The Myth of the Benign Monopoly

[Commentary] It's worth noting that big commercial technology companies throw their weight around the world in increasingly anti-open, and dangerous, ways.

As OStatic notes today, the powerful International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has just produced a 498-page report for the office of the U.S. Trade Representative arguing that government mandates to use open-source software must be "carefully monitored." The IIPA report recommends that numerous entire countries be placed on international watchlists because their governments favor such software, which it characterizes as a threat to innovation. A closer look at the report, though, shows that its recommendations are made in conjunction with the Business Software Alliance, which counts among its members Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, IBM and many other large commercial software providers. Innovation all around the world depends on countries, governments, companies and users finding harmonious ways to work together. Just ask the Chinese science community, which has made clear that without Google's technology, its research efforts will suffer enormously. Now, more than ever, there needs to be a healthy and open global ecosystem for technology innovation, and the most dominant technology companies bear great responsibility for protecting it.