Topics
Everything this site covers, organized by the six sections of the outline it was built from.
Fees & Revenue
What the big platforms charge, how they make their money, and where it goes.
| Topic | Evidence | What we track | Facts |
|---|---|---|---|
| App store commission rates | Filed record | Published commission schedules for the Apple App Store and Google Play, changes after court or regulator rulings, and developer-reported effects. | 92 |
| Cloud market concentration | Filed record | Cloud revenue and growth from quarterly filings, market-share estimates with the estimator named, regulator market studies, and major outages. | 48 |
| Personal data & ad models | Filed record | Privacy enforcement actions and consent-order terms, state attorney general suits, changes to privacy policies, and data-broker disclosures. | 101 |
| Where the revenue goes | Filed record | Revenue by region where disclosed, effective tax rates, and headquarters versus local spending, each from the company's own filings. | 109 |
| Cash reserves & buybacks | Filed record | Cash and marketable securities, buyback authorizations and amounts executed, dividends and capital spending, from quarterly filings. | 164 |
Attention & Design
How the most-used apps are built to hold attention, what the research and regulators say, and how each one earns from it.
| Topic | Evidence | What we track | Facts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook: the social feed & social comparison | Research | Feed and notification changes, published research on social comparison and use, regulator and court actions, and Meta's responses. Advertising revenue is tracked from Meta's 10-K. | 84 |
| Instagram: image comparison & teen well-being | Research | Research on image-based comparison and body image, teen-account rules, regulator and court actions, and Meta's responses. Shopping and ad revenue tracked from filings. | 70 |
| X: engagement ranking & high-emotion content | Research | Studies of how ranking affects the spread of emotional content, changes to X's ranking and moderation, published algorithm code, and X's responses. | 29 |
| TikTok: the recommendation feed & short-video habits | Research | Research on short-video use and attention, screen-time tools and teen limits, state and federal actions, and TikTok's responses. | 85 |
| YouTube: recommendations, autoplay & creator trust | Research | Audits of the recommendation system, changes to autoplay and recommendations, policy enforcement reports, and YouTube's responses. Ad revenue tracked from Alphabet's 10-K. | 99 |
| LinkedIn: career signaling & job-market pressure | Research | Research on professional social media use, product changes (premium tiers, AI profile tools), labor-market data LinkedIn publishes, and LinkedIn's responses. | 24 |
| Nextdoor: neighborhood alerts & crime perception | Research | Research on neighborhood apps and perceived crime, moderation and alert-policy changes, and police partnerships as disclosed by Nextdoor and by agencies. | 2 |
| Pinterest: aspirational boards & the shopping funnel | Research | Shopping features, advertiser results Pinterest reports, research on aspirational browsing and spending, and Pinterest's responses. | 40 |
| Amazon: Ring, Prime & convenience dependence | Research | Ring product and policy changes, Prime membership terms and the FTC's Prime case, consumer research on convenience and switching, and Amazon's responses. | 23 |
| Google Search: reliance on one gateway to information | Research | Search share with the source named, AI answer features and how they change clicks to publishers, court findings, and Google's responses. | 57 |
The Big Four
Dossiers on Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft: market position, contracts, lawsuits and lobbying.
