NEWS Worldwide including in the European Union and the United States, the antitrust investigations are going on the abuse of monopolistic power by the Big Tech firms, especially Facebook and Google.

CONTEXT  These investigations are being compared with the earlier antitrust investigations in the U.S. on the telecom industry and the break­up of the AT&T dictated by the Department of Justice in its Modified Final Judgment in 1982.

KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THEN AND NOW

Nature:  The information good that is being provided by the Internet firms of today, is largely non-rival. The consumption of information by one does not alter the value for the others. However, in telecom, due to limited network capacity, the consumption by one has an effect of decreasing value for the others and, hence, is rival in nature.

Regulation:  Telecom services are within the jurisdictional boundaries of regulators and, hence, the regulators have the power to lay down rules of the orderly behaviour of the licensed telecom operators. On the other hand, the Internet firms operate globally . Therefore, it is often difficult to lay down international rules of obligation by the different country regulators.

Non-excludability:  While it is debatable whether the goods and services provided by the Internet firms are excludable, telecom is certainly excludable due to the need for consumers to obtain connections from the respective telcos and pay the subscription charges for the same. On the contrary the Internet firms provide search, navigation, and social connectivity with no charge to the consumers, and, consequently, making these services non­excludable.

WHAT CAUSES THE  PROBLEM?

• The commercialisation of the Internet has created the new avatar of non-­excludability that includes subtle trade offs of personal information for availing services of the Internet firms.
• Hence, as the non­excludable and non­rival goods, also known as public goods, are provided by governments, in a peculiar way, the information goods as described above are being provided by private firms. This arrangement poses several problems.

HOW DOES THIS MONETISATION MODEL WORKS?

• While the governments can cover the expense of providing public goods (such as police protection, parks and street lights) through tax payers’ money, private firms need to have monetisation models to cover the costs of providing their services.
• Hence, the Internet firms have resorted to personalised advertisements and third party sharing of the personal information of their users for monetisation purposes.
• The strong network effects present in these Internet platforms warrant increasing the subscriber base and garnering as much market share as possible. This results in near monopoly of some firms in their defined markets.
• In order to retain their pole position, these firms may resort to anti­competitive behaviour including acquiring rivals to vertically integrate; erecting entry barriers by refusing to interconnect and interoperate with competing firms, and leveraging their capital base, thereby engaging in predatory pricing, and driving out competitors.

INDISPENSABLE APPLICATIONS

• In present times, even without our knowledge, these Internet firms have become an indispensable part of our lives.
• For example- We cannot do without Google Maps for our day-­to-­day commute to various destinations; Google Searches are indispensable in our quest for information and news; Google Scholar is a necessary tool for academicians to explore relevant research artefacts.
• There are positive externalities as well. For example, Google Maps Application Program Interface (APIs) is being used by almost all logistic and transport companies; Facebook APIs are used for advertisement by almost all firms across the industry.
• Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, recently announced that its Search is being expanded to provide accurate and timely information on vaccine distribution to enable quick recovery from the COVID­19 pandemic.

CHALLENGES BEFORE THE POLICYMAKERS

• The question before policymakers is how to regulate these Internet firms from abusing their monopoly power while at the same time encouraging the positive externalities and consumer surplus they create.
• This is a tough task to do, as it is often very difficult to prove that the firms engage in the abuse of their monopoly power.
• Also, due to strong network effects, it is not possible to ban or curtail these services. For example- Even if other options are available (such as Signal and Telegram for messaging), the network effects bind customers to their often used platform (WhatsApp), even if it is not their favourite.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

• Government can subsidise the good that creates positive externalities or it can resort to mandate sharing of Non-­Personal Data (NPD) owned by these firms for societal and economic well being as pointed out in the expert committee on NPD.
• We can take an example from the Australian government which has pointed in its media legislation that Google and Facebook must negotiate a fair payment with news organisations for using their content in Facebook’s newsfeed and Google’s Search.
• Controlled expansion of products and services without hurting the interests of consumers and smaller competing firms shall be the mantra used by these firms to minimise litigation, lawsuits and, eventually, wastage of taxpayers’ money.
• The other way to control any abusive behaviour of the Internet firms is to use the power of public voice. The million mails that were sent to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in March 2015, effectively put an end to the Free Basics programme of Facebook in India, thereby prohibiting any violation of Net Neutrality principles.
• Similarly, the huge public outcry and subsequent government actions have delayed the recent changes to privacy policy relating to the sharing of personal information between WhatsApp and its parent firm, Facebook.

Internet firms should adhere to core ethical principles in conducting their businesses taking lessons from the Enron scandal, and collusions between large banks and financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis, indicate that firms that aim at super monopoly profits and are greedy to become powerhouses of the world, often end up in the ditch.

Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/global-antitrust-and-the-challenge-of-big-tech/article33688005.ece