To break Google’s monopoly on search, make its index public

Fortunately, there is a simple way to end the company's monopoly without breaking up its search engine, and that is to turn its "index"-the mammoth and ever-growing database it maintains of internet content-into a kind of public commons. There is precedent for this both in law and in Google's business practices. When private ownership of essential resources and services-water, electricity, telecommunications, and so on-no longer serves the public interest, governments often step in to control them. One particular government intervention is especially relevant to the Big Tech dilemma: the 1956 consent decree in the U.S. in which AT&T agreed to share all its patents with other companies free of charge. As tech investor Roger McNamee and others have pointed out, that sharing reverberated around the world, leading to a significant increase in technological competition and innovation. This is an interesting proposition. I don't know if this will increase competition in any meaningful way, or if it'll just lead to a shift in power from Google to the other major technology companies without really creating opportunities for newcomers, but it's certainly yet another proposal on how to deal with the ever growing power these companies wield.