Friday, 31 July 2020

What’s on TV Saturday: ‘Seeing America With Megan Rapinoe’ and ‘The Last Narc’


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Kodak’s chief executive was given stock options. Then the share price spiked 1,000 percent.


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Corrections: Aug. 1, 2020


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Quotation of the Day: China Wields Its Security Law to Crush Hong Kong Dissent


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Trump told reporters he will use executive power to ban TikTok

President Donald Trump said he could act to ban the world’s most popular short video app TikTok from the US as early as Saturday, according to The Hill.

The president said he could use “emergency economic powers or an executive order” to bar TikTok from the US, he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.

The news came hours after reports broke that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok. In his remark on Friday, Trump signaled he was not supportive of allowing an American company to acquire TikTok.

On the same day, Bloomberg reported that Trump could order ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok.

Trump’s announcement confirmed weeks of speculation that US regulators planned to block TikTok, which is immensely popular among American teens, over concerns that it could be a spying tool for Beijing.

The question is how a divestment or ban of TikTok will take shape. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which has emerged as the most promising tech startup in China in recent times, reportedly valued at a staggering $100 billion. It operates Douyin, the popular Chinese version of TikTok, separately for China-based users.

ByteDance has sought various ways to shed TikTok’s Chinese association. Efforts in the past few months range from appointing former Disney executive Kevin Mayer as TikTok’s CEO, claiming the app’s data is stored on American land, through to promising to create 10,000 jobs in the US.

The story is updating.



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Headline Of The Day

And in case you missed it:

[clmediameta nid=160853]

Open thread below...



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The Lincoln Project Presents Trump (Impotus Americanus)

IMPOTUS AMERICANUS

COMMON NAME: TRUMP
TYPE: NARCISSTIC SOCIOPATH
DIET: HUMAN SOULS
HEIGHT: 6'4"
WEIGHT: 239+100lbs
SKIN TONE: NORVELL™

"Impotus Americanus is one of the heaviest leaders in the animal kingdom, and is famously known to be an orange, ruddy color not found in nature."

Another clever ad from The Lincoln Project.



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Un estudio revela que los niños podrían portar altos niveles de coronavirus


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Canada’s Key Role in Creating a Once Awaited Vaccine


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Watch Mike Pompeo Refuse To Say Whether Trump Can Delay The Election

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slithered into the Senate today to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he was confronted about the Trump administration’s many questionable foreign policy moves including the dismissal of career diplomats and the decision to withdrawal U.S. troops from Germany.

While Pompeo was deflecting questions about his conduct and questionable moves at the State Department, Donald Trump was busy tweeting to the world, wondering if the November election should be delayed. Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine used his time to ask Pompeo about Trump’s tweet and whether he believes Donald Trump could delay the election. Pompeo replied, “Senator, i'm not going enter a legal judgment on that on the fly this morning.”
Kaine did not let go and noted Pompeo is a Harvard Law School grad who was on the Harvard Law Review, and questioned why he was struggling to answer such a basic legal question with a very clear answer: The president absolutely positively does not have that power. When Kaine kept pressing for an answer, Pompeo said, “Senator, in the end the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination. We all should want—I know you do too, Senator Kaine, want an election everyone is confident in.”

read more



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Federal Agents Don’t Need Army Fatigues


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Kodak’s chief executive got stock options. The next day, the share price spiked 1,000 percent.


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Court Frees Michigan Teen Who Was Held for Skipping Online Schoolwork


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A Better Year for Trump’s Family Business (Last Year, That Is)


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Disrupt 2020 early-bird savings extended until next week

Even the hard-charging world of early-stage startups has its share of procrastinators, lollygaggers, slow-pokes, wafflers and last-minute decision makers. If that’s your demographic, today is your lucky day.

You now have an extra week (courtesy of Saint Expeditus, the patron saint of procrastinators), to score early-bird savings to Disrupt 2020, which takes place September 14-18. Buy your pass before the new and final deadline — August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (PT) — and save up to $300. Who says prayers (or secular entreaties) go unanswered?

Your pass opens the door to five days of Disrupt — the biggest, longest TechCrunch conference ever. Drawing thousands of attendees and hundreds of innovative early-stage startups from around the world, you won’t find a better time, place or opportunity to accelerate the speed of your business.

Here are four world-class reasons to attend Disrupt 2020.

World-class speakers. Hear and engage with leading voices in tech, business and investment across the Disrupt stages. Folks like Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, Ureeka’s Melissa Bradley and Slack’s Tamar Yehoshua — to name just a few. Here’s what you can see onstage so far.

