Too Big to Fail Already?
Can you imagine a day without Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, and Instagram? Most of the younger generations could hardly live without them for a single day, and many of the adults especially professionals could not as well.
Founded with the pure nature of making profits, companies like Facebook and Google never meant to become monopolies, yet they are still being considerably influential in many aspects. As Patricof, the founder of venture capital giant Greycroft has said on “Squawk on the Street”, “They’ve had an inexorable growth beyond anyone’s original expectations and as a result, they’ve become too big and too pervasive in our whole lives.” The fact is, IT giants like Facebook and Google are overly powerful and they are still growing rapidly.
Before anyone could look deeper into the problem, the foremost question should be asked is: What are they?
What Are They: What Facebook and Google Really Are?
Beyond doubt, IT giants like Facebook and Google are far more complicated than their appearance to the customers in the market. Facebook is not merely a virtual place for people so enjoy free social networking, and it is for sure not simply an emerging social media platform in competition with leading online media. Similarly, Google is not simply running for objective information searches, nor are they thriving upon email and calendar services.
As a matter of fact, billions of users with their respective online behaviors are feeding Facebook and Google with the nutrition they need for overwhelming control over the market. Embracing countless amounts of data and people’s online activities, Facebook and Google could thrive from all the resources and information that no other market players could ever get hands-on. Willingly, not even the U.S. government could possibly acquire such a massive amount of data that is detailing people’s daily life. Therein, Facebook and Google transformed from an ordinary internet company to an integrated online platform for all businesses for the past decades.
Currently, it is beyond imagination for a business owner to conduct advertising and marketing propaganda without interaction with Facebook and Google. An indispensable role being played by Facebook and Google are somehow equally influential compared to government regulators. An interesting fact is that although all business runners and regulators are all aware of what Facebook and Google really are, it is more than challenging to shake their position in the global market, let along the pioneering roles they are playing at the U.S. market.
How Misinformation and Disinformation Come?
Regardless of our rooted daily usage of Facebook and Google, some in the U.S. congress may think differently on the indispensability of these companies and the power they have. Critical topics concerning all internet users are ethics and information safety. Any company in possession of such an amount of user data would call for regulatory concerns, whereas when it should be a simple problem to take proper control over Facebook and Google, a lack of up-to-date legal clauses rendered the problem tougher than it should have been.
According to the current U.S. Antitrust Laws, most of the legal regulations reside on traditional trust issues on a non-digital basis rather than online business activities. An overtly old definition of monopoly is to make a judgment upon the rising prices manipulated by the monopolies. Nevertheless, Facebook and Google bear no intention to raise the market cost, nor have they shown any sign to lower it. It is hard to apply an Antitrust Law enacted since the late 19th and early 20th centuries on modern companies, especially in that the Antitrust Law of American shed light mostly on conventional industries like mining and oil conglomerates.
Without an applicable definition from the law clauses, the Federal Trade Commission has to use proper terms when opening the antitrust investigation into large companies like Facebook and Google. Therein, misinformation and disinformation became the terms for Facebook and Google in their handlings of massive user data acquired and used without legal regulations.
In particular, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared at the FTC joint hearing, misinformation has been termed as inappropriate usage of user data without clear and full disclosure of their methodologies; meanwhile, disinformation was a generalized description of selectively unraveling the full picture of all data Facebook possess when it faces the business market. Social media, the place where the user population is heavily concentrated, has been the primary focus of FTC toward Facebook as grey areas in data collection as well as information uses are happening more frequently than the public realize.
Are Google and Facebook Being Too Powerful?
While there is no conclusive research on the extent to which Google and Facebook wield their powers over the market or the regulatory offices, it is unarguable that the two companies are already rooted deeply in our lives and is way more powerful than normal. It is hard to think of a company that could even rival against Facebook and Google in their respective territory, not even Microsoft and other IT giants considering their smaller coverage of data sources into the general public.
Another clear indicator of their overwhelming power could be drawn from the public appealing of breaking up the big techs like Facebook and Google by U.S. senators and congressmen from Washington D.C. and other states. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Open Markets Institutes said, “The world is going to be better off after we break up these companies,” and similar voices came from senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign billboard. It is no longer a public debate among people that if Facebook and Google are too big to a normal and regular market.
What Can Be Done So Far?
More and more voices since FTC’s joint hearing on IT giants are to break up companies like Facebook and Google so as to cast limits on their thriving business empire. However, it raises a legal problem to simply ban a company from merge and acquisition or normal business growth because of its company size. Furthermore, it is not necessarily the market share of a certain company that gave birth to the antitrust problem, it is the way companies treating data and private information that raises public concern.
Personally speaking, I believe that one should first recognize the problem before he/she could come to a possible solution for the information usage issue. The status quo is misinformation and disinformation thanks to the wide application of user data throughout our regular activity. Facebook and Google are taking advantage of the grey area in the U.S. Antitrust Law and use the information to the extent best benefit their ongoing businesses. For instance, information retrieved from a search engine or ‘like’ clicking behaviors are being taken directly for the better advertising on their own website regardless of the willingness and legal rights of doing thusly. FTC’s hearing and investigation among leading companies are an exploration to establish industry standards to better regulate the market and protect the public.
With the problem been identified, I am prone to Patricof’s idea in publicizing the data so as to equalize the right of using or banning with one universal standard. Patricof said to the CNBC, “The amount of data available to Facebook and Google, which only increases each time the companies acquire smaller competitors, puts them in an unfair position.” By putting all legal data together with equal rights to access them might actually be a viable way to cast a better limit on Facebook and Google. Compared to arbitrarily ban business giants from further merging companies, or to simply segregate them with legal actions, granting fair rights and transparent policies on information usage might bring us a promising future.
