No images? Click here Welcome to The Corner. In this issue, we discuss the key role of antitrust reform in moving forward meaningful privacy protections in the post-Roe world, and supply chain vulnerabilities affecting the U.S. and Europe. Post-Roe Online Surveillance of Women Highlights Need to Break Power of Big Tech Karina Montoya The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade combines two seemingly distant movements: women’s rights and data privacy advocates. The connection is easy to see. Big Tech business models that depend on the collection of massive amounts of data can expose women to criminal prosecution for their reproductive health choices. The problem, however, is that privacy rules alone may not bring women the protections they seek. As long as Google, Facebook, and a few other giants continue to harvest sensitive personal data to drive their advertising-based business models, no American woman will be fully safe. The post-Roe world illuminates the need for antitrust tools to be part of any real solution. The lack of privacy online has never been an “abstract” danger, as Axios described it recently. Already online tracking and profiling of those who visit Planned Parenthood’s website or use menstrual tracking apps are extension of the types of surveillance that have harmed other vulnerable populations. This includes real estate and rental agencies racially discriminating among readers based on interactions with their Facebook advertisements, or when data brokers sell personal information that enables criminals to harass, stalk or run scams. At the center of the privacy issue is an ad tech business that has been designed to exploit the radical changes to antitrust policy imposed under the Reagan and Clinton administrations. As Jennifer Brody, U.S. policy and advocacy manager at Access Now, told Open Markets, “At the end of the day, people can’t vote with their feet on choosing platforms that are more rights-respecting because they don’t have a choice.” In a recent column, Brody described the business model of harvesting personal information to serve advertisers is arguably a human rights violation in itself. Meanwhile, antitrust scholar Dina Srinivasan has explained how this problem has worsened over time. Using Facebook as an example, Srinivasan said the cost of social networking services “is an order of magnitude above what it was when Facebook faced real competition,” in terms of “the amount of data that users now must provide.” In the post-Roe era, a number of lawmakers have put forward new legislation to protect women’s personal data, with initiatives such as My Body, My Data Act or the Health and Location Data Protection Act. But it’s also imperative that advocates for women’s rights and other groups take full account of the root of the problem: the radical relaxation of antitrust enforcement a generation ago, which allowed for Google and Facebook to become so massive and far reaching. Since the Roe decision, Google has announced, plans to delete location data of women seeking abortions, though the corporation did not offer any plan to address the personal data that it collects from other websites and applications that connect to its ads network and that continue to profile users seeking these services. The situation is not entirely bleak. The Biden administration’s initiatives to end the Borkian antitrust philosophy that has opened the door to extreme concentration of power and control is a huge step forward. Congress’ Big Tech antitrust bills and a potential Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against Google that might call for the corporation to sell parts of its ad tech business would also strike at Google’s core business model.
Open Markets published a report that identifies extreme geographic and corporate concentration in supply chains critical to national security, including in sectors such as semiconductors, critical minerals, solar photovoltaics, pharmaceuticals, and electric vehicle batteries. Based on a public comment to the Bureau of Industry and Security, the report also recommends several strategies that the supply chain working group of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council can take to increase resiliency in the supply chain of critical sectors. Read it here. 🔊 ANTI-MONOPOLY RISING:
📝 WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO:
We appreciate your readership. Please consider making a contribution to support the continued publication of this newsletter. 📈 VITAL STAT:$72 millionThe amount of money big tech industry groups have spent so far this year on advertising opposing new congressional legislation that would regulate their businesses, with nearly half that spending coming just in June, according to an analysis by the ad tracking firm AdImpact. 📚 WHAT WE'RE READING:
NIKKI USHER'S NEW BOOK
News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism Nikki Usher, a senior fellow at Open Markets Institute’s Center for Journalism & Liberty, has released her third book, News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism. In her latest work, Usher offers a frank examination of the inequalities driving not just America’s journalism crisis but also certain portions of the movement to save it. “We need to radically rethink the core functions of journalism, leverage expertise, and consider how to take the best of what the newspaper ethos of journalism can offer to places that have lost geographically specific news, “ says Usher, an associate professor at the University of Illinois-Champaign. “The news that powers democracy can be more inclusive.” Usher is also the author of Making News at The New York Times (2014) and Interactive Journalism: Hackers, Data, and Code (2016). News for the Rich, White, and Blue, published by Columbia University Press, is available as a hardback, paperback and e-book. You can order your copy here. 🔎 TIPS? COMMENTS? SUGGESTIONS? We would love to hear from you—just reply to this e-mail and drop us a line. Give us your feedback, alert us to competition policy news, or let us know your favorite story from this issue. |