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Host and now on the communicators we want to introduce you to sarah miller. She is the executive director of a group called the American Economic liberties project. Which is what . Guest we are an organization based in washington that his focus on what we see as a crisis, a closeted economic power in this country. Essentially monopolies and Financial Institutions that facilitate that monopolization across the economy. Thats were focused on. We have concerns about the power of Big Technology platforms but in general we think a lot of the economic and social problems that we are experiencing in our country today can trace back would be a factor, dramatically outsized level of Corporate Power that exist in our economy today. Host how did you come to the view . Guest we looked around at the world essentially. If you look at markets, if you look at Market Structure you will find that with its large markets like media, telecom, healthcare, Online Retail amazon for example, even small markets like Peanut Butter and cheerleading and washing components and software, you seemed over and over a handful of businesses, a handful of corporations have rolled up those markets and essentially act as governing agents for other actors in that market. Host isnt that because those corporations have been successful . Guest that is the myth. About 40 years ago we saw a radical shift in the way that policymakers interact with structuring markets. If you look back to the new deal, and now its a pretty good moment to talk about the need deal considering the state of our economy. There was a prior to that very similar economic concentration of power in the country. And at the are essentially started breaking that power, breaking those concentrations. And what they did was to help unleash their competition, support smaller businesses, promote economic prosperity. Suppressed radical levels of economic inequality that we saw leading up to that era. Around the time of Ronald Reagan we just had to make a different set of choices. We decided to say okay, the government is going to step back and we are going to allow essentially anticompetitive practices. We are going to allow large institutions to bully their way to the top and that really enforce the laws that if kept markets open and competitive for entrepreneurs, for smaller businesses. We are seeing the effects of that today. Host sarah miller, whats the law you think that would prevent a facebook from by instagram or whatsapp . Guest thats a great question. I think when you look at the authority that institutions like the federal trade commission have, they have the ability to block orders up substantially lessen competition. This is not something that is difficult to do. And its not something that is historical anomaly. That is the kind of scrutiny we need regulators and policymakers to make. Previously there was a whole rich landscape of law that was enforced that make sure that media markets in particular and institutions that were essential for Exchange Information were the concentrated and protected. We step away from that entirely and that is really what precipitated arising institutions like google and facebook which nondominant the internet in ways we communicate across social media and online. Host it again google has been successful. Over 90 of searches are done on google. Thats because its just become part of our fabric. Our options out there, are there not . Guest that again is somewhat of a myth. I think that when you look at institution like google, yes, it is search but its also maps. Its also youtube. Its also at the end of the day really a Digital Advertising monopoly. Facebook and google are Digital Advertising monopolies, and that is something federal regulators and policymakers have the ability to change. Host what would you do to google if you had that power . Guest sure. I would basically establish a structure and framework around Digital Advertising monopolies that would reestablish or establish a regulated competition approach. There is no reason for google to be able, or facebook, to be able to own a whole host of properties. Those should be spun off so we can have competition and more accountability in those markets. So thats number one. You could do it horizontally, vertically, across functions. Number two is we really do need to update and design of regulatory apparatus to deal with the source of institutions that have been able to hoard, leverage and manipulate the public and our elections and businesses essentially by their ability to collect so much data about us. We need to look at different regulatory approaches for changing that calculus. For institutions like google and facebook its really important to look at the Business Model. So what their Business Model is, which a lot of people dont understand if you just look at google and think its a company that i can search and findings on the internet. What the Business Model actually is, is they collect massive amounts of data from users and then they essentially let advertisers access that data or use that data to target advertising and content in extremely precise a manipulative ways. Thats dangerous for a number of reasons. One reason is it creates the ability of other online and print digital, and print Media Outlets to have revenue. They basically are harvesting revenue because they are able to access so much data. Other institutions cant compete and thats a a core reason whyu are seeing so many layoffs, so many media organizations go under. Thats a really important thing to consider. The other thing is about dating and privacy, and all of these things really are linked to the ability of google and facebook to mind everything they can about us and then sell that for a profit and make billions and billions of dollars a year. Host walk us through the privacy aspect of this. Guest sure. On