Not only did Epic sue Apple in the US, they sued in Australia, and that might just help us!

I also give a little description of the IAF passing out parade and air show I was at on Thursday. Wow.

Welcome back to BlockTV. I’m Brian of London and this is my alt-tech opinion for BlockTV on the 3^rd of February 2020.

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that the big tech giants, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple have too much power and control. Whether that’s a problem or not seems to be related to the size of your slice of their massive lobbying budgets.

The Antitrust Subcommittee of the US House Judiciary Committee is currently working on an investigation and a couple of weeks ago the committee took time out from impeaching Trump to continue doing something useful, perhaps. They held a field hearing about the power of online platforms and spoke to witnesses specifically about Facebook, Google Amazon and Apple.

This was part of their investigation into the competitiveness of digital markets: this is a bipartisan investigation which will generate a report and recommendations for new laws and regulations seeking to govern how big tech platforms work.

This meeting took testimony, under oath, from four witnesses^⁠1. All four told compelling stories of how difficult it is to innovate in a market dominated by companies which have grown so huge. Throughout I heard a clear tension between business people who want government to get out of the way and let them innovate, against a recognition that Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon have grown unnaturally large and are now a threat to innovation.

This is David Heinemeier Hansson, the CTO of software service provider Basecamp.

[Video]

It was very clear in all of those tests that Facebook was by far and away the most effective way to market because of the immense amount of personal data that they have so we could target our apps to just an astonishing degree and no other advertising platform was able to compete and this is why Google who also has the same sort of capabilities of charging and Facebook is able to capture 99% of all growth in Internet advertisement as was stated in that report from 2016 because they simply have devastatingly effective machinery.

He’s arguing, and I’m in complete agreement, Facebook and Google managed to collect and gather a trove of personal information in an early gold rush. Most people had no idea they were handing over something this valuable in aggregate because individually they either thought it a fair exchange for free email, photo sharing with grandma and some shiny beads or they simply never thought of it. Apple and Amazon are sitting on similar power.

As these giants grew quickly, the incumbents in the advertising market, whose business they were eating, didn’t see it coming. Back in 2010 now prominent crypto invester, Lou Kerner, made what seemed like a wild prediction for Facebook advertising revenue in 2015 and that Facebook would come to dominate online advertising and how online advertising would dominate advertising in general.

[Video 48s]

Facebook hit his prediction about 18 months after his prediction but this was still wild growth.

I have worked on and run many websites since before Facebook started up until today:  especially in news and opinion, Facebook can easily send 70% of a site’s traffic. Whether you’re buying adverts using their astonishingly intrusive targeting data, or just trying to have your thoughts heard, Facebook is the giant you can’t ignore. 

For the crypto world, we can’t ignore Facebook’s January 2018 ban on crypto advertising and their casting of cryptocurrencies as a “frequently associated with misleading or deceptive practices”.

[Read]

Ads must not promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings, or cryptocurrency.

Google and Twitter copied this weeks later. This attack on an entire industry that may one day compete with these incumbent giants doesn’t appear to have been illegal in America (though it may have broken Australia’s anti-cartel laws).

America doesn’t really have the same anti-trust regulations as Australia which is a pity. Even now the politicians don’t seem to know what to do next. Toward the end of the hearing the politicians ask the panel what they suggest: the short version is they really don’t know what to do about it.

Speaking in a separate interview to the Verge^⁠2, committee chairman David Cicilline said this:

[Audio 36s]

This is not an investigation that results in an enforcement action investigation.

Congress is the only place that has the ability to actually change the statutes and update the laws and put proposed regulations in place that actually fix this marketplace. So unlike an enforcement action that focuses on the behavior — a single company gets directed to do a single thing — our work is much broader. And it is actually more significant because if we do it right, we can get this digital marketplace working properly. And that will benefit consumers. It will benefit the next great company that’s going to come down the pike because competition was possible.

The US Government is slowly coming to terms with the dramatic concentration of power which has happened to social media, online advertising, local, national and international news, retail sales and the distribution of apps on our phones, the most important communication devices in the world. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened to fast than for governments.

But for those of us with the ear to the ground in the crypto world, where suspicion of big government and their regulations is real and well founded, how do we feel about whatever this committee will propose? Does anyone think US authorities have done a great job regulating crypto? Can we place most of their efforts in the category of mostly harmful?

