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Every day, the $6.7 trillion Big Tech industry affects our lives in ways that empower and harm. Despite recent hits in earnings, current layoffs and Google getting slapped with yet another lawsuit from the Justice Department, the tech giants are still all-powerful in our society, economy and daily lives. They remain among the most valuable companies in the world and are enjoying billions of dollars in profits. As long as the digital age keeps pulling more of our lives online, Big Tech companies will grow and dominate.
The big five — Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple — have become so large that they rule the marketplace on their own terms. As a result, smaller companies and consumers lose out, and innovation is stifled. Our online behavior is tracked across the internet and sold as data and toxic misinformation that threatens lives and democracy.
Too much is at stake to keep waiting for Washington to grind out a regulation or two. The digital ecosystem has redefined our identities and place in society. We used to consider ourselves citizens, but in today's digital world, that's naive. First and foremost, we are data.
Some lawmakers propose breaking up these monopolies and drafting new regulations. If and when we follow through with these actions, we'll start catching up with the international community's efforts to reign in Big Tech's abuses. For example, in December, the European Union adopted a new minimum tax rate of 15% for large corporations operating in the EU, following the G-20's guidelines. The trend is to make the biggest companies in the world — Big Tech — start paying up like everyone else.
If the global tech tax becomes reality, how should those new tax dollars be spent? Since the profits being taxed are largely made off our personal data, which Facebook, Google and others use to sell to advertisers, it's time for the people behind that data to get a piece. Let's share that tax windfall with the billions of online users whose data is the bedrock of the digital advertising business model. For all the privacy that users give up, not to mention the mind games these companies play on us to steer our behavior, it's only fair that they toss us some change from their colossal profits. Every American should receive a data dividend if they earn under $175,000 annually.
Digital platform fairness can emerge in other ways, too, if we create a system for it.
