Category Archives: Big Tech

Finally, weve reached bipartisan consensus on Big Tech, yay everyone! At least thats the line the press is echoing ad nauseum. Facebook Whistleblower Reignites Bipartisan Support for Curbing Big Tech, the Financial Times trumpeted last week after Frances Haugens Senate testimony on Facebook. Lawmakers Send Big Tech a Bipartisan Antitrust Message, Newsweek wrote a day later. For more than a year, but especially after last weeks US Senate hearing, the media has been increasingly suggesting that Democrats and Republicans are setting aside their long-standing disagreements on tech policy.

But beyond their triumphant headlines, many of these articles note (often clumsily) that the consensus is merely an opinion that some kind of regulation for Big Tech is needed. This is where the idea of bipartisan consensus crumbles, and where the danger in this expression lies.

Its true that in the past few years American lawmakers have become far more outspoken about Silicon Valley technology giants, their products and services, and their market practices. Yet merely agreeing that something must be done, and on that alone, is about as superficial as bipartisan consensus gets. Elected representatives of both parties still have disagreements about what that something is, why that something should happen, and what the problems are in the first place. All these factors are shaping both the proposed regulations in Congress and the path forward to making them reality.

On top of this, the media separating national politics from the tech legislation process only threatens to repeat the problems of the last several decades, where imagining technology as non-political is conducive to regulators and society ignoring dangers right in front of them. This overblown rhetoric skews analysis of the difficult road ahead to real, substantive regulationand just how many threats to democracy (and democratic tech legislation) lie from within.

For decades, liberal democracies from the United States to France to Australia consistently touted the internet as a free, secure, and resilient golden child of democracy. US leaders in particular, from Bill Clintons Jell-O-to-a-wall speech in 2000 to the State Departments so-called internet freedom agenda of 2010, hailed the webs power to topple authoritarianism worldwide. Left alone, this logic went, democratic governments could enable the internet to be as pro-democracy as possible.

The groundswell of calls to regulate Big Tech today is no small change. While its tempting to see this shift as unilateral, some parts of the media often forget that tech is not a monolith and that many disparate incidents have led to many disparate calls for regulation: the Equifax data breach, the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, Russian ransomware attacks, Covid misinformation, disinformation campaigns targeting Black voters, uses of racist and sexist algorithms, abusive police uses of surveillance technology, and on and on. Not all lawmakers care equally, or at all, about these issues.

Data breaches and ransomware would seem to be two areas with the greatest potential for consensus legislation; members of Congress hardly stand up to profess their belief in lowering the cybersecurity bar and making their constituents vulnerable to attacks. Earlier this year, after multiple, significantly damaging ransomware attacks launched from within Russia, members of both parties condemned the behavior and highlighted how Congress and the White House could respond by sanctioning Russian actors and investing more in domestic security. The House and Senate held ransomware hearings in July, building on important civil society work to drive bipartisan responses to the threat.

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There Is No Bipartisan Consensus on Big Tech - WIRED

Margrethe Vestager, European Commission executive vice president and commissioner for competition, has a game plan to protect whistleblowers. | POLITICO Illustration

Margrethe Vestager has been waiting for an administration like this the European Unions top tech cop says its a dream come true to have a president in the White House whos dedicated to reeling in Big Tech. But what will that EU-U.S. cooperation look like? Thats what host Ryan Heath wants to know. Also on the docket: Vestagers game plan to protect whistleblowers, plus her own rules for tech at home.

I think it's really, really interesting what is happening in the U.S. right now both on competition law enforcement and the signals sent there, with Lina [Khan]s appointment, with [Jonathan] Kanter, with the executive order. That is like a dream come true to see a president take that kind of interest in so many different markets. - Margrethe Vestager, European Commission executive vice president and commissioner for competition

I know this sounds like a slogan, but it's better to have 80 percent now than 100 percent never. And this is basically where you are on taxation: If you're asking for perfect, you're never going to get it. But if we could get a floor under corporate taxation and we could get sort of a fair distribution of taxing rights, we would have taken a major step towards tax justice. This ought to happen this autumn.