If you’ve got an opinion, look me up on twitter @brianoflondon or @brianoflondon on Steemit. Tell me know what you think.

For now, that’s Brian’s Alt-tech opinion.

¹ https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=2386

² https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078903/podcast-house-antitrust-chairman-cicilline-tech-monopoly-vergecast

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.

You can join the fight against the Tech Goliaths in two ways, you have a no win no fee claim or you wish to help finance the case.

Please join the case if you held crypto and have a claim.

You can directly contribute crypto on Fundition. To send fiat currency via PayPal click here. If you want to talk about a large donation, Telegram or email me.

I put this into the wider context of mass censorship on YouTube away from alternative and non-main stream topics and creators and toward the mainstream “safe” for advertisers content that YouTube is able to consistently make money on.

My extra thoughts on this: there’s definitely an element of the fall out from the COPPA settlement, this saw Google fined for collecting data on children watching videos in contravention of a clear law. Whatever directed them to take this action, it is yet another reason why our Crypto Class Action case, links below, is so important!

You can join the fight against the Tech Goliaths in two ways, you have a no win no fee claim or you wish to help finance the case.

Please join the case if you held crypto and have a claim.

You can directly contribute crypto on Fundition. To send fiat currency via PayPal click here. If you want to talk about a large donation, Telegram or email me.

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.

Some news broke today in Australia concerning how class action cases can be funded. This concerns a part of Australian law related to “common fund orders”. The short answer is, this is positive for our case because we were never going to rely on a common fund order, while other cases competing for funding were.

Here’s the report:

The High Court has queried the legality of court orders requiring members of class actions to pay litigation funders even if they aren’t part of a funding agreement.

The key issue in the cases brought by Westpac and BMW is whether the Federal Court of Australia and NSW Supreme Court were empowered to make what is known as a “common fund order”.

BMW challenged an order by the NSW Supreme Court requiring anyone receiving a payout from a class action over faulty airbags to provide 25 per cent of the money to litigation funder Regency Funding for bankrolling the court case.

The High Court found by a majority neither the laws relating to the Federal Court nor the NSW Civil Procedures Act empower a court to make a common fund order.

“It is not appropriate or necessary to ensure that justice is done in a representative proceeding for a court to promote the prosecution of the proceeding by the making of a CFO,” the judgment said.

Norton Rose Fulbright disputes practice leader Cameron Harvey said the decision was a significant setback for the business of litigation funding and plaintiff law firms operating in Australia.

Court strikes blow to class action funding – News.com.au

For our case, we quickly decided not to look for a common fund order because it was unneccessary and less economic than signing up claimaints directly given the scale of damages available. Also our libertarian outlook didn’t like the idea of forcing people who hadn’t signed up for a case to contribute to it.

Instead JPBLiberty went down the far harder path of gathering signatures on a real funding agreement (which many of my readers have signed) rather than relying on taking 25% after the settlement from people who did not consciously join the suit before we fought it.

If anything this is good for us because it means OUR case is stronger in comparison to other Aussie cases that were relying on Common Fund orders.

Beyond that, the news is that we are working on some very comprehensive legal opinions and work to bolster the case and secure the funding necessary. It’s hard to give more details about these steps right now as this needs to be carried out confidentially at this stage.

As ever, we’re always looking for more people to join our suit so if you had any kind of crypto currency holding or a stake in any related blockchain business, please check out the website and see if you can sign up. If you want to talk about a significant contribution to funding the case, we are open to any new approaches.

You can join the fight against the Tech Goliaths in two ways, you have a no win no fee claim or you wish to help finance the case.

Please join the case if you held crypto and have a claim.

You can directly contribute crypto on Fundition. To send fiat currency via PayPal click here. If you want to talk about a large donation, Telegram or email me.

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.

You can see my Sicily drone video here on 3speak.

My travelfeed post about the hotel in Rome is here.

• Since July 1st the financial value of submitted claims has jumped from $30m to over $200m and are still streaming in;
• We have more than 350 claimants;
• We’re in discussion with established sources of funds for class action legal cases;
• Significant private contributions to legal funds;
• Written acknowledgement of our warning letter from Google Australia;
• Significant press coverage.

We’ve gained more press coverage and sign ups to the suit have accelerated. People, especially Crypto insiders, are realising that what the tech Goliath did, by calling their entire industry a scam, was very wrong!

