
UK Competition and Markets Authority: New regime needed to take on tech giants - jrepinc
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-regime-needed-to-take-on-tech-giants
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LatteLazy
There are a couple of issues here that seem to crop up every time people try
to apply antitrust to these sectors. No one ever seems to address them. It's
almost as if people decided they want a shiny new task force and then looked
for a justification... Specifically my issues are:

First, that it's not really possible for tech companies to share their data
without massive leaks. You can identify most people from their post code and
date of birth. So the idea that google can strip names from the database and
make it available and that 3ont come back to haunt users is frankly silly. The
Cambridge Analytica scandal (imho a much more pressing issue that competition
in tech/advertising) proves this. It also shows what happened historically
when Facebook tried this.

I don't think it's possible to share datasets at all without basically having
a total privacy breach. I don't particularly trust facebook/Google with my
data, but I trust them more than "literally anyone who fills in a form and
send it in to request access".

The second issue is that these are natural monopolies. That what the press
release itself argues. That's what most people think. That's why these tech
companies haven't been caught abusing their positions under existing rules:
they don't need to, the landscape does it for them.

This is important because the only want to bring competition to a natural
monopoly is to change the landscape. Every time that competition obsessed
governments have tried to force competition on natural monopolies without that
has failed. Here in the UK the examples of this include weird fake "markets"
for train operators, water utilities and Internet infrastructure. Maybe UK Gov
should finish those great leaps forwards before getting involved in something
more complex, faster changing and international?

Again, I think these services should be regulated. I'm just saying regulating
a natural monopoly is not the same as trying to force it to not be a natural
monopoly...

The third issue is a bit more general. We have a lot of antitrust issues here
in the UK. I hear the US is the same. But Facebook isn't on the top 100 for
me. Sure, they're a monopoly but unlike other monopolies or oligopolies they
don't seem to be abusing their power. So why is everyone desperately
interested in them? The CMA should get its shit together and deal with the
appauling quality of broadband in the UK (I could list the massive abuses
going on there). Or mobile phone networks (some of the lowest rated companies
in the country for a reason). Or water or trains.

People may argue Facebook is "essential", maybe it is. But its not as
essential or as expensive as my (legally mandated, under regulated,
suspiciously profitable) monopoly water supplier.

