Have digital giants taken control?

Our lives today are shaped by a hand­ful of omnipresent play­ers. Google deter­mines our access to knowl­edge, Ama­zon gov­erns our pur­chas­es, and Meta orches­trates our social inter­ac­tions. Behind these giants, the same “win­ner takes all” log­ic dom­i­nates. Joëlle Toledano, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus and mem­ber of the Nation­al Dig­i­tal Coun­cil (CNNUM), deci­phered this dynam­ic in her book “GAFA, reprenons le pou­voir en 2020” (GAFA, let’s take back the pow­er in 2020). Charles Thi­bout, who has a doc­tor­ate in polit­i­cal sci­ence and is an asso­ciate researcher at the Insti­tute for Inter­na­tion­al and Strate­gic Rela­tions (IRIS), has focused on the spe­cif­ic case of Google in France, hav­ing devot­ed his the­sis, defend­ed in Octo­ber 2024, to this subject.

Joëlle Toledano. These play­ers began by estab­lish­ing their dom­i­nance over ser­vices that won pub­lic sup­port, such as Google with its search engine or the social net­work Face­book. An econ­o­my of fixed costs, growth in these dig­i­tal ser­vices that econ­o­mists call “plat­forms” can be deployed with pro­por­tion­al­ly lim­it­ed costs and pow­er­ful net­work effects, mak­ing the ser­vice increas­ing­ly attrac­tive. Each new user makes the ser­vice more attrac­tive, the tar­get­ed adver­tis­ing more inter­est­ing and the com­pe­ti­tion more dif­fi­cult. Sales and prof­its increase with data fed into algo­rithms. As a result, an almost inescapable monop­oly grad­u­al­ly sets in, leav­ing lit­tle room for viable alter­na­tives. Admit­ted­ly, Tik­Tok has made its mark, and Ope­nAI and its com­peti­tors are try­ing to take Google’s place, but to date, Meta and Google still dom­i­nate to a very large extent, not only in terms of usage, but also by steal­ing the adver­tis­ing mar­kets that serve as ‘cash cows’ to pre­pare for the future.

Their prod­ucts have become indis­pens­able to the point of redefin­ing the way we com­mu­ni­cate, get infor­ma­tion and even the way we con­sume. How­ev­er, these com­pa­nies were not born out of a need pre­vi­ous­ly expressed by their users, but rather out of the desire to cre­ate a new need. Today, cut­ting your­self off from social media could have both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al con­se­quences. So, let’s not even talk about get­ting away from a tool as use­ful as the Google search engine. All the same, we must be care­ful not to take an entire­ly neg­a­tive view of these com­pa­nies [Editor’s note: the eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal influ­ence due to the mar­ket pow­er of these com­pa­nies]. Because their prof­its are also sig­nif­i­cant, which shows that there was a real need for them.

How­ev­er, it is not enough to cre­ate a need that rev­o­lu­tionis­es the lives of users to ensure a sub­stan­tial eco­nom­ic income. Each of these play­ers seeks to cre­ate a world that you would have no desire or inter­est in leav­ing. It is an econ­o­my that revolves around the user’s atten­tion and avail­able brain time, so that they con­sume advertising.

In addi­tion, the indis­pens­abil­i­ty of a com­mer­cial ser­vice, such as Ama­zon, also leaves very lit­tle choice for traders wish­ing to take advan­tage of it. The plat­form, in its terms of use, has estab­lished a num­ber of rules to be fol­lowed. The e‑commerce giant there­fore reserves the right, via its algo­rithms, to decide how oth­er traders access their ser­vice. The eco­nom­ic advan­tages of hav­ing a busi­ness on this site are such that, for some, com­ply­ing with the rules and pur­chas­ing Amazon’s logis­tics ser­vices or adver­tis­ing can become a neces­si­ty. The com­pa­ny thus becomes the total mas­ter of the com­mer­cial mar­ket, and also of part of the local econ­o­my of the coun­tries in which it has estab­lished itself. And speak­ing of Ama­zon, their strength is also due to their AWS cloud ser­vice. There are a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of com­pa­nies that depend on it today. As is the case with the num­ber of eco­nom­ic play­ers in each coun­try that depend on net­works for their mar­ket­ing communications.

Charles Thi­bout. Rela­tions between states and multi­na­tion­als have always exist­ed, even if they fluc­tu­ate. There has nev­er real­ly been a clear split between the pub­lic and pri­vate spheres. Pow­er is nev­er total­ly in the hands of a par­tic­u­lar insti­tu­tion or actor. It will always be the result of nego­ti­a­tions between dif­fer­ent actors. And, depend­ing on the his­tor­i­cal con­text, cer­tain types of com­pa­nies, depend­ing on their own strengths, will have an advan­tage over oth­ers in these nego­ti­a­tions. Today, in the dig­i­tal age, the web giants inevitably have more weight.

Google’s estab­lish­ment in France was still fraught with dif­fi­cul­ties. From 2003, a year after the cre­ation of its Parisian sub­sidiary, Google suf­fered attacks from var­i­ous French eco­nom­ic sec­tors. In fact, its arrival unset­tled many peo­ple, and the polit­i­cal author­i­ties quick­ly became involved. Notably in 2005, with Jacques Chirac try­ing to ini­ti­ate Euro­pean projects aimed at com­pet­ing with the Amer­i­can giant. This project was not suc­cess­ful, but it demon­strat­ed France’s desire to safe­guard its nation­al sov­er­eign­ty. French mis­trust of Google would even­tu­al­ly fade from 2010 onwards, and its image would shift towards that of a poten­tial part­ner in pub­lic pol­i­cy. It was at that point that Google would be seen, in pol­i­tics, as a means of show­cas­ing the abil­i­ty to inter­vene and act on the world, even though all the indi­ca­tors of polit­i­cal impo­tence were there. We see this, for exam­ple, with the use of Google tech­nolo­gies by the tax author­i­ties. The per­cep­tion of the multi­na­tion­al is chang­ing, French politi­cians are now seek­ing to attract these giants to France and con­vert their cap­i­tal into polit­i­cal resources.

