Public Knowledge

Vendors must expose proprietary information, such as sales data or logistic information, to digital platforms like Amazon or Facebook in order to reach customers on those platforms. This gives digital platforms the ability to use vendor proprietary information to create, price, and market rival products, enabling platforms to unfairly benefit from the work, business acumen, and risks taken by third-party vendors. Although accusations against Amazon have received the most press coverage, the problem goes well beyond Amazon and undermines competition broadly. 

The paper stems from a platform competition research project led by Public Knowledge and supported by Omidyar Network. The paper explores the challenge of balancing the significant gatekeeper control that dominant platforms like Apple and Google have over both their operating systems and app stores, with the benefits that app stores create for both developers and users.

Public Knowledge announces that it will not accept funding from Facebook for any of the organization’s programs or initiatives. The decision follows a June 1 meeting between Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and civil rights leaders to discuss the company’s choice to leave up without moderation comments made by President Donald Trump, including one in which he posted, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” in reference to protests over George Floyd’s death. Twitter, meanwhile, labeled the content with a disclaimer that it “glorified violence.”

The record shows extensive opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order and the grave danger it poses to public safety and public health, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis. Public health and public safety officials detail in the record how both officials and the public writ large rely on mass-market retail broadband internet access services (BIAS).

Public Knowledge joined more than 30 public interest groups (including the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society), advocacy organizations, trade associations, academics, and former administration officials in a letter urging both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to support the Federal Communications Commission’s