How Big Tech Becomes Ungovernable

Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

A few weeks ago, Italy fined Apple and Samsung €15 million for the “planned obsolescence” of their smartphones. The antitrust regulators allege that both companies pushed users to download software that slowed phone performance, forcing customers to buy replacement phones sooner.

How One 1990s Browser Decision Created Big Tech’s Data Monopolies (And How We Might Finally Fix It) - Above the Law

From the take-back-control dept

Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more

A handful of companies monopolise the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternatives

Why Do the Biggest Companies Keep Getting Bigger? It’s How They Spend on Tech

The secret of success for Amazon, Google and Microsoft is how much they invest in their own technology.

The Internet Economy

We are living in an era of bundling. The big five consumer tech companies — Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft — have moved far…

The EU Is Going Through a Trump-Fueled Breakup With Big Tech

France is already moving on from Zoom and Microsoft Teams in favor of homegrown alternatives. Other countries are quickly following suit.

EU-AI | Igor L.

The geopolitical landscape is shifting from physical borders to digital infrastructure. Here is a factual breakdown of how a $500 billion investment in "Sovereign AI" is changing global power dynamics. The Shift: From Land to "Substrate" Historically, a nation’s power was defined by its territory and legal systems (the Westphalian model). Today, power is increasingly tied to the compute substrate—the physical hardware and energy required to run AI. 1. Infrastructural Enclosure The "Sovereign Compute Coalition" (SCC) represents a massive consolidation of power. Major private entities are acquiring the three pillars of modern national strength: * Hardware: High-end AI chips (e.g., Nvidia). * Energy: The massive power grids needed to fuel them. * Data Centers: The physical "brains" of the digital economy. 2. The Rise of Technocracy As private companies own these essential tools, governments may find themselves in a position where they effectively "rent" their ability to govern. This moves decision-making power away from elected officials and toward those who control AI infrastructure. 3. Europe’s Strategic Response Europe is launching several initiatives to avoid becoming a "client state" of foreign tech providers. The strategy focuses on four main channels: * 8ra Initiative: Building a decentralized, multi-provider cloud-edge architecture to ensure data remains under European control and interoperable across borders. * ReArm Europe: A strategic defense package (presented in March 2025) aimed at boosting industrial competitiveness and reducing strategic dependencies in technology and defense. * Sovereign LLMs: Developing domestic models, such as Mistral, that are designed to align with European data privacy standards and cultural values. * Energy & Procurement: Using public procurement and new regulatory frameworks to create demand for homegrown, sustainable energy-efficient compute solutions. The goal of these moves is #DigitalSovereignty : the ability for a region to control its own digital destiny without relying exclusively on transnational monopolies. Data tells the real story. Are you following it? Follow #datanomics

Infrastructural Regulation and the New Utilities

From too-big-to-fail financial firms to net neutrality to internet platforms and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, we now face a variety of legal and public

Opinion | The Monopolization of America (Published 2018)

In one industry after another, big companies have become more dominant over the past 15 years, new data show.

How the Tech World Turned Evil

Once upon a time, they were counterculture idealists bringing power to the people. Today they’re greedy monopolists who’d sooner destroy our democracy than be reined in by government in any way—and they have to be stopped.

What the Verdict Against Meta and Google Says About the Way We Live Now

Serving as a signal of a taste in the courts and among the public to have tech companies bear some of the costs of harm that they have allegedly caused, the recent verdict against Meta and Google in California says a lot about the central anxieties of our time.

The New Utilities: Private Power, Social Infrastructure, and the Revival of the Public Utility Concept

From the renewed controversies over financial regulation and the problem of too-big-to-fail (TBTF) financial firms, to the clash over the FCC’s ‘net neutrality’

Commission fines Google €890 million for breaches of the Digital Markets Act

Today, the European Commission took two decisions finding non-compliance by Google with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for self-preferencing its own services on Google Search, and for putting in place restrictions on businesses to direct consumers to alternative, often cheaper, purchase channels on Google Play (steering). In this regard, the Commission issued Google a fine of €460 million and a fine of €430 million respectively.

Big Tech’s A.I. Spending Is Accelerating (Again)

Despite the risk of a bubble, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon plan to spend billions more on artificial intelligence than they already do.

Is Big Tech's AI Gamble Starting to Look Riskier? - Slashdot

The Washington Post looks at giant tech companies "feeding every available dollar into the cash-incinerating maw of AI machines." They warn "Tech superstars that once had oodles of cash left over at the end of each year are now flipping into the red..." [While optimists expect] huge corporate p...