Speaker 1: The US tech giants are going to be spending a
Speaker 1: lot more time in court next year, and not just
Speaker 1: on one front, but on several. For years, the country's
Speaker 1: biggest technology companies, Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon seemed
Speaker 1: to occupy some kind of privileged position in this country,
Speaker 1: with no serious regulations touching them. But it's apparent that
Speaker 1: things are changing. Take the multiple congressional hearings last week
Speaker 1: over Russian meddling in last year's presidential campaign. Facebook, Google,
Speaker 1: and Twitter were unaccustomed to the tough questions and even
Speaker 1: sarcastic comments. Senator Richard Burr is chair of the Senate
Speaker 1: Intelligence Committee. This kind of national security vulnerability represents on
Speaker 1: unacceptable risk, and your companies have a responsibility to reduce
Speaker 1: that vulnerability. Our guests are Garrett E. Vank, Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Tech policy reporter, and Eric Goldman, co director of the
Speaker 1: High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. Garrett,
Speaker 1: in your article in this week's Bloomberg Big this week,
Speaker 1: you look at ten different areas where tech companies will
Speaker 1: face challenges in whether in court cases or legislation. They
Speaker 1: are not They're done alphabetically rather than in terms of important.
Speaker 1: So what is the top threat to them in your estimation? Well,
Speaker 1: I think in terms of top threat, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: interesting to see what's been going on in the US
Speaker 1: because of course we've talked about regulation of big tech
Speaker 1: companies for years in other countries, a little bit here
Speaker 1: in the US, but this year it really started to
Speaker 1: pick up steam steam. You even had people talking about antitrust,
Speaker 1: you know, concerns that Google was too big in the
Speaker 1: advertising business, that Amazon was too big in the e
Speaker 1: commerce business. So we'll have to see, you know, it
Speaker 1: definitely looks like that kind of noise, those kind of
Speaker 1: discussions happening at the political level have definitely been increasing
Speaker 1: over the year and is a year that we'll see
Speaker 1: whether or not real regulation comes down and what kind
Speaker 1: of effect that has in the companies eric, To what
Speaker 1: degree do the fact that they're facing more legal challenges
Speaker 1: in the United States, how much does it reflected you know,
Speaker 1: these big internet companies have kind of moved from being
Speaker 1: seen as innovators and convenience for consumers to threats to
Speaker 1: the way we like to live or to privacy. What
Speaker 1: way to think about is that, um, the government has
Speaker 1: gotten nervous about the consolidated power at the tech giants,
Speaker 1: and the government's used to having uh, the most power
Speaker 1: in our society, and that threat um has emerged that
Speaker 1: maybe they don't um. So I see a lot of
Speaker 1: it actually as the government reacting to the strength and
Speaker 1: power consulted in the private hands. They don't like the competition, Garrett.
Speaker 1: The Honest Ads Act, which was introduced in the US
Speaker 1: Senate in October with bipartisan support, would require Internet companies
Speaker 1: to reveal who's buying political ads and archived them for review.
Speaker 1: And it seems like, in this political environment, a no brainer.
Speaker 1: But why is Congress being so slow to pass it? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people in Congress just general,
Speaker 1: really are against you know, disclosures of these kind of things,
Speaker 1: or they're sort of hesitant. I mean, obviously they want
Speaker 1: to be careful not to impinge on free speech. They
Speaker 1: want people to be able to buy political advertising, to
Speaker 1: share political speech whenever they want to, and whatever they
Speaker 1: way they want to. You know, the main impetus behind
Speaker 1: this bill is what we saw with Russia, you know,
Speaker 1: using show social networks primarily Facebook but also Twitter and
Speaker 1: YouTube to try to sort of you know, stir up
Speaker 1: debate in the US and potentially try to interfere with
Speaker 1: the election. So some of the people who are behind
Speaker 1: this bill are kind of using this as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to say, hey, let's bring the online platforms up to
Speaker 1: the level that we have for radio and television when
Speaker 1: it comes to having to disclose who paid for a
Speaker 1: political ad, you know. But other people are saying, well,
Speaker 1: let's be careful not to you know, make it two
Speaker 1: owners or push it too far. And of course the
Speaker 1: companies themselves want to do it on their own. They
Speaker 1: want to self regulate, they don't want someone telling them
Speaker 1: what to do. Eric to to what degree can we
Speaker 1: expect the companies to be able to navigate this, because
Speaker 1: it would seem as though if you got not just
Speaker 1: the United States, but other countries starting to regulate the
Speaker 1: content that is on these these platforms, it would be
