Technology

Nowadays, we  know that most of the tech area is dominated by a few companies, who share the market. This article shows just how powerful those firms are. It’s an article that was published in The Economist on January the 8th this year. The newspaper isn’t really biased in its articles, it’s quite neutral.

The heading is reveals clearly the position of the journalist: the use of the term “titans” proves just how dominants the firms are. The subtitle gives us the names of the 3 major companies that will be talked about in the article: Google, Facebook and Amazon. It also tells us that they’ll

Focus on  the influence  of the competition and on the consumers: they also already say that it’s a bad one, we know what the journalist’s point of view is. They focus on three major issues: the weight of the major firms in the tech market, giving many examples of their superiority, the fear (sometimes unjustified) that causes  for  most people, and the solutions the journalist suggests to improve the situation. Afterwards, I’ll give my  view      of  this problem, explaining what  lead to  this domination     and the dangers that comes with the exchange of data without people’s consent.

1. Synthese

1. Weight of the major firms: monopolize the market

→Amazon: more than 40% of online shopping in the US

  →facebook: more  than 2 billion monthly users, largest pool  of  personal  data  in  the world, world’s

Biggest social graph. Innovation, Invest to new technology

→google: more than 90% of web searches in some countries are processed by it                   →facebook+google: 2/3 of US’s online ad revenues

• They shine all around the world

→chinese firms: are not about to get unfettered access to Western consumers

1. Fears

→ alexa & google assistant→will give them even more control over how people experience the internet

→BAADD Big, Anti-competitive : have an important domination of the market but to add insult to injury they become the market Addictive , Damaging Democracy :about privat life with information

→harm the economy : doubt about fair competiton (legal exemptions, avoid taxes, monopoly)

→Traditional toals →useless : free online service

→intellectual property, privacy : Facebook hacked (information can be stolen)

1. Solutions?

→make a better use of existing competition law

→trustbusters need to think afresh about how tech markets work

→people should have more control over their information

→data should be shared between the firms and more anonymity

1. Commentaire

Advantages: practical to speak with others

BUT : →spy: can lead to war, gouv can use the info →good use : For instance to census (recenser)       →facebook scandal (beginning of the year but after the article…)

→Cambridge Analytica → Trump’s election (pub) : spy, spread some fake news, corruption to manipulate public opinion.

→87 million of people’s data was taken by the company despite Facebook’s rules

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