Big Tech Needs Strict Privacy Rules, Not a Breakup
The wrong approach.
Source: Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty ImagesA new idea has come into vogue -- breaking up Big Tech. The list of people calling for antitrust action against Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and other big tech companies is growing. New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway has lead the charge, arguing that these companies’ size and technological disruption have lead to a host of social ills, from tax avoidance to job destruction to electoral interference.
The idea comes at a moment when anger at, and fear of, the tech giants is rising. Concern over Facebook Inc.’s violations of user privacy and complicity in 2016 electoral shenanigans has made many people resent the social media giant. Alphabet Inc. (Google), which probably knows even more about users than Facebook does, could conceivably do even more to violate privacy if it were so inclined. The closing of many retail outlets have made many worry that Amazon.com Inc. really will become “the everything store,” with all of the pricing power that entails.