In the midst of all the chaos of the current pandemic and its aftermath, it was easy to miss the fact that last week was a really significant milestone in the Digital Economy. There has been growing concern about the impact of “Big Tech Platforms” and the potential for them to dominate and manipulate key markets, and exploit personal data. This was addressed head-on last Wednesday when the US House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law held a hearing featuring Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.
As always, these are large, complex events with a great deal of pomp and too often the sense of a missed opportunity. However, with last Wednesday’s hearings it is well worth taking a few minutes to consider what was said, and what these hearings reveal about the current state of the digital economy.
For those of you without several hours to watch the hearings or read through the transcripts, I thoroughly recommend Ben Thompson’s excellent review and summary of the hearings. Go take a look.
https://stratechery.com/2020/antitrust-politics/
Dealing with the growing power and influence of a handful of digital technology companies will be one of the critical debates for the coming years. Anyone interested in making a difference in digital economy issues (whether academically or in practice) needs to take the time to be informed and form an opinion on these issues. As Ben summarises:
Figuring out how to regulate tech companies — particularly Aggregators, that base their power on consumer welfare — will require new approaches, and probably new laws. Moreover, any such regulations will necessitate difficult trade-offs between competition, privacy, national security, etc.
Thanks
Alan
Alan W. Brown a.w.brown@exeter.ac.uk
Professor in Digital Economy www.ExeterINDEX.org
Exeter Business School M: +44 (0)777 2454541
University of Exeter, UK skype: alanwbrown
www.exeter.ac.uk
twitter: @alanwbrown
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