World-class startups. Explore hundreds of innovative startups exhibiting in Digital Startup Alley — including the TC Top Picks. This elite cadre made it through our stringent screening process to earn the coveted designation, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more varied and interesting set of startups.

World-class networking. CrunchMatch, our AI-powered networking platform, simplifies connecting with founders, potential customers, R&D teams, engineers or investors. Schedule 1:1 video meetings and hold recruitment or extended pitch sessions. CrunchMatch launches weeks before Disrupt to give you more time to scout, vet and schedule.

World-class pitching. Don’t miss Startup Battlefield, the always-epic pitch competition that’s launched more than 900 startups, including big-time names like TripIt, Mint, Dropbox and many others. This year’s crop of startups promises to throw down hard for bragging rights and the $100,000 cash prize.

Need another reason to go? Take a page out of SIMBA Chain founder Joel Neidig’s playbook:

Our primary goal was to make people aware of the SIMBA Chain platform capabilities. Attending Disrupt is great way to get your name out there and build your customer base.

It’s time for all you last-minute lollygaggers to get moving and take advantage of this second, final chance to save up to $300. Buy your pass before August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.



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The Less Impossible Israeli-Palestinian Peace


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White House and Congress Clash on Relief Plan as Jobless Aid Expires


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Trump’s Coronavirus Testing Chief Concedes a Lag in Test Results


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The Pandemic’s Top Sellers


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How to Navigate the Coronavirus Real Estate Market


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From Barbados to Bucharest


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Wrong Places at the Right Time


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Her Just-Friends Note Was Tossed in a Hurry


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The ‘Right Time’ Came a Decade Later


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Taking a ‘Leap of Faith’ in New England


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‘How Lucky We Are to Have Found Each Other.’


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A Romance Blooms in Nebraska


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A Perfect Spot for Running, or Proposing


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Twitter says ‘phone spear phishing attack’ used to gain network access in crypto scam breach

Twitter has revealed a little more detail about the security breach it suffered earlier this month when a number of high profile accounts were hacked to spread a cryptocurrency scam — writing in a blog post that a “phone spear phishing attack” was used to target a small number of its employees.

Once the attackers had successfully gained network credentials via this social engineering technique they were in a position to gather enough information about its internal systems and processes to target other employees who had access to account support tools which enabled them to take control of verified accounts, per Twitter’s update on the incident.

“A successful attack required the attackers to obtain access to both our internal network as well as specific employee credentials that granted them access to our internal support tools. Not all of the employees that were initially targeted had permissions to use account management tools, but the attackers used their credentials to access our internal systems and gain information about our processes. This knowledge then enabled them to target additional employees who did have access to our account support tools,” it writes.

“This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems,” Twitter adds, dubbing the incident “a striking reminder of how important each person on our team is in protecting our service”.

It now says the attackers used the stolen credentials to target 130 Twitter accounts — going on to tweet from 45; access the DM inbox of 36; and download the Twitter data of 7 (previously it reported 8, so perhaps one attempted download did not complete). All affected account holders have been contacted directly by Twitter at this point, per its blog post.

Notably, the company has still not disclosed how many employees or contractors had access to its account support tools. The greater that number, the larger the attack vector which could be targeted by the hackers.

Last week Reuters reported that more than 1,000 people at Twitter had access, including a number of contractors. Two former Twitter employees told the news agency such a broad level of access made it difficult for the company to defend against this type of attack. Twitter declined to comment on the report.

Its update now acknowledges “concern” around levels of employee access to its tools but offers little  additional detail — saying only that it has teams “around the world” helping with account support.

It also claims access to account management tools is “strictly limited”, and “only granted for valid business reasons”. Yet later in the blog post Twitter notes it has “significantly” limited access to the tools since the attack, lending credence to the criticism that far too many people at Twitter were given access prior to the breach.  

Twitter’s post also provides very limited detail about the specific technique the attackers used to successfully social engineer some of its workers and then be in a position to target an unknown number of other staff who had access to the key tools. Although it says the investigation into the attack is ongoing, which may be a factor in how much detail it feels able to share. (The blog notes it will continue to provide “updates” as the process continues.)

On the question of what is phone spear phishing in this specific case it’s not clear what particular technique was successfully able to penetrate Twitter’s defences. Spear phishing generally refers to an individually tailored social engineering attack, with the added component here of phones being involved in the targeting.

One security commentator we contacted suggested a number of possibilities.

