The growing powers and influence of Internet monopolies during the ongoing digital transformation threatens democratic societies - WE HAVE TO ACT.
Evgeny Morozov in „Hyper-modern Feudalism: why we have to stop Google, Facebook and others from managing and controling the world's infrastructures (Hypermoderner Feudalismus: Warum wir verhindern müssen, dass Google, Facebook und Co. die Infrastrukturen unserer Welt kontrollieren)", Süddeutsche Zeitung #101, 2016-05-02, created a vision, how the „everything free“ culture of the Internet will transform into its opposite if we continue strengthening existing monopolies: As soon as we are addicted to their platforms (Facebook, Google, etc) we will have to pay for their services such as email or the analysis of a person’s mood by using his/her body data. When reading Morozov’s essay, I felt reminded of my childhood when the free bank account was introduced to trasnfer salary payments in Germany: As soon as cash payments were made redundant, we had to pay the bank for managing these accounts “to cover the bank costs”.
Unfortunately, the amassment of information with the Internet big shots from Silicon Valley does not stop at email. Apple (unconfirmed, found at Wikipedia) as well as Google (Google cars are already on the road, Google-Fiat cooperation announced) are developing autonomous vehicles. And both are already passengers of today’s vehicles with their operating systems IOS resp. Android – hoarding as much information as possible. Of course, only to serve the drivers’ best interests! Possibly even more data from Smart Home installations will be ending up in Google data centers (for example Google bought Nest Labs, a manufacturer of thermostats). In a Smart City, we observe the fusion of mobility functions and home based information. It can be expected that intelligent traffic management will not be possible without the participation of major Internet monopolies. He is fully right, when Evgeny Morozov („Legitimation Crisis 2.0 – the slump of our living standards has a cause: the new power of technology (Legititmationskrise 2.0 – der Einbruch der Lebensstandards hat eine Ursache: Die neue Macht der Technologie)“, in Süddeutsche Zeitung #77, 2016-04-04) talks about the extension of Internet services towards areas under governmental responsibility. This means we are trading the loss of democratic values for a hypothetic increase in efficiency when responsibilities of public administration are handed over to monopolies from the Silicon Valley. After leaving important functions with monopolies, democratic alternatives will be very hard to sustain – we will be ending up in techno-feudalism.
Become Active - Use Alternatives!
How can we protect our (digital) civil rights against techno-feudalism? For example by making sure Internet monopolies have to follow the same rules as other corporations operating in the real world (think for example of regulated markets for power management, communications networks, water supply, waste disposal and others). This implies
- Equal taxes,
- Execution of data protection legislation,
- Destroying monopolies,
- Clear responsibility assignment for governmental duties,
- Regulating Internet services.
But first of all, we have to wake up – our awareness for the issues at hand is far from where it should be. We have approach our political representatives in the European Community, in our country or in our local community. We have to make clear that techno-feudalism is not an acceptable blueprint for the society we want to live in – we have to be on alert. And - we ourselves have to act, e.g. by using available alternatives. Google is not the only search engine, Chrome is not the only Internet browser – we all have a choice.
Summing up: we have to move public opinion building towards a democratic, digital future.
