Megacorporations Watch Thread

[caltrek]

European Union Moves Forward in Antitrust Case Against Apple
May 2, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/european ... nst-apple/

Introduction:

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union stepped up its antitrust case against Apple on Monday, accusing the company of abusing its dominant position by limiting access to technologies allowing contactless payment.

The 27-nation bloc’s executive arm, the European Commission, has been investigating Apple since 2020. The commission’s preliminary view is that the firm is restricting competition by preventing mobile wallet app developers from accessing the necessary hardware and software on Apple devices.

Mobile wallets rely on near-field communication, or NFC, which uses a chip in the mobile device to wirelessly communicate with a merchant’s payment terminal.

The commission said Apple Pay is by far the largest NFC-based mobile wallet on the market and accused the company of refusing others access to the popular technology.

“Apple has built a closed ecosystem around its devices and its operating system, iOS. And Apple controls the gates to this ecosystem, setting the rules of the game for anyone who wants to reach consumers using Apple devices,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. “By excluding others from the game, Apple has unfairly shielded its Apple Pay wallets from competition.”

[weatheriscool]

European Union Moves Forward in Antitrust Case Against Apple
May 2, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/european ... nst-apple/

Introduction:

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union stepped up its antitrust case against Apple on Monday, accusing the company of abusing its dominant position by limiting access to technologies allowing contactless payment.

The 27-nation bloc’s executive arm, the European Commission, has been investigating Apple since 2020. The commission’s preliminary view is that the firm is restricting competition by preventing mobile wallet app developers from accessing the necessary hardware and software on Apple devices.

Mobile wallets rely on near-field communication, or NFC, which uses a chip in the mobile device to wirelessly communicate with a merchant’s payment terminal.

The commission said Apple Pay is by far the largest NFC-based mobile wallet on the market and accused the company of refusing others access to the popular technology.

“Apple has built a closed ecosystem around its devices and its operating system, iOS. And Apple controls the gates to this ecosystem, setting the rules of the game for anyone who wants to reach consumers using Apple devices,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. “By excluding others from the game, Apple has unfairly shielded its Apple Pay wallets from competition.”

Now this is exiting news. We all know apple breaks every anti-trust law in the book! We'd be better off if it was broken it up like grandbell and let them compete against each other.

[caltrek]

Germany’s Antitrust Watchdog Latest to Probe Apple’s App Privacy Framework
by Natasha Lomas
June 14, 2022

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) A major privacy feature Apple launched last year, called App Tracking Transparency (ATT) — which requires third party apps to request permission from iOS users to track their digital activity for ad targeting — is facing another antitrust probe in Europe: Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has just announced it’s investigating the framework over concerns that Apple could be breaching competition rules by self-preferencing or creating unfair barriers for other companies.

Last year, France’s antitrust regulator declined to pre-emptively block Apple from implementing ATT — but said it would be watching how Apple operates the feature. Poland also opened probe of the feature at the end of last year.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also set out concerns about Apple’s implementation of ATT in a deep dive mobile market study published last week. However the UK watchdog has so far deferred intervention over the feature — prioritizing other areas of Apple’s business to investigate (such as App Store rules) as it continues to wait for the government to enact a major competition reform targeting tech giants’ market power which was confirmed as incoming in November 2020 but is still pending legislation (that’s not now expected until next year at the earliest).
Germany is ahead of the curve here as its ex ante digital competition reboot came into force at the start of 2021 — targeting tech giants that are judged to have so-called “paramount significance for competition across markets” with tighter abuse controls.

Since then the FCO has been busy determining which giants the regime applies to — confirming, in a first decision in January, that Google meets the bar.

Read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/14/appl ... ntitrust/

[weatheriscool]

U.S. appeals court revives Roundup weedkiller cancer lawsuit
Source: Reuters

By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit by a Georgia man claiming Bayer AG's Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer, the latest in a string of legal defeats for the company as it seeks to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Montgomery, Alabama, rejected Bayer's argument that federal law shielded it from state law claims like the one brought by John Carson, who said he was diagnosed with a type of cancer called malignant fibrous histiocytoma in 2016 after using Roundup for 30 years. Carson said the company should have warned of cancer risk on the product's label.

Bayer said it disagreed with the ruling and would consider its options. It said any cancer warning would be inconsistent with the label approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Bayer continues to stand fully behind its Roundup products," said the company, which acquired the weedkiller line with its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto in 2018.

