United States against the four giants of technology

For a long time, Internet giants have been targeted because of the enormous amount of information they manage and the way they protect the data of millions of users around the world.

For this reason, in Washington, politicians from all walks of life, They have come together to give a new battle against "the big four": Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon. Last Monday, the House of Representatives announced the opening of an investigation into the possible monopolistic behavior of these technology giants.

The debate about the power limits of these companies has shifted from theory to reality. The state knows that it has to start regulating these businesses – which even Mark Zuckerberg has proposed – and this in turn is a chess movement: "Hitting Silicon Valley is a good way to do politics ", slogan this article from Vox.

The initiative, which unites Republicans and Democrats, would lead to The first review of competition laws for decades and once again put technological technologies at the center of the controversy, which until a few years ago was considered the best in the world and is currently being criticized for its immense power, its management of user information. and serious in the context of elections, the spread of false news, false news or false information.

All against the technological

The first offensive came from the executive branch. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Ministry of JusticeThey were "distributed" to the four companies to investigate them. Apple and Google for the Department of Justice, Amazon and Facebook for the FTC. The announcement caused a fall in the stock market shares of the four companies. In the case of Zuckerberg's social network, they fell by 7, 51%. Alphabet (Google) lost 6.12%, Amazon 4.64% and Apple 1.01%.

The Congress initiative, in the current context of the current government, would be historic. "It's rare that there is such a consensus, but when that happens, extraordinary things happen," said Barry Lynn, founder of the Open Markets Institute and anti-concentration activist.

"We talked about 18 months of public hearings, Republicans and Democrats work together in perfect harmony, and these hearings educate lawmakers, the public, the executive and the media." The key lies in the use of Authority of the United States Congress to investigate and enlighten those societies that constitute a danger to our democracy. They represent the greatest threat to our democracy since the Second World War.. We must act now and with strength. And Congress has all the tools to do it, "said Lynn.

According to several experts, the US offensive against technology companies could lead to dismemberment, a proposal proposed a few months ago by Democrat Elizabeth Warren, presidential candidate.

Warren's proposal is to cut big tech companies in the United States because it considers that they have "too much power." It is believed that this offensive against the "big four" could be one of the main thrusts of the 2020 election campaign.

In Europe, things are not different. The European Commission has imposed on March 20 for the third time in less than two years, a heavy fine to Google for practices contrary to competition law in the European Union.

Chronicle of a war announced

A little more than a year ago, the data leak scandal from Cambridge Analytica on Facebook. This was the starting point of a crisis that first affected the company Mark Zuckerberg, then the rest of the technology giants.

Problems related to the use of social media information persisted despite the company's attempts to alter the perceptions of governments and users. Other businesses have also begun to suffer the same fate.

Google has been accused of fAvoid their research products and abuse their influence in the advertising market. In France, for this reason, measures have been imposed to control it. Facebook, in addition to not taking care of user data, is treated as a monopoly after buying Instagram and WhatsApp. Amazon controls half of the online business and would use this advantage to encourage sellers to use their platform. Apple is accused of monopoly position in the application market.

Companies have noticed the paradigm shift and are already acting accordingly. In 2017, the big four companies spent $ 55 million on lobbying practices, double that of 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which counts this type of contributions.