#76 Yeh Strategic, Strategic Kya Hai?🎧

<p><em>This newsletter is really a weekly public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: </em><em>how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?</em><em>PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration courtesy the good folks at </em><em>Ad-Auris</em><em>. If you have any feedback, please send it to us.</em></p><p><strong>India Policy Watch: Thinking About Digital Colonialism</strong></p><p><em>Insights on burning policy issues in India</em>— RSJ</p><p>The unbridled power of large digital platforms is back in focus. Last week Google India announced all apps within Play Store must use its billing system that charges a 30 per cent commission on all transactions. The Indian start-up community that has been angling for raising barriers for global platforms to access domestic market lost no time in pushing back against the ‘Google Tax’. That seems to have worked. Google has postponed this move to April 2022. Google (and Apple) claim this commission is the compensation for their efforts at keeping their stores safe and secure.</p><p>Meanwhile, the US Congressional investigation into the power of Big Tech (Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google) concluded last week with a <a target="_blank" href="https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/competition_in_digital_markets.pdf?utm_campaign=4493-519">voluminous 450-page report</a>. The report indicts them in no uncertain terms:</p><p>"These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement. Our economy and democracy are at stake.”</p><p>The recommendations (pg 378 onward) to rein in these companies and restore competition in the digital economy however cover familiar grounds – structural sepa