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-appeal ... 14941.html

[caltrek]

Google Faces Fresh Antitrust Probe in Italy After Data Portability Complaint
by Natasha Lomas
July 14, 2022

Introduction:

(Techcrunch) Italy’s competition watchdog has opened an investigation into Google over concerns it has abused a dominant position by hindering data portability rights which are afforded to individuals under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The procedure follows a complaint made to the authority by the operator of a direct marketing platform called Weople.

The Weople app, which is operated by a company called Hoda, encourages web users to link third party accounts (such as Gmail and other Google accounts) to port their personal data into a “digital vault” — where the free service claims their data will be “masked and anonymized” in order that it can be used to target them with personalized offers, i.e. without their actual information being shared with advertisers/third parties since the app acts as an intermediary.

Weople users are apparently able to generate virtual currency or other rewards (some of which are distributed by prize draw), and potentially earn actual money, in exchange for authorizing use of their “masked” data for marketing purposes.

Read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/goo ... mplaint/

[caltrek]

Amazon, Facing ‘Unfavorable Regulatory Environment’ in India, Struggles to Expand
by Manish Singh
August 30, 2022

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) Amazon is lagging its chief rival Flipkart in India on several key metrics and struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a report by investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein.

The American e-commerce giant’s 2021 gross merchandise value in the country, where it has deployed over $6.5 billion, stood between $18 billion to $20 billion, lagging Flipkart’s $23 billion, the analysts said in a report to clients Tuesday that was obtained by TechCrunch. The company’s recent spendings for growth in India has also made profitability “elusive,” the report added.

India is a key overseas market for Amazon, where it competes with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail, Walmart-owned Flipkart and social commerce startups SoftBank-backed Meesho and Tiger Global-backed DealShare. Amazon has so far offered “a weaker proposition in ‘new’ commerce” in the country, the report added.

At stake is one of the world’s last great growth markets. The e-commerce spending in India is expected to double in size to over $130 billion by 2025.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/30/amaz ... o-expand/

[wjfox]

3 Companies That Could Be Worth $1 Trillion by 2032

By John Ballard - Aug 14, 2022 at 8:05AM

At the time of writing, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon are the only four U.S. companies with a market capitalization of $1 trillion or greater. Tesla is not far behind, with a market cap of $907 million.

These are elite businesses that have earned shareholders tremendous gains. It goes without saying that these companies all had much smaller market caps not too long ago. Amazon's market cap was $105 billion exactly 10 years ago.

Generally, a good place to look for the next home-run stocks are growing companies with a market cap between $100 billion to $500 billion. But in this case, let's first look at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A -1.50%) (BRK.B -1.69%), which has a higher market cap but could be a timely buy right now.

For higher return prospects, you'll want to consider Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -2.54%) and Salesforce (CRM 0.10%). These are solid growth stories that still have years to play out.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/08/ ... n-by-2032/

[caltrek]

Senator Klobuchar says Big Tech Money Hasn’t Stopped Her Antitrust Push ... Yet
by Sara Morrison
September 6, 2022

Introduction:

(Vox) Amy Klobuchar’s antitrust push is not dead, the Democratic senator told Kara Swisher at the Code Conference on Tuesday.
“Never count us out when the cause is right and it’s something we need to tackle,” she said.

Klobuchar has been at the forefront of the antitrust push in Congress, sponsoring several bipartisan and bicameral bills aimed at Big Tech that would better regulate them and curb their immense power. Despite auspicious beginnings and what seemed to be a lot of bipartisan interest in passing at least some of those bills, they seem to have stalled out. Some haven’t made any progress at all; others are waiting for a floor vote that never seems to come.

“You need some kind of rules in place where you don’t have the gatekeepers also controlling who wins in the marketplace,” she said.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICO) is one of those bills, and it’s the one Klobuchar has arguably championed the most aggressively.
It would ban dominant digital companies from giving their own products preference over those made by others on the platforms they own. So Amazon wouldn’t be allowed to put its own products higher up in search results in its Marketplace unless those products organically earned that spot, and Google wouldn’t be allowed to put its own maps or reviews above those offered by other companies in Google search results unless its maps and reviews earned that spot.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/6/23 ... code-2022

[wjfox]

Microsoft responds to FTC case seeking to block Activision Blizzard deal, saying it wouldn’t hurt competition

Published Thu, Dec 22 20228:32 PM ESTUpdated Thu, Dec 22 202210:45 PM EST

Microsoft on Thursday filed its response to U.S. regulators’ antitrust case attempting to block the software maker from buying video-game publisher Activision Blizzard, saying that the deal will not harm competition.

The Federal Trade Commission’s challenge to the proposed $68.7 billion acquisition stands out as the biggest government pushback Microsoft has dealt with on home turf since facing off against the Justice Department two decades ago over the dominance of Windows in the operating system market.