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Europe's top 'tech cop' is ready to take on Big Tech with America - POLITICO

I think a lot of people across the country saw candidate Biden as a centrist moderate, said Carl Szabo, vice president of NetChoice, a coalition with members including Facebook, Google and Amazon. And it turns out that he is definitely interested in advancing left-wing and progressive politics at all levels of the government, including at the antitrust level.

A flyer circulated by NetChoice in Congress last week urged senators to oppose Kanters nomination, accusing the Biden administration of trying to con Republicans into supporting a progressive advocate, NOT an impartial enforcer who would use antitrust enforcement to circumvent Congress to advance progressive policies.

Equally caught off guard were antitrust observers on both sides of the debate those who believe increased regulation would ensure competition and protect consumers, and others who say breakups and overregulation hurt innovation and U.S. global competitiveness.

After Donald Trumps victory in the 2016 presidential election, there was a genuine reflection on the approach to economic policy among the Democratic establishment and a realization that there was a critical field of policy that they never paid attention to, said Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, which favors stricter regulations.

They needed to turn the page for their agenda to succeed, Miller said. And that, even to my surprise, is what they have done.

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Biden's nominees show embrace of progressive views of Big Tech - Roll Call

We need something like the EPA to curb the lies that pollute social media

In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire as a result of many years of factory pollution spewing into the river. During the same period, the Charles River was off limits as a result of pollution spewed from upland sources (the Standells, Dirty Water). These events, among other episodes, spawned the Environmental Protection Agency in the early 1970s. Today, both rivers are cleaned up and represent recreational resources available to the communities they serve. I think most people would agree that the birth of the EPA was pivotal in creating the natural environment we enjoy today.

Now, in 2021, we have a different kind of pollution, spewing from far-right pundits who widely spread lies related to COVID-19, the 2020 election, the Sandy Hook school shooting, and other concerns, fueling hate and distrust among the ignorant and gullible. The minimalist approach discussed by Hiawatha Bray in his Oct. 6 Tech Lab column (Big Tech is a major problem. Big Government might make it worse, Business), I fear, would be totally ineffective. Rather, I suggest that, just as the EPA was created to fight environmental pollution nationwide, tough laws regulating so-called free speech be enacted to control todays selfish, irresponsible behavior. Holding Internet platforms that enable distribution of such filth accountable, as we did with factories of old, would be a good start.

Tom Pawlina

Melrose

Protecting public from falsehood is a legitimate function of government

In Big Tech is a major problem. Big Government might make it worse, Hiawatha Bray seems confused by the notion of truth. Citing statements by White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Senator Elizabeth Warren, he asserts that they wish to silence speech they find objectionable. In both cases, they were referring to false health claims, not differences of opinion. And while it may shock Bray, this is a legitimate function of government. Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration regularly decide the truth of health claims, protecting the American public from fraud and threats to their health. Does Bray believe that these agencies are making things worse?

Saul Tannenbaum

Cambridge

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Big Tech, Big Government, bigger concerns - The Boston Globe

Facebook has been in hot water before. But this time could be different.

In these fights to regulate telecom and tech, the tech side is coming with a much bigger and deeper army than the civil society side, and certainly much deeper pools of people than these congressional offices that are charged with writing this legislation, carrying out hearings, asking the right questions and zeroing in on the right issues, Hempowicz said. [Congress] is dramatically outmatched.

Klobuchar, who leads the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, complained Oct. 5 that legislative action on tech has stalled because of the sheer volume of lobbyists that the companies have hired. Every time I think Ive got something done, some other lobbyist pops up, she said in an interview during a break in a hearing with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

Later the same day, Klobuchars deputy legislative director and counsel April Jones announced in an email to Senate staff that she is leaving to join Apples government affairs team. Im excited about my next chapter, the tech and telecom expert wrote in the email obtained by POLITICO.

Jones is far from alone. An exodus of top tech staffers has particularly struck the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over most tech and telecom issues.