the privacy front, anything you do online essentially at this point back it goes. Use google, it goes. Whether youre on facebook or instagram or whatsapp. Both of these companies have the ability to track that behavior. They also have the ability to track where you are in the world through your phone. They are the most powerful monopolies in that respect. They know everything about us from our digital life and from where we go in the real world. What they can then do is they take that data and the allow essentially anyone of the most part i want to pay them to do it, to target us in very precise, intimate, kind of psychologically sophisticated ways with ideas, with product placement, propaganda, with misinformation and make money alongside that. That type of information as well is often the most engaging type of content. Neither of these institutions are in the business of promoting factbased and responsible news. In fact, quite the opposite. They make more money when various emotionally engaging, the type of information that makes you angry or upset is flooding, amplifying throughout their system. And we have a lot of our Information Sources over to these institutions and i think as time goes by its only going to get more dangerous and destructive towards our social fabric and our democracy. Host so the concept of Net Neutrality has really as well, correct . Guest right. Host in what way . Guest you look at neutrality, use basically want kind of nondiscrimination approach. Thats also really essential in these sorts of situations. It is not safe to a corporation with this much power over information to be able to discriminate in terms of who can move that come who can move Different Things through the system. One aspect when we think about privacy we dont often think about is privacy in terms of businesses or organizations focus a lot unfair competition and businesses in the marketplace. We are taught to think about privacy as Consumer Privacy or use privacy, but with both of these institutions businesses also, includes publishers, they turn all the data over to facebook and google and theyre able to monetize that. That is an additional component we are concerned about when you think about privacy. They basically cut off the relationships between publishers and smaller businesses and the enduser, and through their force interaction with these ths platform switch market and customers, they basically give up their advantages and ability to compete fairly in the market place. Host do you feel a google or a facebook should be looked at as a public utility . Guest i think that we generally are looking at a regulated competition approach, and we do that because when you look at the history of communication law and regulation in this country, theres a clear mapping. I think in some cases you have to apply those principles to make sure that principles are a cheap but in general you can have a competitive and regulated ecosystem in terms of online communications, Networks Without enshrining these institutions into a public utility for it to function. One concern we do have, and you see this a lot in the policy conversation, because the institutions are so powerful and theres so much about their Business Models and so much more about datacomp we are really nervous about the government actually being able to regulate them respectively. We think its more important to break their power. Its not terribly hard to do that, i think building the political wealth to get is one thing. That is more of a challenge. Wall street spins off companies all the time everyday safeco could its not terrible difficult to do but from a democracy perspective, from a social welfare perspective, having a few Companies Really control the information flow on the internet and then either trying to get the government to play from behind and regulate that effectively is probably going to be very, very difficult. Host so what about the issue of economies of scale . These are massive corporations that are providing services to billions of people. How do you compete with that size . To just break it up, like at t in the 1980s . Guest again, its that really terribly complicated. You need a robust innovative ecosystem online and you need regulations to make it safer democracy and safer individual users. One policy solution we really support and thats essential if you do break up these institutions the something called interoperability, and that something i will give smaller startups the permission from users to tap into and share networks. Back 20 years ago when aim, instant messenger was launched there was a requirement ultimately the different types of messaging system could you make it with each other so they can develop a monopoly over that space and it was effective. A similar practice to be put into place here. It wouldnt be terribly hard. Its a function of political will. With institutions that do that that create standards so different types of corporate entities can talk to each other and people can use them, and thats important situations while. Host what was the effect when microsoft was on the line in the 1990s . Guest so microsoft, and microsoft was not ultimately broken up. That was an initial adjustment and a judge ruled it back. But the Microsoft Case did put the brakes on microsofts ability to roll up adjacent markets in the competing states, in the Online Software space. What that did was it allowed Companies Like google and facebook to jump in and innovate and to basically create market or take market share in places where microsoft would have had a clear advantage in. I think there are really valuable lessons to learn from the Microsoft Case and its really time to apply some of those to google and facebook as well. Host in february there was a profile of you in the new york times. The headline, she wants to break up big everything. Is that a Fair Assessment . Guest no. In