WS #283 Breaking the Internet Monopoly through Interoperability

Summary

This discussion focused on the monopolistic practices of big tech companies and the concept of interoperability as a potential solution. The speaker, Batool Almarzouq, began by highlighting the immense wealth and power of major tech corporations like Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. She explained how these companies maintain their dominance through strategic acquisitions, leveraging legal power, and creating barriers to competition.

Almarzouq emphasized the importance of interoperability in fostering innovation and breaking monopolies. She provided historical examples, such as IBM’s decline in the PC market and Apple’s challenge to Microsoft’s office suite dominance, to illustrate how interoperability can disrupt monopolistic control. The speaker outlined three types of interoperability: cooperative, indifferent, and adversarial, with a focus on the challenges of implementing adversarial interoperability.

The discussion touched on the implications for the Global South, where countries face the dual burden of adopting tech-friendly laws favoring US corporations and using technology ill-suited to local conditions. Almarzouq stressed the need for legal changes to support interoperability and protect users’ rights to modify and control their technology.

In the group discussions that followed, participants explored various aspects of interoperability. One group focused on the implementation of the EU’s Digital Markets Act and its potential impact on messaging services. Another group discussed the need for regulatory approaches to address data privacy violations and the importance of transparency from big tech companies. The discussions highlighted the complex challenges in implementing interoperability and the need for localized approaches to tech regulation.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The monopolistic power of big tech companies and how they maintain dominance

– The importance of interoperability in technology and how it can break monopolies

– Legal and business tactics used by big tech to prevent interoperability

– Implications for the Global South in terms of technology access and adaptation

– Potential solutions like new laws and rebuilding internet infrastructure

Overall purpose:

The goal was to examine how big tech companies have gained and maintained monopoly power, discuss the importance of interoperability, and explore potential solutions to create a more open and equitable technological landscape, especially for the Global South.

Tone:

The tone was primarily informative and analytical, with the speaker presenting research and concepts in an academic style. There was an underlying tone of concern about the current state of tech monopolies and their global impact. The tone shifted to be more collaborative and reflective during the group discussion portion at the end.

Speakers

– Batool Almarzouq: Computational biologist, open science advocate, working at the Alan Turing Institute

– Ghaidaa Alshanqiti: Online facilitator for the session, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

– Ian Brown: Discussed interoperability in the European Union

– Panelist: Unnamed panelist who summarized discussion from a group including colleagues from Russia and Kenya

Additional speakers:

– Anne Steele: Mentioned as one of the organizers of the session

– Abdul Latif Talwan: Mentioned as one of the organizers of the session

– Cory Doctorow: Author of the book “Internet Con”, referenced in the discussion

– Jason Heckel: Anthropologist quoted in the discussion

Expanded Summary of Discussion on Tech Monopolies and Interoperability

Introduction:

This discussion focused on the monopolistic practices of big tech companies and the concept of interoperability as a potential solution. The primary speaker, Batool Almarzouq, a computational biologist and open science advocate from the Alan Turing Institute, presented research and concepts in an academic style. The event was organized by Batool Almarzouq, Anne Steele, Abdul Latif Talwan, and Ghaidaa Alshanqiti.

1. The Rise and Dominance of Big Tech Companies:

Batool Almarzouq began by highlighting the immense wealth and power of major tech corporations. She noted that “the top 1% owns 43% of the world’s GDP… while two corporations actually control 40% of the global seed market itself.” Apple’s market value, for instance, exceeds the GDP of many countries.

Almarzouq outlined several ways these companies maintain their dominance:

a) Strategic acquisitions: Rather than competing through innovation, big tech companies often buy out potential competitors.

b) Leveraging legal power: They use various legal strategies to maintain market dominance, including the DMCA Section 1201 and trademark laws.

c) Creating barriers to competition: This includes tactics like non-compete clauses.

d) Network effects and switching costs: These make it difficult for users to switch platforms.

She also pointed out that antitrust enforcement changed significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, allowing these monopolies to form and grow.

2. The Importance of Interoperability:

Almarzouq emphasised the role of interoperability in fostering innovation and breaking monopolies. She provided historical examples:

a) IBM’s decline in the PC market: This occurred when IBM PC clones entered the market, increasing interoperability.

b) Apple’s challenge to Microsoft’s office suite dominance: This was made possible through Apple’s iWork suite and interoperability.

The speaker outlined three types of interoperability:

a) Cooperative: Where companies willingly work together (e.g., email protocols).

b) Indifferent: Where one company doesn’t actively help others.

c) Adversarial: Which was the focus of the discussion.

3. Legal and Business Tactics Preventing Interoperability:

Almarzouq explained that big tech companies now use various legal and technical barriers to prevent interoperability, especially adversarial interoperability. This has made it increasingly difficult for new competitors to enter the market or for users to switch between platforms.

4. Implications for the Global South:

The discussion briefly touched on the significant challenges faced by countries in the Global South. Almarzouq highlighted a “double burden” these countries face:

a) They are forced to adopt tech-friendly laws that primarily benefit US corporations.

b) They must use technology ill-suited to local conditions, as it’s often designed for different contexts.

