Unable to dictate to India, American Big Tech lashes out at India in frustration
The Asia Internet Coalition, an industry group that represents Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Google and other American big tech companies, have suddenly woken up to the fact that they cannot dictate terms to India. India is way ahead in matters digital and constitutes 25% of the World consumers too.
So they can do nothing but express dissatisfaction with the digital competition law recommended by the Indian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in December, arguing that it is “regressive” and “may dampen digital innovation in India,” media outlet Business Standard reported on Monday. The Big Techies are aware that this law will simply break their monopoly over things digital,not only in India but also in rest of Asia and even Africa.
This verbal backlash from US tech companies signals the growing clout of India in the International digital market. The “ war “ between Indian and US tech companies will intensify in 2023, with New Delhi stepping up regulation for the world’s second most populous internet market, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.
It must be pointed out that there already is a growing trend of tightening regulations for the digital sector in many major economies. And dominant positions of US technological giants globally have also prompted concerns in many countries. India is now determined to not permit any clone of “East India Company” originating from any corner of the World.
While making the recommendation for a digital competition law, the Indian parliamentary panel cited the EU’s proposed Digital Markets Act and the US’ American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Market Act. Western countries are also broadly making revisions to their regulation on big tech companies to close loopholes for the fast-developing sector. They still think that they can dictate to and control Indian Markets !!!!
For instance, in November 2022, the UK’s Big Tech regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, announced a market investigation on Apple and Google for effective duopoly on mobile ecosystems. In the same month, Germany’s antitrust watchdog, Federal Cartel Office, widened antitrust probes of Amazon.
In the digital era, digital and internet technologies have increasingly become a critical driver for economic growth in many countries across the world. However, the broad application and commercialization of the technologies have led to negative impacts, including monopoly and violation of data privacy, and in some cases, have even challenged sovereignty and security of other countries.
Moreover, it is an indisputable fact that US technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Meta are constantly eroding away international market share and harvesting global data dividends, while promoting the rapid development of the US digital economy and maintain the US’ digital hegemony.
Amid growing risks, it is understandable that India will seek to step up its own market regulation to secure national security, economic interests and consumer privacy in trans-border data transactions.
Therefore all Big Techies nations must become fully aware that instead of unilateral actions, the way forward to tackle the growing risks and tensions in the digital sector is through cooperation only. Therefore global coordination and integration in terms of global digital governance has become increasingly crucial.
The global digital industry is an open and closely connected one. Win-win cooperation is the only right way. Protectionism, exclusion and confrontation will only lead to a dead end. Only when countries strengthen communication and promote bilateral and multilateral digital governance cooperation can an open, fair, and non-discriminatory digital business environment be established to serve the development of digital industries in various countries.
More importantly, the formulation of global cooperation rules and transformation of global digital governance should not be decided by individual countries. When countries jointly build a peaceful and open cyberspace, they should adhere to certain principles. The most important one is to respect the cyber sovereignty of all countries. No country should rely on its technological advantages to seek digital hegemony, interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, engage in, condone or support its companies in cyber activities that endanger the national security of other countries.
For the future development of the digital economy, both India and China constituting 50% of the World Consumers along with other developing countries will insist on digital multilateralism. All parties should therefore adhere to the principles of negotiation not confrontation, inclusiveness not exclusiveness, and jointly expand common interests and explore the potential and vitality of digital economic cooperation.
