Favorite The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) has just finalized a rule that makes it easy and safe for you to figure out which bank will give you the best deal and switch to that bank, with just a couple of clicks. We love this kind of thing: the coolest thing about a digital world…
All posts tagged Competition
Court Orders Google (a Monopolist) To Knock It Off With the Monopoly Stuff
Favorite A federal court recently ordered Google to make it easier for Android users to switch to rival app stores, banned Google from using its vast cash reserves to block competitors, and hit Google with a bundle of thou-shalt-nots and assorted prohibitions. Each of these measures is well crafted, narrowly tailored, and purpose-built to accomplish…
Disability Rights Are Technology Rights
Favorite At EFF, our work always begins from the same place: technological self-determination. That’s the right to decide which technology you use, and how you use it. Technological self-determination is important for every technology user, and it’s especially important for users with disabilities. Assistive technologies are a crucial aspect of living a full and fulfilling…
A Flourishing Internet Depends on Competition
Favorite Antitrust law has long recognized that monopolies stifle innovation and gouge consumers on price. When it comes to Big Tech, harm to innovation—in the form of “kill zones,” where major corporations buy up new entrants to a market before they can compete with them—has been easy to find. Consumer harms have been harder to…
FTC Findings on Commercial Surveillance Can Lead to Better Alternatives
Favorite On September 19, the FTC published a staff report following a multi-year investigation of nine social media and video streaming companies. The report found a myriad of privacy violations to consumers stemming largely from the ad-revenue based business models of companies including Facebook, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter) which prompted unbridled consumer surveillance practices.…
NextNav’s Callous Land-Grab to Privatize 900 MHz
Favorite The 900 MHz band, a frequency range serving as a commons for all, is now at risk due to NextNav’s brazen attempt to privatize this shared resource. Left by the FCC for use by amateur radio operators, unlicensed consumer devices, and industrial, scientific, and medical equipment, this spectrum has become a hotbed for new…
CrowdStrike, Antitrust, and the Digital Monoculture
Favorite Last month’s unprecedented global IT failure should be a wakeup call. Decades of antitrust inaction have made many industries dangerously reliant on the same tools, making such crises inevitable. We must demand regulators break up the digital monocultures that are creating a less competitive, less safe, and less free digital world. The Federal Trade…
Podcast Episode: Fighting Enshittification
Favorite The early internet had a lot of “technological self-determination” — you could opt out of things, protect your privacy, control your experience. The problem was that it took a fair amount of technical skill to exercise that self-determination. But what if it didn’t? What if the benefits of online privacy, security, interoperability, and free…
How the FTC Can Make the Internet Safe for Chatbots
Favorite No points for guessing the subject of the first question the Wall Street Journal asked FTC Chair Lina Khan: of course it was about AI. Between the hype, the lawmaking, the saber-rattling, the trillion-dollar market caps, and the predictions of impending civilizational collapse, the AI discussion has become as inevitable, as pro forma, and…
What’s the Difference Between Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads?
Favorite The ongoing Twitter exodus sparked life into a new way of doing social media. Instead of a handful of platforms trying to control your life online, people are reclaiming control by building more open and empowering approaches to social media. Some of these you may have heard of: Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. Each is…