaming products effectively to get the gamers excited.
A different side of the brand has been shown through evidence uploaded this week. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has called the console wars a “social construct within the community,” acknowledging that in reality, Xbox is solidly behind PlayStation and Nintendo and has “remained in third place for quite a while.” In emails, Matt Booty showed that Xbox is, in fact, hungry and competitive internally. He wrote in 2019 that Microsoft could “spend Sony out of business.”"
Folks, the reason #Facebook/ #Instagram/ #Meta/ Zuckerberg hasn’t launched #Threads in the #EU isn’t because the EU is determined to protect your privacy, it’s because the EU is determined to protect The Single Market (peace be upon it) from anticompetitive behaviour. It’s because they’re using Instagram to launch Threads and sharing data between them (and not with EU startups that might want to use that data too). It’s #antitrust, not #privacy. It’s markets, not people.
By the way, it’s possible that #Facebook/ #Instagram/ #Meta/ Zuckerberg’s fediverse play for Threads is related to sidestepping the anti-competitiveness/antitrust issues around the EU’s Digital Services Act.
“Hey, look, we’re not a monopoly. We’re not being anticompetitive… we’re federating using an open protocol. Here, let our friend Eugen, CEO of Mastodon, explain to you how it works in very dispassionate words…”
#AI#GenerativeAI#Antitrust#Competition#FTC#LLMs:"Incumbents that control key inputs or adjacent markets, including the cloud computing market, may be able to use unfair methods of competition to entrench their current power or use that power to gain control over a new generative AI market.
For example, market leaders could attempt to foreclose competition through bundling and tying. Bundling occurs when a company offers multiple products together as a single package. Tying occurs when a firm conditions the sale of one product on the purchase of a separate product. Incumbents may be able to link together new generative AI applications with existing core products to reduce the value of competitors’ standalone generative AI offerings, potentially distorting competition.
Incumbents that offer a range of products and services as part of an ecosystem may also engage in exclusive dealing or discriminatory behavior, funneling users toward their own generative AI products instead of their competitors’ products. Further, incumbents that offer both compute services and generative AI products—through exclusive cloud partnerships, for instance—might use their power in the compute services sector to stifle competition in generative AI by giving discriminatory treatment to themselves and their partners over new entrants. A related scenario exists where an incumbent offers both their own products leveraging generative AI as well as offering APIs allowing other companies to leverage their generative AI capabilities. In such circumstances, there is a risk that incumbent firms will offer their APIs on terms which exist to protect their incumbent position." https://www.ftc.gov/policy/advocacy-research/tech-at-ftc/2023/06/generative-ai-raises-competition-concerns
Dollar weighting fallacy: The tendency to consider a sample more representative of a population when it comes with a larger bags of dollar attached. Invariably leads to errors of judgement.
Proof: trivial restatement of the McNamara fallacy + Goodhart's law.
Brought to you by the #RedHat executive who wrote that his company speaks for #opensource while the community of devs around it should just shut up. It's hard to understand how one can be so delusional, until you realise the amount of dollars captured is the only measure visible to his eyes.
🇯🇵 @thejapantimes writes:
⎧ A government panel Friday drew up a set of regulations aimed at opening up the smartphone app stores of U.S. technology giants Apple and Google to competition.
The two companies dominating the smartphone operating system market will be obliged to allow their users to download apps by using services other than their own app stores. The government hopes that the move will spur competition and lead to app price drops ⎭ #Japan #Duopoly #Antitrust https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/06/16/business/japan-apple-google-apps-stores/
Meta is not gonna buy Mastodon or any server, this is based on absolutely nothing and untrue.
Yes, some of us indeed got contacted by Meta/Insta because they are working on a new social platform (this was in the news) and they are looking into joining the Fediverse (Mark Zuckerberg also told this in the recent podcast)
SO.
This contact was about a "heads-up" for a potential big platform to join the network and not for a "take over".
@stuxIf US and EU antitrust / competitiveness authorities cannot secure compliance from Facebook and Zuckerberg for existing and longstanding orders, what makes you think a rag-tag bunch of Fediverse admins will fare better?
Facebook are manifestly bad-faith and untrustworthy actors. Preblock, now.
Facebook is a repeat violator at the FTC. There was a consent decree that goes back close to a decade, which the FTC in 2019 found that they violated. The recent news suggests that they may have also been in violation of this latest consent order. And that is really prompting a step back and a close look at: What does it take to make sure that firms across the board are actually complying with the law? ... I think when you have companies that are repeatedly before a law-enforcement agency, you need to ask serious questions about whether these companies are recidivist and whether they have a challenge in abiding by existing laws.
-- Lina Khan, Chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, interviewed by Kara Swischer,15 May 2023
At the very least, a precondition for any cooperation would be full compliance with existing antitrust actions, sanctions, consent orders, and the like, for a period at least as long as noncompliance (so, four years in the case of the 2019 order).
🚨 FTC will try to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard | CNBC
⎧ The Federal Trade Commission is set to file for an injunction Monday seeking to block Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
By filing for an injunction, the FTC is seeking to stop the transaction from going through before the deal's July 18 deadline⎭
📰 Meta threatens to yank news content from California over payments bill
➥ Reuters
"Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META.O) said on Wednesday it would remove news content in its home state of California if the state government passed legislation forcing tech companies to pay publishers."
There go the people who might give a clear signal on #ClimateRisk for projects and inftrastructure.
"The Net-Zero #Insurance Alliance (#NZIA) has been buffeted by growing political opposition from some #Republicans in the US who say the group could be violating #antitrust laws by working together to reduce clients' carbon #emissions.
This month 23 US state attorneys general [said NZIA targets andrequirements] appeared to violate both federal and state antitrust laws."
"The worse Google’s search results are, the more they depend on being the default search (because no one would actively choose a search engine with unreliable, spammy results). The more they spend on being the default, the sweatier and more desperate their money-grabbing tactics become, and the worse the search results get, and the more they need to spend to keep you locked in"
➥ @pluralistic
They said it couldn't happen. After decades of #antitrust enforcement against #PredatoryPricing - selling goods below cost to kill existing competitors and prevent new ones from arising - the #ChicagoSchool of neoliberal #economists "proved" that predatory pricing didn't exist and that the courts could stand down and stop busting companies for it.
“Should #Apple hasten the exodus of deposits from the traditional banking sector in ways that start to undermine already beleaguered financial institutions, I suspect that regulators will take a closer look at the business model. The company will also have to be careful to avoid compromising consumer data in ways that trigger #antitrust issues.” https://www.ft.com/content/6bd82fc0-6a65-4a42-a467-509b20f71ad0