John Branscome, the panels leading Democratic tech staffer, joined Facebook's federal policy team this month. Shawn Bone, his deputy, left for Verizon. And Lara Muldoon left the office of committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) this year to join the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech trade group, as its senior director of government affairs.

Such departures can make passing complicated legislation more difficult.

You always hate to lose the really talented ones that have been there a while, who not only know the policy well but know the potential pitfalls and opportunities and the best way to get your policy moved into law because it's not always a straight line, said former House Energy and Commerce Chair Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who retired last year after spending decades negotiating tech topics.

I would say these, call them old hands, they knew those opportunities really well, to get things done, added Walden, whose consulting work includes tech and telecom clients. And the leverage points.

Blame the atmosphere as well as longtime institutional struggles for retaining this talent, according to longtime watchers of Congress.

2021 created a perfect storm fueling these departures, said one of the congressional staffers who left for industry this year, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. That ex-staffer tallied the combination of Covid pandemic restrictions, the Jan. 6 insurrection by pro-Trump supporters and the breakdown in camaraderie among Democrats and Republicans. The individual also noted what may be an ideal hiring window for longtime Democrats theyre in high demand given the partys leadership role, but that window could soon close given 2022 midterm elections that could put Republicans in charge of the House or Senate.

Its also hard to avoid the significant pay disparities between Capitol Hill staffers, who typically make anywhere between $35,000 and $150,000 per year depending on their position, and industry lobbyists, who can make significantly more, particularly in the wealthy tech and telecom sectors.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently announced that she was raising the salary cap for senior aides to $199,300, more than almost any members of Congress earn. But aides and lawmakers have fretted that such steps may not be enough to stop staff from fleeing.

It's hard to keep very talented people here when the private sector is offering so much more money, Rep. Mike Doyle, the Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the House Energy and Commerce telecom subcommittee, told POLITICO. They have families and careers to think about. You get people that want to come back, they go out for a while and make some money and then they want to come back.

Pelosis move to uncap staff salaries may help, though, Doyle added.

Some lawmakers argue that Congress needs additional ways to build up its dedicated policy expertise, beyond relying on any one staffer or committee, such as reviving the long-dormant Office of Technology Assessment that House Republicans defunded in the 1990s. Such efforts have faltered in recent years, despite attempts to bring back the research arm in light of the Hills tussles with tech giants.

Some lawmakers and observers say the staff churn can bring an unexpected upside by uncorking longtime impasses, at least once new employees get up to speed. Departures can free up the gears and let things move, Walden argued, pointing to the benefit of fresh eyes.

One Capitol Hill staffer who works on tech issues, who requested anonymity to speak frankly, said many of the recent departures have been institutionalists who were wary of aggressive changes, particularly on issues like overhauling the 1996 law that shields online companies from many lawsuits. The staffer expressed optimism that new aides will be less beholden to the status quo.

Another cause of Congress talent drain is the Biden administration, which has hired Democratic staffers for White House and agency jobs though Hill veterans say this too can bring policy benefits. These transitions often give senior lawmakers a familiar ear in the administration on tech and telecom issues and can harmonize approaches between Congress and the executive branch.

Multiple House Energy and Commerce tech staff have landed in such roles: Biden nominated the panels telecom and consumer protection chief counsel, Alex Hoehn-Saric, to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission, while Doyles longtime telecom aide Phil Murphy is now a senior adviser at the Commerce Departments National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees debates about expanding broadband, protecting data privacy and allocating spectrum. Cantwell aides have landed legislative affairs positions at the White House Office of Science and Technology and the Commerce Department.

Some people downplayed the turnover as normal for Congress, saying many smart individuals are ready to jump into the vacant Hill roles.

People come and go, and the place doesn't fall apart, Doyle remarked. It's amazing, isn't it?

Indeed, Cantwell just announced she is filling a committee telecom staff vacancy with a longtime staffer for Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Doyle quickly filled his aides role with an ex-staffer who worked for former Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). Even so, these hires have spent years working for big industry players, a fact that will do little to soothe concerns about Washingtons revolving door. The new Cantwell senior counsel had previously spent years at Charter Communications, and Doyles staffer spent years at wireless trade group CTIA.

