The Dark Side of BigTech

As small businesses crumble and the pandemic is leading to even more unfair winner-takes-all capitalism, there's a spark of hope for more equality in the corporate world.

Google now faces its first antitrust lawsuit by the U.S. government as the Department of Justice announced its intent to press charges against the tech giant around it's incredible search dominance and monopoly (where it favors its own products). It's a bit like Microsoft windows forcing us to download its own products.

Google is facing headwinds from many countries and now finally something at home. Google’s search and advertising businesses had emerged as key areas of interest for antitrust regulators. Eleven Republican state attorneys general have joined the DOJ as plaintiffs in the case.

It could be a landmark antitrust case that helps clean up California tech monopolies. Silicon Valley has abused its trust with the public for a very long time.

The DOJ and states are bringing the complaint under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, alleging Google has unlawfully maintained monopolies in markets for “general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising,” according to the lawsuit. They claim Google has maintained its monopoly through “anticompetitive and exclusionary practices.”

During the pandemic industries are being disrupted and BigTech is squeezing even more market dominance from industries that have no chance of fair competition against these giants. We're seeing this with Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and many others and not just Google. 11 states -- Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina and Texas -- joined the suit, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit is the culmination of a more than year-long investigation into the company’s business practices. Google was previously the subject of a U.S. antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over its search product, but the agency closed that probe in 2013 without charges. All credit to the WSJ leaked documents.

If we ever want "equality" again in the United States, it's not just diversity and inclusion that we need to focus on but fair competition from our most successful internet businesses. The DOJ lawsuit marks the first time a serious antitrust charge has been brought against Google on the federal level in its home country. Employees at companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and others have to also stand up for what's right and not let corporate leadership take these companies down dystopian avenues.

However in recent years BigTech has just invested more in lobbying and accusing the U.S. politicians that China is the main rival. Facebook in particular have been rather deceptive in this regard, while Google has tried its best to actively work with China. The looming case could pose an unprecedented risk to Google's wider advertising business, which brought in $134.8 billion in revenue last year, accounting for 84% of Google's total business.

Will Google and Facebook ever be brought to justice? It's pretty unlikely. These firms are too big to truly be innovative. Alphabet's Moonshot projects and DeepMind unit are incredibly unprofitable. Advertising and Cloud revenue however perverts the corporate social responsibility and motivations of these companies.

Sentiment however is slowly changing towards BigTech as the public and talent begins to realize the detrimental impact these companies have had on society and freedom online. Recently Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have crossed the dangerous line of censoring free speech online. It could be an opening salvo ahead of other major government antitrust actions, given ongoing investigations of major tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook at both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

We think of America having rule of law, but BigTech has basically had their way with industries and other businesses to the detriment of jobs. They are companies that are too rich to die or curb. They can afford to fail repeatedly against Chinese competition.

They are often stacked with leaders who are profit focused and not civic conscious. Their board rooms lack diversity and an equal female presence. They are the remnants of big boys clubs from a white male dominant venture capital society. For the lay person it would be a fair argument to say that BigTech is America's mafia of technology.

Even in antitrust lawsuits in America are mostly just for show. Nothing really happens or changes significantly. Microsoft is again where it once was, doing the same things it was once accused of, Google is just a more obvious case of blatant unfair practices.

The long-anticipated suit claims that Google has abused its monopoly power to make Google the default search service on browsers, mobile devices, computers, and other devices. The very people who should be leaders in equality are the perpetuators of the worst inequality, how ironic that the most talented people in the world serve the most elitist interests.

Monopolies don't make the world a better place, or uphold American values. Winner-takes-all Capitalism leads to tyranny as we will see in the 21st century. We'll have to remember, it all started in Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley set a precedent that China has copied and will themselves disrupt. The internet Google and Facebook created will one day be replaced by China's internet, and this is the real price for unfair competition by California companies, the bifurcation of the internet into a surveillance capitalism where we will lead lose our freedoms online, and it's happening. The slap on the wrist that Google, or Facebook or Amazon will face is nothing and we already know the outcome of regulatory action in the United States as insufficient.