This situation has led to local developers creating better-adapted versions of apps, highlighting the need for technology that considers local needs and contexts.

5. Potential Solutions and Regulatory Approaches:

Several potential solutions were discussed:

a) New laws supporting interoperability: The EU’s Digital Markets Act was cited as an example, mandating interoperability for messaging apps and potentially extending to social networking services.

b) Rebuilding internet infrastructure: This was suggested as a long-term solution to create a more open internet.

c) Collective advocacy: Almarzouq emphasised the need for users to collectively push for better interoperability.

Ian Brown discussed interoperability in the European Union, noting the high resource requirements for implementing interoperability, especially for smaller organisations.

6. Group Discussions and Additional Perspectives:

Following the main presentation, participants broke into groups to explore various aspects of interoperability. They were asked to discuss challenges, opportunities, and potential solutions related to interoperability. Key points from these discussions included:

a) Implementation challenges of the EU’s Digital Markets Act, particularly for messaging services.

b) The need for regulatory approaches to address data privacy violations by big tech companies.

c) The importance of transparency from big tech companies regarding their protocols and algorithms.

d) The need for localisation of terms of service for different markets and cultures.

e) Challenges faced by organizations like ICRC in using platforms like Teams while maintaining interoperability.

A panelist summarising discussions from a group including colleagues from Russia and Kenya emphasised data privacy violations and financial statement violations by big tech companies.

Jason Heckel’s quote about the economy and relationships based on extraction, exploitation, or care was highlighted as a key insight from the discussions.

Conclusion:

The discussion highlighted the complex challenges in implementing interoperability and the need for localised approaches to tech regulation. It emphasised the importance of collective action, regulatory intervention, and innovative solutions to address the dominance of big tech companies and create a more open, equitable technological landscape, especially for the Global South.

The organizers plan to produce a report about the session and share it with participants, encouraging further exploration of the topics discussed.

