🎠 trojan horses

David "🌷🗿🌷" Golumbia @dgolumbia

announcing a brand-new research paper 95% consistent with the general political program my funders promote everywhere. the overlap is pure coincidence

xanax in a cinnabon (ali) @xanabon

you want me to go to a meeting? the thing that killed Julius Caesar?

˗ˋˏ*̣̩⋆̩ 𝚍𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚎 ⋆̩*̣̩ˎˊ˗ @FrickinDelanie

real

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The competition intellectual space is *remarkably* captured. 🎣

For instance, former Commissioner John Pecman - great guy! - was courageous and vocal upon leaving the Bureau, scoffing that monopoly-friendly Canada “Does Not Treat Competition Policy Seriously,” in 2019 before being scooped up by Bay Street titan Fasken (of which Google is a client). I am personally a fan of Pecman’s 2018 Canadian Competition Law Review article, “Unleash Canada's Competition Watchdog: Improving the Effectiveness and Ensuring the Independence of Canada's Competition Bureau.”

Financial Post @financialpost

John Pecman: Do we need new competition laws for Big Tech?

financialpost.comJohn Pecman: Do we need new competition laws for Big Tech?Regulators should consider potential interventions or remedies only on a case-by-case basis

Google is also a past client of Danny Sokol’s, who co-authored the Macdonald Laurier Institute’s recent report asserting that Canadians do not need sweeping changes to competition policy to handle Big Tech. But that’s not something MLI shared. Their membership model is opaque.

Macdonald-Laurier Institute @MLInstitute

NEW: Does Canada need sweeping #CompetitionPolicy changes to handle #BigTech? A close analysis by @prof_niblett & Daniel Sokol reveals our current system is up to the task; imposing new regulations could inhibit innovation & harm consumers. #cdnpoli

macdonaldlaurier.caWhy Big Isn’t Bad: Tougher competition policy for ‘Big Tech’ is a solution in search of a problem | Macdonald-Laurier InstituteCanada’s competition policy is up to the task of addressing anti-competitive behaviour; imposing new regulations could inhibit innovation & harm consumers.

Interesting! You can read more about Sokol’s relationship with tech firms in this 2017 Wall Street Journal investigation, “Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign.” There is also a 2016 ProPublica investigation (*Sokol is not mentioned there).

NPR's Planet Money @planetmoney

These professors make more than a thousand bucks an hour peddling mega-mergers. n.pr/2g0LU1p via @propublica

n.prThese Professors Make More Than a Thousand Bucks an Hour Peddling Mega-MergersThe economists are leveraging their academic prestige with secret reports justifying corporate concentration. Their predictions are often wrong and consumers pay the price.

But then you can also read Daniel in the National Post, seeking to influence public opinion with a big ol’ “everything is fine.”

National Post @nationalpost

Daniel Sokol: Competition law reforms not needed to meet the challenges of Big Tech

nationalpost.comDaniel Sokol: Competition law reforms not needed to meet the challenges of Big TechThere are genuine harms from over-regulation or misguided regulation

Another recent Macdonald-Laurier Institute collaborator, Robert Atkinson’s Information Technology and Innovation Foundation is funded by Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and others - at least that is transparent.

National Post @nationalpost

Robert D. Atkinson: Big businesses power our economy — we should not be discriminating against them

nationalpost.comRobert D. Atkinson: Big businesses power our economy — we should not be discriminating against themIf Canada wants a growing, competitive economy with higher productivity and wages, policymakers need to recognize the critical role that large businesses play

I feel pretty comfortable saying that a big (and beautiful 😉) reason that he is here “in” Canada regurgitating his cherry-picked data and misleading arguments is me - and you, for reading regs to riches and calling into question the suitability and flexibility of the Competition Act.

We see this happening elsewhere: technology companies may talk about welcoming regulation privately, but they fund organizations that are pushing for free markets and deregulation publicly. This is all the more relevant as the US-based Internet Association recently announced it was (is?) dissolving. Instead of a formal coalition, perhaps there will be more cloaked reports.

Emily Birnbaum @birnbaum_e

Full link here:

politico.comSilicon Valley’s voice in Washington to dissolveThe Internet Association plans to announce it is dissolving as soon as tomorrow.

Anyone else?

Well, MLI co-author Anthony Niblett does not disclose that he is the co-founder of “Blue J” legal, which *could* create a conflict of interest and ultimately risks devaluing his contributions. This is a bit of a reach, but still shows a lack of transparency.

Ed Iacobucci, who wrote this paper “Examining the Canadian Competition Act in the Digital Era” for Senator Howard Wetston (*BTW it seems to be independently written and not formally associated with the University of Toronto in any way. This can be unfortunately murky) is a funder of Niblett’s Blue J legal. Interesting, isn’t it? Again, it’s important to know what other interests scholars and others could have at play.

