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Op-Ed:
Republicans antitrust crusade opens door to Chinese and Russian hacking
[The Center Square] Patrick Hedger |
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
With high-profile attacks
disrupting food and fuel supplies in the last few weeks, cybersecurity
is justifiably front and center in the minds of Americans. In fact,
cyber attacks were a main point raised by President Joe Biden in the
recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Officials at the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are actively working to get
Chinese-made telecommunication equipment out of our domestic networks
and encouraging our allies to do the same. House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Peter Schiff (D-Calif.) just recently called on the United
States to “go more on offense” in response to cyber threats. |
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 But, in another classic Washington case of the federal
government’s left hand having no idea what the right hand is doing, a bipartisan
antitrust push against “big tech” threatens to undermine any progress made under
this new cybersecurity zeal. And, in a weird twist of hypocrisy, some
conservatives who have been vocal supporters of punishing China's and Russia’s
cyberattacks are willing to expose the personal information of millions of
Americans because of their vendetta against “big tech.”
This week, the House Judiciary Committee marked-up six bipartisan antitrust
bills aimed squarely at Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Four of the six
bills pose serious questions for cybersecurity.
 The most problematic bill in this regard is the Augmenting Compatibility and
Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act (ACCESS) Act. The ACCESS Act
mandates that the covered tech giants establish interoperability interfaces
where competitors can access user data, while leaving most of the details of how
this will work to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Thus, it remains to be
seen which kinds of entities may suddenly find themselves gifted access to
Americans’ data, and what kind of data they may be entitled to. However, there’s
a very real possibility that Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon users could suddenly
find their data shared with China-based TikTok, WeChat, and Alibaba without
their approval. At that point, it’s safe to assume that data will find its way
into the hands of the Chinese government. For instance, Alibaba is currently in
talks with the Chinese government to turn over their consumer data to
state-owned firms as part of China’s nationwide social credit system. What’s to
stop other nefarious actors from standing up “competitors” to America’s tech
sector and demanding access to this data as well? This all
echoes of the dangers cybersecurity experts warn of in regards to data
encryption and so-called “backdoors.” While some believe that law enforcement
agencies need backdoors to encrypted data, the fact is that when any kind of
vulnerability is built into the system for the good guys, it will still be there
for the bad guys. An interoperability interface is exactly that. Firms that
place consumer privacy and security at the center of their business model
shouldn’t be forced into this one-size-fits-all tradeoff.
Three of the other bills would dramatically curb the ability of the covered tech
companies to develop or adopt new and innovative cybersecurity tools and
practices. For example, the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act amounts to
an effective ban on the major tech companies’ ability to acquire new firms. New
and innovative cybersecurity firms could see their investment potential quickly
dry up with major buyers forced out of the market. Mergers and acquisitions are
significant drivers of venture capital investment in Silicon Valley. Closing off
this avenue for investors to eventually exit will have predictable and
deleterious effects on innovation and competition, not to mention cybersecurity.
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The Ending Platform Monopolies Act and the Platform
Anti-Monopoly Act are similar bills that, at the end of the day,
seek to force the major tech companies to spin off or shut down many
of their vertically integrated assets. A good example is forcing
Facebook to divest from Instagram. The bills go so far as to likely
ban Apple from preloading applications onto iPhones.
The vulnerabilities created by this kind of artificial downsizing
and these restrictions are practically endless. Limiting the ability
for companies to provide applications and software consumers know
they can trust from the get go is more than a bit of a security
nightmare. It puts the average consumer in greater danger of
installing all kinds of malware and is akin to selling the average
consumer a car missing most of its parts and safety features.
Overall, downsizing firms means downsizing the resources they’re
each able to dedicate to cybersecurity. Best practices would no
longer be seamlessly shared and applied across different products
and services. After all, under this new approach to antitrust, such
coordination and communication between firms could be deemed
anticompetitive, even if it benefits consumers.
Cutting firms down also means cutting their ability to fund research
and development into the technologies America needs to stay ahead of
rival powers like China in the fields of artificial intelligence and
quantum computing. America cannot pretend that localizing all the
funding for such efforts within the bureaucratic structures of
government is the best that can be done. It’s not putting all of the
eggs in one basket, it’s putting them in a torn plastic bag.
Perhaps the greatest danger this antitrust effort poses for
cybersecurity, however, is the slapdash nature of it all.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle are putting a greater value
on the appearance of doing “something” about the tech sector before
the next election versus considering all of the potential unintended
consequences of upending companies and their products and services
that most Americans use on a daily basis. And with the recent,
undeniable uptick in cybersecurity threats and incidents, the timing
couldn’t be worse. Patrick Hedger is
vice president of Policy at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. |
