defended its dominance in online search. Epic Games, meanwhile, the maker of
“Fortnite”, a popular online game, is pursuing a case against the way Apple controls
access to its App Store and the 30% cut it takes on most transactions there. And the
Federal Trade Commission may launch an antitrust suit against Facebook, accusing it of
using its market power to stifle competition.
Yet any of these lawsuits—and other, unexpected ones—could easily drag on for years.
Policymakers across the Western world now mostly agree that lengthy after-the-fact (ex
post) court proceedings are not the best way to deal with tech giants. What is needed,
they say, is a reform of antitrust law and forward-looking (ex ante) regulation. A
committee of America’s House of Representatives published a report in October 2020
that lays out what such a reform might look like. It mainly calls for rules modelled on
the Glass-Steagall Act, repealed in 1999, which separated investment and commercial
banking to avoid conflicts of interest. An equivalent for the tech industry would
separate digital platforms from the goods and services that are offered on top of them.
In other words, Amazon would be banned from selling its own products within its
online marketplace and Apple could no longer offer apps of its own.
The European Union is planning to go even further. Its Digital Services Act, due to be
unveiled by early 2021, will include rules on how big online firms should moderate
content, deal with user complaints, treat rivals that also use their platforms,
interconnect with competing services and share data. Google, for instance, could be
forbidden from giving its own services a leg-up in its search results, and Facebook might
be compelled to open up Messenger and WhatsApp, its messaging services, to allow
interoperability with rival systems such as Telegram and Signal.
But critics of the tech titans should not get their hopes up. These legislative efforts to
rein in the tech giants will also take time. The incoming Biden administration will
probably want to deal with more pressing questions, such as the economy and health
care, before turning to technology regulation. The eu is known to be slow: it took a
decade to produce its landmark General Data Protection Regulation. And the longer the
pandemic drags on, the more dependent people will find themselves on the services the
tech giants provide, and the more entrenched their positions will become.
The word “techlash” evokes quick change. But if history is any guide, tech regulation
will be a slow process, with many fits and starts: more hard slog than rapid whiplash.
The word “techslog” would be more appropriate—though it seems unlikely to make it
into the OED.
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