“Twitter’s latest update on the incident remains frustratingly opaque on details,” said UK-based Graham Cluley. “‘Phone spear phishing’ could mean a variety of things. One possibility, for instance, is that targeted employees received a message on their phones which appeared to be from Twitter’s support team, and asked them to call a number. Calling the number might have taken them to a convincing (but fake) helpdesk operator who might be able to trick users out of credentials. The employee, thinking they’re speaking to a legitimate support person, might reveal much more on the phone than they would via email or a phishing website.”

“Without more detail from Twitter it’s hard to give definitive advice, but if something like that happened then telling workers the genuine support number to call if they ever need to — rather than relying on a message they receive on the phone — can reduce the likelihood of people being duped,” Cluley added.

“Equally the conversation could be initiated by a scammer calling the employee, perhaps using a VOIP phone service and using caller ID spoofing to pretend to be ringing from a legitimate number. Or maybe they broke into Twitter’s internal phone system and were able to make it look like an internal support call. We need more details!”



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Thursday, 30 July 2020

CARTOON: Techniques For Voter Suppression

Open thread below...



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Ford Bronco reservations surpass 150,000

The reception to Bronco 2021 — Ford’s flagship series of 4×4 vehicles that were revealed earlier this month — surpassed expectations of the company’s most optimistic initial projections, CEO Jim Hackett said in an earnings call Thursday. 

More than 150,000 customers have plunked down $100 to reserve a spot to order one of the vehicles, according to Ford. 

“We think this family of vehicles has big upside potential in the growing off-road category and this is a category with a leading OEM has not been seriously challenged until now,” Hackett said.

These are, of course, mere reservations, not actual orders. The deposits are refundable. Now, Ford is focused on the due diligence required to determine how many of these reservations will be converted to orders as it lay outs its manufacturing strategy for the brand.

The Ford Bronco 2 and Bronco 4 will be built at Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan. The Bronco Sport will be assembled at plant in Mexico. The company is now determining how many shifts to staff at each factory in order to match actual orders.

“There’s still a lot of work to do,” Ford COO Jim Farley said in a call with analysts Thursday. “But the mix is great.”

The Bronco is a brand that leans heavily on nostalgia, customization, functional design and technology, such as the automaker’s next-generation infotainment system and a digital trail mapping feature that lets owners plan, record and share their experiences via an app.

While the response to the Bronco has been palatable, there are a number of competitors also aiming to win over customers. GM released a video this week teasing its all-electric GMC Hummer. While the video was a promotional mashup of buzzwords, it also showed that GM had clearly identified Ford Bronco and Tesla Cybertruck as its main competitors. Then there’s electric upstart Rivian, which plans to start production of its EV pickup and SUV in 2021.



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Ellen DeGeneres Apologizes to Staff Members as WarnerMedia Investigates Show


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Self-driving startup Argo AI hits $7.5 billion valuation

Autonomous vehicle technology startup Argo AI is valued at $7.5 billion, just a little more than three years after the company burst on the scene with a $1 billion investment from Ford.

The official valuation was confirmed Thursday nearly two months after VW Group finalized its $2.6 billion investment in Argo AI. Under that deal, Ford and VW have equal ownership stakes, which will be roughly 40% each over time. The remaining equity sits with Argo’s co-founders as well as employees. Argo’s board is comprised of two VW seats, two Ford seats and three Argo seats.

Ford’s announcement in February 2017 that it was investing in Argo AI surprised many. The startup was barely six months old when it was thrust into the spotlight. Its founders, Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, were known in the tight knit and often overlapping autonomous vehicle industry; prior to forming Argo, Salesky was director of hardware development at the Google self-driving project (now Waymo) and Rander was the engineering lead at Uber Advanced Technologies Group. But even those insiders who knew Salesky and Rander wondered what to make of the deal.

Since then, Argo has focused on developing the virtual driver system — all of the sensors,  software and compute platform — as well as high-definition maps designed for Ford’s self-driving vehicles.

That mission now extends to VW Group as well. Ford and VW will share the cost of developing Argo AI’s self-driving vehicle technology under the terms of the deal. The Pittsburgh-based company also has offices in Detroit, Palo Alto and Cranbury, N.J. It has fleets of autonomous vehicles mapping and testing on public roads in Austin, Miami, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.

The investment by VW expands its workforce and operations to Europe. Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID), the self-driving subsidiary that was launched in 2017 to develop autonomous vehicle technology for the VW Group, is being absorbed into Argo AI. AID’s Munich offices will become Argo’s European headquarters. In all, Argo now employs more than 1,000 people.

While the development and deployment of autonomous vehicles will be a long journey — a remark shared Thursday by Ford CEO Jim Hackett — the Argo investment has already provided the automaker with a short-term and timely gain.

The automaker said Thursday it netted $3.5 billion in the second quarter from selling some of its Argo equity to Volkswagen. That gain gave the automaker a one-time boost in its second-quarter earnings.

