Android

Below is the executive summary of my new white paper, “Internet Market Failure to Protect Consumer Welfare,” which can be accessed here.

It is a timely and relevant submission to two different and current U.S. Department of Justice efforts to learn more about the impact of Internet-related issues.

1.      Submission for: the U.S. DOJ Cyber-Digital Task Force June 2018 Report to the Attorney General
 Tasked to “…ensure that Internet-based technologies remain sources of enrichment, rather than becoming forces of destruction and vectors of chaos;” and

A recently aired CBS 60 minutes segment asked: “How Did Google Get So Big?”

The shortest answer is illegal acquisition of market power.

The simple answer is an epic bipartisan failure of antitrust law enforcement by both the W. Bush FTC, in the 2007 bipartisan approval of Google-DoubleClick; and by the Obama FTC, in the 2010 bipartisan approval of Google-AdMob, and in the 2013 bipartisan, abrupt closure of all five FTC antitrust probes of Google for a five year period.

Concerning Google antitrust, both Administrations, both parties, and both the Senate and House overseers own this bipartisan, FTC-created, Google-monopolization mess. It demands bipartisan antitrust enforcement cooperation, investigation, and solutions soonest.

Alphabet-Google is an unregulated monopoly that currently is de facto regulating the entire digital advertising ecosystem – in part via its new Chrome ad-blocker.

With minimal government accountability, it’s no surprise Google apparently is exercising its monopoly power anticompetitively and coercively.  

Only an out-of-control, U.S. Internet policy could create such an upside-down situation where Internet platforms like Google are so ungoverned by the U.S. Government, that they are free to broadly govern other companies in coercive ways that even the U.S. Government legally can’t do.  

Congress needs to pass legislation that restores a fair playing field with equal online-offline accountability to the law. Current U.S. Internet policy and law in the 1996 Telecom Act effectively exempts only Internet platforms from: FCC communications law; Federal and State regulation; liability for consumer negligence; and normal U.S. sovereign governance.

Internet platforms, like Alphabet-Google, act like they are above the rules and outside the law, because they largely are.

Summary

More change is coming to the FTC than most appreciate.

That’s because the FTC is in the process of an unprecedented, clean-slate leadership change, at the same time society is undergoing an extraordinary inflection point – the “techlash.”  

In a nutshell, the evidence to date shows the eventual Simons-FTC is on path to be a tough, bipartisan, populist, by-the-book, enforcer of antitrust and consumer protection laws. That would be in stark contrast to, the “laxter” enforcement and apparent Google-capture, of the 2012-2017 Ramirez-FTC, and the current, sidelined, no-quorum, Ohlhausen-FTC. 

SUMMARY

What could possibly go wrong with a nationalized, dual-use, military-civilian, secure 5G wireless network to centralize all military and civilian U.S. transportation traffic control and management with Alphabet-Google as the only commercial wireless ISP “financing/anchor tenant?” Way too much.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 29, 2018, Contact: Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

The Primary Beneficiaries of America Nationalizing a 5G Wireless Information Highway Would Be: Google’s Monopoly Information Access, Android Mobile Operating System, & Google Maps/Waze; and SoftBank’s ~$60b holdings in China’s Alibaba & $100b Telecom/Tech Venture Fund

WASHINGTON D.C. – The following may be attributed to Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition:

“An analysis of the Axios-reported memo proposing to build a nationalized 5G wireless network makes it clear that Alphabet-Google and SoftBank are the moving force behind it. The proposal obviously would benefit their interests first and foremost and it goes in the exact direction they have lobbied for over the last several years.”

“It is especially ironic and troubling that Softbank and Alphabet-Google are the apparent impetus behind this proposal for a secure wireless transportation network to compete with China and be secure from Chinese snooping.

Please do not miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “BREAK UP GOOGLE: There Is A Solid Conservative Antitrust Case Against Alphabet-Google.”

This quarter EU antitrust authorities are expected to rule that Google is illegally dominant in the markets for licensable smart mobile operating systems and app stores for the Android mobile operating system, because Google evidently abused its dominance by contractually requiring Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators to install only Google search and make it the default search engine.

Importantly, this expected EU Android ruling occurs in the context of the EU’s seminal antitrust decision last June that: 1) ruled Google’s search services were dominant; 2) ruled Google abused that dominance by giving illegal advantage to its own comparison shopping service; 3) fined Google a record $2.7b; 4) imposed a cease and desist order on Google to stop this illegal behavior in 90 days (or face additional fines of up to 5% of Alphabet’s revenues); and 5) imposed a remedy that requires that rival comparison shopping services get treatment equal to what Google provides itself, a requirement that Google apparently has not been respecting.

What this all suggests is that the next ruling, fines, and remedies that the EU will consider in the Android case, are likely to be more adverse to Alphabet-Google’s business and model than the previous one.

Below is the abstract of my new antitrust white paper, which can be accessed in full here.

I will present it at the Capitol Forum CQ 4^th annual tech competition conference in New York City Wednesday on “Obstacles to Antitrust Enforcement.”

It is also a timely and relevant addition to the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing Wednesday in Washington D.C. on “The Consumer Welfare Standard in Antitrust: Outdated or a Harbor in a Sea of Doubt?” because it discusses how the Chicago School antitrust consumer welfare standard remains sound as is, but warns that its application to Internet intermediary platforms is being badly distorted by America’s Internet-first industrial policy and its longstanding Internet competition double standard.

Many will find the 27-page white paper with >150 cites, a very helpful, up-to-date, overview and fact set on the current badly troubled state of competition and antitrust in the marketplace today.

A White Paper

Facts are stubborn things.

Know what one finds when one puts the evidence of Google’s many antitrust, IP, and privacy offenses into one telling timeline of what Google did from 2008-2017?

One sees a tale of two terms. Commendably, the evidence shows the first Obama Administration term featured very tough antitrust, IP, and privacy law enforcement against Google. Sadly, the second term was the direct opposite – featuring virtually no antitrust, IP, or privacy law enforcement against Google.

Know what one finds when one overlays the telling timeline of improper influence of Google’s Government Guardians, i.e. senior Google executives and outside counsels placed in all the right places to protect and advance Google’s business -- with the timeline of Google’s antitrust, IP, and privacy law enforcement problems?

One can see predictable patterns. Shortly after Google Guardians show up, those Google’s government problems go away. Same administration, different personnel, near completely opposite outcomes. It’s a quintessential example of the old Washington adage that “personnel is policy.”