Regulate to compete with Big Tech

India needs to strengthen data protection with the implementation of the new law to ensure platform neutrality. It should also require critical personal and financial data storage within the country

- ADITYA SINHA

THE MATRIX IS everywhere, said Morpheus. So is Big Tech. Google, Meta, X, Amazon, and Microsoft shape not just how we connect but how we think, consume, and interact with the world. Laissez-faire champions the idea that markets thrive best with minimal interference, equating deregulation with innovation and dynamism. Yet, power unrestrained does not ensure freedom; it rather consolidates control. Left unchecked, Big Tech risks becoming the gatekeeper of information, commerce, and even public discourse, undermining the very competition and free enterprise that laissez-faire seeks to protect. In an age of deregulation, some forces demand regulation, not to stifle innovation but to preserve it.

A cursory look at the search engine market share poignantly brings out our point. As of March 2024, Google's share in the search engine market worldwide is estimated to be around 91.37% compared to 3.37% of Bing, 1.64% of Yandex, 1.1% of Yahoo, 0.99% of Baidu, and 0.53% of DuckDuckGo. A similar trend is evident in the market share of operating systems (both for desktops and mobile phones). As of March 2024, for desktop operating systems, Windows owns 72.5% followed by OS X (14.6%), Linux (4.05%), and Chrome (2.27%). The share gets further skewed when it comes to mobile operating systems, with Android owning 70.79%, followed by iOS (28.46%), Samsung (0.39%), and others (0.32%).