Ford posted a $1.1 billion profit in the second quarter, if the Argo transaction is counted. Ford lost $1.9 billion in the quarter before interest and taxes and one-time items. Ford reported a revenue of $19.4 billion, a 50% decrease from the same period in 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic which caused the company to idle its factories for weeks.

Still, the result could have been far worse. Ford had previously warned that it could post as much as a $5 billion net loss in the second quarter.

Despite these COVID-19 headwinds, Hackett said Ford is still committed to the long-term pursuit of AVs, a point reiterated by CFO Tim Stone, who said the automaker continues to make investments to commercialize its autonomous vehicle business, including product development, engineering and testing.

“The AV journey will be a long one, but Ford is now well positioned to run this race and compete like few others can,” Hackett added.



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4 Guards Charged in Inmate’s Beating at Alabama Prison


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Will Herman Cain’s Death Change Republican Views on the Virus and Masks?


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Louie Gohmert’s Coronavirus Case Reveals a Dangerous Reality in Congress


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Trump Floats an Election Delay, and Republicans Shoot It Down


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John Lewis Believed America Would Survive Trump


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Trump Can’t Delay the Election


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With Jobless Aid Set to Lapse, Senate Fails to Agree on Extension


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Obama’s Call to Abolish Filibuster Puts Further Spotlight on the Tactic


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Wednesday, 29 July 2020

4 Hong Kong Activists Arrested for Online Posts Under New Security Law


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LISTEN: The Michelle Obama Podcast Feat. Barack Obama

I gotta say, when they open HER podcast with trials and outtakes, they sound just like another podcast I know that has a married couple on it! He should stop laughing over her, lol!

[embed eid="41511" /]

Open thread below...



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Casino Calculation


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Report: N.B.A.’s Academies in China Abused Athletes


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Quotation of the Day: New Resistance in Remote City Confronts Putin


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Apple’s App Store commission structure called into question in antitrust hearing

Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company’s App Store commission structure in his sworn testimony before the House Antitrust Subcommittee on Wednesday. He claimed the majority of the apps pay no commission at all, with others paying either 15 or 30 percent, based on the specifics of their particular situation. He said developers were all treated equally and that Apple wouldn’t raise commissions, because it had to compete for developer interest in its platform as well.

But the documents shared by the House subcommittee as part of their investigation indicate that exceptions to Apple’s rules have been made — notably, with Amazon’s Prime Video app. In addition, Apple may have never raised commissions, but discussions weren’t off the table. It had once even considered raising commissions to 40% in particular situations.

The lawmakers had come to the hearing armed with internal Apple emails and interviews from App Store developers who argued that Apple doesn’t uniformly enforce its rules and plays favorites. But their questioning of Cook over App Store fees, combined with a format that limited execs’ ability to respond at length, initially seemed to reveal little in terms of new information about Apple’s practices.

For instance, when asked directly about how the App Store worked, Cook simply restated the store’s published rules — that is, for app developers who have to pay commissions, they pay only 15 or 30 percent. The current guidelines require 30% for apps selling digital goods or services, with a drop to 15% in year two for subscription apps. The rules also document a carve-out for “reader” apps like audiobook apps, streaming services, news publications, and other competitive products which have the option of forgoing in-app purchases.

 

Cook also squeezed in a mention about how the vast majority of App Store apps, 84%, pay nothing to Apple in commissions. It’s the remaining 16% that pay, he noted.

And when asked if Apple was the sole gatekeeper as to what gets published on the App Store, Cook agreed that it was — given that the App Store was a “feature of the iPhone, much like the Camera and the chip is.” He clarified that Apple’s control over apps only extended to native software applications, not web apps, but denied Apple treated developers unfairly.

“We treat every developer the same. We have open and transparent rules,” Cook said, in his testimony. “It’s a rigorous process, because we care so deeply about privacy and security and quality. We do look at every app before it goes on,” he added.

But emails in 2016 between Apple SVP Eddy Cue and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, shared here on the House Judiciary Committee’s website, indicate that Apple, in fact, appears to have negotiated a special deal with Amazon over its Amazon Prime Video app for iOS and Apple TV.  In an email dated Nov. 2016 — before the 2017 launch of the Prime Video tvOS app —  Apple agreed to take only a 15% revenue share for customers that signed up in the app using Apple’s payment mechanism. (Typically, subscription apps don’t drop from 30% to 15% until year two.)

