Facebook doesn't mean to monopolize it, but it's too big.

Facebook doesn't mean to monopolize it, but it's too big.

 Alan Patricof, the legendary technology investor and venture capital giant Greycroft, said that Facebook and Google didn't want to be monopolists at the beginning, but the two companies have become too powerful.

 The Multi-State Inter-Party Prosecutor's Union is investigating whether Facebook may violate antitrust laws.  Another survey of Google will be announced next week.

 Patrickoff said, "I don't believe that Facebook, Google, or any other company that may be involved in the business will initially monopolize or cause problems," "because they grow beyond the expectations of everyone, and as a result, they  It has become too large and too common throughout our lives."

 New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that the focus of the antitrust investigation was "the dominant position of Facebook in the industry and potential anti-competitive behavior."

 “We will use every survey tool we have to determine whether Facebook’s behavior is jeopardizing consumer data, reducing the quality of consumer choices, or increasing the price of advertising,” she said.

 Patricov said the survey was "constructive" and said that "advertising costs have been hit because everyone relies on Facebook or Google as a publishing platform, which is very worrying."

 At the same time, however, he said that due to the nature of US antitrust laws, the investigation may encounter challenges.  He said that the decree is outdated and it is difficult to apply to today's technology giants, because the influence of companies does not necessarily hurt consumers by creating higher prices.

 In fact, this may be the opposite.

 Patrickov said, "The old monopoly theory believes that monopoly leads to price increases," but companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon "do not cause prices to rise, but instead cause prices to fall."

 In response to the integration of the oil and railway industries, the first antitrust law in the United States appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 Patricov joins the camp of scholars and academia, and the anti-monopoly law needs to be revised.  They have been emphasizing that the way monopolies are regulated needs to be adjusted.

 Patrickoff said, "The government needs to formulate new rules as the basis for the next 100 years of antitrust regulation."

 The announcement of an antitrust investigation on Facebook on the 6th is the latest review of large technology companies in 2019, which are facing criticism of user data security and e-commerce integration.

 “For me, spin-offs are one of the easiest alternatives for regulation,” said Patrickov. A better solution is to develop a law that allows the demographic of Internet users.

 He said that the amount of data available to Facebook and Google only increased when acquiring smaller competitors, which made them unfair.  But if data is provided "on an equal footing to external companies," it will limit the power of large technology companies.

 He said, "Data is the key to everything. If there is a way to achieve this through these surveys, I think this is a good thing."