BK613. Actually, words do matter and so do the implications of those words.
ConEd and NatGrid are “public utilities’ in the classical sense and have been granted exclusive distribution franchises in the areas they serve and are guaranteed recovery of all their prudently incurred costs plus a market rate or return. No other company can legally erect poles and wires and distribute electricity in their service areas. They used to have a monopoly on sales of energy as well but that market was opened to competition over a decade ago.
Amazon does not have a monopoly and is not guaranteed cost recovery plus a regulated profit by the government. Anyone who doesn’t like their service can purchase cloud or web hosting services from Microsoft or one of at least a dozen other companies. For example, within 10 days of losing Amazon services, they contracted with another provider.
Most lawyers agree that the ONLY legal course of action for the type of issue you cite would be under the Federal Trade laws and even then, the burden would be difficult to show they had a pattern of misleading consumers in the application of their standards of conduct. In Parler’s case, Amazon had warned them about the need for a capability to moderate and delete postings explicitly advocating violence and they refused to take timely action. The FTC, however, doesn’t have legal authority to tell Amazon how those standards should be applied as between political messaging, hyperbole etc. Amazon is not subject to First Amendment laws as would a government agency enforcing its rules.
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