Speaker 1: a real threat to their way of doing business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that the regulators could undermine everything that
Speaker 1: we love about the Internet. Um and I'd like to
Speaker 1: think that the regulators recognize that capacity to make some
Speaker 1: really serious mistakes. On the other hand, regulators in the
Speaker 1: business regulation that's what they do. So I don't know
Speaker 1: that they can self control their impulses, and so I
Speaker 1: am nervous. We have seen across the globe, including here
Speaker 1: in the United States, that the forces of censorship, the
Speaker 1: idea that we can tell people what they can and
Speaker 1: cannot say, um are having a fantastic run um. And
Speaker 1: I think it would be uh somewhat disingenuous for us
Speaker 1: to think, Oh, that's just happening overseas, that's happening here
Speaker 1: in the U s as well, Garrett. The FCC is
Speaker 1: on track to undo the net neutrality rules by early
Speaker 1: How will that affect the big tech companies? Well, the
Speaker 1: nen new Childe rules that we came in under Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: We're sort of, you know, the reflective of the kind
Speaker 1: of original ethos of the Internet, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: this sort of idea that everything is should be fair
Speaker 1: and equal and that you can't you know, someone who
Speaker 1: owns a network can't charge you know, company A from
Speaker 1: more for using that network than they do to company B,
Speaker 1: or individual beer or politician A or whatever, what what
Speaker 1: whatever you have. And you know, we're seeing you know
Speaker 1: the potential of new rules coming down that are you know,
Speaker 1: kind of moved past that and are a little bit
Speaker 1: you know more and kind of the spirit of traditional capitalism,
Speaker 1: which says, you know, if you own the roadways, you
Speaker 1: get decide who goes on them and how much you
Speaker 1: charge them. So, you know, the largest Internet companies are
Speaker 1: so big and so powerful that they will be fine
Speaker 1: regardless of sort of tweaks or changes to the rules.
Speaker 1: You know. The concern here from critics of a Jedie
Speaker 1: at at at the regulator changing these rules are that,
Speaker 1: you know, smaller companies who want to compete with the
Speaker 1: netflix is of the world will have a tougher time
Speaker 1: doing it. Eric. Privacy is also an area that's been
Speaker 1: a very big deal because the for these companies and
Speaker 1: for people who are concerned about them, because they have
Speaker 1: so much information about their users, and a lot of
Speaker 1: their business models in fact, are built around that information.
Speaker 1: To what degree should we expect, you know, restrictions and
Speaker 1: requirements for the way that these companies handle private information
Speaker 1: of their customers. That's a pretty complicated question because there's
Speaker 1: a thousand different moving fronts on which the the regulators
Speaker 1: might move to help um impose privacy restrictions, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, there also might be movements to reduce privacy,
Speaker 1: such as the Honest Dad's Act that was mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: in this conversation, which actually designed to increase transparency in theory,
Speaker 1: actually reduced the privacy of quote advertisers and what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Um so, uh, no doubt though there's I think a
Speaker 1: lot of skepticism about, um the amount of private information
Speaker 1: under control of the tech giants, and I think that
Speaker 1: the combination of the fears about their power and the
Speaker 1: ability of that information to be used in ways that
Speaker 1: could could really um undercut our expectations as consumers. I
Speaker 1: think that creates a real recipe for some of those
Speaker 1: privacy regulations to succeed. In about thirty seconds, Garrett, are
Speaker 1: we already see any big announcements like we hear from
Speaker 1: the EU Competition Commission and Margaret Vestaire or is it
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit uh on the quieter
Speaker 1: side in the US just quickly, on any trust I mean,
Speaker 1: it's unlikely that you'll see the same kind of you know,
Speaker 1: aggressive movements that you've seen in in in the EU
Speaker 1: on antitrust here in the US, although people are talking
Speaker 1: more about it. But the thing that you want to
Speaker 1: look for is sort of you know, legislation like the
Speaker 1: Honest Ads Act, and there's another one. You should read
Speaker 1: our story that there's a lot going on, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's more on the legislative side. It's a great story,
Speaker 1: has lots of charts and pictures to help you understand.
Speaker 1: It's usually that's a Garrett of Ink, Bloomberg News Tech
Speaker 1: policy reporter on Eric Gobin, co director of the High
Speaker 1: Tech Law Institutent Santa Clara University Law School. That's it
Speaker 1: for this edition of Bloomberg Law. We will see you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law on Bloomberg Radio.