Apple this April confirmed  it had a special program for Prime Video and a small handful of other apps, which were subscription video entertainment providers. The program allowed those companies to rent or sell movies and TV shows to customers using the payment methods the companies already had on file, as well as more deeply integrate with Siri. But Apple hadn’t said that this special program would include a reduced commission on subscriptions or any other in-app upsells, as these emails confirm were points of discussion.

This wouldn’t be the first time Apple saw its commission structure as having some room to flex.

When Cook was questioned as to whether there was anything that could stop Apple from raising commissions to, say, 50%, the CEO responded that Apple had never increased commissions since day one. He also argued, when asked if anything could stop it from doing so, that competition for developer interest would stop it from raising its cut.

“There is a competition for developers, just like there’s a competition for customers. And so the competition for developers — they write their apps for Android or Windows or Xbox or Playstation,” said Cook. “We have fierce competition on the developer side and the customer side which is essentially — it’s so competitive, I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business,” he added.

But in internal emails from 2011, Apple did discuss raising commissions — all the way to 40% for the first year of recurring subscriptions. “I think we may be leaving money on the table if we just asked for about 30% of the first year of sub,” Cue had written at the time.

Of course, Apple didn’t go so far as to actually make that change in the years that passed. But these emails indicate there’s more to Apple’s thinking — and its discussions around the commission structure — than the even playing field Cook testified to.



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Amazon’s hardware business doesn’t escape Congressional scrutiny

While much of today’s Congressional grilling into the anticompetitive practices of the big tech giants focused on their core businesses, Amazon’s hardware also came in for close inspection during the hours-long interrogation.

It was a small but significant exchange, because it touched on the breadth of the company’s services and how dominance in one area can mean potentially anti-competitive behavior in another part of the tech giant’s business.

For Maryland’s Representative Jamie Raskin, both Amazon’s best-selling Echo and the Fire TV devices became targets thanks to recent reporting on the company’s business practices and negotiations regarding both devices.

The Echo is the company’s foray into the smart home market that’s widely seen as the next major battleground in consumer technology. It’s one of the most widely adopted pieces of Amazon’s technology and has captured about 60% of the smart home market, according to Raskin.

The congressman hammered Bezos on two points about the Echo. The first was the company’s pricing scheme which had the Echo priced well below the cost to produce the device making it all but impossible for other tech companies to compete.

The Echo’s wide adoption has also led Amazon to engage in other anti-competitive behavior, Raskin asserted — some of which was outlined in previous questioning from Colorado Rep. Ken Buck citing a Wall Street Journal report that Amazon had used its investment unit focused on its Echo product and Alexa voice assistant to copy technology coming from small startup companies.

But beyond its appropriation of another company’s intellectual property, Amazon also used the Echo platform to promote its own products over competitors when customers used its voice services.

“Is Alexa trained to favor Amazon products?” Raskin asked.

Bezos responded that he wasn’t sure if Amazon had specifically trained the Alexa to default to Amazon services or to promote the company’s own brand of products, but that he wouldn’t be surprised. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Alexa sometimes does promote our own products,” the Amazon chief executive said.

Raskin also took Bezos to task for the company’s recent negotiations with WarnerMedia, the production studio, streaming service, and network giant. Specifically, he was concerned with how negotiations around the distribution of WarnerMedia’s HBO Max service on the company’s Fire TV devices included discussions around Amazon’s access to WarnerMedia productions.

“You’re not only asking for financial terms but also for content from Warner Media,” Raskin said. “Is it fair to use your gatekeeper status role in the streaming device market to promote your position as a competitor in the video streaming market with respect to content?”

Bezos responded that the negotiations were “normal commerce,” but Raskin tried to make the case that the negotiations over access to the Fire was yet another way in which the company’s leverage in one market impacted its ability to exercise unfair advantage against a competitor in a different industry. 

You’re using your control over access to people’s living rooms essentially,” Raskin said. “You’re using that to obtain leverage in terms of getting creative content that you want. Are you essentially converting power in one domain into power in another domain where it doesn’t belong?”

The comments and line of inquiry from Raskin were part of an intense bout of questioning that seemed to hone in on the purported topic of the hearings — the anti-competitive and potentially monopolistic power wielded by four of the nation’s largest tech companies. Facebook, Apple and Alphabet were all raked over the Congressional coals in bouts of questioning, but it seemed that the most sustained criticism on anti-competitive behavior was reserved for Bezos and Amazon.



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Kevin McCarthy Dubs Louie Gohmert 'Congressman COVID'

The Recount caught this little gem earlier this afternoon. The dumber than a box of hammers McCarthy made the slip after the even dumber Rep. Louie Gohmert tested positive for COVID-19, after months of calling the coronavirus a hoax and refusing to wear a mask.



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