Big Techs, with Trump or Harris, will have more regulation

The reasons for this focus in the case of the United States is that both in the administration of Donald Trump and in that of Joe Biden, technology companies They have been present in hearings and conversations with the regulators of this country.

Especially after the Cambridge Analytica controversy, the US Chamber of Commerce (FTC) intensified its questions regarding big technology companies, but 2020 was especially the year in which this effort to monitor surveillance became more evident.

There were two appointments that were key this year, that of Lina Khan as director of the FTC and that of Jonathan Kanter, who also arrived under the Biden administration as deputy attorney general of the antitrust division of the United States Department of Justice (DoJ). .

Both are “neo-Brandeisians,” followers of an antitrust movement concerned with how too much market power can harm competition, named for early 20th-century American antitrustman Louis Brandeis, who believed that monopolies are bad for workers and harm business innovation.

In fact, in December 2020, the FTC, along with 46 states, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, alleging that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were anticompetitive.

For this reason, these companies not only focus their lobbying efforts on issues directly related to technology, but also on areas such as national security and trade relations, which has become a strong argument to resist regulations.

In 2021, Google, Amazon and Meta also supported organizations such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), highlighting the narrative that regulation could impact US competitiveness and security.

This growth is part of a general shift in corporate lobbying: These companies are seeking to get ahead of reforms and strategically position themselves in key regulatory debates in Washington.

And some smaller ones have done it too, for example OpenAI, which developed the popular ChatGPT tool, reported $800,000 in lobbying in the first half of the year, reflecting its growing involvement in the AI ​​legislative arena and its effort to navigate growing regulations. that affect artificial intelligence.