A Bad Sign for Big Tech

In the Wall Street Journal today is a story that will be viewed with casual interest in many homes in my area.  It is a story about States Attorneys General getting together in Washington DC for a chat about "expressed concerns about technology giants’ market dominance and user-privacy practices"  which sounds innocuous.  Another government meeting....  of which there are thousands every day around here.

As usually happens around here, there is a flurry after hearings to draft legislation (Google offered to help, which a really good idea), then start markup, during which time lobbying firms kill each other in the streets.  Then a watered down version of something is passed and we move on to the next subject of public interest.  Some of my friends will point out that I left a lot of steps out of that process.

But danger comes when the legislative process is not going well, or has elements to it that Congress is not really sure about.  Then, Washington starts looking for alternative solutions, one of which is lawsuits and anti-trust actions.  I would rather see legislation, but understand the need for the anti-trust side of this.  The insider videos of Google executives crying after the 2016 election was certainly not helpful.

What concerns me is that this is only the beginning of something nasty.  The law allowed the business model that created these companies, and I'm not sure the law can easily correct something that basic.  The issue for social media has been masked as content, when it is really more than just content.  We believe in free speech, but don't want our enemies manipulating content in the US.  That is a simple issue compared to the other.  The other is the basic model of providing a free service, in exchange for data that can be sold.  Anti-trust actions do little to change the model, but breakup companies that do better without that.  It reminds me of the genius idea to break up AT&T years ago.  We had stable networks that were reasonably secure and could be maintained.  Now we have multiple companies all doing different things that are not as good.  Cheaper does not make better.  Maybe we should give legislation a chance and cool our heels on anti-trust.