As a public service. Brought to you today by your television provider. 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 . Sarah we are an organization based here in washington that is focused on what we see is a crisis, a concentrated economic power in the country. Essentially monopolies and Financial Institutions that facilitate that monopolization across the economy. That is what we are focused on. We have concerns about the power of Big Technology platforms. In general, we think a lot of the economic and social problems that we are experiencing today can trace back or be exacerbated by these a outside levels of corporate power. Host how did you come to that view . Sarah we looked around at the world, essentially. If you look at market structure, you will find whether it is large markets like media, telecom, health care, online , watch components, software, you have seen that over and over, a handful of corporations have rolled up those markets. They essentially act as governing agents. Is that because those corporations have been successful . Sarah that is the myth. About 40 years ago we saw a radical shift in the way policymakers interact with structuring markets. If you look back to the new deal, that was a pretty good moment to talk about the new deal considering the state of our economy. That is veryor to similar economic concentration of power in the country. Fdr essentially started breaking those concentrations. What that did was help unleash fair competition, support smaller businesses, promote economic prosperity. Suppress radical levels of economic inequality that we saw leading up to that. Around the time of Ronald Reagan we decided to make a different set of choices. We decided to say the government will step back. Essentiallyw anticompetitive practices. We will allow large institutions to bully their way to the top and not really enforce the laws that have kept markets competitive for entrepreneurs for smaller businesses. We are seeing the effects of that today. Host what is the law that you think will event facebook from buying instagram or whatsapp . Sarah that is a great question. When you look at the authority that institutions like the federal trade commission has, they have the ability to substantially lessen competition. This is not something that is difficult to do. It is not something that is historically anomaly. That is the kind of scrutiny we need regulators and policymakers to make. Previously there was a whole landscape of law that was enforced that made sure media markets in particular and institutions that were essential for exchanging information were d concentrated and protected. We stepped away from that entirely. That is what precipitated the rise in institution i google and facebook. Host again, google has been successful, over 90 of searches are done on google. Has justecause it become part of our fabric. There are options out there, arent there . Sarah that again is somewhat of a myth. When you look at in institution like google, yes it is searched but also it is maps, youtube, it is also at the end of the day really a Digital Advertising monopoly. Facebook and google are Digital Advertising monopolies. That is something federal regulators and policymakers have the ability to change. You do to would google if you had that power . Sarah i would establish a structure and a 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 spent off so we could have competition and more accountability in the markets. That is number one. You could do it horizontally, vertically, you could do it across functions. Two is we need to update and design a regulatory apparatus to deal with these and tuition that have been able to hoard, leverage, and manipulate the public and businesses 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 it is important to look at the Business Model. What the Business Model is, which a lot of people dont understand if you look at google and think it is a company that we could find things on the internet. What that Business Model actually is, they collect massive amounts of data from users and they essentially let advertisers access that data or use that data to target advertising and it is extremely precise and manipulative ways. That is dangerous for number of reasons. One reason creates the ability print mediaine and outlets. They are harvesting revenue because they are able to axis so much data. That is really a core reason wire you are seeing so many media organizations go under. That is a really important thing to consider. I think the other thing is about data, privacy, and all of these things really are links to the ability of google and facebook to mine everything they can about us and sell it for profit. Host walk us through the privacy aspect. Sarah on the privacy front. Online, ityou do goes beyond whether you are on facebook, instagram, whatsapp. They have the ability to track that behavior. They also have the ability to track where you are in the real world. They are the most powerful monopolies in that respect. They know everything about us from our digital life and where we go in the real world. What they could then do is they take that data and they allow essentially anyone for the most part who wants to pay them to do with veryet us precise, intimate, psychologically sophisticated producth ideas, placement, propaganda, misinformation. They make money alongside that. That type of information as well is often the most engaging content. Neither of those institutions are about promoting fact space and responsible news. In fact, quite the opposite. They make more money when various essential asian sensationalist