New East India Companies

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 New East India Companies

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• Dirty practices: The US Supreme Court in 1911 found the giant Standard Oil company of many malpractices, aimed at killing all competition. The Court wanted proof that the monopoly acted unreasonably to suppress competition, so prosecution proved that the firm was causing long-term economic and social harm. 
• Google faces the same: Many US states have sued Google for 'unreasonable monopolistic behaviour', where it used unlawful methods to maintain its monopoly in internet search and advertising. In 2019, a study claimed that the only downside of such a monopoly was price-gouging and hate speech spreading. That is soo simple a view, which ignores the deadly 'network effect' that such firms exert.
• Warning signs of monopolies: Digital giants are accused of some standard ill-practices.

1. Fake claims - They say they support innovation, while they suppress competition regularly by identifying potential enemies early on. Then the new idea is copied, and their giant platform is used to crush the startup. Otherwise, they just buy the new competitor at any price. FAGMA (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple) acquired 770 firms in 20 years. Earlier monopolists never killed competition totally, else Microsoft and Apple would've been killed by IBM and Google by Yahoo.
2. Targeted advertising - Direct open advertising on TV and print is reducing, getting replaced by covert advertising that's targeted at individuals. Overall advertising in US - internet, TV, radio, print - is down.
3. Manipulation of big data - Algorithms use customer data to predict a dangerously wide range of things about personal behaviour. This housing, mining and manipulation of Big Data is a huge danger.

• Indian monopolies: The fields of mobile telephony, ecommerce and social media are monopolised in India now. Now, many giants are gathering together in a new game. Google and Facebook have joined hands with Reliance Jio, leading to many large financing firms putting more money in it. If Reliance succeeds in its plans, then it will dominate handsets market, mobile networks, phygital commerce (physical + digital), in-App advertising, etc. Google and WhatsApp will catalyse this using individual citizen data. It will be a very disturbing world. Research shows that study of 300 likes on FB can totally give a personality away! 
• Grand collusion: So what's happening in India is that all players are coming together to build a giant monopoly - handset makers, equipment makers, infra providers, mobile network operators, OS owners and App developers. All data will be internally shared. That will lead to data monetisation in the opaque ecosystem of secondary data brokers. Any one who is not a member of this monopoly network will be commercially dead. Access to professional networking, credit and education opportunities will be controlled.
• Oligopoly or monopoly: Rise of an oligopoly does not kill the threat of a monopoly. While the US and EU have made relevant laws (CCPA in USA and GDPR in EU) to hold new and estd. firms responsible for data in accordance with constitutional rights, in India there is no data law at all. The Right to Privacy verdict is the only legal framework. [CCPA - California Consumer Privacy Act; GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation]
• How will action be taken: Present competition policy (antitrust policy) uses the concept of "welfare of consumers". That definition can make it tricky to catch monopolisers, as they may give cheap gadgets and subscriptions, indulging in a benign predatory behaviour. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) should now involve independent third-party watchdogs to catch monopolistic behaviour. 
• The biggest threat: Today's politics and digital businesses both reinforce each other. The threat to individual liberty has never been greater. Time to act is now.

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