After an extensive 16-month investigation by the US Congress into the four Big Tech firms, the final assessment has come to light. The behavioural pattern of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple has started to raise questions about “whether these firms view themselves as above the law, or whether they simply treat lawbreaking as a cost of business.” (Kang & McCabe, 2020). A substantial 449 page report made by lawmakers has made clear that according to them, the answer is yes (Het Financieele Dagblad, 2020).
Credits: Leif Gann-Matzen
What is interesting is the amount of agreement that the Democrats and Republicans generally have regarding this topic. The report has caused members of society to form various opinions on the matter, including that the report focuses on the negative side of these businesses too much. They argue that these firms have brought extremely valuable products and services to their very large user base. This is of course true: some of the Big Tech products and solutions cannot be separated from our daily lives anymore. But that is where some of the problems lie as well: privacy related issues, the monitoring of the heaps of data that are continually generated on platforms like Facebook, and of course the general monopolistic power of these large firms. This leads the Congress to agree that these four companies should not be able to continue as is (Ovide, 2020).
This is where the next challenge comes in: how can the monopolistic situation these Big Tech firms have shaped be reimagined? The solutions brought to the table range from less to extremely drastic. This includes ideas like not forcing Apple product users to install applications from Apple’s own App Store, in order to “break up” these types of strategies to keep consumers within their own firms. Regulations regarding the acquisition of smaller companies by the Big Tech firms is another example, which would be a very significant change (Ovide, 2020). The question is whether these solutions are realistic and manageable to implement in practice.
Do you think “business as usual” will change for Big Tech? Or will these companies be able to continue on their current paths?
Sources:
Het Financieele Dagblad (2020). Washington drijft jacht op Big Tech op. Retrieved from: https://fd.nl/ondernemen/1359759/washington-drijft-jacht-op-big-tech-op
Kang, C., McCabe, D. (2020). House Lawmakers Condemn Big Tech’s ‘Monopoly Power’ and Urge Their Breakups. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/technology/congress-big-tech-monopoly-power.html
Ovide, S. (2020). Congress Agrees: Big Tech Is Broken. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/technology/congress-big-tech.html
Video (GIF) by Leif Gann-Matzen.
Picture by Reuters.
