Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google have transformed the world in many ways. You can search for anything within the Google search bar, you can order the most obscure item and have it on your doorstep within 48 hours and even discover an old High School friend from decades ago with Facebook! These companies who were once the underdog, ‘buck-the-system type companies have grown into conglomerates not seen since the oil and railroad tycoons roamed the American marketplace.

With the introduction of new ‘Anti-Trust’ Laws, the government is attempting to curtail the influence of Big Tech. When Amazon can sell their own products on their own platform or when Google can decide what links/ads pop up when a search is conducting could be troublesome. These particular actions create an imbalance in the fairness of how business is conducted.

Lawmakers have introduced 5 Anti-Trust laws that will attempt to curtail the influence, but what will this look like for the average consumer? Let us look at Amazon for example, Amazon has an online platform that independent sellers or small businesses can use to sell their products. Amazon also sells their own branded product on this same platform which naturally creates a conflict of interest. The ‘Ending Platform Monopolies Act’ would help with this issue. With the attempted “break up” of these conglomerates, there are ways the consumer would be hurt but with the recent uptick in ransomware attacks and data breaches maybe these laws are needed?