general, the solution to every problem is not a breakup. I think that was a great headline for clicks but it wasnt quite accurate from our policy perspective. Again, in a lot of markets you do want to break up institutions. You want to create competition in that way. Some markets shouldnt be commodified at all. Theres a robust debate now about Health Insurance and single. Health care and whether that belongs in privacy and market oriented structure. Same for markets like private prisons, for example, like that probably shouldnt exist at all. When we look at concentrated markets, the solution isnt always break them up. Sometimes it is to eliminate them altogether and turned them over to government and to nationalize them for the welfare of the public. Sometimes its different approaches with the government has regulatory approach to change it. Theres different approaches but in general and a lot of these cases we have seen markets become rolled up and consolidated over the last 40 years, and breaking them up as one way to do that. Host when you look back at your political career you have a foot in both the Hillary Clinton camp and the Bernie Sanders camp. What are those connections . Guest sure. I was a policy factor on Hillary Clintons first run for president in 2008, and obviously a lot of your viewers were not there was a financial crisis during that period. I then went on to work at the u. S. Treasury in aftermath of the crisis helping to oversee programs and how to doddfrank reformatory initiatives we took to try to help the economy recovered. One of the lessons i took away from that experience is although we did unlock credit targets and help the economy back to a functioning state relatively quickly, we did not exacerbate some of the underlying injustices in that economy, particularly in regard to any quality, market concentration like weve talked about, and general fragility in terms of peoples Household Economic security. We using these problems get worse and worse and worse. Weve seen startup rate continued to fall. Weve seen wages continue to stagnate. What that tells me is we have really deep foundational problems in our economy that we need to solve. What i discovered is so many of those problems are exacerbated or caused by the concentration we are seeing across our economy the way that wall street is allowed to leverage that, essentially financial eyes a lot of markets in ways that are really destructive and then kind of connecting all back to the influence that large corporations and finance have over our political discourse and over the decisions some of our policymakers, the parameters that debate that they have. Thats been my i guess transformation in terms of seeing what happened in the cotton in 2008 with the financial crisis, and now seeing where we are today. Host and you also have a connection to the Bernie Sanders campaign. Guest i do. My husband is Bernie Sanders campaign manager. Host you mention the startup rate. What is that and how does that apply . Guest certainly in the tech world we have seen basically a radical change in the culture of Silicon Valley where you used to have a much more vibrant kind of culture where startups with catch fire and grow. Now theres essentially a couple of strategies if youre a tech startup. Are you going to sell the facebook or are you going to sell to google . What that is that it is worth the ability of innovators in Silicon Valley to actually innovate according to needs and ideas. Instead, everyone is guessing, oh, how can i develop something that facebook will buy or that google will buy . That is not necessarily really how we want an economy or an Innovation Sector to function. We dont want people to try to start new businesses and gravitate towards ideas because i handful of giant institutions might buy them up, right . I think the other thing we are seeing particularly in Silicon Valley is that partly because we have really failed in so many ways to enforce antitrust laws to crack down on anticompetitive practices, even if you do have good idea, there is really nothing stopping institutions like facebook and google from copying it from questioning it. They spoke in particular has been incredibly aggressive about applying anticompetitive tactics that we are think illegal, so we been generally quite excited at some moves in a better direction to the house at a trust subcommittee for examples going and what is a pretty historic investigation into digital platforms and competition. Weve seen the ftc and doj engage in some of that as well and we have antitrust cases among 50 state attorneys general looking to both facebook and google. So there is a lot more scrutiny thats starting to bubble up as these institutions that we are very supportive of and hoping to see aggressive and strong outcomes. Host another one of those large corporations is amazon. A little bit of a different model but dont a lot of Small Businesses depend on sales via amazon . Guest so yes, and i think in general amazon at this point has become one of the only ways for Small Businesses to get to market. And i think wherein in the past a lot of different channels for Small Businesses to reach customers, now if you dont sell amazon you are at a major disadvantage. So i think that is not really something thats been consistent with the way we want our economy to function. We dont want there to be one intermediary between the Small Business or an art with a good idea and the entire customer base. This is a problem we are really focused on. I think its also important to understand how amazon, basically abuses and takes advantage of the Small Businesses that depend on it. They force them to use their own kind of shipping channels. They are arbitrary about where these smaller businesses paul in their rankings. They can be pulled off amazon with no reason or rational given and the livelihoods will be crushed. Theres a lot the fear