Tag: Critics

sci tech

Biden’s transition team has more Big Tech executives than critics

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Tech companies have been trying to strengthen their relationship with a future Biden administration to ensure they have a voice in an onslaught of federal and state investigations of their business practices.

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Far more executives from technology companies than outspoken tech critics were named to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team on Tuesday, offering clues on who will decide on filling key roles and ultimately influence his administration’s thinking in coming years.

Tech companies have been trying to strengthen their relationship with a future Biden administration to ensure they have a voice in an onslaught of federal and state investigations of their business practices.

The Biden transition team released a list of agency review teams on Tuesday.

Amazon.com Inc’s Tom Sullivan, an executive on the public policy team, will

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Google’s critics and rivals call for swift EU antitrust action

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(Reuters) — A group of 165 companies and industry bodies have called on EU antitrust enforcers to take a tougher line against Google, saying the U.S. tech giant unfairly favors its own services on its web searches.

The group includes U.S. and UK companies as well as peers in 21 EU countries. It sent a joint letter to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager on Thursday, saying Google was giving its own services, such as those for accommodation, travel and jobs, preferential placement in its search results and urging swift action to stop the practice.

Google, a unit of Alphabet, has refuted assertions that it unfairly favors its own services. It says that its users are not locked in and that competition to its services is just one click away on the internet.

Vestager has levied fines totalling 8.25 billion euros ($9.7 billion) against Google in the past three

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future technology

Big Tech’s biggest critics are racing to raise money for Biden’s campaign

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Some of the staunchest critics of Facebook, Google and other Silicon Valley giants are trying to ramp up their efforts — and their donations — to convince former vice president Joe Biden to take a harder line against the tech industry if he wins the 2020 election.



a man wearing a suit and tie talking on a cell phone: Former vice president Joe Biden at Bucks County Community College in Bristol, Pa., on Saturday.

© Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post
Former vice president Joe Biden at Bucks County Community College in Bristol, Pa., on Saturday.

The group includes Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other state and federal officials, as well as academics including Tim Wu and activists like Roger McNamee, a prominent early Facebook investor. They aim to host a fundraiser for Biden on Tuesday, according to an invite, hoping a fresh injection of campaign cash in the final days of the 2020 race might further nudge the Democratic presidential candidate in their direction.

“Those of us who are trying to reform the technology industry have two

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new technology

Google Critics Cheer Justice Department Suit, but Skeptics Question Motives

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WASHINGTON—The Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against

Alphabet Inc.’s

Google drew bipartisan praise from lawmakers and cheers from the company’s competitors, while prompting skepticism and accusations of political bias from larger technology companies and critics of the Trump administration.

The reactions foreshadowed the lengthy debate to come from Washington to Silicon Valley over the merits of a government enforcement action targeting one of America’s most successful companies.

More on the Antitrust Lawsuit

“It cannot escape notice that this suit was hurried out on the eve of an election where the [Trump] Administration has aggressively pressured tech companies to take actions in its favor,” said a statement from the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include large tech companies such as Google,

Facebook Inc.

and

Amazon.com Inc.

“Antitrust law should be driven by consumers’ interests, not political imperatives,” the group said. ”We look forward to a court’s review of the facts

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