Batool Almarzouq: I apologize for the delay, and thank you so much, really, for joining in this very early hour, and if it’s you, Audi, thank you so much for coming all the way to Saudi. For people who joining online, thank you for making the time to join. I want to acknowledge that this session is organized not just by me, you can just see me here in the room, but it’s organized by four people, so it’s organized by the wonderful Anne Steele, Abdul Latif Talwan, and also Ghida, who is actually our online facilitator. This is not going to be a panel. It’s not similar to the other sessions I’ve probably been to in the conference so far. So the plan, I’ll be speaking in 25 minutes at the very beginning to give some sort of introduction and speaking more about the topic, then we’re going to move into table discussion for about ten minutes. So people who are in the room, I’m going to gather you in like groups probably, and I’ve got notebooks and pens, and people who are online, we’re going to have a Google Doc that you’re going to use to share your reflections and some questions that I’ll be presenting. Again, this is the last day of the conference, so we want everyone to connect, to make a friend. network with the people next year. And the last thing, also, that I want to say, that this talk is a bit heavy with legal concept that I’m going to try to simplify. But also, I want to make sure if the sound is not good. So OK. Hopefully, the sound now is way better. So as I said, the talk is going to be a bit heavy with legal concept. But I’m going to try to make it very clear. I’m not a lawyer. And none of us are lawyers. So any information or data shared during the talk is cited. The slide is also going to be available today online. So please go back to this information and all of these citations. I’m a computational biologist by training. And I’m an open science advocate. I’m Saudi, but I’m based in the UK. And I’m currently working at the Alan Turing Institute, which is the UK National Institute for Data Science and AI. And I come from academic point of view to this topic. So what I’ll be trying to do is encouraging or trying to reflect on a question about how we encourage growth, innovation, and tech without harm, what decolonization actually looked like for the global south. And my intention, really, not to focus on the legal concept or technical one, but more about the implication and what it means for us. So the first question, why bother, actually, with the internet monopoly? Why are we speaking about this in the first place? We are all aware of the disparity between the global south and the global north when it comes to resources, wealth, domination, extractions. To get more sense of what monopoly looked like, let’s start with this stat. According to Oxfam, the top 1% owns, actually, 43% of the world’s GDP. percent of all the global financial assets, while two corporations actually control 40% of the global seed market itself. This is how serious it is. Looking at other stacks within the tech itself, again all the figures that I’m going to be presenting about the big tech are calculated in 2021 and cited with the citation here, but some might have it changed, but I don’t expect these changes to be huge or very far from these figures. So let’s start with Apple. Apple at work exceeds actually GDP of many countries like Italy, Brazil, Canada, Russia. In fact there are only seven countries in the world with higher GDP than Apple, 2.2 trillion, meaning that this tech giant is richer than a lot of the world’s population or nations. If Apple was actually a country, it might take the place of the eighth richest country in the world. That’s how serious it is. Let’s look at another example, Microsoft. Microsoft is not different. It’s 1.8 trillion market cap, but it’s really the third highest or largest company in our list, and it makes GDP on par with Canada and even richer than many developed economy like Australia, Spain, Indonesia. Actually if you take Apple and Microsoft and you combine them together, the GDP is even going to be higher than what Central Europe put together. Again, Amazon is without doubt also one of the big tech giants worldwide and has seen very, very growth in their sales during the COVID-19 and the market capitalization is 1.6 trillion, makes that company also one of the richest of the 90% of the countries within the globe. And you can see it also in this map. Again, last example, Facebook. It’s not in the top 10 with the highest value, but also has a market gap of $763 billion. And it’s had this very, very huge global player in the world stage. If Facebook were a country, it would be wealthier than Switzerland, Sweden, and the UAE combined. That’s how huge it is. In terms of GDP. So I think the question, the reason why I’m showing this sort of start, in the past, there was this dynamic and chaotic wave with startups. So people start as a startup. They rose to the peak. They become household name within just a few years. Only, sorry, I wasn’t moving this. So there was a dynamic and chaotic wave of startup. They rose to the peak, becoming household names within just a few years. And then they disappeared just as they reached the peak. And that was a very, very, very normal cycle. However, this cycle was interrupted when the new giant did not just get big, they stayed big. And then they got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. So that’s what the interruption is happening. And that’s what we’re trying to understand. So probably the question is, how did this big tech become big? And did they stay big without going through the same cycle? And I think this is a very, very, very tricky question. I’m sure some of you in the audience have different answers. There is no very clear answer. So I’m going to be mainly really focusing and using some analysis presented by Corey in his latest book, Internet Con. But again, this is something that I’ve been for debate. And I just want to highlight a few things about this big tech company. Again, when I speak about them, this is not to criticize. besides anyone who affiliated with these companies, is just more about to try to reflect about a lot of these practices, how we can sort of understand its implication into our society. So one of the things that really huge or big tech is doing, the big five tech company made hundreds and hundreds of acquisitions. We don’t have exact number. Some say it’s over 600 from 2010 to 2019. They were not tiny purchases. Each was worth over $1 million. And that shows how aggressively they were buying up other companies. When these people come and buy these companies, founders of the startups has to sign an agreement. We call this agreement non-competing clause. And this agreement prevent them from creating competing product. So effectively, they sort of try to stop this startup from, or these innovators, from starting a new rival company. And that kept talent and idea locked within the big tech companies. And many of these acquired actually a company with a startup, so like under five years old. And that suggests that this big tech was buying potential competitors before they could grow. And that pattern of eliminating this competition early before it becomes serious is one of these factors that actually contributed for these big techs staying big. For example, we all remember Facebook acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp back in 2012. Instagram, while becoming very, very super popular, especially because they figured out how to make their social media work great on phones, something that Facebook. Facebook was a bit struggling with. So rather than Facebook trying to fix that problem, Facebook actually brought to Instagram for $1 billion. And at that time, people thought that was crazy money for an app that has no income. But Facebook knew what they were doing at that time. Then in 2014, they saw also WhatsApp becoming huge, huge in messaging. So they went even bigger, spending, I believe, $20 billion to buy WhatsApp. So Facebook’s own internal documentation showed that they were worried about people actually leaving their platform. And they knew it was very, very hard for a user to switch because all of their friends, their network, were already in Facebook. So fast forward today, this strategy has worked incredibly, incredibly well for Facebook, and now Meta. We call Facebook Meta. So they control the social media for about 4 billion people worldwide. And that making Meta basically an official ruler for half of the world’s digital social life. So I think what I’m trying to say, instead of winning by making things better product, they win by buying up anyone who might have a compete with them. And because regulators, I mean, antitrust enforcement I’m going to speak about in a bit, did not stop these purchases, Facebook has been able to keep doing this, leaving users with fewer choices and less innovation in social media. The other factors that actually contributed to big tech staying big or becoming giant in the first place is the death of antitrust enforcement. And I’m going to be focusing more about some of these in the American economy. So back in 1890, America created strong laws. We called them the Sherman Act. to prevent any company from getting too, too powerful. And the thinking was pretty straightforward. Just like you don’t want one person having too much political power, you don’t want also one company controlling too much of the markets. So this is something that, within the American system and the legal system, they have thought about it from the very, very beginning, since the 1980s. But everything changed in the 1970s when a guy named Robert Bork came along with a new idea. He basically said monopolies were fine as long as they did not raise the prices for consumers. And this was a huge, huge change from the original law, which was meant to stop any company from getting too, too big. And the idea caught fire at the University of Chicago back then, where economists created these fancy sort of models to prove that monopoly were actually good for everyone. And these models were so, so complicated that only a creator could understand them, which was perfect for a big