Big Tech companies can't be trusted with people's data

The argument

The nature of the services provided by the Big Tech companies mean that these companies possess and track vast amounts of their users' private personal data. Advertising is a multi-billion dollar revenue generator for the Big Tech companies, and targeting advertisements based on user data is a critical part of the business model of Big Tech companies including Amazon, Facebook, and Google. The absence of viable alternative options to the platforms provided by Big Tech means that these companies have little incentive to take privacy seriously, despite ongoing backlash against their practices. The scale of Big Tech's dominance also affords these companies undue influence over what information people see, what products people buy, and what choices people make. Facebook received widespread condemnation following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which they allowed the external firm to data-mine their users and sell that data to clients including the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Controversies like the Cambridge Analytica incident have prompted public outcry and calls for increased regulation of the data use practices and privacy policies of Big Tech. Breaking up the Big Tech companies would facilitate effective oversight and prevent any single company from controlling so much private data that they are able to exert an unchecked influence on public discourse and democratic processes.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The privacy and data-misuse concerns the argument raises are serious, but breaking up the companies is not the remedy that follows from them, and may even be counter-productive for privacy specifically. Harms like non-consensual data-sharing, opaque tracking and episodes such as Cambridge Analytica are addressed most directly by data-protection law — consent requirements, purpose limitation, data-minimisation and enforcement with real penalties, as under GDPR-style regimes — rather than by structural separation of firms. Indeed, splitting a company can scatter personal data across a larger number of smaller entities with weaker security, less compliance capacity and less public scrutiny, which is not obviously better for the people whose data it is; smaller firms are not inherently more trustworthy custodians. The Cambridge Analytica episode itself drew regulatory penalties under existing law, illustrating that meaningful oversight does not require dissolution. The argument also bundles distinct problems: influence over 'what information people see' is a question of content moderation and market competition, separate from data privacy, so breakup is offered as a single fix for several different concerns it may not resolve. The premises make a strong case for robust privacy regulation and competition enforcement; they do not establish that the companies must be broken up.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Privacy harms are more directly addressed by data-protection law — consent, purpose limitation, enforcement — than by breakup, which can scatter data across more firms with weaker security; Cambridge Analytica drew penalties under existing law without any breakup. [Rejecting P3] Influence over discourse is a moderation and competition question distinct from data privacy, so bundling them offers dissolution as one fix for several different problems, and smaller firms are not inherently more trustworthy with data.