Walden saw a practical side to this revolving door for staffers, remarking that so many of them just get so bored in their industry jobs that they can't wait to get back into the middle of things and come back to the Hill for a lot less pay.

But others warn that Congress needs an unvarnished perspective to properly wrestle with the deep, monied interests at play. Hurd says lawmakers themselves need to develop the working knowledge to address these complexities.

We are in those moments you want your public servants to have the staff and the resources they need to effectively stand up to industry, Hempowicz cautioned.

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Big tech sweeps up Hill staffers just when Congress needs them the most - POLITICO

Former Facebook employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee last week that Facebook and some other social media companies allow their platforms to be used for anti-democratic, divisive and hateful purposes. She also alleged, while providing documents stolen when she worked as a product manager at Facebook, that the company had in its possession research that proved this but that its leadership ignores the research because the company makes huge profits from the contentious and vitriolic content posted on its platform.

Much of this discussion has been pitched as a problem of technology and policy with global implications. But little attention has been given to the implications for local communities. I see three potential areas of concern for local-government officials: First, many fringe groups are using news feeds and content from social media to target public officials, even to the point of threatening their lives. Second, local governments are either purchasing technology or outsourcing network infrastructure to private firms that utilize some of the same technology that Facebook and others are under fire for. And finally, local governments are offering Facebook, Google and other Big Tech firms lucrative tax breaks to lure their operations to their communities.

Sadly, the issues raised by Haugen before Congress and on 60 Minutes are hard for some to understand. Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social media and search platforms collect a large amount of data on users through web cookies and other tracking technologies. What is problematic is what happens next: Facebook and other companies use the data to determine preferences and tastes and then target users with ads and content using algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Then there is the problem of content itself. The algorithmic amplification process sometimes takes users to sites they are not looking for. Recently, when I was searching for pro-civil rights sites, I was redirected to sites of organizations opposed to civil rights. I immediately recognized the problem, but what if I was a young student who was not as familiar with the topic or how Internet searches work? This problem has implications for both information integrity and education.

An equally serious problem, and one that is harder to detect, is when algorithms are set up in a way that results in discriminatory outcomes against women, racial and ethnic groups, or low-income individuals. My daughter, applying for a position recently with a technology firm, used a lot of strange jargon of which I was unfamiliar in her letter of interest. I asked her why. She told me she had read on a social media site that the initial batch of letters and rsums were screened by applicant tracking system technology that looked for certain keywords. If these words and phrases were missing, your application would be automatically kicked out.

Finally, I believe one of the most important questions local governments will have to answer is whether they should continue to subsidize the move of Big Tech companies into their communities if it is determined that any of Haugens allegations are true. Many companies come to local governments promising to bring hundreds of good-paying data center jobs and broadband for underserved communities. Facebook is building a data center in an industrial park whose campus bestrides land in three counties about 45 miles east of Atlanta, and as far as I can tell no one asked about user data or AI issues. In fact, mayors and county executives often brag about luring a big firm to their jurisdiction.

I recommend that local officials pay close attention to the congressional hearings underway and assess for themselves the larger impact these companies might be having on society. Are hate groups using the platforms to mount insurrection against our democracy? Are our most fragile residents, children and the poor, exploited by these technologies because they depend on them as their primary information source? And are the platforms deliberately separating us and making it difficult for us to form consensus and be civil to one another?

Facebook and the other titans of Big Tech, the chairman of the committee before which Haugen testified told his Senate colleagues, are facing their Big Tobacco moment. Are the dangers of this largely unregulated industry equivalent to those of the tobacco industry of the past? Tobacco companies knew their products caused cancer and were addictive, but they made huge profits, so they ignored the dangers to society. If the allegations leveled by Haugen and others turn out to be true, we might end up paying a bigger cost this time around: the loss of democracy and civilization. It's too high a price to pay.

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How Big Tech Threatens the Culture of Our Communities - Governing

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Facebook and Google will have to provide reams of detailed information on how political groups target people via online ads or face steep fines, according to European Commission draft proposals seen by POLITICO.