company who would hire these same economists as consultants to justify these mergers. Things really took off in the 1980s. And then President Reagan and the US government basically stopped enforcing these antitrust laws. And that thinking spread globally through leaders like Margaret Thatcher in the UK. And the results, what we see today, we see monopolies everywhere, from airline, from eyeglasses to candy companies. So this is why Facebook could actually just buy Instagram and WhatsApp instead of competing with them. For example, it took 69 years for constant effort to break up the old telephone monopoly, AT&T, people who are in the United States familiar with it. But today, similar monopolies face practically no threat of being broken up. even have to prove they’re not monopolies anymore. They just hire economists to argue why their monopolies is actually good for everyone. This change in how we handle monopoly has completely transformed the American economy. So instead of fighting big companies getting bigger, we now celebrate it. And that’s the big reason why tech company have been able to grow so, so incredibly powerful. The last thing that helped big tech is how they leverage also legal power. So think of big tech companies as a players who not just know how tech game, but also know the legal game. They have different legal protection with enough money for lawyers, they can batch up any weakest spot by combining different laws in very, very clever way. One of the favorite laws is something called the MCA. Especially section 1201, which is a pretty, pretty intense. So if you, that section tell you if you break any digital lock, even for perfectly legal reason, you face five years in prison and 500,000 fine. So company can stop these digital lock, they can actually add these digital lock in their product and then call out anyone to try to modify or work with them. They basically make it a crime to mess with their business model. So take Apple, for example, they bought this tiny Apple logo and iPhone parts inside of the iPhone itself. Then they claim it’s a trademark violation if you use or you change some of these parts for repair. So between this and this, they control who gets to repair their devices and how. They also use complicated contract, those terms of service that nobody reads. Plus agreement that’s still. employees from working for competitors or talking about the company secret. So it’s very, very powerful when they combine all these legal tools in a way that stops any sort of competitors. So these companies are not just building teams for engineers anymore, they’re building also armies of lawyers, and if anyone tries to compete with them, they don’t need just to make their product better. They have to also understand the legal system until the other party or side actually try to give up. And this is not just in America, these are trade agreements, they spread and they run worldwide. I’m going to speak about their implication in the global south in particular. So some might feel this is very, very normal, this is how competition should be, but my takeaway is that technology has changed very, very dramatically from something anyone could think or improve into something that is controlled by a giant company. So these days having great, great technical skills is not enough, you need also a deep, deep bucket of legal battle if you want to innovate in tech. So this takes me in how tech used to grow in the past. By the ability of computer system or tech or software to exchange and make use of information. And we call that interoperable system. So actually, as Corey put it, the technological world that we inhabit today was profoundly shaped by the ability of newcomers to hack interoperable ad blocks and features into the technology that came before them. And actually, this is how all tech used to develop and work this way. So this is how Microsoft got big, this is how all of these big giants actually got big in the first place. So let’s take two examples, just what I mean by interoperable. One around hardware, another one around software. So let’s speak about a breaking hardware monopoly with IBM. People who are older than me, they remember IBM in the 1970s, 80s. IBM was this king of computing. They were so, so, so powerful that people called them the big blue. But IBM had a problem back then, had been fighting antitrust case with the Department of Justice for around 12 years. And during that battle, IBM had to reduce every memo, attend countless, countless of meetings with lawyers who were paranoid about this antitrust violation, about this big sort of violation. And this scrutiny made IBM extremely, extremely cautious back then about anything that might look monopolistic. So to avoid the trouble back then, IBM made two key decisions to avoid further antitrust scrutiny. So one thing they’ve done, they used commodity bots, like common bots, that any manufacturer could buy in the open market. And they also decided not to make their own VC operating system. Instead, they were getting it from Microsoft. And just to give some sort of Microsoft back then was not this big tech giant. It was really, really young, young company back then. So IBM voluntarily embraced interoperable component and operating system. And then something very, very interesting happened. A small company called Phoenix Computers figured out how to reverse engineer the one part of IBM that still IBM has as unique or manufactured by them, which is the ROM chip that made the computer work. And that meant the other company could actually now make complete IBM-compatible computers. So it can be companies like Dell. gateway, started making this VC clone that could run all the same programs as IBM computer, but cost less money and had better, better features. And because of this interoperability, IBM monopoly crumbled, and they eventually got out of the VC business entirely. And the interesting is that this decision helped break IBM’s monopoly even more effectively actually than the antitrust case itself, where they were fighting for 12 years. Just to, so that’s an example how you break with interoperable system actually, big giant. Another example that probably many people here are very familiar with it is Apple versus Microsoft battle on the office suite. So in the early 2000s, Microsoft had begun this new tech monopoly controlling 95% of the disk of computing through Windows. So actually the first computer that I had back then is like Microsoft and has this office that I use it for everything. And Microsoft used this power to dominate office software with the Microsoft office and created a big, big problem for Apple. Because Microsoft office software does not work for Macs, or it works extremely, extremely terribly, making it hard for Mac users to share files with Windows users. Let’s say I’ve made a presentation in Windows, if I give it to my colleague who’s using Mac back then, they could not operate it or make it work. So most people use Windows back then, which means buying Mac was very, very risky. You might not be able to work with your colleague file. So that they create it in Microsoft office like Word document. So Apple found a very, very clever way. Instead of begging Microsoft… to make better Mac software, they worked to reverse engineer the Microsoft file format. So they created something called iWork, their own Office Suite, which I believe many of you are familiar with it, which read and write Microsoft Office file. And suddenly, Mac users could actually freely exchange file with Windows users. And even better, Windows users could switch to Mac without losing access to their old file. And this helped save Apple and eventually forced Microsoft to make their file format public standard that anyone could use. So what I would like actually to highlight from this story, how interoperable can it break these monopolies in two ways? Letting your competitors make compatible hardware, like IBM VC clones, or compatible software, like Apple’s iWork. And in both cases, the monopoly company could not maintain that control once users had real choice that wouldn’t keep them away from their file or program. This is why tech giants today fight so, so hard to prevent interoperability. They’ve learned from history that one of the biggest threat to domination is actually making their hardware or software interoperable itself. So there are three distinct types of interoperable. As I mentioned, there’s cooperative interoperable, so a company willing to work together, follow these agreed on standards, like email protocol. For example, Gmail can send to Apple Mail because they share the standard based on a mutual agreement and cooperation. There is indifferent interoperability, which one company doesn’t actually actively help up like others. But the one that I would like to focus more about is adversarial interoperability. So creating compatible alternative. but created against the original company wishes. And this often involved reverse engineering, which is very, very challenging. So original company actively tried to prevent it, and that’s the example I gave with Apple iWork and Microsoft Office itself. So I think the question that, what new challenge we found when we’re trying to do this adversarial interoperability is the same as the one I’ve mentioned previously. So big company used strategy to stay at the very, very top. Legal tools and business track. So as I mentioned, the DMCA section 1201 represent one of the most powerful tool against interoperable system. Company can add simple digital lock to their product and then use DMCA to legally attack anyone who can try to modify this interoperable system. They also use the trademark, but they also, there is a business trick that keep users stuck within their service. As I mentioned, the simplest approach is like buying any company that might become a competitor with you. And the clever part is how this, they combine all these strategies. So they combine this legal, business tactic, technical one. So it’s not enough for the competitor to get vast win barrier. They have to break down multiple, multiple barriers of a protection. So even if someone is very, very smart and they figured