How lawmakers, regulators could take on big tech in 2020

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Big tech took a beating from politicians, regulators, the media and consumer advocates in 2019. Despite all the rhetoric around “taking on big tech,” Congress hasn’t passed meaningful legislation to regulate the industry.

It was a long year, so here’s a quick refresher on some of the highlights: Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made breaking up big tech companies a focal point of her campaign. Nearly every state attorney general in the U.S. announced an antitrust investigation into Google and a separate investigation into Facebook. The Federal Trade Commission slapped Facebook with a $5 billion fine. The FTC, the House Judiciary Committee and Department of Justice Department all started looking into big tech companies. Facebook ignited a firestorm after announcing its plans to enter the cryptocurrency arena and faced massive backlash over its political ad policy. There were data breaches and privacy scandals and secret White House meetings.

Companies like Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG) were publicly shamed by lawmakers throughout the year, but the industry hasn’t faced too many consequences — yet.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who has become an outspoken critic of big tech during his first year in Congress, told Yahoo Finance the conversation shifted in 2019.

“One of the things that we've been able to do this year is build a bipartisan coalition on pretty fundamental changes confronting big tech,” said Hawley.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), another vocal advocate for tech regulation, noticed that change too — even among industry leaders. Next year, Warner and Hawley hope the change in conversation could lead to action.

“I think that there's a greater understanding that big tech cannot continue to be in this kind of wild, wild West area where there's no limits, there's no controls,” Warner said. “I actually think even big tech CEOs realize that their ability to push off national regulation may end up coming back and biting them in the end.”

Data privacy

One of the first issues Congress could tackle in 2020 is data privacy. As other countries develop privacy laws and California’s law goes into effect, U.S. lawmakers are feeling the pressure to get a federal law on the books.

Toward the end of 2019, top lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee put ideas on paper and held a hearing on data privacy. Lawmakers and industry experts are optimistic something will get done in 2020, though some warn it could be a series of smaller bills instead of one comprehensive piece of legislation.

“I hope we'll be able to get something across the finish line, you know, before we get too deep into...election season,” said Michael Bloom with the Internet Association.