among Small Businesses and this is an urgent problem we want to continue to have a robust Small Business sector in this economy which is really already on the ropes, and particularly after this crisis were seeing cost by coronavirus. Its only going to get more diet and difficult. Host given your views how you avoid the googles, facebooks, twitters, amazon . Guest twitter, there are problems with twitter that these are of concern but twitter doesnt have a monopoly power of information floats flow so that something we really focus on. The truth is you cant avoid it and i think that something that demonstrates their monopoly power and how we need to address it. Facebook, they probably adore you go on the internet. Everywhere theres a little device button they know where youve been. Google, the scene. Its just not avoidable. With amazon, too, use businesses like aws which underpins a lot of the web are not something you can avoid. What that tells me what that tells us is that personal choices, personal decisions around which institutions want to interact and which ones you dont are not the way out of this. You have to push Democratic Institutions and policymakers to fix this problem because the influence and the reach of these institutions are so fast. Consumers are users about unlocking to be able to force any change in behavior. Host given that come what are your views about how the European Union has regulated big tech . Guest so the European Union has moved out a little bit ahead of where the u. S. Is, to be sure. Weve seen some moves in germany in particular where for example, with facebook they basically said you cant share data between different platforms that you run, so if you are facebook you cant share data with whats apt and you cant share data with instagram. Its kind of a semibreakup and thats important step. We are saying investigations been taken all over the world. India, for example, told amazon which is something very important, that they cannot compete with the sellers that use them like marketplace. Its a basic sort of antitrust where if you are the railroad you can also determine like what the rates are with other people that are writing those rails. You can choose, you can get goods to market or you can compete on that platform. We are seeing is happen all over the world and think what we want to try to establish a session with the tech Companies Like facebook and google is that power is really a fundamental problem that Democratic Institutions are going to have to break or else were only going to see them wiggle out of regulations, lobby the way out of any sort of real constraints and ultimately we will be in exact same position again or even worse. Host you dont seem terribly enthused about the moves that the eu and other places have made yet. Guest we are still in process of seeing whats going to happen there. We have seen proposals like taxing digital platforms, which i think in some ways is a step back because we dont want to entrench power of these institutions and make them a Revenue Source at the state depends on. Certainly we want him them to y their fair share in the current moment and the current situation, and they are favorite expert at avoiding taxes. But fundamentally we have to come to consensus around the basic fact that the level of power that they have over society, over the flow of information, over democracy is too great and dangerous and that has to be core to addressing anything. Host assistant attorney general dell team has been quite active to antitrust, hasnt he . Guest no. I would disagree with that. So do not in a consistent way. Host why . Guest weve seen essentially and take steps behind the scenes in terms of their amicus brief programs and others waited pushing courts to make decisions that would entrench the power of the Tech Companies and not check the power of those Tech Companies. I think we are a little bit more focused on institutions like the federal trade commission which is undergoing its own investigation. They have more independence. They are running up against kind of four years of a culture of really kind of handsoff in terms of addressing problems from the largest institutions and corporations. They tend to focus on smalltime scammers and that really want to challenge large monopolies as we see them. We are hoping maybe were starting to see a change for the investigations that undertaking but our focus has really been on the house antitrust subcommittee because you can legislate your way out some these problems cannot message of the question of agency enforcement, legislation is up after addressing Corporate Power. We are also looking at the cases that the state attorneys general have brought which were historic in terms of the number of ags the signed on and the fact that it is deeply bipartisan. Host sarah miller, a graduate of the university of chicago and a native of mosquitoy oklahoma is executive director of the American Economic liberties project. Shes been our guest on the communicators. This program and all other communicators are available as podcasts. Television has changed since hes been began 41 years ago our Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government. Already we brought you reimer in election coverage, president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus became what all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on a free radio app in the part of the National Conversation through cspans a daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by private industry, americas cabletelevision company as a Public Service and product you today by your television provider. You are watching a special edition of booktv now airing during the week while members of congress are in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight, biographies. Enjoy booktv now and over the weekend on cspan2. Thank you everyone for coming today. Really