Thursday, November 15, 2018

The case for anti-trust regulation of big tech


Tim Wu writes in Wired about how the tech giants got away with not being regulated.
...In total, Facebook managed to string together 67 unchallenged acquisitions, which seems impressive, unless you consider that Amazon undertook 91 and Google got away with 214 (a few of which were conditioned). In this way, the tech industry became essentially composed of just a few giant trusts: Google for search and related industries, Facebook for social media, Amazon for online commerce. While competitors remained in the wings, their positions became marginalized with every passing day.

...Facebook, supposedly, is not building a global empire of influence so much as “bringing the world closer together.” It's a “different kind of company that connects billions of people.” To do that right, however, requires a global monopoly. Meanwhile, Google wants to organize the world’s information, but to do so it needs to get its hands on all the information in the world. Amazon, meanwhile, wants nothing more than to serve the consumer, which is great, and you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

If there is a sector more ripe for the reinvigoration of antitrust regulation, I do not know it.
Read more here.

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