![]() ![]() By 1601, she had figured out how to concentrate ever more political power in her own hands by rewarding allies with licenses to govern a particular economic activity, such as the sale of iron, salt, tin, beer, even playing cards. Back then, rather than Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg taking what belongs to the little guys, it was Queen Elizabeth. ![]() The dilemma the US faces today is not so different from that of 17th-century England. Indeed, one key to fixing the problem dates back 400 years to a battle in Parliament aimed at bringing the king under the rule of law. The tools for curbing Silicon Valley’s power are already available and, in some cases, have been for hundreds of years. And despite widespread fear that regulators will never be able to keep up with the pace of innovation, the task will likely prove easier than we expect. It’s time for Silicon Valley to get back to the business of building utopia. Absent action, Google, Facebook, and Amazon will shape all these technologies in ways designed to serve only their particular business models and the personal interests of their owners, even if the result is to stifle vital future innovation. And they are fast moving to capture the same control in energy, health, transportation, and entertainment. One of the biggest problems is that the vast reach of these corporations-combined with their growing dominance over almost every corner of our capital markets-gives them the power to shape almost all information technologies to serve their interests. These behemoths also threaten our personal liberties by storing and wielding vast tranches of data about almost every company and individual in the nation, then using it to direct some of our most intimate actions and decisions. For starters, as anyone tracking this election cycle understands, many of these platforms’ policies directly threaten democracy, and their hold over the advertising industry has proved catastrophic for news publishers. There are many problems with how these corporations use their power. He's the author of Liberty From All Masters. Barry Lynn directs the Open Markets Institute. ![]()
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