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Big tech has 2 elephants in the room: Privacy and competition

The question of how policymakers should respond to the power of big tech didnt get a great deal of airtime at TechCrunch Disrupt last week, despite a number of investigations now underway in the United States .

Its also clear that attention- and data-monopolizing platforms compel many startups to use their comparatively slender resources to find ways to compete with the giants or hope to be acquired by them.

But theres clearly a nervousness among even well-established tech firms to discuss this topic, given how much their profits rely on frictionless access to users of some of the gatekeepers in question.

Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston evinced this dilemma when TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Matthew Panzarino asked him if Apples control of the iOS App Store should be reexamined by regulators or whether its just legit competition.

Nonetheless, there still seems to be a lack of consensus among lawmakers over how exactly to grapple with big tech, even though the issue elicits bipartisan support, as wasin plain view during a Senate Judiciary Committee interrogation of Googles ad business earlier this month.

On stage, Lofgren demonstrated some of this tension by discouraging what she called bulky and lengthy antitrust investigations, making a general statement in favor of innovation and suggesting a harder push for overarching privacy legislation.

Original article
Author: Natasha Lomas

TechCrunch is a leading technology media property, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news.

Natasha Lomas has recently written 10 articles on similar topics including :
  1. "The European Unions lead data protection supervisor has recommended that a ban on targeted advertising based on tracking Internet users digital activity be included in a major reform of digital services rules which aims to increase operators accountability, among other key goal". (February 10, 2021)
  2. "Privacy concerns that have been driving app users to alternative chat apps like Signal and Telegram in recent weeks, since Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced a T&Cs change, appear to also be generating some uplift for end-to-end encrypted email providers". (January 14, 2021)
  3. "European lawmakers are considering new rules for Internet giants that could include forcing them to share data with smaller rivals and/or put narrow limits on how they can use data in a bid to level the digital playing field". (September 30, 2020)
  4. "As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". (August 11, 2020)
  5. "Googles push to phase out third party tracking cookies aka its Privacy Sandbox initiative is facing a competition challenge in Europe". (November 23, 2020)
  6. "European data watchdogs have issued updated guidance in the wake of last weeks landmark ruling striking down a flagship transatlantic data transfer mechanism called Privacy Shield". (July 24, 2020)
  7. "European lawmakers are eyeing binding transparency requirements for Internet platforms in a Digital Services Act (DSA) due to be drafted by the end of the year". (June 25, 2020)
  8. "Mozilla has further beefed up anti-tracking measures in its Firefox browser". (February 24, 2021)
  9. "Remember Do Not Track? The tracker-loving adtech industry hopes you dont recall that decade+ doomed attempt to bake user-friendly privacy controls into browsers". (October 7, 2020)
  10. "Confusion over an update to Facebook-owned chat platform WhatsApps terms and conditions has triggered an intervention by Italys data protection agency". (January 14, 2021)
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