Up until now there seems to have been a sort of Stockholm syndrome mentality within crypto insiders. Some crypto insiders believe there were lots of scams and the whole industry needed to feel guilty about them. They just took the punishment from these huge mega corporations and felt they deserved some of it! Evidence just doesn’t back this up. We have to fight that mentality which seems to be a very strongly held belief in a myth. You can read more about why this is a hoax here.

This article in Decrypt contains a very interesting revelation from a Facebook spokesperson:

While the suit names Facebook, Google and Twitter directly, Hamilton said he considers Facebook the principle offender, and alleged that the tech giant instigated the ban.  

In comments to Decrypt, a Facebook spokesman who did not want to be quoted by name said the social network would look into any cases where unfairness is alleged. The spokesman added that the initial ban had been intentionally broad to better understand the crypto market; the intent had been to create clearer policy around what constitutes acceptable crypto advertising.

Decrypt – Sued for billions, Facebook is accused of killing crypto businesses by Ben Munster

Does this phrase: “the initial ban had been intentionally broad to better understand the crypto market” mean Facebook decided to ban an entire industry before they even understood it? That would be an astonishing admission. Or are they just gaslighting now?

In the meantime JPB Liberty has received an acknowledgement of our initial letter sent to Google in Australia. They confirmed Google Australia was talking with Google in the US and a few other details.

We were also covered by Nadja Bester of BeInCrypto with an excellent and detailed explanation of the case.

This video I recorded in Jerusalem was especially good at driving sign ups to our case.

Not directly connected with JPB Liberty’s case (but I did mention the Crypto Add Ban) I appeared on Block TV again talking about Brexit and Bitcoin.

If you want to join the fight, instructions below. We’re always looking for class members as no-win-no-fee participants and at the same time, if you want a financial stake in this project, you can send money by PayPal or various crypto and you will receive a cryptographic token representing your share in the damages.

You can join the fight against the Tech Goliaths in two ways, you have a no win no fee claim or you wish to help finance the case.

Please join the case if you held crypto and have a claim.

You can directly contribute crypto on Fundition. To send fiat currency via PayPal click here. If you want to talk about a large donation, Telegram or email me.

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.

I’ve been running @jpbliberty‘s Class Action Lawsuit against Facebook, Google and Twitter’s Crypto Ad Ban for over a year now.

The one objection I hear most, including from people in the Crypto Industry itself, is: “But there were so many scams”. I’ve heard people saying that over 80% of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were scams.

Well ITS A BIG LIE!

And one that was used by Facebook etc to cover their own illegal conduct.

I’ve done a detailed investigation of this issue and found that the level of scams in late 2017 / early 2018 was quite low and most Crypto Projects and actual ICOs were legitimate.

The allegation that most Crypto Industry projects were scams and billions were lost in ICO scams is patently false and lacking in any real evidence. ICOs were just a new way of startups raising money from private investors which has gone on since the dawn of investing.

It is mostly just 3rd hand hearsay and trolling of competing projects. The number and value of actual scams compared to the size of the crypto industry is small.

Official Government Statistics on Scams

The Australian consumer regulator (ACCC) did a detailed study of scams in 2018 and put out an official government report.

This is what the report finds:

• Out of $489M in scam losses only a tiny percentage (1.25%; $6.1M) related to cryptocurrency in any way.
• Of that 2/3rd were just other scams asking to be paid in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency investment scam losses were less than half a percent of total losses ($2.1).
• Most of those were just impersonating cryptocurrency projects. Twice as much losses were from scams impersonated the Australian Tax Office!

I have not been able to find a single example on the ACCC’s scamwatch site of an actual cryptocurrency project ICO which was a scam.

Compared to the size of the Crypocurrency Industry, even in Australia, the percentage of scams is very low.

Huge numbers of legitimate Crypto projects

This is an amazing infographic (source) showing a huge number of legitimate cryptocurrency projects competing with the existing tech players in every area. I did not put this together, but have looked into many of the projects listed and have not found a single scam.

Big Lie comes from one flawed report

Tellingly for a Big Lie, all the news allegations about a very high percentage of ICOs being scams can be traced back to a single flawed report by a group called Statis.

I don’t know who they are and they have no official status. But under the terms of their own report they classified Reddit posts about an ICO that other people said was a scam as an ICO scam. They also admit the vast majority of money lost on so called ICO scams was in just 3 scams. Thus they vastly inflated both the number of ICOs and the number of scams based unverified, defamatory hearsay and trolling. Anyone can say another project is a scam. It doesn’t make it so.

