ANTITRUST REGULATION Should new media giants be broken up?

Google, Facebook not playing by the rules, News Corp tells ACCC

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/04/google-facebook-not-playing-by-the-rules-news-corp-tells-accc?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

TERMINOLOGY - very useful neologism/mnemonic below: GAFA...

UPDATE: MURDOCH'S FOX RAIDED BY EU ANTI-TRUST AUTHORITY OVER SPORTS RIGHTS
The Murdoch press enjoys a dominant market position in the UK with no hint of any regulatory action (unless left-wing Labour leader wins the next election) from government or the self-'regulator' IPSO. Yet his corporation's handling of sport rights once more sees clear evidence of the tough regulatory environment for broadcast media compared to 'print' media.
Guardian: 21st Century Fox's London office raided in market abuse inquiry.

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A useful primer, including a quote from Adam Smith, on the history of and current clamour for enforcement of antitrust laws.

In a nutshell these exist to combat market dominance by single companies (or colluding cartels), seen as to the detriment of customers.

Elliot, the Guardian Economics editor, references historical cases of oil, and 1980s action on AT+T (US equivalent of BT in the UK or Post in Luxembourg), but he could also have referenced action against a forerunner of the modern cinema big six, forced to vertically DE-integrate before gradual deregulation allowed this dominance to return.

Microsoft were desperate for Apple to survive during its 90s crises, as it helped put off antitrust action against them.

Elliot cites the GAFA crew, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, but Comcast and Disney also are worthy of such consideration as they clamber above even global media barons such as Murdoch, who faces Disney buying his film empire and Comcast his prized TV empire.

(See Guardian article, Is it time to break up the tech giants such as Facebook?, for more on this)

The argument goes like this. Data is as vital to the modern digital economy as oil was a century ago. The tech giants have the same sort of monopoly power that Standard Oil once had (Google and Facebook accounted for two-thirds of online advertising spending in the US last year and Amazon was responsible for 75% of online book sales). Mark Zuckerberg might wear chinos rather than the top hat sported by Rockefeller but a robber baron is a robber baron. It is time for anti-trust legislation to be used to break up Facebook, Google and Amazon.

The charge sheet is a long one: the tech giants are exploiting their monopoly power to stifle competition; they are spreading fake news; their fantastically rich owners portray themselves as right-on yet go to a great deal of trouble to minimise their corporate tax bills; they are ripping the heart out of communities through the closure of bricks-and-mortar retailers. To the list can now be added (in Facebook’s case) the harvesting of the personal data of 50 million Americans and its use for political purposes. 

No question, Big Tech is more vulnerable to a backlash from Washington than it has ever been. Companies have outgrown management systems that were not designed for systemically important businesses and have used their market power to gobble up rivals. It is this charge – that the disruptive startup companies of yesteryear are today’s anti-capitalists – that creates the biggest risk of anti-trust action.

OWNERSHIP Leveson 2 n Murdoch sunk as Comcast seeks Sky

A name which may be familiar from its ownership of NBC-Universal, Comcast has launched a shock bid to usurp Murdoch's long-planned full takeover of Sky, the most lucrative arm of his now fragmenting global empire. Just as there are questions about the ethics and fitness of the Murdoch conglomerate, Comcast brings with it a tarnished reputation for behaviour that both Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian would recognise as predictable from their models:

Comcast, which last week unveiled a £22bn offer for Sky, has been labelled the “worst company in America” twice in recent years over shoddy customer service and pricing. It has also been involved in regulatory transgressions which legal experts believe means its plan to take over Sky should be closely scrutinised by watchdogs.
The pay-TV firm, which is poised to formalise its bid to try to steal Sky from under Rupert Murdoch’s nose, announced a $300m plan to spruce up customer service three years ago, but to little avail so far. Comcast was named “America’s most-hated company” in a respected customer satisfaction survey last year.

(Guardian: Sky bidder Comcast labelled 'worst company in America')

I'm picking up on points linked to Comcast, but this is a useful primer on the perceived failings of the latest press regulator, IPSO.

This comes just as Murdoch seemed to have won a vital victory, with the Tory government announcing they have rejected calls (including from an angry Leveson himself) to launch the 2nd stage of the Leveson Inquiry. This was part of their originally announced plans as fury swept the UK over the NoTW phone-hacking scandal - with the Tory government under huge pressure to do so given the presence of Andy Coulson, sacked NoTW editor, in the centre of government as then-PM Cameron's press advisor. 

NB: Hancock = current UK Culture Secretary, so oversees media policy.

Just two days before Hancock’s announcement, the Murdoch family’s long-held ambitions to own the whole of Sky faced a far mightier opponent than a government with a wafer thin majority. Comcast, a telecoms and entertainment giant valued by the market at some $184bn (£130bn) – more than twice the value of 21st Century Fox – looks set to outfox the man who started Sky in 1989 and built it into Europe’s most significant satellite television platform. By offering 16% more to Sky shareholders, who have been waiting for over a year while competition regulators agonise over the possibility of increasing Murdoch’s dominance, Comcast has highlighted that market economics can trump media power.

 

The appearance of a huge US business, the owner of NBC television and Universal Studios, to spoil Murdoch’s takeover plans, shores up his argument for a merger with Disney. Despite the local power held by his newspapers – which is largely unchanged – the Murdoch media empire is relatively small compared with the Apples and Amazons of the world. Comcast makes a fortune from telecommunications in the US but revenues from the rest of its business are just 9% of its total.

 

In this game of superscale, Murdoch’s desire to control Sky has twice been held up by regulatory questions over the behaviour of his employees: first through phone hacking, then with sexual harassment allegations. It’s worth pointing out that Comcast, like so many media groups, has been tarnished by the latter: its television network NBC fired its best known presenter Matt Lauer amid harassment allegations last year.

(Guardian: Leveson 2 is off but relations between press and power are little changed)