I recently noticed in Europe references to these "digital big 4" as the GAFA, i.e. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon. Some also designate them as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse/Internet. I'm still looking for the guy who coined the term though...
> The four big boys Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (or GAFA; ok, not quite Silicon Valley for Amazon which is based in Seattle, but you know what I mean) are all clearly in the marketing business.
From January 11, 2012, Ken Doctor, http://www.outsellinc.com/b2b/products/1044-getting-it-right... :
> How will the next few years play out for GAFA? Will they go the way of CompuServe and Prodigy? In five years will we have a new acronym to replace GAFA, which replaced 2006’s GYM?
GYM in turn is attested to at least 2005 , https://gigaom.com/2005/11/11/can-you-stay-gym-free/ .