Washington failed to regulate Big Tech—and now it’s about to discover that it can’t

Companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon dominate their markets, and have deep pockets and armies of lobbyists. That, combined with historical precedent, gridlock in Congress, and the Donald Trump White House’s aversion to regulation in general, means passing new laws or rules to rein them is going to be a tough battle, some government and industry veterans say.

As the internet and tech industry in the US has grown in the past two decades, not only has federal rule-making not kept pace, but the government hasn’t adapted to oversee it. In recent years, tech companies from Airbnb to Uber to Google have poured money into lobbying in Washington DC and now have sizable in-house and outside teams that regularly meet with Congress, fund think tanks, and try to influence how lawmakers, federal employees, and the general public see the industry. The industry’s total lobbying spending jumped from $1.2 million in 1998 to $59.2 million in 2016, and it’s on pace to meet or beat that amount in 2017.