Keep It: Maintaining Competition in the Privacy Debate

I want today to register my concern that laws and regulations intended to promote privacy may build protective moats around large companies (some of which already possess significant amounts of data about people) by making it more difficult for smaller companies to grow, for new companies to enter the market, and for innovation to occur—and insist that competition be part of our conversation about privacy. If our concern is warranted, the questions for proponents of new privacy rules then must include: Are we willing to allow a reduction in competition or innovation? What competitive price are we willing to pay for greater privacy protection? Are we willing, for instance, to allow the biggest technology companies—lately the focal points of discussion about both privacy and competition—to entrench further?