Failed projects are not scams. 95% of all tech startups in all areas will fail. That is the nature of innovation and capitalism.

And I’m not the only one calling out the vast overuse of the word “scam” in the Crypto Industry. Here is Naomi Brockwell (@skycorridors on Steem) on the topic with a follow up video here.

Technical requirements make real ICO scams rare

An ICO in late 2017 / early 2018 required smart contracts to be set up on the Ethereum (or other) blockchain. A simple Reddit post does not constitute an ICO. And other people calling it a scam on social media doesn’t make it one. The level of unjustified and defamatory attacks on other projects in the Crypto Industry is high. It is not evidence of a real scam.

The technical requirements for actually sending money to an ICO and receiving ICO tokens during late 2017 & early 2018 were pretty high and certainly not for naive investors.

1. Having purchased or mined Ethereum (ETH);
2. Sending the ETH to your own cryptocurrency wallet;
3. Sending ETH from your own wallet to the ICO wallet.

No one without a decent understanding of Crypto could even work out how to do this! So the people who lost money in real ICO scams knew about crypto in detail and were, in that sense, experienced investors.

I note here that because of the very large amounts of money which early crypto true believers made and were looking to reinvest, the huge numbers of projects available to invest in, and the practical limitations on individual investor’s time, the strategy of just putting some money in everything your heard of, without doing due diligence, was a legitimate investment strategy.

Yes, you might lose some money to scams, but it made sure you had money early in the projects which would be hugely successful and make up for all the other failed and (few) scam projects. This is the essence of the entire venture capital business model. If you want a safer investment, invest in companies that are regulated and on the stock market Enron or Bear Stearns (oh… wait..)

So this is the BIG LIE which Facebook used to cover its own illegal banning of all crypto industry ads on 30 Jan 2018.

You can join the fight against the Tech Goliaths in two ways, you have a no win no fee claim or you wish to help finance the case.

Please join the case if you held crypto and have a claim.

You can directly contribute crypto on Fundition. To send fiat currency via PayPal click here. If you want to talk about a large donation, Telegram or email me.

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.

At the end of the show I paraphrased the end of the Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill. Here’s the full quote I was recalling from memory:

But I cannot conceal from the reader of this truthful account that as I went to bed at about 3 A.M., I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with Destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial. Eleven years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.

The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill

You can join the fight against the Tech Goliaths in two ways, you have a no win no fee claim or you wish to help finance the case.

Please join the case if you held crypto and have a claim.

You can directly contribute crypto on Fundition. To send fiat currency via PayPal click here. If you want to talk about a large donation, Telegram or email me.

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.

Yesterday Andrew and I traveled a few minutes to meet up in Ramat Gan, one of Israel’s top business districts abutting Tel Aviv to visit startup Block TV and their beautiful studio and offices. Here’s the interview (you can also see it on their site).

Andrew laid out the case clearly and very well. He covered the basics of the actions taken by these companies and why Australia is such a good place to bring this case. I added some points about the deplatforming background of the social media Goliaths. If you want to deeply understand what’s really going on with advertisers dictating the moves of the tech Goliaths, you really should listen to this section of the No Agenda Show.

Back when Andrew first told me about this case, I told him to stop saying the case was worth $500Bn, nobody would believe him and he sounded like a Bond villain. As I’ve got deeper into the story I’ve realised that’s probably at the low end of what these companies have done. And when Facebook brazenly launched their Libra cryptocurrency, it became absolutely obvious that having destroyed journalism, and gobbled up global media advertising, these companies are fully intending to take over the world’s money supply.

Additional coverage in this round:

• Israellycool: Did Facebook Try to Destroy an Entire Industry?
• Pamela Geller: How Facebook Tried to Destroy an Entire Industry and Eliminate Its Competition
• Beincrypto.com: Lost Money During The 2018 Cryptocurrency Ad Ban? You Can Now Claim Damages in Largest Class Action in History

You can join the fight against the Tech Goliaths in two ways, you have a no win no fee claim or you wish to help finance the case.

Please join the case if you held crypto and have a claim.

You can directly contribute crypto on Fundition. To send fiat currency via PayPal click here. If you want to talk about a large donation, Telegram or email me.

If you derive value from my work, please consider donating some value my way. You can find all the details on the donation page.