Code conference: Everyone Wants Regulation... For Someone Else

pcmag.com:

At this month's Code conference, there was a lot of discussion about competition, antitrust, and regulation, but little agreement. The one thing that is clear is that we will hear a lot more about this from politicians in America and elsewhere over the next few years.

Senator Amy Klobuchar defended her American Innovation and Choice Online Act(Opens in a new window) (AICO) bill, which would stop the biggest digital companies from giving their own products preference over those made by others—such as Google pushing its own Maps, or Amazon its own products. The bill has passed through both House and Senate committees but has yet to come up for a vote, which Klobuchar said was due to the "incredible onslaught of money" that the big companies are spending to oppose it. "It is really hard to take on these subjects when you have the biggest companies the world has ever known opposed to it," she said.

She said that while she was a huge believer in capitalism, where you have huge companies like Google (with 89% of search), Amazon, Facebook, and the Apple and Google apps stores, "You need some sort of rules where gatekeepers don't control who wins in the marketplace."

Klobachar also supported the Journalism Competition Act(Opens in a new window), which would let news organizations band together to set rates for using their content.

Not surprisingly the big companies all had different ideas on antitrust regulation.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy took issue with the way antitrust regulators have targeted how Amazon sells its own products on its marketplace. "We didn't invent private label," he said, noting that plenty of other large retailers who would not be covered by the bill have private label products, including Walmart, Target,