out how technically connect with a big tech service and reverse engineer anything, they face a lawsuit and there is other, other sort of flyers that they have to overcome. So to break both type of barriers, we need really new laws that make it legal to connect with and modify existing service. And we need rules that make it easier for user to leave services without losing everything they’ve been actually trying or build. over there. So going back to the network effect we see in social media, and big tech get big through what we call the network effect. So you join Facebook because there is what everyone share photos, update, and then your friend join because you are there, and their friend join because they are there, and the cycle continue. And that’s how really what we call it, like network effect, that affect how tech companies grow massive user base very, very quickly. But getting big is not enough. They need to keep people from leaving. This is where switching codes come in. So imagine trying to leave Facebook. You would lose all of your photo, your messages, your event invitation, your business contact, and even your connection to a friend and family who only use Facebook. And the cost of switching to another service is so, so high that people stay, even if they are not happy with the service itself. Because if you move, you really lost all of your data, all of your photos, friends, network. So it’s like being. And here’s what gets very, very interesting. Technically speaking, there is no reason why you couldn’t have a different social media service that could still talk to Facebook. So all computers can run any program. And that’s just how computers are actually supposed to work or work in a practice. Like how you use Gmail to email someone using Yahoo email. They could theoretically have a different service that lets you keep in touch with your Facebook friend without actually using Facebook. But big companies don’t want to make that happen, since we can’t make it technically impossible because of how computers work. They use legal barrier instead. And they create laws, contracts, digital locks that make that very, very, very complicated. And this is why fixing the problem required change. changing law, not just building better technology. And the technology to break free from big tech control already exists, but the legal barrier is that will keep us very, very locked in. Again, how do we support interoperability? There is, think of today internet like a bunch of separate castle, like Facebook, Google, Apple, et cetera, keeping everyone trapped inside. And the immediate solution about creating doors in this world. So one of the very encouraging things that have been happening is the European Union already been doing the Digital Market Act, which basically tells big companies, you must let other companies connect to your service. It’s like forcing Facebook to let you talk to your Facebook friend, even if you don’t have a Facebook account, or even if you use a very different social network account. Another quick fix is allowing what we call a competitive compatibility. So that means let an engineer figure out how big tech service works and create compatible alternatives, like how Apple figured out how to reverse engineer and make their iWork software read Microsoft Office file. Right now, this is the kind of reverse engineer. It’s often very illegal. And making it legal would immediately give users more and more choices. The longer term solution that we can speak about is actually rebuilding the internet to be more open from the ground up. This starts actually with fixing our antitrust law, which currently lets very, very big companies buy up all their competitors, like Facebook, buying Instagrams and WhatsApp. We also need technical standards that make different services work together by design. And most importantly, I would say we need to protect people’s right to modify and control their own technology. And right now, if you buy an iPhone, I will control what app you get to install, like through App Store. And the long-term fix is giving this control back to the users. So we need both kind of solution, quick fix to give people more choices right now, and the long-term changes to make sure that big tech cannot lock everything down again in the futures. And this really, really matters, because if we can’t fix big tech control over our digital life, we’re going to be struggling to fix many, many other problems in our modern world. So we need open, fair technology to organize, communicate, and work together in all of our challenges. I want to touch very, very light implication on the global south, which is extremely, extremely huge. And that’s what actually of interest to us. So the global south face double, double burden. It’s forced into passing tech laws friendly only to US corporation. And the second part, they have to use technology designed for each country that often does not work well in your local conditions. So the technology itself often does not work well in this country. And imagine trying to download a huge, huge software update when your internet actually is very slow or expensive. I’ve been asked, I assume you always have power and internet when you don’t actually in practice. Again, people in this country find a very clever way around this problem. For example, in Syria during the civil war, someone created a better version of WhatsApp that worked better for local need. And Indonesia also drive who modified this ride-sharing app to make them work better in their city by reverse engineering both of them. And this solution works because local developers and understand local need better than Silicon Valley companies. So making technology more interoperable, meaning anyone can modify it to work better for their need, this would let country in the global south adapt technology to their local condition instead of being forced to use solution designed by Europe or the US. And this matters, because technology today is like electricity, actually. You need it to participate in modern world. But right now, global south are forced to use technology that is not built for them, while being legally prevented from adapting this technology or reverse engineer to their need itself. So these days, I see myself actually reflecting a lot on many of the problems we have in our technology and our politics, which always takes me back to the economy, to the growth. So I want to leave. This is the last slide. I want to leave. Slide does not change for some reason. It’s interesting. It’s not changing. OK, it’s fine. This last slide, I want to leave with this quote from Jason Heckel, who is an amazing anthropologist and has written a lot about de-growth economy, about climate change, about technology. He said that the economy is really this material relationship with what will surround us. And we have to decide whether we want that relationship to be based on extraction, exploitation, or in care, which is something that we leave out when we think about long-term impact of what we do currently. Probably a good reminder for ourselves that everything that we do goes back in circle to the same people who actually started it. So, I will move to questions and reflection, which we will do as a group. I’m having a problem with changing the slide completely. Would you be able to change it from your side? Or is that the last one that you have? Can you change it as well? Okay. Thank you. So, we have, I believe, around, like, 15 minutes to questions and reflection. What I want to try to do, I want to try to do something very new. I want to do some sort of group. Because what I want to do is also collect these sort of feedback, reflection into some sort of report about the session itself. We’re going to do the same with the people online. So I’m going to try to collect people in different groups for around ten, seven minutes. Then each group is going to introduce themselves, they’re going to get to know each other. This is the day before the last of the conference. So make friends, know people around you. And then I do have a few questions that we’re going to reflect on these questions. I’m also not very fond of these headphones, actually. I don’t like speaking to people in headphones when you have them, like, in front of you. It’s a different vibe for interacting and hearing people directly. So I’m going to give you some notebooks as well that we have in the back. And people who are online, we have a Google Doc provided. And we’re probably going to do a breakout room to collect all of their thoughts. And this discussion, what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to report back, like, all of these discussions, thoughts and reflection in the mic so we can have it in the transcript itself. Would you be able to change the slide one more? Okay. So that’s the last slide. So things that I want to start with is, again, each one is going to introduce themselves. to the group, and then after the introduction, choose one of these questions that resonate more with you or something that you want to sort of, you have any thoughts around it. The first question is, you don’t have to answer all of these, just one of them. Like, have you ever felt locked in into a technology service despite wanting to leave, and what kept you actually there? The second question, how might, if we make interoperability something that mandatory, how that going to change the balance of power between users and tech companies, and how might actually that affect innovation in technology? The third question, what challenges do you foresee in implementing this interoperability as a compulsory? The last question, how could users actually in your country, because we’re coming from different places, collectively advocate for better interoperability? So we’re going to do that in the last sort of five minutes. Would that be OK? Let me just try and take this away. I’m going to check with the online people if they are OK. Yeah, right now, would you be able to open breakout room and add people there, and then give them the Google Doc, please? I’m going to add the Google Doc again, just in case for people who did not see it from the very beginning.

