Debate swirls as power of U.S. tech giants grows

I have a relationship with each of those 3 companies.

Amazon - I PAY THEM to provide products and services. They capture data related to performing that work for me.

Google - I do NOT PAY THEM a dime, they have never asked if they can use my data and I've taken extensive efforts to avoid them having any data, but they still gather, I estimate, 40% of what I do online without my permission.

Facebook - I do NOT PAY THEM a dime and actively block their sites, trackers, everything I can. I have an account just to prevent someone else from claiming they are me. It has 1 post and 1 friend - the only other person in the world with my same name.

I have ZERO relationship with Apple, yet one of their employees called me a few years ago to ask about credit card spending under my name. Seems that their tools had found something that looked like fraud - an iphone purchase in NYC, then 4 hrs later $500 iTunes card purchase in Miami on a credit card I only use when overseas (outside the USA). I have never purchased anything ever in my life from Apple (and never intend to do so). They removed the charges and suggested I contact the bank where that card was from. I did, they also removed the charges immediately. No paperwork. 5 min phone calls each. The bank canceled the CC immediately and sent a replacement.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Experian, Equifax each scare me 1000x more than Amazon. The gathering of data by these companies and others without prior, written, permission should be illegal. I should control my data.

Well said, but you equally shouldn't trust Amazon. It's rapidly snowballing into something petty large and scary.

If ya go to some authoritarian countries, their local versions of these also control 9/10ths of the market