Tech Giants Face Wide Array of Legal Challenges (Audio)

over Russian meddling in last year's presidential campaign. Facebook, Google, and Twitter were unaccustomed to the tough questions and even sarcastic comments. Senator Richard Burr is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This kind of national security vulnerability represents on unacceptable risk, and your companies have a responsibility to reduce that vulnerability. Our guests are Garrett E. Vank, Bloomberg News Tech policy reporter, and Eric Goldman, co director of the

High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. Garrett, in your article in this week's Bloomberg Big this week, you look at ten different areas where tech companies will face challenges in whether in court cases or legislation. They are not They're done alphabetically rather than in terms of important.

So what is the top threat to them in your estimation? Well, I think in terms of top threat, I mean, it's interesting to see what's been going on in the US because of course we've talked about regulation of big tech companies for years in other countries, a little bit here in the US, but this year it really started to pick up steam steam. You even had people talking about antitrust, you know, concerns that Google was too big in the advertising business, that Amazon was too big in the e

commerce business. So we'll have to see, you know, it definitely looks like that kind of noise, those kind of discussions happening at the political level have definitely been increasing over the year and is a year that we'll see whether or not real regulation comes down and what kind of effect that has in the companies eric, To what degree do the fact that they're facing more legal challenges in the United States, how much does it reflected you know,

these big internet companies have kind of moved from being seen as innovators and convenience for consumers to threats to the way we like to live or to privacy. What way to think about is that, um, the government has gotten nervous about the consolidated power at the tech giants, and the government's used to having uh, the most power in our society, and that threat um has emerged that maybe they don't um. So I see a lot of it actually as the government reacting to the strength and

power consulted in the private hands. They don't like the competition, Garrett. The Honest Ads Act, which was introduced in the US Senate in October with bipartisan support, would require Internet companies to reveal who's buying political ads and archived them for review. And it seems like, in this political environment, a no brainer.

But why is Congress being so slow to pass it? Well, I mean a lot of people in Congress just general, really are against you know, disclosures of these kind of things, or they're sort of hesitant. I mean, obviously they want to be careful not to impinge on free speech. They want people to be able to buy political advertising, to share political speech whenever they want to, and whatever they

way they want to. You know, the main impetus behind this bill is what we saw with Russia, you know, using show social networks primarily Facebook but also Twitter and YouTube to try to sort of you know, stir up debate in the US and potentially try to interfere with

the election. So some of the people who are behind this bill are kind of using this as an opportunity to say, hey, let's bring the online platforms up to the level that we have for radio and television when it comes to having to disclose who paid for a political ad, you know. But other people are saying, well, let's be careful not to you know, make it two owners or push it too far. And of course the

companies themselves want to do it on their own. They want to self regulate, they don't want someone telling them what to do. Eric to to what degree can we expect the companies to be able to navigate this, because it would seem as though if you got not just the United States, but other countries starting to regulate the content that is on these these platforms, it would be a real threat to their way of doing business. Yeah, there's no doubt that the regulators could undermine everything that

we love about the Internet. Um and I'd like to think that the regulators recognize that capacity to make some really serious mistakes. On the other hand, regulators in the business regulation that's what they do. So I don't know that they can self control their impulses, and so I am nervous. We have seen across the globe, including here in the United States, that the forces of censorship, the idea that we can tell people what they can and

cannot say, um are having a fantastic run um. And I think it would be uh somewhat disingenuous for us to think, Oh, that's just happening overseas, that's happening here in the U s as well, Garrett. The FCC is on track to undo the net neutrality rules by early How will that affect the big tech companies? Well, the nen new Childe rules that we came in under Barack Obama.

We're sort of, you know, the reflective of the kind of original ethos of the Internet, which is, you know, this sort of idea that everything is should be fair and equal and that you can't you know, someone who owns a network can't charge you know, company A from more for using that network than they do to company B, or individual beer or politician A or whatever, what what

whatever you have. And you know, we're seeing you know the potential of new rules coming down that are you know, kind of moved past that and are a little bit you know more and kind of the spirit of traditional capitalism, which says, you know, if you own the roadways, you get decide who goes on them and how much you charge them. So, you know, the largest Internet companies are so big and so powerful that they will be fine regardless of sort of tweaks or changes to the rules.

You know. The concern here from critics of a Jedie at at at the regulator changing these rules are that, you know, smaller companies who want to compete with the netflix is of the world will have a tougher time doing it. Eric. Privacy is also an area that's been a very big deal because the for these companies and for people who are concerned about them, because they have so much information about their users, and a lot of their business models in fact, are built around that information.

To what degree should we expect, you know, restrictions and requirements for the way that these companies handle private information

of their customers. That's a pretty complicated question because there's a thousand different moving fronts on which the the regulators might move to help um impose privacy restrictions, but at the same time, there also might be movements to reduce privacy, such as the Honest Dad's Act that was mentioned earlier in this conversation, which actually designed to increase transparency in theory, actually reduced the privacy of quote advertisers and what they're doing.

Um so, uh, no doubt though there's I think a lot of skepticism about, um the amount of private information under control of the tech giants, and I think that the combination of the fears about their power and the ability of that information to be used in ways that could could really um undercut our expectations as consumers. I think that creates a real recipe for some of those

privacy regulations to succeed. In about thirty seconds, Garrett, are we already see any big announcements like we hear from the EU Competition Commission and Margaret Vestaire or is it going to be a little bit uh on the quieter side in the US just quickly, on any trust I mean, it's unlikely that you'll see the same kind of you know, aggressive movements that you've seen in in in the EU on antitrust here in the US, although people are talking

more about it. But the thing that you want to look for is sort of you know, legislation like the Honest Ads Act, and there's another one. You should read our story that there's a lot going on, but yeah, it's more on the legislative side. It's a great story, has lots of charts and pictures to help you understand. It's usually that's a Garrett of Ink, Bloomberg News Tech policy reporter on Eric Gobin, co director of the High Tech Law Institutent Santa Clara University Law School. That's it

for this edition of Bloomberg Law. We will see you tomorrow. This is Bloomberg Law on Bloomberg Radio.