CT. Under Hollande’s five-year term, a slight dip could still be observed. In addi­tion, a tax search of the multinational’s Paris offices took place in 2016. This event, jus­ti­fied by a tax adjust­ment pro­ce­dure, was expe­ri­enced by employ­ees as a real attack, with par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing effects on the image of their com­pa­ny. Google is the first com­pa­ny in France to under­go such a pro­ce­dure on this scale. Its reac­tion was to do every­thing it could to reap­pear as a nor­mal, respon­si­ble com­pa­ny. And, as such, to be able to ben­e­fit from the same priv­i­leges as large French companies.

A recent Stan­ford report high­light­ed that around 70% of PhDs spe­cial­is­ing in AI end up in the pri­vate sec­tor, and only 20% in academia.

Google then decid­ed to become French through a process called the “indi­geni­sa­tion” of the com­pa­ny. This process involves two things. First, it is nec­es­sary to recruit French staff, but also staff in high posi­tions in the polit­i­cal and admin­is­tra­tive field, such as for­mer senior civ­il ser­vants. Then, it will be nec­es­sary to build a sys­tem of alliances with oth­er French eco­nom­ic play­ers. These alliances would become a major ele­ment of Google’s indi­geni­sa­tion strat­e­gy dur­ing the 2010s, once the recruit­ment of senior civ­il ser­vants showed all its lim­i­ta­tions in terms of strength­en­ing ties with the polit­i­cal author­i­ties. In 2013, Google obtained a seat on the board of direc­tors of the Parisian sec­tion of MEDEF: an anchor­ing in the field of employ­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion that reflect­ed the grow­ing influ­ence of the com­pa­ny, and more gen­er­al­ly of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, in the eco­nom­ic mod­el of French companies.

The com­pa­ny has there­fore estab­lished itself as a French eco­nom­ic play­er which, through the ser­vices it offers, helps the devel­op­ment of oth­er French com­pa­nies. In addi­tion to becom­ing a “French com­pa­ny”, it has become a cen­tral play­er in the nation­al eco­nom­ic field.

JT. This vital­ness, grant­i­ng such eco­nom­ic pow­er to these giants, even extends to polit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The Aus­tralian law debate in 2021 is a good exam­ple. Aus­tralia want­ed Google and Meta to pay the country’s press bet­ter. This pro­voked a stand­off between the two web giants on the one hand, and the country’s gov­ern­ment on the oth­er. Although this tug-of-war failed to get the bill amend­ed, and it became law the fol­low­ing year, sev­er­al ele­ments emerged from the con­flict. To sig­nal its oppo­si­tion to the ini­tial terms of the bill, Face­book went so far as to block Aus­tralians’ access not only to news on its plat­form, but also to gov­ern­ment sites pro­vid­ing sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion to Aus­tralians (relief, etc.). Essen­tial­ly, the pub­lic author­i­ties depend­ed on this net­work. The result was that min­istries found them­selves with­out com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels. In the end, Aus­tralia did pass a law, but only after mak­ing changes that made it more accept­able to Meta and Google.

It is true that anoth­er source of influ­ence, and not an insignif­i­cant one, has to do with research. The total bud­get for R&D in France, includ­ing both pub­lic and pri­vate funds, is €60bn. For the GAFAM, it is $200bn – almost exclu­sive­ly for dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy. The vast major­i­ty of AI research spend­ing today comes from these com­pa­nies, and with this kind of bud­get, they can also afford to set the direc­tion for future research. This pow­er also implies some­thing else in the research world. A recent Stan­ford report high­light­ed that around 70% of PhDs spe­cial­is­ing in AI end up in the pri­vate sec­tor, and only 20% in acad­e­mia. Ten years ear­li­er, it was 40% in the pri­vate sec­tor and 40% in universities. 

The phe­nom­e­non of depen­dence is there­fore like­ly to recur for future inno­va­tions, such as gen­er­a­tive AI. It is all based on a desire for their eco­nom­ic pow­er to last, to con­tin­ue to grow and to stay ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion; the rest is just col­lat­er­al dam­age. And it’s not a ques­tion of nation­al­i­ty. It’s a safe bet that if a French com­pa­ny had sim­i­lar pow­er, with the same reg­u­la­tions, its objec­tives would not be any dif­fer­ent. What needs to be chal­lenged is the busi­ness mod­el of these online plat­forms. In my book, I pro­pose a reg­u­la­to­ry mod­el that simul­ta­ne­ous­ly tack­les the mar­ket pow­er of the dom­i­nant dig­i­tal play­ers while deal­ing with the prob­lems of con­tent, be it online com­merce or social net­works. This is an essen­tial con­di­tion for regain­ing pow­er. But of course it’s only a pre­con­di­tion for devel­op­ing our own sys­tems – it won’t hap­pen overnight.

In con­clu­sion, and fur­ther to the com­ments of our researchers, we should men­tion gen­er­a­tive AI, which can be seen as the next major chal­lenge: will we have the capac­i­ty to devel­op our own mod­el, as the Chi­nese have done with DeepSeek, or will his­to­ry sim­ply repeat itself?

Interview by Pablo Andres