Tim Berners-Lee: Facebook and Google may need to be broken up

“Silicon Valley technology giants such as Facebook and Google have grown so dominant they may need to be broken up, unless challengers or changes in taste reduce their clout, the inventor of the World Wide Web told Reuters,” Guy Faulconbridge and Paul Sandle report for Reuters.
“Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989, said he was disappointed with the current state of the internet, following scandals over the abuse of personal data and the use of social media to spread hate,” Faulconbridge and Sandle report. “‘What naturally happens is you end up with one company dominating the field so through history there is no alternative to really coming in and breaking things up,’ Berners-Lee, 63, said in an interview. ‘There is a danger of concentration.'”
“But he urged caution too, saying the speed of innovation in both technology and tastes could ultimately cut some of the biggest technology companies down to size. ‘Before breaking them up, we should see whether they are not just disrupted by a small player beating them out of the market, but by the market shifting, by the interest going somewhere else,’ Berners-Lee said,” Faulconbridge and Sandle report. “Berners-Lee expressed dismay at the way consultancy Cambridge Analytica obtained the personal data of 87 million Facebook users from a researcher. That scandal, he said, was a tipping point for many. ‘I am disappointed with the current state of the Web,’ he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously.
Imagine if your livelihood depended on one company that had not only monopolized web search (and, thereby, basically controlled how new customers find you), but also controlled the bulk of online advertising dollars which funded your business and which they could pull, simply threaten to pull, or reduce rates at any time? Now also imagine if you believe this monopolist basically stole the product of another company that is the very subject of your business? How much would you criticize the monopolist thief’s business practices?
You might guess that it would be a tough road to walk. (We’re only imagining, of course!)
That would be a good example of why monopolies are bad for everyone… Stop using Google search and Google products wherever possible. Monopolies are bad for everyone. — MacDailyNews, July 14, 2016
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