Under President Donald Trump, Google’s umbrella company Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Facebook parent Meta all faced inquiries from U.S. competition officials. That left Microsoft to go about its business and continue expanding with acquisitions through the election of President Joe Biden, even after Biden’s appointee, technology critic Lina Khan, took over at the FTC. But then Microsoft revealed its plan to buy Activision Blizzard. On Dec. 8 the FTC argued that the transaction would violate federal law.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/22/microso ... -deal.html

[caltrek]

Koch Network Spending Big to Torpedo Big Tech Anti-Trust Reforms
by Mike Lux
April 13, 2023

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) In the past couple of months, Americans have suffered disastrous consequences from deregulation initiated during the Trump administration: in transit, the East Palestine derailment threatening the lives and livelihoods of thousands; in banking, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank that are still roiling financial markets.

The good news is that despite the overall deregulatory bent of the last administration, the Biden administration has been strengthening antitrust enforcement, plus there have been bipartisan efforts, led in the House by David Cicilline (D-RI) and Ken Buck (R-CO), to strengthen antitrust protections and curb the growing power of Big Tech.

Those bipartisan efforts were stymied thanks to intense lobbying from libertarian-leaning tech companies, think tanks, and advocates, with Big Money funding from the donor network of libertarian oil billionaire Charles Koch, whose influence over antitrust legislation goes back decades. As the new GOP-helmed Congress contemplates reforms, it’s already clear that party leaders like Jim Jordan (R-OH) and libertarian Thomas Massie (R-KY) — who are recipients of Koch cash themselves — are planning to do Big Tech’s bidding and delay or kill regulation and let the companies continue accumulating market power.

From privacy concerns around consumer data to predatory pricing locking out small businesses to the flood of disinformation on social media, Americans have become aware of how much market concentration the big four technology companies have achieved. Americans of all political parties agree that Big Tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have too much power and need to be reined in. President Biden has made promoting competition and ending monopolies a cornerstone of his economic agenda, but he can only do so much facing Republican obstructionism in the House. While congressional action has stalled, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are working to fully enforce existing antitrust laws.

The tech companies, think tanks, advocates, and Koch network continue to fight these efforts. A far-right founder of the notoriously obstructionist House Freedom Caucus, Jim Jordan is now chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee which oversees antitrust policy. In January, he named Thomas Massie as chairman of the Antitrust Subcommittee, ignoring precedent and bypassing the more senior Ken Buck, whom many had presumed would lead it.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/k ... t-reforms

[caltrek]

Big Tech Companies Are Becoming More Powerful Than Nation-States
by Tom Valovic
April 25, 2023

Conclusion:

(Common Dreams)
Goodbye Nation States?

As we see democratic principles slowly vaporize even in Western nations, the fact that Big Tech continues to consolidate its power globally over and above that of nation-states is deeply concerning. However (just to keep things nice and confusing) sometimes it does this in cooperation with governments via public/private partnerships, a kind of Faustian bargain.


The Time magazine article cited …(below) offered this startling observation: "Even if computer scientists succeed in making sure the AIs don't wipe us out, their increasing centrality to the global economy could make the Big Tech companies who control it vastly more powerful. They could become not just the richest corporations in the world—charging whatever they want for commercial use of this critical infrastructure—but also geopolitical actors to rival nation-states."

Some might argue that this has already happened and the nexus of world power is now corporate-leaning. The world's biggest tech companies are now richer and more powerful than most countries. According to an article in PC Week in 2021 discussing Apple's dominance: "By taking the current valuation of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and others, then comparing them to the GDP of countries on a map, we can see just how crazy things have become… Valued at $2.2 trillion, the Cupertino company is richer than 96% of the world. In fact, only seven countries currently outrank the maker of the iPhone financially."

For the moment, these trends appear to be unstoppable, given the levels of corporate investment already at stake and the supine posture and dependency of governments on their largesse. The best available response for the moment is simply greater public awareness and a commitment to face the contours of this brave new technocratic world head-on and with clear vision. Given the astonishingly out-of-control power of the Big Tech sector, it's also crucial to realize that simply regulating these systems while allowing them to continue to siphon off the power of traditional governments will not be enough to preserve our quality of life going forward.

Read more of the Common Dreams article here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/b ... -nations

For the cited Times article: https://time.com/6255952/ai-impact-cha ... t-google/

For the cited PC Weekly article of 2021: https://www.pcmag.com/news/worlds-most ... ountries

From the PC Weekly article:

Microsoft…(has) a …$1.8 trillion valuation…only nine countries are worth more money…

Amazon is valued at …$1.6 trillion….

