Will Cicilline’s War on Big Tech Be Derailed, Companies Pour Millions Into Biden’s Campaign
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Just last week after a year of hearings, U.S. Congressman David Cicilline, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, issued a scathing report on the anticompetitive business models of America's four largest tech giants -- Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon.
But while Cicilline is rattling big tech's cages, fellow Democrat and former Vice President Joe Biden is vacuuming up campaign donations from the very big tech Cicilline was to rein in.
A report published by tech publication Wired found ”that employees at Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Oracle have contributed nearly 20 times as much money to Biden as to [Preisdent Donald] Trump since the beginning of 2019. According to data released by the Federal Election Commission, which requires individuals who contribute $200 or more to a presidential campaign to report their employer, employees at these six companies have contributed $4,787,752 to Biden and just $239,527 to Trump.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTCicilline's committee found major antitrust violations by Alphabet (Google's parent company), Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.
“To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons," said Cicilline in his subcommittee's 450-page report.
Cicilline wrote in the committee's report, “Although these four corporations differ in important ways, studying their business practices has revealed common problems. First, each platform now serves as a gatekeeper over a key channel of distribution. By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy. They not only wield tremendous power, but they also abuse it by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them. Second, each platform uses its gatekeeper position to maintain its market power."
Wired found that employees at Alphabet are Biden’s biggest financial supporter of the tech giants in Silicon Valley, having donated just shy of $1.8 million.
"An analysis by Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog, found that contributions from Alphabet’s employees and political action committee to the Biden campaign collectively exceed those from any other company. In fact, according to Open Secrets, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple account for five of the seven largest donors to the Biden campaign on that basis," found Wired.
Biden Raises 35 Times More Money From the Big 4 Tech Compnaies
Alphabet: Biden $1,791,816 v. Trump $11,825
Amazon: Biden $775,897 v. Trump $59,425
Apple: Biden $542,020 v. Trump $23,989
Facebook: Biden $560,493 v Trump $7,005
Biden Total $3,670,226 and Trump Total $102,244
China Factor and Trust
While Cicilline's report has found violation after violation of antitrust laws by big tech, those companies' CEOs have become frustrated with Trump's anti-China narrative and calls for regulation.
"Big tech has a lot riding on the election. Members of Congress are probing potential antitrust violations by several of the companies; they also are considering changes to a 1990s-era law that essentially absolves website owners of responsibility for what users post on their site. Tech executives have criticized Trump’s increasingly hard line on China, a big trade partner, and on immigration, a source of many Silicon Valley employees," writes Wired.
The question is will Cicilline's report be a spark for change or a document that sits on the RI Democrats bookshelf as a reminder of what could have been.
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