EU must adopt Australia's practice in curbing the omnipotence of the technology giants

The goal of a commercial company in the real economy is to increase or maintain sales of its products or services. Websites are just a way to find customers, place an order and make a purchase. Depending on the type of service or product, the quantity, as well as the conditions under which the services are provided and the goods are delivered, a website is very often an extremely effective tool. Sales of products or services can also take place traditionally by telephone call, face-to-face purchase, postal deliveries, text messages, e-mail and any other form of communication.

For companies in the real economy, a website is just one of the tools for providing their core functions.

A completely different concept is for companies whose main purpose is to offer or sell information, information services or digital products. A large number of visitors and views contributes to revenue growth and provides the core business.

There are two major groups by income type:

1. Paid content or direct sales of information services and digital products.

Information is being sold or access to information is being sold. The methods can be different. Fixed-term subscription fee with access to a certain amount of information. Fee for the right to download a specific item of information (digital sale of scientific articles and books). Streaming fee, etc. Such information service platforms generate revenue from the direct sale of information or the sale of rights to use (access) information or digital content.

2. Access to information, services or digital products is offered free of charge without subscription or fee per product.

Such companies derive their main income from advertising or sponsored materials on their platform. Indirect charges for the use of such platforms include bandwidth charges and consent to receive targeted advertisements and sponsored materials. In such a business model the main goal is to reach the largest possible number of viewers, readers and listeners, which can then be converted into advertising revenue.

There is also a business model that involves a combination of both approaches. Some information and digital services are available for free, while a select amount of information and digital services or products are offered for a fee.

For the information business to be successful in the digital sphere, commercial companies need to work with large technology companies and comply with their content distribution rules.

The digital information business of the EU and Latvia is subject to the requirements set by large technology monopolies.

When advertising any information services and digital products, the censorship used by high-tech giants must also be taken into account, where they don't allow the promotion of content that does not comply with the ethical requirements formulated by the monopolist or global policies.

When an Australian study found that for every $100 spent on online advertising, Google earns $53 and Facebook $28, Australian lawmakers introduced the first legislative amendments to reduce the huge market dominance of technology giants. In Latvia, such a position of the lawmakers is still a distant dream. When, at the beginning of March, Facebook censorship deleted the poet Māra Zālīte's essay on Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, only then did some of Latvia's leading politicians begin to "notice" the problems posed by the omnipotence of technology giants and their enormous market power.

Today, everyone doing business in the digital environment has to deal with the demands of technology giants. The consequences of not complying with these requirements are the risk of being completely banned, which can spell the end of the business.

That is why many of those working in the field of digital information are forced to make concessions in the face of the uncompromising demands of technology giants.

Such pressure from global technology giants on the content of information companies means that the free exchange of views on many sensitive issues can take place only outside the platforms of global technology giants. Thus, those issues whose free discussion is limited and will be limited by the censorship by technology giants will be viewed and decided in other forms in the traditional media and elsewhere. They will be freely discussed by those whose income is not related to income from business in the digital information environment and whose activity on social platforms is a hobby or a form of expression.

The relationship between big technology monopolies and the businesses in the digital information environment might change if the EU followed the Australian practice and implemented reforms that would reduce the market power of big technology monopolies.