The proposals, which the Commission is expected to unveil on November 23, aim to protect elections from undisclosed political ads, stop political parties from misusing social media and combat the manipulation of voters through microtargeting the practice at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.

Brussels wants to boost transparency around online political ads by forcing partisan groups and the world's largest platforms to disclose more information about who is buying ads and the types of people they are targeting. These changes, it argues, could stop European Union elections from falling victim to underhanded political tactics, and allow voters to understand who is peppering them with political messaging.

But in its upcoming proposals, the EU executive stopped short of outlawing all microtargeting despite a public consultation showing strong appetite for more stringent restrictions on how political groups find would-be voters.

While the proposals could still change, the internal impact assessment study obtained by POLITICO had two main recommendations for policing political ads: The first would allow national governments to continue regulating these online messages, while pushing for greater coordination across the 27-country bloc. The second proposes an EU-wide system of transparency requirements, for both social media companies and European political parties, as well as more coordinated enforcement if groups break the law.

In the draft document, the Commission backed the second option, which "would best meet the general objectives of the intervention and would mutually establish a coherent and proportionate framework for political ads in the EU," it concluded.

Demands for the EU to overhaul the policing of political ads stem back to the 2019 Parliament elections, when major platforms imposed new transparency requirements on who could buy political ads online. But those systems turned out to be clunky, difficult to enforce and were limited to how individual EU countries enforced their own rules around partisan paid-for messaging.

EU-wide political groups and European advocacy groups were also critical, saying the rules made it hard for them to conduct campaigns.

Facebook, Google's YouTube and Twitter have implemented their own voluntary initiatives to limit interference and disinformation during elections.Twitter has banned political ads altogether, while Facebook and Google have imposed limits and a brief moratorium ahead of the U.S. election in November but still allow partisan groups to target users with ads.

Still, these initiatives did little to stem the flow of money into online political ads. Millions of euros have been spent on them in the EU since April 2019, some by the Commission itself, according to data from Facebook and Google. In comparison, billions of euros have been spent in the United States over the same period.

In response, some European lawmakers have called for an outright ban on targeted advertising. They point to concerns about the use of personal data and risks to democracy from splicing up the electorate into bite-sized groups of voters.

In the draft text, Commission officials floated the possibility of a ban on political targeted ads. In a public consultation as part of the internal assessment, EU officials also noted that 58 percent of respondents backed additional limits on targeted political ads, including a ban or opt-in by users.

But the Commission eventually decided to reject such a moratorium, arguing that smaller political groups would be penalized if they weren't allowed to target groups of voters. The EU executive branch argued in the document that greater transparency requirements, as part of new rules targeting political ads, would "allow for greater public scrutiny of differentiated political campaign messaging and will empower citizens to hold political actors more accountable for their different messages and promises.

"Ageneral ban on the use of targetingwas discarded as disproportionate," the Commission concluded.

The political advertising proposals will complement the European Union's content moderation rules, known as the Digital Services Act. That separate bill will impose fines of up to 6 percent of firms' yearly revenue if they do not comply with provisions that include regular audits of how firms are handling potential harmful content, and demand greater transparency around how algorithms promote material in people's news feeds.

As part of the proposed overhaul, the Commission wants platforms to disclose how much is spent on particular campaigns, who is the buyer and whether the ad was amplified by an algorithm. Buyers will also have to open up about the criteria used for targeting users such as their ages, gender, interests, and the time period when the ad was shown.Such requirements go well beyond what companies already provide voluntarily.

The firms already give some of that information via publicly-available databases. But Brussels believes they should give all voters and third parties granular information on how people are targeted and what data has been used to pinpoint them. These rules, when passed after consultation with the European Parliament and member countries, would be mandatory and represent a steep change in current voluntary rules associated with online political ads.

Experts argue that voluntary transparency requirements often fail to clarify who is behind a campaign.

New York University researchers found that more than half of Facebook pages that had displayed political ads in the United States during a 13-month period concealed the identities of their buyers. POLITICO also discovered evidence of political groups not being open about their partisan ties when they have targeted voters via social media.

