Where do you go when you need information? Whether it be chrome, the url, or maps- Google is the search monopoly. Bing and DuckDuckGo have a ~ 7% and 0.5% market share of search and Apple Maps has 11% of maps.
Why should Google’s search business be plucked away from the rest of its segments?
The ad business has been so lucrative for Google that they are able to lose money in other segments and destroy competition. The acquisition of open source mobile operating system Android allowed Google to sink mobile plays from Nokia, Blackberry, Amazon, and Microsoft. They licensed the software for free (anti-competitively) and once they achieved a duopoly with Apple they wrote the iPhone maker a check to ensure they were nearly 100% of mobile search. This anti-competitive behavior leaks into Alphabet’s (Google’s “parent company” organized in 2015) other ventures allowing them to go for power grabs in internet infrastructure and cutting edge technology.
While not considered a social media power Google has the largest video hosting site (YouTube) and the most popular email domain (Gmail). This additional personal information (on top of your search history and your location information from maps) allows Google to provide personalized search. When you are looking for information on the internet google will provide you a personalized result. This is too much power and influence. The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, its data.
Section 230- provides liability protection for distributors of content. This piece of the 1996 Telecommunication Act is having trouble fitting the social media age. Google is not responsible for the content that a third party publishes on YouTube or a bad comment because YouTube is a platform. YouTube does have an obligation to check content for copyright and restrict certain types of content. Like search, when you explore the media available on YouTube- Google again will provide a personalized result based upon what it knows about the user. YouTube has been purging counts for violating community guidelines. This means Google could be targeted for being a monopoly and it’s status as a publisher under a new section 230 if it editorializes the members of its community. These community guidelines give the “provider of an interactive computer service” unilateral ability to shape the content on their site via selective enforcement in kangaroo courts.
Facebooks case for antitrust is weaker. It relies on ad revenue just as Google does. It does lead the non-google companies in personalized data collection. It’s a good debate as to whether Google or Facebook has the more valuable data trove. Facebook does not have a monopoly. Facebook does engage in anticompetitive tactics. It’s primary tactic is purchasing their competitors (Instagram and WhatsApp). The backup tactic is to copy their competitors (Snapchat and TikTok). They are an easy target for an antitrust movement because breaking them up would be simply to reverse the acquisitions. Facebook does push Section 230 to the edge by engaging in editorial decisions about the content on their platform. The NY Post Hunter Biden story is the latest example of a social media giant acting as both a distributor and an editor. This position of being perceived as a partisan company/ scapegoat is like wearing a bright red target on your back when regulation is coming.
Amazon has questions to answer in the big tech anti trust push due to its anti-competitive tactics with competitors and its private label line of AmazonBasics. It has squeezed out e-commerce competitors like diapers.com in the past by losing money until their war chest overwhelmed the smaller companies. The AmazonBasics line now identifies high margin items that exist on the site, duplicates them, and then outrank them when searching amazon.com. Amazon does face strong competition with WalMart and has some possible headwinds with labor on the horizon. They are one of the few tech giants able to avoid the section 230 reckoning.
The section 230 reckoning. At a newspaper stories pass through an editors desk before being released for publishing. At a social media site they pass through an algorithm. The algorithm is making decisions based upon a number of factors on how to engage the user. The algorithm also happens to be a unique asset to the company. The growth of TikTok is due to its algorithm/ recommendation engine. TikTok is really good at giving people short form video content that keeps them on the platform.
A new section 230. Politicians on both sides of the aisle see their power and influence waning to these tech giants. The top 5 tech companies comprise 1/4 of the the S&P 500.
A new section 230 has to establish which ingredients cannot go into an algorithm for it to be considered exempt from liability. Reducing distribution of stories that negatively affect your preferred presidential candidate would be an example of something that should be prohibited. Deplatforming and locking up accounts for violations of selectively enforced community guidelines is also going to have to be examined in the next set of rules.
The Ohioan 