The year we got serious about tech monopolies: 2022 in review

[ad_1]

2022 has been a big year for antitrust enforcement against tech companies, with the five biggest (Apple, Google, Meta/Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) facing lawsuits or investigations in the US. Government scrutiny over tech company mergers is also increasing: The Federal Trade Commission challenged Metas’ acquisition of VR fitness company Within Unlimited and Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. Congress has debated a number of potential new laws to address the harmful effects of market power in internet markets, and the European Union has actually done so, by passing a new law on digital markets.

As they grapple with tech monopolies, courts and law enforcement agencies are starting to recognize the interaction of user privacy and security issues with antitrust, thanks in part to the EFF’s advocacy. In February, we explained to a federal appeals court that Apple’s total control over apps on its mobile devices isn’t necessary to protect users and, in fact, makes many users less secure.

Antitrust cases against the tech giants still face serious hurdles from a judiciary that has grown increasingly hostile to allegations of monopoly abuse. EFF’s brief was featured in Epic Games’ challenge to Apple’s restrictive App Store policies, which was rejected by a district court and is now awaiting an appellate court ruling. The FTC’s challenge to Facebook (now Meta) throughout its history of acquiring potential competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp has faced similar hurdles. We’ve also seen some small but significant victories, including lawsuits against legal research provider Westlaw and computer game giant Valve that have cleared their initial legal hurdles.

It is important that antitrust authorities persist in their efforts because we cannot rely on internet platforms and services that do not face real competition to safeguard users’ rights. Sometimes they fail spectacularly. And even when they do a good job of protecting users, their protection is fickle, capable of being taken down at the whims of a fickle CEO or when cooperation with government surveillance suits their business interests.

Even as government law enforcement and private parties take their cases to court, smart new laws are needed to address the unsolved problems of tech monopolies. The EU is seriously attempting to do this with its new Digital Markets Act, a sweeping regulation that designates some of the biggest online platforms as gatekeepers and imposes new obligations on those companies to protect business users’ ability to compete. The DMA includes interoperability requirements for these gatekeepers. Interoperability is a vital tool for empowering consumers, but the EU’s decision to focus first on messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage raises concerns about those apps’ ability to continue to provide secure end-to-end encryption. In 2023, EFF will work with the EU’s enforcement arm to protect secure messaging as we fight monopolies.

The UK is also stepping up its efforts with the creation of a new unit for digital markets within its competition authority. EFF wrote in support of new enforcement powers for that agency and to support their investigation into the role of mobile web browsers as platforms for app competition.

Meanwhile, in the United States, a slew of proposed new laws hasn’t led to much progress. The American Innovation and Competition Online Act, the Open App Markets Act and the ACCESS Act all contain important elements of a new pro-competition regime for online platforms, but none have yet been enacted. The Digital Advertising Act would take a different approach, requiring the various roles within online advertising markets to be filled by independently run companies, removing incentives to cheat and reducing web publishers’ revenue. It too stalled in Congress.

One thing this year’s battles over the new competition policy for technology have shown us is that creating new antitrust exemptions for privileged industries, no matter how important they are, is not the way to fight technology monopolies. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, while touted as a way to fund journalism in the Internet age, would only give more market power to highly established media conglomerates and their Big Tech allies. That’s why we were disappointed that Congress devoted so much legislative time to JCPA that could have been used to refine and pass major fixes like ACCESS.

We can also have privacy, security and competition. Indeed, we must have competition to protect privacy and security in the long run. This year, we have seen an incredible amount of energy, legal maneuvering, and clever new ideas directed at solving the technology monopoly problem. If we persist, we can achieve lasting change in 2023 and beyond.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read more articles on the fight for digital rights in 2022.

[ad_2]