Regulatory Winter Is Coming

In 2059, when you’re telling your Gen AA grandkids tech tales of days gone by, you’ll have plenty from 2019 to work with. Beyond the U.S.-China high-tech spat, countless battles are unfolding globally between the regulator and the regulated, underregulated, and self-regulated.

In Washington...

After years of privacy mishaps, fast-and-loose data management, and unchecked growth, Big Tech is bracing for new regulatory decrees from U.S. enforcers. The FTC and DOJ have divvied up Big Tech antitrust enforcement, according to multiple reports. The FTC gets Amazon and Facebook, the DOJ gets Google and Apple.

And yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee said it’s launching a “top-to-bottom” antitrust investigation into Big Tech, which has become a punching bag for Democrats on the 2020 presidential campaign trail.

That’s all EU got?

In Europe, regulators recently celebrated GDPR’s first birthday. The young data protection bill has so far resulted in $63 million in fines and >200,000 investigations. Still, critics say it’s stifled innovation on the continent and indirectly benefited U.S. Big Tech by foisting sky-high compliance costs on smaller firms.

Let’s keep going East

Russia’s putting up a digital iron curtain. What does that look like? Russian intelligence agencies ordering Tinder to hand over all user data...NSFW messages included (so all of them). And you already know the story in China, where AI censors are scrubbing Tiananmen Square-related content from social media around the 30th anniversary of the protests’ end.

• All over the world, from Asia to Latin America to Africa, governments are going by China's playbook of centralized control, censorship, and surveillance.

Full circle: Countries are taking different regulatory tacks to control tech within their borders, but one thing’s certain—the internet, 5G, and AI are balkanizing.

In the U.S., companies like Facebook and T-Mobile have tried to play the patriotic card, arguing their size boosts their global competitiveness. But clearly this pitch may not be enough to sway regulators and lawmakers.