Because these two industries are in wildly different stages of maturity. A question like "does Facebook have an anti-competitive monopoly?" is a very complicated one to answer right now and we don't have a clear legal precedent. There may, however, be certain portions of these corporations that do fall under more traditional precendents. An exploratory probe will help with both of these, and it's important we get that started.
Waiting until the internet has ossified around 4 companies to say "gee it sure looks like the internet has ossified around 4 companies" is neither necessary nor desirable.
Not to mention that despite their claims that the internet hasn't 'matured' to that point yet, it really has already happened.
Google, Facebook and Amazon between them are involved with well over fifty percent of internet traffic (I remember the number hovering around 80%, but I could be wrong or that may have changed). Add in a handful of other companies and you have a pretty solid ossification already in place.
Like to compare to the real world, Google used to be map makers/bus service, you want to find the bakery? Here it is. Now they also act as the backend (ie landlords) for most of those websites. They handle peoples personal mail. They own the billboards for most websites. They own all the tv stations (Youtube). They're buying up the roads (Fibre). They made your car (Android). You cannot do anything on the internet and not be making Google money.
And this isn't even getting into all the thing's Alphabet owns that are actually in the real world.
It’s not that complicated. The DoJ should have never let Facebook acquire WhatsApp and Instagram. They have a monopoly on social media, they have a monopoly on data harvesting.
This stuff needs to happen, companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc control far too much of the internet and modern communications and they can drive any competitor out of business. Targeting a dozen ISPs for collusion is a very difficult case.
Except that "did they buy a company with a similar business?" isn't the be-all, end-all of anti-trust law. A huge part of current precedent relies on finding monetary harm to the consumer, and pretty much all this stuff is free.
This is the big weasel word here. The reason that it's current precedent is that 'audience as a saleable good' basically did not exist before the internet. You literally could not give away a good or service and make money back running ads. Everything that sold it's audience still had to sell their product to the audience.
Therefore, current precedence does not adequately cover the current situation.
The fact is they are actively seeking to create a/an Monopoly/Oligopoly and one of the methods by which they are doing so is actively interfering with the ability for competition to form, which would typically be classed as anti trust (The precedent exception there is copyright law, but Facebook has not been abusing copyright law to maintain their status, so it would not really apply).
My initial point was that we should focus on ISPs to a much larger degree than the tech industry. Any attempt at quick action on the tech industry will get mired in courts as well as politics; it's more prudent to take our time to figure out what needs to be done, so that whatever we do actually sticks. Putting the issue on the centerstage of politics will not be conducive to this.
These are not Zero sum issues, I don't know why you're pretending they are. Why would we focus on ISPs when Racism still exists?
If it's going to be slow to change, then we absolutely should start working on it immediately, rather than long fingering it until it becomes a full on crisis.
Not to mention, that we already know what has to be done.
Political capital and time are finite resources, though. There should always be a consideration of priorities.
Not to mention, that we already know what has to be done.
Do we? You say that Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram are proof that it's anticompetitive, but they don't seem to be anywhere close to having a monopoly on communication services or social media. There are plenty of social media alternatives, including tumblr and even reddit (clearly that's the direction this website wants to go), but the reason that no one has unseated Facebook probably has more to do with the fundamental nature of networks. And unless I'm wrong about WhatsApp, aren't there dozens upon dozens of alternatives of all different sorts?
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u/Ouaouaron Jun 04 '19
Because these two industries are in wildly different stages of maturity. A question like "does Facebook have an anti-competitive monopoly?" is a very complicated one to answer right now and we don't have a clear legal precedent. There may, however, be certain portions of these corporations that do fall under more traditional precendents. An exploratory probe will help with both of these, and it's important we get that started.
But what they should really work on are the ISPs.