is flooding throughout the system. We have turned a lot of our Information Sources to the institutions. As time goes by, it is only going to get more dangerous and destructive toward our social fabric. Host the concept of Net Neutrality has a role here as well, correct . That youu see basically want nondiscrimination approach. It is not safe to have corporations with this much power over information. Over who can move Different Things through the system. One aspect when think about terms ofs privacy in businesses. Our organization focuses a lot on competition and businesses in the marketplace. Think aboutt to Consumer Privacy and user privacy. Institutions, businesses turn all of their data over to facebook and google and they could monetize that. The end user, through their forced interaction with platforms to which market and customers, they basically give ability advantage and to compete in the marketplace. Google orou feel he facebook should be looked at as a public utility . Generally are looking at a regulated competition approach. We do that because when you look communication of law and regulation in the community there is a clear mapping. In some cases you have to apply make sureciples to nondiscrimination principles are achieved. In general i think you could have a competitive and regulated ecosystem in terms of online communications, Networks Without enshrining these institutions. Have, because these institutions are so powerful and no so much about the Business Models and about data, we are really nervous about the government be able to regulate them respectively. It is not terribly hard to do that. Wall street spends off all the time every day. Is not terribly difficult to do. Welfareocial perspective having a few Companies Really control information flow on the internet and either trying to get the government to play from behind and regulate that respectively. Host it will be very difficult. What about the issue of economies in scale . Toyre providing services billions of people, how do you compete with that size . Do you just break it up all at t in the 1980s . Sarah it is not terribly complicated. You need a robust ecosystem online. You need regulations to make it safe for individual users. Reallyicy solution we support that is essential if you do break up these institutions is something called interoperability. That will give smaller startups permission from users to tap into and share networks. When aim was launched, there was a requirement that different types of messaging systems be able to communicate with each other so they could develop a monopoly over that state. A similar practice could be put into place here. Different types of corporate entities talk to each other. Is an important step in the situation as well. Host what was the effect when microsoft was on the line in the 1990s. Microsoft was not ultimately drunk about. The judge ruled the back. Microsoft with the brakes on the ability to roll up adjacent markets with the computing space and Online Software space. What that did was allowed Companies Like google and facebook to jump in and innovate and basically create markets or take out market share in places where microsoft wouldve had a clear advantage. I think there are really valuable lessons to learn. It is 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 was she wants to break up big everything, is that a Fair Assessment . Sarah no. In general the solution to every problem is not a breakup. I think it was a great headline for clicks but was not quite accurate from a policy perspective. In a lot of markets you do want to concentrate them and breakup institutions. You want to create competition in that way. Some markets shouldnt be modified at all. There is a debate about health insurance. Market that belongs in oriented structure. Prisons,ike private that probably shouldnt exist at all. If you look at concentrated markets, the solution isnt always break you out. Sometimes it is aluminate them altogether and turn them over to and internationalize them for the welfare of the public. Sometimes it is where the government has regulatory approach to changes. Sometimes there is different changes. We havent seen markets become rolled up and consolidated over the last 40 years. Picking them up is one way to do that. Host your political career, you have a foot in the Hillary Clinton camp in the Bernie Sanders camp, what are those connections . Sarah i was with Hillary Clinton and her first run for president in 2008. There was a financial crisis during that period. I went on to work at the u. S. Treasury in the aftermath of the crisis helping to oversee programs in the dodd frank reform in various initiatives. It is tough to help the economy try to recover. One of the lessons i took away from that experience is although we have unlocked credit markets, it helped the economy back to a functioning state relatively quickly, we exacerbated some of the underlying adjustments, particularly in regard to inequality. General fragility in terms of peopless Household Economic security. We have seen these problems get worse and worse. We have seen the start up rate continue to fall. We have seen wages continue to stagnate. That tells me as we have deep foundational problems that we need to solve. What i discovered is so many of these problems are exacerbated or caused by the concentration we are seeing across our economy. The way wall street is a wild to leverage that is allowed to leverage that in ways that are really destructive. Backof connecting that all to large corporations and finance have over our political discourse. The perimeter that they have. That