Alphabet, Google's parent company, is valued at $1.4 trillion, putting it ahead of all but 12 countries.

caltrek’s comment: The valuation of Microsoft at $1.8 is actually lower than other estimates provided in this thread, which put its valuation at over $2 trillion.

[caltrek]

Axios Harris Poll 100: Year of the Tarnished Titans
by Sara Fischer and Margaret Talev

May 23, 2023

Introduction: The article opens with a table listing of 100 companies, their reputational ranking, and an indication of their ranking relative to last year

(Axios) FTX and Tesla, once seen as shining examples of innovation and opportunity, took two of the biggest reputational hits in this year's Axios Harris Poll 100 brand reputation survey.

Why it matters: Amid a crypto collapse and Musk madness, Americans have grown wary and weary of big ideas and powerful moguls who they feel have overpromised and underdelivered.

What we're watching: Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter not only pushed the social media company's own ranking down but shook investors' faith in Tesla by making the public more aware of Musk's manic leadership style.

• Twitter ranked 97th among the 100 brands survey respondents identified as most visible in the country today. Its Reputational Quotient, or RQ®, score — a measure across seven dimensions touching on character, trust and trajectory — was 59.3 out of a possible 100.

• Tesla saw one of the biggest reputation drops of the past year, from 11th in 2022 to 62nd place this year, with a 74.3 RQ (79.5 in 2022).

Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/ftx-t ... ings-2021

caltrek’s comment: Lowest ranked is the Trump Organization. Ironic that its leader is ahead in the polls for the Republican party nomination.

[Cyber_Rebel]

Onwards towards Cyberpunk

How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington

A sprawling network spread across Congress, federal agencies and think tanks is pushing policymakers to put AI apocalypse at the top of the agenda — potentially boxing out other worries and benefiting top AI companies with ties to the network.



(Politico)

An organization backed by Silicon Valley billionaires and tied to leading artificial intelligence firms is funding the salaries of more than a dozen AI fellows in key congressional offices, across federal agencies and at influential think tanks.

The fellows funded by Open Philanthropy, which is financed primarily by billionaire Facebook co-founder and Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna, are already involved in negotiations that will shape Capitol Hill’s accelerating plans to regulate AI. And they’re closely tied to a powerful influence network that’s pushing Washington to focus on the technology’s long-term risks — a focus critics fear will divert Congress from more immediate rules that would tie the hands of tech firms.

Acting through the little-known Horizon Institute for Public Service, a nonprofit that Open Philanthropy effectively created in 2022, the group is funding the salaries of tech fellows in key Senate offices, according to documents and interviews.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s top three lieutenants on AI legislation — Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) — each have a Horizon fellow working on AI or biosecurity, a closely related issue. The office of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a powerful member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who recently unveiled plans for an AI licensing regime, includes a Horizon AI fellow who worked at OpenAI immediately before coming to Congress, according to his bio on Horizon’s web site.
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One key issue that has already emerged is licensing — the idea, now part of a legislative framework from Blumenthal and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), that the government should require licenses for companies to work on advanced AI. Raji worries that Open Philanthropy-funded experts could help lock in the advantages of existing tech giants by pushing for a licensing regime. She said that would likely cement the importance of a few leading AI companies – including OpenAI and Anthropic, two firms with significant financial and personal links to Moskovitz and Open Philanthropy.

“There will only be a subset of companies positioned to accommodate a licensing regime,” Raji said. “It concentrates existing monopolies and entrenches them even further.”
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“We have [the] AI [industry] inserting its staffers into Congress to potentially write new laws and regulations around this emerging field,” Stretton said. “That is a conflict of interest.”

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Perhaps an unpopular opinion which may not be shared, I'd rather Silicon Valley, over Wall Street or theocratic fundamentalist interest within congress.

[caltrek]

Apple Suffers Setback as It Fights Colossal Tax Penalty in EU Courts
by Cain Burdeau
November 9, 2023

Introduction:

(Courthouse News) — Tech giant Apple once again faces paying a $14 billion tax penalty after a legal adviser to the European Union's highest court said on Thursday that a lower court ruling exempting the company from paying taxes in Ireland on worldwide profits was flawed.

The European General Court erred in 2020 when it determined Ireland had not given the iPhone maker illegal tax breaks in violation of the EU's rules governing fair competition, according to a legal opinion by Giovanni Pitruzzella, an advocate general for the European Court of Justice.

