Google as an Information Monopoly

Abstract

Google benefited from the commodification of the Internet during the last two decades in order to consolidate its dominance and become one of the largest and most powerful multinationals on earth. The company uses its exorbitant market power to eliminate any potential or real competition; it exploits loopholes in the regulatory framework to prevent the authorities from effectively limiting its hold over digital communication channels; it takes advantage of financial globalization to increase its profits and avoid taxes; it massively collects and exploits the personal data of Internet users. Far from the image of “naïve giant” that it cultivates, Google has real political influence. It participates, voluntarily or not, in the massive surveillance of the population by the security services and is utilized for political propaganda.

Keywords:

• Google
• monopoly
• information
• personal data
• advertising
• surveillance

Notes

1 Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. New York, Picador, 2015.

2 Nikos Smyrnaios, Internet Oligopoly: The Corporate Takeover of Our Digital World. Bingley, Emerald, 2018.

3 Ippolita, The Dark Side of Google. Translated by Patrice Riemens, Amsterdam, Institute of Network Cultures, 2013

4 Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, “The Californian Ideology.” Science as Culture, vol. 6, no. 1, 1996, pp. 44–72.

5 Robert McChesney, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy. New York, The New Press, 2013.

6 Taina Bucher, If … Then. Algorithmic Power and Politics. Oxford UP, 2018.

7 Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York, PublicAffairs, 2019.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nikos Smyrnaios

Nikos Smyrnaios is an Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Toulouse. His research includes the political economy of online media, digital journalism, and the political use of social media. He has published Internet Oligopoly: The Corporate Takeover of Our Digital World (Bingley, Emerald, 2018).