Ghaidaa Alshanqiti: Thank you, everyone. I see the breakout room and the online, they also sort of finished. So what we’re going to do now is just that we’re going to have someone to report from each group. I’m very conscious of the time. We have another session immediately after us. So what I’m going to do, I’m going to hand it to group one and then group two. And I will see if we can do the online. If we couldn’t, we’re probably going to just catch up with the Google Doc. So I’m going to send it to everyone later on.

Ian Brown: Hello everyone, I’m Ian Brown. We were talking about interoperability in the European Union. First of all, the Digital Markets Act has been in force for over a year and therefore messaging services, particularly WhatsApp, have to enable interoperability to other messaging services. What we’ve seen so far is it’s taking some time for other organisations to develop the technology. Multiple companies are, although we don’t know who they all are yet because they haven’t said publicly, one challenge has been one open source organisation has been trying to build WhatsApp interoperability into their service based on Matrix, which is an open source protocol, but they found that the resource requirements are currently too much for them to do that without a specific customer needing it and being willing to finance it. So that hasn’t happened yet. The EU is also considering extending this legal requirement to social networking services like Facebook. That was debated when the law was passed. The European Parliament wanted that to happen, but the EU governments would not allow it to happen. But after a three year review, that may happen next time. And then the other point we discussed was our colleague from the ICRC. They are using Teams globally for meetings with 20,000 people, you said, a lot of people, but they do talk to organisations like the UN, for example, via Zoom sometimes, the European Commission, occasionally with WhatsApp, so interoperability could be a useful tool here to let different organizations using different tools bridge without having to install all the different software in all the different places. The one key point, of course, is the security policy of the ICRC would have to also be met by these other organizations. Thank you.