The Commission also will recommend tech companies adopt a common standard for classifying information about online ads. Currently, the information comes in different formats, making it impossible to compare ad information between different platforms. Tech companies would also need to comply with a universal definition of what constitutes a political ad.

If the Commission gets its way, social media firms would be required to limit the microtargeting of voters if political organizations fail to notify the companies that an ad is political in nature. Those limits to undisclosed ads, which would have to be discovered by the tech giants or outside groups, could apply "beyond electoral periods," according to the document.

The Commission's proposals aren't solely limited to Big Tech, but will also apply to Europe's political parties, who will be required to disclose information about their spending on political ads and how they are targeting people via the social media platforms. The EU executive will recommend that EU countries adopt similar standards for national parties and enforce the same transparency and enforcement standards around political ads across the bloc.

"Self-regulation is not a viable option for large platforms," the Commission concluded in the draft text. "Private actors act as de facto enablers and or quasi-regulators of political ads."

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Big Tech to be forced to hand over data on political ads - POLITICO.eu

But its not the only sign the seemingly inevitable breaching of the wall of traditional finance by Big Tech companies may itself be facing enormous disruption.

"The Chinese Communist Party emphasised the priority of greater financial equality through the economy by making sure huge companies dont garner too much power.

Along with these measures in China, Google has abandoned long held plans to launch its own banking service, Plex, and the threats from Apple and Amazon seem, for the moment, to have moderated. Even on the startup front, the fintech assault has dispersed: most recently Monzo, one of the UKs highest profile neobanks, was refused a banking licence in the US while the developing trend of fintech startups being acquired or networked into incumbents continues.

However, new threats to banks do continue to emerge. The US postal service has become the latest in a long history of post offices to see banking as a potential way to enhance revenues in the franchise. The Financial Revolutionist reported the US Postal Service is launching a pilot program in four cities in an effort to deliver financial services to underserved Americans.

Idiosyncrasies

In its decision, the Chinese Communist Party emphasised the priority of greater financial equality through the economy by making sure huge companies such as Ant dont garner too much power and become too central in the social economy.

(it is) necessary," President Xi Jinping said, to "reasonably regulate excessively high incomes, and encourage high-income people and enterprises to return more to society.

These developments all have their own idiosyncrasies, whether that be governmental, corporate or regulatory. But taken together they complicate the narrative that Big Techs scale, financial resources, customer experience expertise, data, and network power would render traditional financial institutions nothing more than service providers.

Ant and Chinese rivals including Tencent, which owns WeChat Pay, are actually the most advanced tech companies in the world when it comes to integrating financial services into a much broader social media ecosystem.

They bring together ecommerce, instant messaging, mobile payments and financial services, deep networks and an extraordinary body of customer knowledge into an ecosystem far more complex and valuable than any bank.

Its not just a Chinese phenomenon, of course. Thats why Amazon, Google and Apple have all deeply embedded at least some financial services offerings into their own ecosystems whether they originated in ecommerce, search or devices.

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Big Tech bank invasion halted at the moat - BlueNotes

I keep writing about the insane amounts of dollars that big tech companies are generating in revenue and profits. Yet even more impressive is the expense that the tech giants are making to keep their businesses running and on a growth path for many years to come.

I have watched, my jaw drop, as the five biggest superstars in the American tech industry Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook have squandered on expensive investments for their businesses. That includes specialized equipment to assemble iPhones, massive data centers, underwater internet cables that send YouTube videos to your phone at full speed, and warehouses for Amazon workers to assemble and ship orders.

Spending companies on physical assets designed to last for many years capital investment, for the geek-is one of the best ways to get a glimpse of how big tech companies use their success to become even more successful.

In the past year, according to financial statements, the combined profits of these five companies rose more than 25 percent. The tech giants have the cash and the permission of their investors to spend just about anything to stay on top. It is an advantage that few companies can match.

