Anti-Trust on the way for Google & Facebook? Seems like it is beyond over-due

Looking at the numbers of the market share for both companies, I would have to say that it seems that both of these companies are monopolies and the fact that both are always expanding into new markets, both geographically and in technology, I'm assuming that their market shares are only going to grow in those areas.

John Oliver (who actually does some good reporting on his comedy news show, who'd a thunk!? - brings me back to the old days when John Stewart was on Daily Show) was talking about Facebook's entry into Burma which didn't even have Internet (for the masses) before a few years ago, in which Facebook basically took over as the term for "Internet" in the country b/c of their marketing vector of allowing free use of the internet on mobile devices (which almost everyone used to access the Internet), so everything else cost $$ to use, but using Facebook was free. As you can imagine, with a naive populace, everyone used nothing but the free service and it has led to horrible repercussions, especially for the Rohingya.

So I'm wondering if there is going to be some legal action against either of these companies. Google has the search engine but also the advertising, which are both avenues which can be looked at. I believe when Microsoft went through the anti-trust thing, it was initiated in Europe and I'm wondering if that is where it is going to start again, since they seem to be a little more proactive in these areas.

Do any of you think it is getting to the point where there is going to be legislative action taken against any of these companies? Facebooks slogan "go fast and break stuff" could be the slogan for both Brexit and the 2016 election since it seems FB was so instrumental in both of the elections which I would think would be more than enough reason for legislative action.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Over the years, the tech companies have grown the internet by agreeing to standards by which the internet functions. They have developed all sorts of organizations, associations, councils and industry ruling bodies. Over twenty years ago, they started doing the same thing with marketing to where they now have these giant data centers collecting and selling advertising and data mining all sorts of information about all of us. Now, they are starting to do this with politics.

If you take a company like Google and bust it up, all the little baby Googles will immediately plug into the same networks and start acting in unison to continue doing the same thing big Google did before. With the same results.

I'm not saying don't bust them up. I'm saying It's not enough. They won't compete, just carve up markets like the cable companies did. If they do compete, it will make no difference to the consumer anyway. We must regulate them like utilies if we are to ever hope of changing anything.