"Big Tech" was until the "Bad Tech" pandemic in the eyes of many legislators. On both sides of the Atlantic, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook have been criticized for knowing too much about us, paying too little tax, and getting too big for it to be good for competition.

But so far, the whip is on the shelf. Instead, authorities are now using them to disseminate information and track infection.

- We work with a lot of global experts: WHO, the Public Health Agency, MSB and similar organizations in all countries. To ensure that the information they recommend comes out to the public, Facebook's Sweden manager Sam Rihani says.

"Will help stop the spread"

Google makes "mobility reports" based on the positioning data we leave out through their map app, to help authorities see where we are moving less and more now that Coronan has brought restrictions.

Along with Apple, a technical platform has also been developed to build infection tracking apps.

- Governments and authorities should be able to build on that. The hope is that it will help curb the spread of the pandemic, ”says Sara Övreby, who is the social policy manager at Google Sweden.

Through these efforts, they are now becoming "Good Tech". But can it please those politicians, especially in the EU, who have recently threatened companies with regulations and increased taxation?

Can benefit from ad breed

Erik Wetter, a researcher at Stockholm School of Economics who has been a member of the expert group for the European Commission's new data strategy, believes that tech companies will use it to their advantage. But the EU will also turn it against them.

- If you now show what great value this technology has, then you can argue that the technology, for the public good, should not be controlled by private companies but by authorities.

Carl Fritjofson, an investor in Silicon Valley in Swedish Creandum, also believes that the tech giants can in the long run benefit commercially from the advertising race that is currently affecting both old and new media companies.

- This could be the shock of death that turns out a lot of newspaper, TV and radio. Once the advertising market comes back, there are fewer larger channels to choose from. Google and Facebook will then increase their market share.