You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Karl Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
We've got a great guest to get into what's going on when it comes to technology, but really the global battle among the three dominant digital powers when it comes to regulating the space and influencing it.
It's the subject of a brand new book, Digital Empires, The Global Battle to Regulate Technology, written by a new Bradford, Professor at Columbia Law School and senior scholar at Columbia Business School. The book a follow up to her book The Brussels Effect, a term that she coined. She joins us on a zoom here in New York City. It's good to have you with us, professor, How.
Are you good? Thank you so much for having me.
Well, thanks so much for joining us. It's so interesting. We talked about regulating technology last week that Diana Henriquez, who wrote a book about the Well's written many books, but her most recent book is about the SEC and the development of the SEC under FDR. And we asked her what you know that what needs to be regulated in this day and age, and without hesitation, she said
it was technology. And I'm wondering how are you looking at that through the lens of your book, especially outside of the United States.
Yeah. So, certainly is they growing consensus around the world that technology needs rules and the governments do need to step in, but there is no consensus what those rules really ought to look like. So in the book, I argue that there are three prominent ways to think about governing technology. There is the American market driven way, there is that Chinese state driven way, and then there's a third, the European rights driven regulatory model.
Talk about the European one because that's kind of freshener in our thoughts because of what Apple did with its new USB C connector because that's the result of regulation.
Absolutely, and that was one of those manifestations of the Brussels effect, whereby rules that are set in the European Union find their way into the global production and global
conduct of the tech companies. But basically, unlike the Americans that really have focused on free market, free internet and sort of maximizing the opportunities for innovation, or the Chinese and that really want to bring the state there to leverage technology, including to maintain political control, the European rights riven models starts from this presumption that digital revolution needs to be human centric, the preservation of the democratic structures
of the society, the fundamental rights of the individuals take the center stage, but also incorporates this notion of a more fair digital economy so that we redistribute some of the gains from the tech companies to the smaller players, to users, and to the public at large.
So, Professor Bradford, do you is it kind of going to follow the same path as we've seen to some extent with climate right and oversight, and also even I feel like global regulatory oversight when it comes to markets, it does feel like the EU leads away on a lot of stuff.
So that is exactly right. So the Europeans have consistently just shown that they are much more comfortable with government intervening and much more skeptical with the idea that markets on their own, left to their own devices, would generate
optimal outcomes. So the Europeans have been the ford runners when it comes to regulating food safety, consumer protection, the environment, the battle to mitigate climate change, and now I think one of the newest frontiers has been the regulation of technology, where again the Europeans are showing the way.
Why is it so important that we be having this discussion right now?
So I think that if you just look at the vast power of these tech companies, they have the economic power they called power, informational power, cultural power. They're really shaping the societies and the lives of individuals around the world.
And I will say, just for a second, when we had Diana henriquezon when we'd asked her who are the power brokers back in the nineteen twenties, it was industrialists, right, and she made the point of the power brokers today are those that are in control of data, whether it's Google or you know, Amazon, pick your company, but they are the power brokers. But anyway, go ahead and continue.
That is exactly right, and that is one of the main concerns that the Europeans in particular take the view that we cannot let these companies to be the power brokers, that we need to then bind them to the rule of law and subject they conduct to democratic oversights. So we do need to bring the governments that are representing the people back to the table and then sort of directing the course of our digital economy.
Based on the books that you've written, the research that you've done, the work that you've done, which approach is the best?
So look, I am a believer in the digital transformation needing a liberal, democratic foundation, So there is no way that I can endorse that the Chinese digital authoritarian model. I think that is too oppressive. It infringes individual rights and liberties and subjects population to massive and as surveillance. So I have many issues with the Chinese model, even though I must recognize that China has done really well in devel developing technologies even without having freedom as the
foundation of the society. But if the Chinese model is too oppressive, I think the American model can be viewed as too permissive, and it has really failed to step in to protect the fundamental rights to protect our data and just placed too much of the trust in tech companies that have then failed to reality task as guardians
of our data and protectors of the digital space. So that really leaves the European model as the one that I think best advances public interests and checks the corporate power and ultimately then leads to aa more sort of fear thriving digital society.
So does the EU and the US align on this because it sounds like that's what needs to happen.
I think that is exactly right, that ultimately you would need both the US and the EO to join forces and align behind a sort of same set of principles for that governance model to be effected. And I would say that there is a shift underway in the US. So the US itself is now starting to rethink its technol libertarian commitments and starting to ask whether the markets really are capable of governing the digital economy. And you
see the public opinion both shifting. You see that many bills being proposed in Congress, and that indicates that there certainly is a different conversation about technology that is much more closer to the European rights driven model than what we've seen in the past.
You right that this battle over digital quote will ultimately determine the soul of the digital economy, defining what kind of society we will live in for years and decades to come, in a battle that the US nor the EU can afford to lose. If we don't get this right, then what.
So what ultimately to me is at stake here? The biggest battle is really about liberal democracy, and I think the US and the EU should remember that liberal democracy can be lost in one of two ways. So one is if the US and EU will lose the horizontal battle to China and the world is turning more authoritarian.
But also if the US and the EU lose the vertical battle to the tech companies and fail to effectively control them, because if that happens, then the true digital empires are either the authoritarians or then the tech companies, and neither solution is sustainable for anybody who believes in liberal democracy.
You know, it's interesting, Carol, I say this over and over again, but if there's you know, there's not much that unites Democrats and Republicans here in the US and Congress.
But this does bring them together.
It does at least the idea of regulating big tech right quote unquote, regulating big tech the way they want to do it is certainly different, and the reasons why are different, but you know, they want to do it.
It's a really good point. And I also feel like there's a fair amount of streaming services out there, are streaming series out there that reminds you when data takes over, like kind of what happens to our world. Professor Bradford, Thank you so much. Really appreciate the time with you. A New Bradford Professor at Columbia Law School, Senior scholar at Columbia Business School, an from New York City. Her new book, Digital Empire, is the global battle to regulate technology