Why is Google’s monopoly threatening us?

• Left unchecked, Google will exploit the power of this data for its own benefit. It will claim our data and control everything we know and ultimately use it for its own purposes; we will end up as means to Google’s ends.

The author holds a degree from the University of Oxford and is currently researching ethics in big data and AI at the University of Cambridge.

ISTANBUL

In a remote Italian village nestled in the lush countryside of the 17th century, the inhabitants lived a simple, uncomplicated life. These inhabitants were common and interdependent, meaning they depended on each other to plant, water and harvest, tasks that required the collective effort of the entire community. Life was routine and most did not expect to live more than 30 or 40 years.

The tale of Gogle, the seed protector

One fateful day, a hermit with an insatiable curiosity and a peculiar intensity in his bulging eyes came to the village. His eyes, always wide and searching, earned him the name “Gogle” among the villagers. Unlike the villagers, Gogle could read and write, a rare skill that made him revered as a man of vast knowledge. He answered their questions about the world with patience and wisdom, quickly becoming a highly respected figure – a lord of knowledge, so to speak.

Gogle had an extraordinary gift for listening, and he absorbed keenly the stories and concerns of everyone he met. Even children, considered adults when they could hold a tool at age three, found in him a sympathetic and attentive ear. In the evenings, he would sit and meticulously write down everything he had heard; his curiosity was never sated.

One day, with his immense knowledge, Gogle made a generous offer to the villagers: he would save their seeds for free. In an age when agriculture was crucial to their existence, his help was a godsend. Many of us may not now know the painstaking effort that goes into saving seeds: selecting the healthiest plants, distinguishing heirlooms from hybrids, ensuring proper maturity, and drying the seeds to prevent mold and rot. The process also involved careful threshing, winnowing, and storing in clay pots. Gogle promised to take care of this demanding task for them for free.

The villagers, overwhelmed by his generosity, accepted his offer. Gogle began his work with incredible meticulousness, all the while continuing to listen to each villager’s story and jotting down every detail at night. Years passed, and the villagers grew accustomed to the ease of using the ready-to-plant seeds that Gogle provided them. He even offered to store the seeds in his well-planned, strategically placed and guarded castle.

But in the meantime, the villagers’ comfort made them forget their seed-saving skills. Slowly, they began to rely on Gogle for their seeds. And one day, Gogle asked them to pay him, not in money, but in parcels of each farmer’s land. It seemed a small price to pay for years of free service. Beyond losing their knowledge of seed saving, the villagers reluctantly agreed. “Once doesn’t hurt,” they thought, then twice, then three times… Until many began working as day laborers on land that once belonged to their families.

As their dependence on Gogle grew, so did his influence. He easily disposed of those who tried to revive their old methods of seed preservation that they could remember. Gogle would offer them high prices to sell his techniques or intimidate them with threats, warning the villagers that they would not be able to plant each other’s seeds anywhere else since most of the land belonged to him. Also, when necessary, with a pacifying, sinister whisper, he would begin to manipulate the villagers, exploiting their secrets and vulnerabilities. He knew, for example, of Lucia’s envy of her neighbor Giovanna, or of Lorenzo’s terrible animal husbandry skills.

Gogle’s intimate knowledge of the villagers’ weaknesses allowed him to tighten his control over them and strengthen his hold. The community, once relatively self-sufficient, was now entirely dependent on this seemingly benevolent but ultimately insidious man with bulging eyes and a voracious appetite for power.

In the end, the village was left at the mercy of Gogle’s whims. His initial appearance of generosity had masked a sinister ambition, and the now servile inhabitants could only ask him for advice on “how to live happily ever after.”

Possible consequences of Google’s data concentration

The story of “Google the seed savior” has striking parallels with the tech giant Google. Fortunately, US District Judge Amit Mehta has recently ruled that “Google is a monopolist and has acted as such to maintain its monopoly” (1). This ruling was based on Google’s violation of antitrust laws, specifically Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act (2), which prohibits the possession and maintenance of monopoly power without improving the product.

The conclusion that Google is a monopoly has long been obvious. But the judge’s decision represents a step toward limiting Google’s dominance and holding it accountable for paying millions to companies like Apple and Samsung to make Google the default search engine on their products, which in turn is intended to allow Google to collect even more data, further intensifying its power.

What are the potential consequences of user data being concentrated in the hands of Google? The implications and repercussions are countless. Left unchecked, Google will exploit the power of this data for its own benefit. We, the common people, unwittingly hand over our data to this greedy giant. This giant then takes over our data and controls everything we know, and over time, it will turn the data into information and use it for its purposes; we will end up being a means to Google’s ends.

So, on a dystopian day, when we search for the chemical formula for water on Google, we might get answers like “Hb3,” or “download the app to buy pure, mineral-enriched water; Wooter,” or worse, “you don’t have the credentials to obtain this information.” Such a scenario could lead us to a future where we forget fundamental knowledge, forcing us to start from scratch, perhaps even reinvent the wheel.

(1) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/05/technology/google-antitrust-ruling.html

(2) https://www.brattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/16364_the_intersection_of_market_manipulation_law_and_monopolization_under_the_sherman_act_-_does_it_make_economic_sense.pdf

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu.

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