The US Justice Department may be on the verge of seeking a breakup of Google to reduce its dominance. If the government takes action and is successful in court, it could mean the company is split into separate entities — a search engine, an advertising company, a video website, a mapping app — that are not allowed to share data with each other.
While still a long way off, it is being considered in the wake of a series of rulings in the US and EU that suggest regulators are growing increasingly frustrated with the power of big tech companies. This power tends to be highly concentrated, whether through Google's monopoly as a search engine, Meta's data collection on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, or small businesses' dependence on Amazon.
But what would breaking up these tech giants mean for consumers? Proponents of such a transformation of Silicon Valley argue that it would lead to more competition and more choice. And in the best case, the future scenario could look something like this:
The year is 2030 and you're on your way to meet a friend for dinner. You receive a message notification on WhatsApp sent by your girlfriend via her Signal messaging app. Sending and receiving messages from different apps has become so common that you hardly notice it anymore.
In fact, “interoperability” – the seamless collaboration of different systems and technologies – exists everywhere. Just as you could send an email from Gmail to Hotmail in 2024, you can now choose from a range of social media apps alongside Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, with text, images and videos posted to a network , are easily accessible via another.
You choose an app because you like the way it looks or the way it filters and presents content – not just because everyone else is accessing it.
Likewise, your restaurant choices and directions information came from apps you selected from a much larger selection than the one you had access to in 2024. You view reviews created by people you follow, regardless of the platform on which they shared it.
Product placement and AI-generated content have all but disappeared because the maps app doesn't want to risk giving you advice you don't want. If this were the case, you would simply switch to a competitor that offers better service.
This increased competition is central to those committed to breaking up big tech companies. Instead of app developers having to pay 30% of their revenue to Google or Apple, there would be numerous app stores available, all competing to offer the best apps by reducing their profit margins. The theory is that the app market – and technological innovation – would flourish as a result.
Research also suggests that the existence of competing apps makes consumers less lazy and forces companies to offer better products and better value for money.
Private browsing
In 2024, you should have trusted the results that Google Search, Google Maps, or a Google ad gave you. And because Google owns your data, it could, without your say, auction off information about you to other companies trying to reach you.
You may have found Google's services useful, but the greatest benefit from personalized data would have gone to Google. And another big change that could come from breaking up big tech companies is that you may finally become the sole owner of that data.
You might be the only one with complete access to your browsing history – the products you searched for, the products you bought, and the products you almost bought. You would own the information about where you went to lunch, what you ordered and how much you spent.
Other information you might have includes things like how you commute to work, which video clips make you laugh, and which books you've read and which you've immediately given up on. The same goes for how you met your partner online, your dating history, and the health data your watch has collected about how hard you work out at the gym.
Your training, your data.
PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock
In the imagined year 2030, you would store this data on an encrypted server and various companies would offer apps to help you organize and manage your information. Whenever you wish, you can choose to use your data for your own purposes.
A breakup is hard
However, breaking up large technology companies is not without risks. An obvious consequence is that these large companies would be less profitable.
Currently, Google and Meta make (a lot) of money from advertising, and that's only possible because they have so much information about us. If they didn't do this, they might have to charge users for the services they provide.
Interoperability and greater competition could also create more scope for scam app operators. And while a wider selection of apps might be fine for some, it can be problematic for those who already find modern technology challenging enough.
For regulators, however, the challenge of modern technology appears to be a sense of powerlessness. And if they actually decide to take the radical option and break up dominant companies, it could make a big difference in the online world for all of us.
Renaud Foucart, Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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