Senators press Facebook, Google on consumer data value

Both Satterfield and Erickson, as well as other witnesses at the hearing, supported the creation of a federal data privacy law as one method of ensuring consumer data’s security.

Charlotte Slaiman, competition policy director at nonprofit public interest group Public Knowledge and a witness at the hearing, said while a federal data privacy law would help protect user data, the “gatekeeper power” is at the root of big tech’s competition problems.

“Right now, big tech has the power over us and our data,” she said. “We need to protect both users and a competitive market with new laws and rules to promote fair competition against them. Until we have a real choice to leave these platforms if we’re not happy with them, they won’t have the incentive to win us over and we’ll continue to miss out on disruptive innovations that challenge the status quo.”

Slaiman said current legislation being considered could neutralize big tech’s control, including the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition John Robb, a technology expert focused on data ownership, author of the Global Guerrillas blog and another hearing witness, said big data is valuable and will become more valuable over time as it is integrated into more products and services.

Yet he said there isn’t a clear approach to handling big data in the marketplace. He cautioned that some countries that have implemented methods to regulate data collection and use may be getting it wrong.

Europe’s privacy laws are suppressing data aggregation, Robb said, and “that will affect their economic capabilities long term, reducing their capabilities to produce high-quality products in the future.”

Robb said the U.S. can learn from other countries’ approaches and instead focus regulation on giving data ownership back to consumers.

The U.S. does not have any protections against overreach in the corporate realm, he said. “We need a set of digital rights we can exercise to protect us against any overreach on the corporate side.”

Makenzie Holland is a news writer covering big tech and federal regulation. Prior to joining TechTarget, she was a general reporter for the Wilmington StarNews and a crime and education reporter at the Wabash Plain Dealer.