Senator Cantwell calls out big tech companies for hurting local news organizations

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Washington Senator Maria Cantwell said tech companies have used "unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices" to decimate local news as their CEOs testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

Ahead of the hearing, Senator Cantwell's office released a report examining how large tech companies have leveraged market practices to cheat local media organizations, including unfairly using content, taking consumer data and diverting customers away from local news sites.

While many other senator's focused on social media's role in the upcoming election and some attacked the tech executives for having an anti-Trump bias, Senator Cantwell called on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to address the unfair practices that are hurting local news organizations.

"Local news has been hijacked by a few large news aggregation platforms, most notably Google and Facebook, which have become the dominant players in online advertising," the report says. "These trillion-dollar companies scrape local news content and data for their own sites and leverage their market dominance to force local news to accept little to no compensation for their intellectual property."

https://www.seattlepi.com/news/politics/article/cantwell-big-tech-companies-hurt-local-news-report-15682209.php

[SWBTATTReg]

1. So basically knock all digital content providers for hurting paper only news sites, when the ...

writing was on the wall almost 30 years ago, that the digital age was upon us? Why not just dig a hole and stick your head in it, Senator Cantwell? Yes, there is a role for local news etc., but it must be a profitable one, otherwise the business won't stay in business.

Must be a combination of finesse and business smarts to stay alive in the cutthroat world of the digital world. When it's so easy for websites to all of a sudden pop up and manifest themselves, by simply developing a website. Content is the key, if one has control of content and the means to constantly provide it, then the users will come. Protecting that content from others stealing it is key also. This has been the bane of all website developers, and their constant fight to keep their sites active and interesting, to keep the keystrokes flowing in.

[Wicked Blue]

2. I will never forget that when Amazon bought the Washington Post

the purchase included Gazette Newspapers which did extensive local reporting.

Naturally Bezos killed the Gazettes. S.O.B.