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The article mentions a precedent: "in the 1956 consent decree in the U.S. in which AT&T agreed to share all its patents with other companies free of charge." T
by martin_drapeau 7y ago
The article mentions a precedent: "in the 1956 consent decree in the U.S. in which AT&T agreed to share all its patents with other companies free of charge."
Today the picture is completely different. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are global - their infrastructure is virtual - not physical lines and cables. If a government wants to cause harm to one of those companies, they can decide to "move" somewhere else.
In addition GAFA is capturing dollars from everywhere in the world and bringing it to the US. It's in the US governments interest to tread softly here. No matter how the media spins things, GAFA is great for the US economy.
- learnfromstory 7y agoUh no. Google has hundreds of billions of dollars invested in real non-virtual assets, majority of which are in the USA.
- martin_drapeau 7y agoSure, however they are not directly tied to their bread and butter - pay per click. They could over time divest and move data centers and jobs elsewhere without directly affecting revenues. Would be painful and risky but feasible.