The Big Tech versus the Nation-States

The growth of the internet and technology has been exponential in recent years with the latest developments in computer and telecommunication technologies. Emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic have only increased the speed of adopting digitalization in every aspect of daily life. The current internet technology landscape is heavily influenced by large technology companies that play dominant roles in its development and evolution. Therefore these corporations have a substantial impact on the international level. In the meantime governments have diverse interests in a variety of domains including finance taxation market competitiveness personal data protection intellectual property cybersecurity national security state intelligence and regulation of speech. This study investigates the clash of interests between big technology companies and nation-states as each disparate party has distinct agendas. The purpose of this research is to look into ways in which these differences might be resolved or at least mitigated.