The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Internet providers seek bill to rein in tech giants
As Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, defends his company’s data practices this week before Congress, one of the nation’s largest cable companies is asking federal lawmakers for a bill that would rein in social media platforms, search engines and other tech giants.
The proposal by Charter Communications Monday calls for requiring “greater privacy and data security protections” of companies such as Google and Facebook, whose Cambridge Analytica fiasco has inflamed a debate about Silicon Valley’s handling of consumers’ personal information.
“Recent revelations have led to a long-overdue public conversation about what happens to our data online and the vulnerabilities that could develop,” Tom Rutledge, Charter’s chief executive, wrote in a blog post Monday. Rutledge said the new rules should also apply to internet providers such as Charter, whose services reach more than 22 million homes.
Charter’s call to more heavily regulate Facebook and Google reflects longstanding tensions between broadband providers and Silicon Valley after years of policy battles under the techfriendly Obama administration. That rivalry is only growing as internet providers seek a piece of the $209 billion digital advertising market that has been dominated by Bay Area companies
who hold vast troves of personal information on consumers.
Now, amid rising political scrutiny of the biggest names in tech, the policy proposals from Rutledge and others could put broadband companies in a stronger position to carve out their own place in the digital ad market — while conveniently placing new restrictions on their rivals in Silicon Valley.
Internet providers have stepped up critiques of technology companies as tech’s fortunes in Washington have waned. In January, AT&T called on Congress to pass a national net neutrality law that applies not only to broadband providers, as advocates of the concept initially envisioned, but also to massive tech platforms.
“Congressional action is needed to establish an ‘Internet Bill of Rights’ that applies to all internet companies and guarantees neutrality, transparency, openness,
non-discrimination and privacy protection for all internet users,” AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, wrote in the ad.
The ad blitz was politically welltimed. It came days after conservative activists led by James O’Keefe published a series of videos claiming to uncover partisan bias at Twitter, including the use of “shadowbans” to allegedly suppress right-wing accounts on the platform. That same month, Google was hit with a lawsuit alleging discrimination against conservative employees such as James Damore, an engineer who left the company after he penned an explosive memo criticizing Google’s hiring practices.
The disarray and tumult afflicting the tech industry is an opportunity for internet providers to gain a bigger foothold with policymakers, according to Susan
Crawford, a Harvard University law professor.
“Charter is using the cur- rent kerfuffle over Facebook to divert any regula- tory energy that might have been heading its way towards Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google,” said Crawford.
The tug-of-war between tech platforms and inter- net providers over regula- tion goes back years. When the Federal Communications Commission passed its now-defunct net neutrality rules in 2015, it was a major defeat for broadband providers. Opponents of the rules blamed tech companies such as Netflix for making the regulations more expansive.
Google became an even bigger thorn in the cable industry’s side when exec- utives said the search giant was interested in building a product that could free consumers from the bulky TV set-top boxes required for watching subscription television.
The two industries battled each other at the FCC over new rules for set-top boxes until cable companies emerged with their own competing proposal, and the FCC’s Democratic chair- man, Tom Wheeler, ended his tenure without bringing the issue to a vote.
Since then, internet providers have become increasingly open about their desire to challenge tech companies for dominance over the digital ad market, which is now bigger than the traditional
TV ad market, according to industry research.
Goo g le a nd Facebo ok alone account for 63 percent of all revenues in dig- ital ads, according to the research firm eMarketer.
Gigi Sohn, a former adviser to Wheeler, said the push by internet providers should not distract from “ISPs’ own anti-consumer and anticom- petitive behavior,” such as their efforts to stymie the
FCC’s comparatively strict privacy and net neutrality policies.
“Broadband ISPs and tech companies are both critical parts of the internet ecosystem, and both need greater
Congressional and regulatory oversight,” she said.