His finding comes amid legal fights between Brussels regulators and multinational tech giants that chose to set up European branches in Ireland to take advantage of the country's favorable regulatory and tax regimes.

Ireland has one of the EU's lowest corporate tax rates and 25 of the country's 50 largest companies are U.S.-based multinationals like Apple, paying an estimated 80% of all Irish corporate tax.

Further extract:

Apple and Irish regulators argue the company should only pay taxes based on profits generated within Ireland, not on worldwide profits. In particular, the Cupertino, California-based company maintains that its research and development is conducted in the United States and therefore profits on its intellectual property should not be paid to Irish tax authorities.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/apple-s ... courts/

[caltrek]

[caltrek]

Apple, Tesla and Nvidia Were Among 2023’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ Stocks – Here’s What to Expect from Them All in 2024
by Karl Schmedders
December 22, 2023

Introduction:

(The Conversation) In the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, a group of seven gunfighters protect a village from bandits. Only three survive to ride out of town at the end of the movie. The odds look much better for the seven tech companies recently dubbed the magnificent seven after dominating US stock markets in 2023. But there are problems that could ambush some of these companies in 2024.

Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Nvidia have driven a rally in US stocks in 2023. They now make up nearly a third of the S&P 500 measure of the largest listed US companies, which has risen more than 20% since January. These tech stocks had provided shareholders with a whopping 71% return by mid-November while the other 493 names added just 6%.

This impressive performance led Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett to name these companies the magnificent seven earlier this year. Goldman Sachs soon followed, calling their massive outperformance the “defining feature” of the equity market in 2023.

But as dramatic as this performance has been – and although they’re all essentially tech companies – don’t make the mistake of thinking they’re all the same. In fact, the outlook for the magnificent seven next year is mixed, particularly in light of expected changes in their core markets.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/apple-tesl ... -218675

[weatheriscool]

More money for the rich and f*ck everyone that isn't. The republican party! The party of the elite and power.

[caltrek]

Global Mergers and Acquisitions Hit Lowest Level in a Decade
by Michael Flaherty
December 27, 2023

Introduction:

(Axios) Global merger and acquisition activity in 2023 fell 17% to $2.87 trillion, the lowest level in over a decade, according to London Stock Exchange Group data.

Why it matters: A slow M&A market can strain companies seeking growth or investment.

• The 2023 tally was driven lower by economic worries and tight financing markets.

• The last time global M&A fell below $3 trillion was in 2013, thanks in part to the eurozone crisis.

Inside the numbers: U.S. M&A outperformed the globe, falling 6% to $1.36 trillion. This was aided by a flurry of deals in late December, including a $15 billion deal for U.S. Steel and a $14 billion takeover of schizophrenia drugmaker Karuna Therapeutics.

Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/year-end-deals-data

[wjfox]

Microsoft poised to overtake Apple as most valuable company

Jan 05, 2024

As Microsoft stock rises and Apple's falls over analysts expectation of slowing iPhone demand, the two firms are once more within $100 billion of each other — the smallest gap in over two years.

Apple and Microsoft have a long history of competing for the title of the world's most valuable company, although originally that was specifically in the technology category. In 2010, Apple dethroned Microsoft when it hit a market capitalization of $222 billion, and then in 2018 Microsoft briefly regained that top position.

Now those sums seem quaintly low, and the two companies have instead been vying for the title of most valuable company globally, in any category. In August 2020, Apple became the first publicly-traded US company to reach a $2 trillion market cap, and Microsoft became the second one in June 2021.

Later in October 2021, Microsoft took over the top spot, and for a time was more valuable than Apple by $100 billion.

While the values of the two firms have continually changed, Microsoft is now worth just $100 billion less than Apple, according to MarketWatch. Microsoft is valued at $2.73 trillion, while Apple — fallen from its recent $3 trillion high — is currently at $2.83 trillion.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/01 ... le-company

[wjfox]

Amazon takeover of iRobot to be blocked by EU

2 days ago

Amazon's takeover of vacuum cleaner maker iRobot is set to be blocked by the European Union's competition watchdog, the BBC understands.

[...]

The online giant moved to buy iRobot, maker of the Roomba cleaner, in August 2022 in a takeover deal set to cost $1.7bn (£1.4bn).

It was looking to expand its footprint in the market for smart home appliances.

But regulators are worried that iRobot's tie-up with Amazon could make it difficult for other vacuum-makers to compete, especially if Amazon were to give the Roomba benefits over rivals on its e-commerce site.

[...]

The EC has the legal deadline of February 14 to make its decision but the commission's 27 top political leaders will need to reach consensus on the rejection before a final decision can be issued.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68031889