Batool Almarzouq: Thank you so much for that. Thank you.

Panelist: So thank you very much. I’ll give an overview. So our three colleagues, one from Russia, two of us from Kenya, we looked at several issues with respect to interoperability. So we are seeing that big tech companies are engaged in data privacy violations, financial statement violations. So we had a discussion and we had the opinion that we need to have regulatory approaches to intervene in such violations. There is need for transparency by the big tech companies in terms of, you know, explaining more about the protocols that they’re using, issues of compatibility. There’s need for transparency in using the technology. So we discussed and agreed that there’s much more neutrality that is required to ensure that these platforms are interoperable. We’re seeing that issues of big data analytics and the use of algorithms to mine data from users to try to influence our purchasing choices. So there’s need also for the big tech companies to have localization of their laws or their terms of use for the different markets in which they operate. Because many times you find that they apply their own local laws in different jurisdictions and it causes some kind of conflict because different parts of the world have different cultures and therefore different content might be offensive in one part of the world and not the other. Thank you.

Ghaidaa Alshanqiti: Thank you so much for sharing such interesting reflection and thoughts. What we’re gonna be doing is if you have taken notes I was I wanted also to share the one in the online but I’m very very conscious of the time so what we’re gonna be doing is we anyone who shared written route if they can give it to me or even their contact we will be sort of sending all of these reflection to everyone who sort of joined discussion online or in person so we’re going to be producing some sort of report about the session itself and share it with everyone that again has also everyone’s name that if they comfortable sharing their contact and names really really thankful for everyone who joined especially the one also online and for that also for facilitating the online discussion thank you so much right now and with that we’re gonna be closing the session so we allow the next session to actually prepare thank you

Agreement Points

Big tech companies have excessive market power

Batool Almarzouq

Panelist

Market capitalization of big tech exceeds GDP of many countries

Big tech companies are engaged in data privacy violations, financial statement violations

Both speakers highlight the immense economic power and influence of big tech companies, which extends beyond national boundaries and leads to various violations.

Need for regulatory intervention

Batool Almarzouq

Panelist

Weakening of antitrust enforcement allowed monopolies to form

Need for regulatory approaches to address privacy violations

The speakers agree that there is a need for stronger regulatory approaches to address the dominance of big tech companies and their violations.

Importance of interoperability

Batool Almarzouq

Ian Brown

Interoperability historically helped break up monopolies like IBM

EU Digital Markets Act mandates interoperability for messaging apps

Both speakers emphasize the importance of interoperability in challenging tech monopolies, citing historical examples and current legislation.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the need for increased transparency and scrutiny of big tech companies’ practices to ensure fair competition and protect user rights.

Batool Almarzouq

Panelist

Legal strategies used to maintain market dominance

Need for transparency from big tech companies

The speakers agree that technology and policies need to be adapted to local contexts, particularly in the Global South, to better serve users in different regions.

Batool Almarzouq

Panelist

Global South forced to use tech not designed for local needs

Need for localization of terms of service for different markets

Unexpected Consensus

Challenges in implementing interoperability

Batool Almarzouq

Ian Brown

Legal and technical barriers now prevent interoperability

Resource requirements for implementing interoperability are high

While both speakers advocate for interoperability, they unexpectedly agree on the significant challenges in implementing it, including legal, technical, and resource barriers.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers generally agree on the excessive power of big tech companies, the need for regulatory intervention, the importance of interoperability, and the necessity of adapting technology to local contexts.

Consensus level

There is a high level of consensus among the speakers on the main issues discussed. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the challenges posed by big tech dominance and the potential solutions, which could provide a strong foundation for developing policy recommendations and regulatory frameworks to address these issues.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to interoperability implementation

Batool Almarzouq

Ian Brown

Collective advocacy for better interoperability

Resource requirements for implementing interoperability are high

While Batool Almarzouq suggests collective advocacy for better interoperability, Ian Brown highlights the high resource requirements as a challenge for implementation, especially for smaller organizations.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the implementation of interoperability and the focus of regulatory approaches.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. The speakers generally agree on the need for interoperability and regulatory intervention, but they emphasize different aspects and challenges. This suggests a nuanced understanding of the complex issues surrounding big tech dominance and interoperability.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need for regulatory intervention, but they focus on different aspects. Batool Almarzouq emphasizes the legal strategies used by big tech to maintain dominance, while the Panelist focuses on addressing privacy violations.

Batool Almarzouq

Panelist

Legal strategies used to maintain market dominance

Need for regulatory approaches to address privacy violations

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers highlight the need for increased transparency and scrutiny of big tech companies’ practices to ensure fair competition and protect user rights.

Batool Almarzouq

Panelist

Legal strategies used to maintain market dominance

Need for transparency from big tech companies

The speakers agree that technology and policies need to be adapted to local contexts, particularly in the Global South, to better serve users in different regions.