| Topic | Evidence | What we track | Facts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google: search share & default-placement deals | Filed record | U.S. and global search share with the data source named, default-placement payments as disclosed in the court record, and the remedies ordered in DOJ v. Google. | 0 |
| Google: ad-tech auctions | Contested | The ad-tech case: findings, remedy proceedings, fee-rate evidence entered in court, and Google's appeals and statements. | 17 |
| Google: cloud & AI in schools, cities and agencies | Filed record | Public contracts and school-district adoptions, with dollar amounts and terms from procurement records, plus district and agency statements. | 3 |
| Amazon: seller fees & fulfillment | Contested | Amazon's published fee schedules, the share of seller revenue that goes to fees per named studies, the FTC's allegations, and Amazon's responses. The 45-50% figure is not published until a named source supports it. | 3 |
| Amazon: federal lobbying | Filed record | Quarterly lobbying spending from Senate filings, the issues named in each filing, and PAC activity from FEC filings. We report what the filings show. We do not state where the money came from unless a filing does. | 281 |
| Amazon: Ring & police partnerships | Filed record | Changes to Ring's police-request policies, the FTC's Ring order, the number of agencies in partner programs as disclosed by Amazon or the agencies, and Amazon's statements. | 91 |
| Apple: App Store rules & commissions | Contested | Apple's current rules, rulings in Epic v. Apple, DOJ v. Apple, EU Digital Markets Act decisions, and Apple's statements and appeals. | 2 |
| Apple: messaging & device interoperability | Contested | The DOJ complaint's allegations on messaging and accessories, Apple's changes (such as adopting RCS), EU interoperability orders, and Apple's response. | 28 |
| Apple: privacy defaults & Apple's own ad business | Contested | App Tracking Transparency, regulator complaints about it in Europe, Apple's advertising revenue where disclosed, and Apple's statements. | 1 |
| Microsoft: bundling across Windows, Office, Teams & Azure | Contested | Regulator actions on bundling (such as the EU's Teams case), licensing terms for schools and governments, and Microsoft's commitments and statements. | 3 |
| Microsoft: government cloud contracts | Filed record | Federal cloud awards and their values, security authorizations, and agencies' stated reliance, from procurement data. | 9 |
| Microsoft: AI integration & partnerships | Reported | Copilot rollouts, Microsoft's AI partnerships and investments as disclosed, regulator reviews of those partnerships, and Microsoft's statements. | 46 |
Money & Politics
Lobbying, campaign money, antitrust cases and the flow of people between companies and government.
| Topic | Evidence | What we track | Facts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal lobbying spending | Filed record | Quarterly lobbying spending by company from Senate filings, with amendments applied and every figure linked to its filing. Combined totals are computed from those filings, not quoted. | 538 |
| Campaign contributions, PACs & super PACs | Filed record | Corporate PAC receipts and disbursements, contributions to super PACs, and executive donations from FEC filings. Spending by nonprofits that does not disclose donors is tracked only where IRS or state filings show it, and labeled as undisclosed-source. | 76 |
| Antitrust case tracker | Filed record | One status board for each case: court, stage, last ruling, next date, and appeals, with each entry linked to the docket. | 76 |
| Remedies & settlements | Analysis | What each court order or settlement actually requires, with deadlines and compliance reports. Whether a remedy is large or small is Analysis and is labeled as such, next to the order text. | 98 |
| Research funding & the revolving door | Filed record | Corporate grants as disclosed by universities and think tanks, and moves between companies and agencies from public disclosure forms. We do not infer influence from a grant or a job change unless a document says so. | 28 |
Power, Water & Land
What AI data centers draw from the electric grid and local water, and what incentives they receive. Texas first.
| Topic | Evidence | What we track | Facts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data centers & the electric grid | Filed record | ERCOT's large-load interconnection queue in megawatts, PUC rule and rate-case dockets, utility capacity plans, and what regulators and utilities say about rates. | 4 |
| Data centers & water | Filed record | Water use as disclosed in company sustainability reports, utility and groundwater-district permits and contracts, and local drought or aquifer conditions. Connects to the Texas water map. | 0 |
| Tax abatements & incentives | Filed record | Abatement agreements and incentive terms from county and state records, the dollar value where stated, and the jobs and investment commitments written into the agreements. | 0 |
Tech & the State
Defense and intelligence contracts, platform rules that act like public law, and the ideas some tech leaders propose for governance.
| Topic | Evidence | What we track | Facts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Defense & intelligence contracts | Filed record | Contract awards to Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril, Microsoft, Amazon and Google: agency, value, term and scope, from federal award data. | 3 |
| Company decisions in conflicts | Reported | Documented cases where a company's choice affected a conflict, such as service access, each from named reporting or government statements, with the company's and government's responses. | 0 |
| Platform rules that act like public law | Filed record | Terms-of-service and moderation-policy changes, transparency reports, appeals outcomes where published, election-ad rules, and court rulings on platform speech. | 0 |
| Ideas & proposals: Network State, techno-optimism, e/acc | Stated position | What named proponents have published, who funds related projects such as charter cities or special economic zones, and what critics and legal scholars say. We report stated positions, not inferred plans. | 0 |