has been my transformation in terms of seeing what happened in the economy in 2008 with the financial crisis and now seeing where we are today. Host you also have a connection to the Bernie Sanders campaign . Sarah my husband is bernie manager. Campaign host how does that apply in the tech world . Sarah in the tech world we have seen a radical change in the culture of Silicon Valley. Use start much more vibrant, kind of culture where startups would catch fire and grow. Now there is essentially a couple of strategies if you are tech startup. Are you going to sell to facebook or google . The ability of innovators in Silicon Valley to innovate according to market needs and ideas. Instead, everyone is guessing, how could i develop something that facebook will buy or google will buy . That is not necessarily really how we want an economy or an Innovation Sector to function. We dont want people to start new businesses or gravitate towards ideas because a handful of giant institutions might buy them up, right . Good 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 crackdown on competitive practices. Even if you have a good idea there is nothing stopping institutions like facebook and google from copying that were questioning that. Facebook in particular has been incredibly aggressive about tactics that we think are illegal. We have been generally quite excited at some moves in the better directions. The antitrust committee is going under what is a pretty historic investigation into digital platforms and competition. We have antitrust cases among 50 state attorneys general looking into both facebook and google. There is a lot more scrutiny that bubbles up. See aggressiveo and strong outcomes. Host another one of those large corporations is amazon. A little bit of a different model. Dont lots of Small Businesses depend on sales via amazon . Sarah yes. I think in general amazon at this point has become a one of the only ways for Small Businesses to get to market. I think in the past you had a lot of different channels for Small Businesses to reach customers. Now if you dont sell on amazon you are at a major disadvantage. Is not really something that has been consistent. Want there to be one intermediary or an entrepreneur with a good idea and the entire customer base. Understandportant to how amazon takes advantages of the Small Businesses that are forced to use them. They forced them to use their own shipping channels. Wherere arbitrary about these smaller businesses fall in the rankings. They could be pulled off amazon with no rational given. There is a lot of fear among. Mazon Small Businesses it is already on the ropes. Particularly after this crisis we are seeing caused by coronavirus. It will only get more dire and more difficult. Avoid thedo you googles, facebook, twitters, amazon . There are problems with twitter that deserve concern. Not something we really focus on. The truth is you cannot avoid them. I think that is something that demonstrates monopoly power and how we need to address it. Facebook, they follow you everywhere they go on the internet. They know where you have been. Google, same. You see businesses like aws which arent something that you could avoid. What that tells me and what that tells us is personal choices, personal decisions around watch which institutions want to interact with and which you dont arnott the way out of this. You have to push democratic institution. The influence and the reach of these institutions are so vast. Consumers are users alone. What are your views about host what are your views about how the European Union has regulated big tech . Sarah the European Union has moved out a little bit ahead of where the u. S. Is, to be sure. We have seen some moved to germany in particular with facebook they have basically said you cant share data between different platforms that you run. We are seeing investigations being taken all over the world. Told amazonample something very important. That they cannot compete with the sellers that use them like marketplace. This is a basic sort of antitrust where if you are the railroad you can also determine what the rates are with other people writing those rails. You could get goods to market or compete on that platform. We are seeing things happen all over the world. It is really a fundamental problem that Democratic Institutions are going to have to break. We will only see them wiggle out any sort of constraints and ultimately be in the exact same position again. You dont seem terribly enthused about the moves that you has made yet . Sarah we have seen proposals like taxing digital platforms, which i think in some ways is a step back. We dont want to entrench the powers of these institutions and make them a Revenue Source that the state depends on. Certainly we want them to pay their fair share in the current moment and situation. Very expert at avoiding taxes. Fundamentally we have to come to a consensus around the basic fact that the level and powers ,hey have over society democracy, it is too great and dangerous. That has to be addressed. Host the assistant attorney been quite active, hasnt he . Sarah i would disagree with that. Certainly not in a consistent way. Host why . Sarah we have seen them take steps behind the scenes in terms of their programs and others statuteey are pushing that would enhance the power of the Tech Companies and not checked the powers of the Tech Companies. I think we are little bit more focused on institutions like the federal trade commission, which is undergoing its own investigation. Against 40nning up years of a culture that is really kind of hands off and addressing