Ensuring Transparency: Govts to Put Tech Giants Under Scrutiny
The pandemic situation around the world moved more people to digital platforms. However, the authorities around the world have decided to tighten the noose against the tech giants and bring them under inspection to ensure transparency.
The shares of different tech giants surged to high percentages as Facebook’s shares gained 35 percent, Amazon 67 percent, and Apple 68 percent since January 2020.
Zoom was developed in 2011 and merely in nine years period, its share price has surged to a whopping 600 percent by 2020.
Chinese applications are also exploring new possibilities and they are now paving ways in the global markets. Not only TikTok but a clothes-shopping app SHEIN and video sharing platform Likee are Chinese applications that have made big.
However, the governments around the world have decided to keep an eagle eye on the tech giants to ensure their scrutiny after complaints of malpractices to squash competitors and breach of users’ data.
New regulations have been introduced or poised to be introduced.
As AFP reported, “Until 2017, the benefits, especially in terms of innovation, were considered to outweigh the damage,” said Toledano, who has written a book about taking control back from Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
That has changed, however, as they now stand accused of not paying enough taxes, unfair competition, stealing media content, and spreading fake news, it added.
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A set of fresh rules by the European Union (EU) under the Digital Services Act has come to the fore to stem the power of tech giants over the market as well to tight grip on hate speech and maintaining the transparency of algorithms.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States (US) has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook after accusing it of monopoly to suppress competitors.
The commission along with other US states has also sued Facebook on its acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and Whatsapp in 2014 for $715 million and $22 billion respectively.
China is also following the path of the US and EU and tightening restrictions against e-commerce platforms to put them under scrutiny.
