<story><title>Break Up the Tech Giants? No, Just Level the Field</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-11/break-up-the-tech-giants-no-just-level-the-field</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>payne92</author><text>TL;DR &lt;i&gt;The tech monopoly problem is because Silicon Valley has convinced regulators these firms are entirely new things, not subject to existing rules.  Google+Facebook+Amazon+Uber+etc should (a) pay their full corporate taxes and (b) be treated like utilities.  For example, if Facebook were a media company, they&amp;#x27;d be liable for user content.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Uber flaunting taxi regulations is a special case (IMHO).&lt;p&gt;Outside of that, be careful what you ask for.  In the US, certain utilities are absolutely NOT liable for user content.  If you use a cell phone to plan a crime, Verizon is not liable for what is said or written.&lt;p&gt;I do think the emerging tech monopoly is a problem (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook), but it&amp;#x27;s not because of lack of application of old regulations to new use cases.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s because:  technology moves quickly, there are strong network effects, and law+regulations have failed to adapt quickly enough.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rtpg</author><text>I definitely qgree that safe harbor is important&lt;p&gt;I think the main thing about tech is that it makes accessing the global market easier than ever. Monopolies in one sector can now extremely easily hop into another market. If anything it feels like an accelerated version of the railroad barons&lt;p&gt;It sure feels like antitrust laws could be used effectively. Ultimately monopolies do have a lot of money and lobbying power though. Imagine being big enough to basically absorb the billions in fines from the EU. You&amp;#x27;re either a bank or Google.&lt;p&gt;How do you fix that apart from ripping the company up into small pieces like with AT&amp;amp;T</text></comment>
<story><title>Break Up the Tech Giants? No, Just Level the Field</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-11/break-up-the-tech-giants-no-just-level-the-field</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>payne92</author><text>TL;DR &lt;i&gt;The tech monopoly problem is because Silicon Valley has convinced regulators these firms are entirely new things, not subject to existing rules.  Google+Facebook+Amazon+Uber+etc should (a) pay their full corporate taxes and (b) be treated like utilities.  For example, if Facebook were a media company, they&amp;#x27;d be liable for user content.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Uber flaunting taxi regulations is a special case (IMHO).&lt;p&gt;Outside of that, be careful what you ask for.  In the US, certain utilities are absolutely NOT liable for user content.  If you use a cell phone to plan a crime, Verizon is not liable for what is said or written.&lt;p&gt;I do think the emerging tech monopoly is a problem (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook), but it&amp;#x27;s not because of lack of application of old regulations to new use cases.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s because:  technology moves quickly, there are strong network effects, and law+regulations have failed to adapt quickly enough.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gwenzek</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think the article advocates for b):&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; How can these benign, universally loved innovators be stopped from turning into evil, soulless corporate behemoths? Break up companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, (...) Or perhaps recognize them as utilities (...) Neither makes sense in most cases.&lt;p&gt;In fact they advocate for c):
Tech giants should be treated as classical business. Amazon like a retailer, Uber like a taxi comp, Airbnb like an hotel brand, …&lt;p&gt;For Facebook they talk more about the fact if it was treated as a media company they should keep track of who is running ads and follow regulations on political ads.</text></comment>