PARIS: Accelerating the transition to an ever more digital life, the coronavirus pandemic has tightened tech giants’ grip on billions of customers’ lives.
Governments and users are belatedly coming to terms with the power held by the likes of Apple and Amazon, particularly in focus this year thanks to their role in everything from setting up video meetings to doing our shopping for us.
Most of the planet has spent at least part of 2020 in lockdown, and as Western consumers clicked through Google and Facebook, hundreds of millions of Chinese users turned to Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent or Xiaomi.
These “superstars” of online capitalism “have given the impression, in this world where…
