How Big Tech reset will impact India

For much of their existence, the big four US tech giants—Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google—have been viewed as scrappy startups. Consumers loved their products, regulators largely looked away, and competitors either got acquired or fell by the wayside. That run of good fortune has been under threat for a while, but 2020 may well mark the beginning of the end.

Urvashi shares her perspective with Mint's Ajai Sreevatsan:

"The direction of policy on data sovereignty seems to be about creating opportunities for large Indian businesses. This could easily create the same types of monopolies in the Indian market."

India already has its own local monopoly concerns. A recent Mint analysis found that one-sixth of the country’s business sectors has a dominant firm that controls over 70% of all sales. Indian businesses have often resorted to pointing fingers at foreign firms in order to cover their own tracks. Even the recent dispute over a new Google Play Store fee rapidly descended into an Indian startups vs foreign company fight.

“The goal shouldn’t be to reign in global Big Tech by creating a domestic Big Tech," Aneja said. In a very short time, Jio Platforms, for instance, would be sitting on a huge amount of data intelligence and is likely to use it to promote its own products, she said. “The threat of Reliance dominating key markets is real and the competition authority should step in."