Hipster antitrust gets Big Tech wrong

Alphabet unit Google is drawing on the expertise of at least five top law firms in Brussels to help it deal with its EU regulatory troubles. — Reuters

People in the United States, not just in the European Union, are finally getting worried about tech sector leaders' market dominance and the political power it confers. Unfortunately, the solutions gaining traction are the kind of anti-monopoly regulations that address the symptoms of the problem, not its root cause.

Some 45% of American adults get news from Facebook. Google's search market share in the United States approaches 86%. About 43% of all online retail sales in the United States last year went through Amazon. So no wonder people get concerned when Facebook reports that, during the US presidential campaign, hundreds of fake accounts, possibly operated from Russia, bought and ran about US$100,000 (RM420,050) worth of political ads from the social media company. It's no surprise that there's an outcry about Google's treatment of free speech inside the company and, likely, in a think tank the company funds. It's natural that Amazon's Whole Foods acquisition raises alarms.