Market Power of Big Tech

Over months if not years, and over both sides of the “Big Pond,” Anti-Trust regulation has been contemplated to curb the concentrated power of “Big Tech” companies.

Five digital giants, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft which make up a quarter of the value of the S&P 500 in the United States, have been closely watched both by the US Congress and the European Union.

This power has made US markets less competitive, particularly in relation to Europe.

It has also been argued by the US and European Union that that as many as 50 odd Big Tech Companies, including the above mentioned are trying hard to hide behind “free speech claims” in order to avoid the repeal of the legal loophole known in the States as Section 230,that allows them to “gobble up” advertising revenue and act like media companies “without taking responsibility for the content they put out on their platforms.

We are told that they have too much political power and control much of the economy  that both the United States and the European Union plan to impose new and stricter regulation on a selected “hit list” of 20 of the most powerful internet giants including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple as early as December 2020 to subject these corporations to more stringent rules “in an effort to curb their market power”.

Will these monopolies lose their power on the internet?

It will be hard to imagine that the “Big Five of the Internet” who have dominated each of our use of the internet over years are going to sit back and watch their power or their money which they have accumulated over decades.

The fact that no one recognises is that these conglomerates perform their digital transactions which are valued not in dollars, but Data.

This makes it extremely hard to prove that they are an “economic harm” because these conglomerates also control access to the algorithms that help shape their transactions.

What does it mean in layman’s language?

Let me give you an example in today’s scenario. Companies in the United Kingdom collecting contact tracing data, say for pubs and restaurants which today 12 October 2020 have come into force, due to Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s new guidelines in England on association to stop the spread of Coronavirus, are in a very privileged position.

They are strangely harvesting customer information to sell this data required under Government guidelines, to agents of Big Tech companies.

The funny thing, or as I reckon which is a serious lapse in privacy, is that we are informed that these businesses have clauses allowing them to share information with “third parties,” which we are not privy to at present, with one of these so called “Contact Tracing Agencies” stating openly that it might store customer’s date for up to 25 years.

Other examples of loss of privacy thanks to current tech trends?

Can you imagine how lazy people are that they will hand over their handprints to say Amazon, so they don’t have to take out their pounds and pence from their wallets. 

Amazon wants shoppers to pay with the palm of the handprint stored in the Company’s files.

We are told that this online retail outlet, not fully satisfied with its e-commerce dominance, is now experimenting with the latest “palm of hand payment technology” at two of its cashless convenience stores in Seattle, Washington, USA, shortening lines of queues at its checkout counters.

The  new payment method of “Touch In/Touch Out” with the palm of your hand instead of cash or credit card – a “biometric tracking” poses a host of privacy concerns, including potential targeted hacking.                

Is there any doubt in Anti-Trust enforcement agencies in US and EU wanting to enforce stricter regulation?

The beginning and the end of Power by Big Tech Conglomerates? 

The outsized power of Corporations, or conglomerates, call it what you want, is under review, both in US and in the EU. Whether they can employ the control mechanisms necessary to control or even curb the power of big Tech is in doubt?

What we know at present or even what is anticipated in the near future is  just a list of rules based on the criteria such as the number of users any Big Tech Company has, or at best the market share of revenue generated by these conglomerates.

To monitor Big Tech in all its forms is a daunting task. This makes me ask the imponderable question, would we as the public Users of Big Tech, be burdened to keep our eyes wide open and check intrusion into our privacy, if governments fail to deliver?

Worst case scenario

Staying current with tech trends, keeping your eyes on the future, is not necessarily to know which tech is creeping into our daily lives. It is a necessary part of life and living in today’s Age.

Whether it is navigation maps, streaming, smartphone Apps, Home Personal Assistants, Smart Home Devices, we are seeing many of the Big Tech intrusion into our private lives. We too must hold ourselves as a responsible public.

What is highly likely in the not too distant future is the freedom to be  able to travel the world without our Passports or Identity Documents as we are,as our bio metric details as all on record.  We now have facial recognition, voice recognition, fingerprints, and perhaps “palm hand prints?

Best case scenario  

It is highly likely a best case scenario is that the EU could seek to break up” Big Tech Companies” or monitor their trading of goods, if they are found to be anti-competitive. 

Proposals for the so called “Digital Services Act” may be envisaged, which will seek to place more responsibility on Internet Platforms for policing illegal content on their platforms, as well as the products being sold by or through their Corporate names.

We have a “big haul” ahead of us.

Victor Cherubim