Batool Almarzouq

Panelist

Global South forced to use tech not designed for local needs

Need for localization of terms of service for different markets

Key Takeaways

Big tech companies have achieved and maintained dominance through acquisitions, legal strategies, and weakened antitrust enforcement

Interoperability historically helped break up tech monopolies, but is now prevented by legal and technical barriers

The EU Digital Markets Act mandates interoperability for messaging apps, which could change the balance of power between users and tech companies

Global South countries face challenges in using technology not designed for their local needs

There is a need for more transparency and localization from big tech companies

Resolutions and Action Items

Produce and share a report summarizing the session’s reflections and discussions with all participants

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively implement interoperability given high resource requirements

How to address data privacy violations by big tech companies

How to ensure neutrality and compatibility across different platforms

How to balance localization of tech services with global operations

Suggested Compromises

Implementing both quick fixes (like the EU’s Digital Markets Act) and long-term solutions to address tech monopolies

Allowing competitive compatibility to give users more choices while working on rebuilding a more open internet

According to Oxfam, the top 1% owns, actually, 43% of the world’s GDP. percent of all the global financial assets, while two corporations actually control 40% of the global seed market itself. This is how serious it is.

speaker

Batool Almarzouq

reason

This statistic provides a striking illustration of the extreme concentration of wealth and market power, setting the stage for the discussion on tech monopolies.

impact

It framed the subsequent discussion by emphasizing the scale and seriousness of monopolistic control in the global economy.

Instead of winning by making things better product, they win by buying up anyone who might have a compete with them.

speaker

Batool Almarzouq

reason

This succinctly captures a key strategy used by big tech companies to maintain dominance, challenging the notion that their success is purely based on innovation.

impact

It shifted the conversation to examine the business practices of tech giants, rather than just their products or services.

There are three distinct types of interoperable. As I mentioned, there’s cooperative interoperable, so a company willing to work together, follow these agreed on standards, like email protocol. For example, Gmail can send to Apple Mail because they share the standard based on a mutual agreement and cooperation. There is indifferent interoperability, which one company doesn’t actually actively help up like others. But the one that I would like to focus more about is adversarial interoperability.

speaker

Batool Almarzouq

reason

This breakdown of different types of interoperability provides a nuanced framework for understanding how tech systems can interact, highlighting the complexities involved.

impact

It deepened the technical understanding of interoperability and set up the subsequent discussion on the challenges and potential solutions in this area.

The global south face double, double burden. It’s forced into passing tech laws friendly only to US corporation. And the second part, they have to use technology designed for each country that often does not work well in your local conditions.

speaker

Batool Almarzouq

reason

This comment brings attention to the often-overlooked challenges faced by developing countries in the global tech landscape, highlighting issues of technological colonialism.

impact

It broadened the scope of the discussion to include global inequities in tech development and regulation, leading to reflections on how interoperability could benefit the Global South.

The EU is also considering extending this legal requirement to social networking services like Facebook. That was debated when the law was passed. The European Parliament wanted that to happen, but the EU governments would not allow it to happen. But after a three year review, that may happen next time.

speaker

Ian Brown

reason

This comment provides insight into ongoing regulatory efforts in the EU, showing how interoperability requirements are being considered for expansion.

impact

It grounded the theoretical discussion in current policy developments, offering a concrete example of how interoperability might be mandated in practice.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by providing a comprehensive overview of the issues surrounding tech monopolies and interoperability. They moved the conversation from broad economic concerns to specific tech industry practices, then to technical aspects of interoperability, global implications, and finally to current regulatory efforts. This progression allowed for a multi-faceted exploration of the topic, touching on economic, technical, social, and policy dimensions.

How can users in different countries collectively advocate for better interoperability?

speaker

Batool Almarzouq

explanation

This was posed as a discussion question to explore country-specific strategies for promoting interoperability

What challenges exist in implementing mandatory interoperability?

speaker

Batool Almarzouq

explanation

Understanding potential obstacles is crucial for effectively implementing interoperability policies

How might mandatory interoperability change the balance of power between users and tech companies, and how might it affect innovation?

speaker

Batool Almarzouq

explanation

Exploring the potential impacts of interoperability on power dynamics and innovation in the tech industry

How can the resource requirements for implementing interoperability (e.g. for WhatsApp) be addressed for smaller organizations?

speaker

Ian Brown

explanation

This highlights a practical challenge in implementing interoperability that needs further investigation

How can security policies of different organizations be aligned to enable interoperability between communication tools?

speaker

Ian Brown

explanation

This is important for enabling secure interoperability between organizations using different communication platforms

What regulatory approaches are needed to intervene in data privacy and financial statement violations by big tech companies?

speaker

Panelist from group 2

explanation

This area requires further research to develop effective regulatory strategies

How can transparency be improved regarding the protocols and algorithms used by big tech companies?

speaker

Panelist from group 2

explanation

Greater transparency is needed to understand and address issues related to data use and user influence

How can big tech companies better localize their terms of use for different markets and cultures?

speaker

Panelist from group 2

explanation

This is important for addressing conflicts arising from applying uniform policies globally