One example: In the last year, UPS spent the equivalent of about 5 cents of every dollar of its sales on more planes, trucks, delivery warehouses, equipment to handle packages and software to manage it all, according to the companys financial statements. From the information released by Amazon, I estimate that a similar category of company spending equates to 13 cents for every dollar of its sales.

UPS and Amazon dont exactly do the same thing. Amazons top investments include technology hubs for its cloud computing business. UPS makes deliveries for many businesses, while Amazon for the most part handles package delivery from its own business.

Both companies have done excellently in the online shopping pandemic. However, UPS is reducing its spending on long-lived assets while Amazon is spending much more each year.

The good news is that this is exactly what we want rich and successful companies to do: invest a large chunk of their wealth in improving their business, for their benefit and ours. When Microsoft spends a lot of money on upgrading its computer centers, it helps all businesses that use the online versions of Excel and Outlook. When Amazon equips its warehouses with new assembly lines, orders can be moved more efficiently to our homes.

This can shock us and still make us wonder if there is someone who can be at the investment level of the big tech companies.

Article Source

Disclaimer: This article is generated from the feed and not edited by our team.

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Spending is the superpower of big tech companies - Market Research Telecast

Colonialism has left a deep and enduring mark on the world. Its roots have anchored themselves across the globe, and its long shadow maintains an unequal balance of power and wealth between the Global North and South.

There are many architects of colonialism, with the East India Company and its complex history of trade monopolies, war and slavery among the most notorious. The company established infrastructure, like railroads and ports, in foreign lands to extract raw materials, which, in turn, were used to manufacture goods. Many of these were often even sold back to the countries from which the materials were taken.This method allowed many imperialist entities to substantially expand their wealth at the expense of others.

Although these practices are largely confined to the past, some suggest big tech companies are following in their footsteps. These companies are, too, accused of engaging in trade monopolies, play a key role in the industry of war, and are even swept up in allegations of benefitting frommodern slaveryprevalent in supply chains. Where goods once traded included cotton, silk or tea, today theyre minerals mined to make electronic components, and information. Although the days of the East India Company areover, is big techtoday partaking in a form of modern colonialism by entrenching themselves in the new power networks of technology and data?

Digital colonialism, says Michael Kwet, a visiting fellow at Yale Law Schools Information Society Project, is the use of technology for the political, economic, and social domination of another territory. Its principally achieved through the ownership and control of the digital ecosystem, comprising software, hardware, network connectivity, data, platforms, and intellectual property (IP). Kwet adds the US is by far the leader, with China and Europe vying to close the gap, alongside some Global South-based corporations seeking to impose their influence abroad, in what he terms South-on-South colonialism.

Big tech takes advantage of a borderless internet to impose its products and services in poorer countries, maintaining its dominance by retaining control over technology and property. This means the Global North, in effect, controls a potentially highly lucrative part of their respective economies, Kwet says making inroads before local companies can. Uber, for instance, had set up in Africabefore African companies could compete on the same footing. Global South populations, in turn, play the role of passive user, consumer, and producer of low-level goods and services, ranging from mining to sweatshop labour.

Colonialists of the past established trade monopolies, frequently engaged in warfare and built the slave trade industry

To expand its empire across the Global South, Kwet says tech firms employvarious tactics. They setthe rules, like IP, and seizethe first-mover advantage. They also take advantage of networks by blocking interoperability between platforms, which could allow many services to operate instead of just a few.

Instead of colonising the land and establishing infrastructure for extraction, Kwet continues, through digital colonialism, tech giants colonise the technology for data extraction and rent. He adds that networks like Facebook extract data, process it on server farms, and use it to provide services in a scenario in which the South cannot compete. He explains the North also has heavy machinery in place, like cloud centres, that are required for data-driven services. Kwet says these arent easy to replicate,and are comparable to machinery once used to drill deep beneath the surface to mine minerals like diamonds and gold.