👋 I’ve written about academic capture before in “regs to riches.”

🎓 academic capture

When think tanks (or individuals) take private funds for sponsored research, but don’t disclose the funders - well, it’s not unlike the bee in my bonnet I have on private label products. It’s misleading and super uncool. 🐝

🦬 buffalo jeans

Just like customers should know who or what owns a product on the shelf, readers should know who or what paid for a report and authors should always declare any conflicts of interest.

Otherwise, this material is kinda just #sponcon masquerading as independent thought leadership.

Competition Bureau Canada @CompBureau

#ThursdayTruths: Content creators, if you help a business promote its products this holiday, your connection to the brand must be disclosed clearly and as visibly as possible to your audience. Find out more: ow.ly/PXhs50H1T9F #SocialMedia

🤳 As it stands, we hold Instagram influencers to a higher bar than we do our think tanks.

I’m no Donald Abelson, but perhaps the Competition Bureau should set standards for think tanks that compel them to disclose actors that may be funding “research” reports. I think it is absolutely unacceptable to put reports forward that obscure who the funder(s) and thus the interests motivating a report are - perhaps a form of misleading advertising/deceptive marketing.

Vass Bednar @VassB

I've been reflecting on think tanks + transparency in Canada, came across this excellent @reviewcanada piece from @RohintonMedhora - Wonk Friendly: What to expect from our think tanks (2017). It's a review of book "Northern Lights," by Donald E. Abelson.

reviewcanada.caWonk Friendly | Literary Review of Canada

*One mechanism that gets us closer to transparency with certain ‘think tanks’ is looking at their annual reports. But the average reader isn’t going to take that step, and it still doesn’t get at the members or funders directly influencing a particular report.

🤷 Who to trust in the competition space? Well, the Competition Commissioner has concluded that we need a comprehensive review of the Competition Act. I trust his expertise.

Competition Bureau Canada @CompBureau

The Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell spoke at the @CBA_News’s virtual spring conference last week about how competition can contribute to Canada’s #EconomicRecovery and support inclusive growth. ow.ly/pwrg50EDnV0 #COVID19

The Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry is “open to suggestions” to increase competition in Canada. That’s good, I guess. 👍

Murad Hemmadi @muradhem

In brief: Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne told me he's "open to suggestions" to increase competition in Canada, but won't commit to introducing legislation to update the Competition Act. Commissioner Matthew Boswell wants a policy review.

thelogic.coChampagne ‘open’ to competition-law changes, but won’t commit to update - The Logic

I also trust the G7. They recently published a compendium of approaches to improving competition in digital markets. Take a look, and then benchmark Canada against international peers. Spoiler: we are way behind. 🌐

Competition & Markets Authority @CMAgovUK

@ALDC @FTC @JusticeATR @Kartellamt @antitrust_it @CompBureau @jftc @acccgovau @EU_Commission @kftcnews @CompComSA @CCI_India The G7 Digital Competition Enforcers Summit offers a unique opportunity for international agencies to discuss emerging issues in relation to #AppStores, #OnlineMarketplaces, #DigitalAdvertising, #MobileEcosystems, #CloudComputing and algorithms. Read more:gov.uk/government/pub…

And this researcher, who used to work at the Competition Bureau:

Keldon Bester @KeldonB

My piece on whether Canada's competition law is up to the task is out today. Spoiler: it is not.

cigionline.orgCanada’s Competition Law: Is It Really Up to the Task?Governments and regulators in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia have conducted detailed analyses of their competition laws’ performance in digital markets, prompting legislative or fiscal action. Increased scrutiny of dominant players is the common theme.

Disclosure: we are working together on a project.

So: sometimes it’s good to google the authors.

😉 The key insight from any competing interests is that competition policy in Canada is SO important, that some companies may want to fund “research” to convince you that we shouldn’t review the Act. It feels like people are investing in the status quo.

In doing that, they are reinforcing the opposite. It just takes a second to see the #sponcon. Think tanks should be mandated to properly label sponsored research. That’s it - that’s the tweet.

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Warning: if we feverishly text message about an article, it could turn into an op-ed. Thank you to The Hub for the opportunity. 👇

The Hub @TheHubCanada

Vass Bednar (@VassB) and @graemedmoffat: Canada already has big companies—it needs young, dynamic ones too

thehub.caOpinion: Canada already has big companies—it needs young, dynamic ones too - The HubCanadian big business is so low-tech, and so uninterested in productivity growth, that Canadian competitiveness suffers as a result.

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Vass Bednar is the Executive Director of McMaster University’s new Master of Public Policy in Digital Society Program and a Public Policy Forum Fellow.

*Wondering whose opinions these are? Mine alone! 🥂