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This is exactly what needs to happen, and not just because Google is steering people towards their own products preferentially. All the big technology companies
by throwawaysea 5y ago
This is exactly what needs to happen, and not just because Google is steering people towards their own products preferentially. All the big technology companies are providing services that are fundamentally necessary to live and operate in our modern society. Their ability to act outside the laws that constrain public agencies or other regulated private organizations is simply not acceptable. I am specifically thinking of their role in information exchange - whether that is books sold on Amazon, results shown on Google search, social media accounts/posts on Facebook, or other examples.
These companies are simply too big and powerful to be allowed to continue operating as unregulated private companies. They are more than just another random company, given that they have billions of users and control the public square as it exists today. The fact that they have massive network effects with billions of users limits their exposure to competition - for example, it's not possible to make a viable competitor to YouTube given that Google has an existing platform with a large number of content creators, advertisers, and users. The same network means that Google's decisions (to ban content, demonetize content, lock user accounts, etc.) are as impactful as a government agency or any other utility making such a decision, because there isn't a good alternative. And in many ways, the tech companies are more powerful than governments because they have more users than most nations have citizens.
In comparison, a power utility can't just arbitrarily turn off your electricity because they disagree with your speech or political position. The water company can't withhold service without explanation. Virtually all laws that companies have to abide by constitute "regulation". There's nothing stopping us from tweaking how companies like Google are treated.