Big tech takes advantage of relationship patterns that were established historically, argues Olufunmilayo Arewa, Shusterman professor of business and transactional law at Temple University. In Africa, she says, European powers once exercised control over social, political, and economic institutions, with countries integrated into the global economic system primarily as a source of raw materials, including peopleand agricultural products. The colonies, in turn, imported manufactured goods from the powers that controlled them. Arewa believes these patterns are mirrored in the modern era, as African nations still maintain similar economic relationships with external powers with an added digital dynamic.

African countries are an important source of raw materials for the industrial and digital economies, including metals such as tantalum, which is important for electronic components, she says. Many countries in Africa, however, remain economically marginalised, in important respects, and a capacity gap is evident, particularly in key skills needed in the digital economy.

She says the introduction of new technologies draws attention to lawmaking within Africa, as many current laws and regulations were put in place before the digital revolution. The poor fit of existing regulations, many of which may predate modern technologies and business practices, isan issue of ongoing contestation globally, with the lack of regulatory oversight giving tech companies a green light to experiment in various territories as they see fit.

Undoing digital colonialism, Arewa suggests, would involve establishing relationships not built on colonial parallels. This would mean engaging with countries in the Global South as partners, rather than grounds for exploitation, she says. Several measures can be adopted from a trade perspective, meanwhile, according to Abhijit Das, head of the Centre for World Trade Organisation (WTO) Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. He believes there should be no obligations on digital issues in free trade agreements at the WTO, such as forcing countries to liberalise e-commerce, with these agreements now the most important legal instrument for exacerbating digital colonisation. Countries should also have the flexibility to impose restrictions on cross-border data flows, and mandate localisation of servers within their territory. This, Abhijit says, will help developing countries create a vibrant domestic digital sector without becoming dependent on imports of digital products.

He adds countries must also be able to tax digital players, and nations must not be arm-twisted into not imposing taxes on foreign suppliers of digital services either. This is on top of governments being able to sufficiently regulate the digital sector, in light of provisions in existing trade agreements that tie the hands of governments.

The continued appropriation of data from the stream of the collective human experience is a phenomenon of historical significance, comparable with the original land grab, says Nick Couldry, professor of media, communications and social theory at LSE. He believes this data colonialism exacerbates historic power dynamics with regards to the worlds resourcesgiven that data, and the value derived from it, represents a completely new type of asset to grab and appropriate.

The continued appropriation of databy companies thriving in Silicon Valleyhas been likened to the original land grab

Couldry adds historiccolonialism evolved over the course of four centuries into complex imperialist political structures and cultures of racism. Its much too early to say, therefore, if data colonialism will ever evolve in the same way. He says, however, the underlying principles of colonialism, which centred on imposing Western superiority to appropriate resources across the world, will continue through the rhetoric of big data. This language of dataism, he adds, is based around the idea that the maximum amount of data must always be gathered, whatever the cost.

Data colonialism can, in principle, thrive everywhere, so it takes place not only in the Global South but also in the North. Ultimately, though, the key targets for data extraction will always be shaped by historical colonialism, Couldry continues, leaving many African countries vulnerable to the Trojan Horse offerings by companies like Facebook. He uses Facebook Free Basics as an example of a free, limited internet service for developing markets that was found to ignore local sites and prioritise Western ones instead. Where we think data colonialism is headed, as it grows within the power structures already inherited from capitalism, Couldry explains, is to make possible an entirely new type of social and economic order, based on much more intensive governance of people in the interests of value extraction."

The only way to end digital colonialism, Kwetadds, is by reconstructing the digital economy in a way that strips out the system of private property and production for profit, and replaces it with one organised by society to service society on egalitarian terms. This includes free and open source software, a phasing out of IP, stronger privacy laws, and a digital tech deal that would fund the production, maintenance, and access to technology for everyone. This must be formulated collectively by people across the world, he says, fuelled by a movement that intersects with broader political, economic, and social justice ambitions.

Couldry says hes optimistic about resisting data colonialism in the long term, provided were not misled by false solutions. He says a good starting point would be to imagine a world that refuses to intensify data colonialism and instead relies less on data-extracting platforms for the conduct of our daily lives. For this to be effective, though, it must be through collective means, as theres no other way to resist something as large as an entire social order except by imagining and starting to live out a different one.

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