Wired

A Q&A with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

A Q&A with Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA). 

Rep Khanna represents much of Silicon Valley, but he’s not just a cheerleader for the hometown industry. He supports tougher antitrust review of tech mergers, for one thing. Rep Khanna is also trying to draft an “Internet Bill of Rights,” principles that he hopes can later form the basis of legislation. On his list: the right to know what data tech companies have about you; the right to limit the use of your data; the right to consent when the data is transferred; and the right to move your data.

Less than a month before tough new European privacy rules take effect, there are growing concerns from regulators, publishers, and privacy watchdogs about the ways that two internet giants—Google and Facebook—plan to implement the regulations. The critics say the companies are squelching the promise of the new rules, and will leave European internet users no better off. In a blog, a top EU regulator warned of “attempts to game the system,” which could lead to a “travesty of at least the spirit of the new regulation, which aims to restore a sense of trust and control over what happens to our

In response to the Cambridge Analytica story, Facebook has curbed outsiders’ access to its data, vowed to hire thousands of additional content reviewers, and offered users clearer privacy controls. “I don’t think they do anything that will cost them more than a dollar over the long term,” said New York University professor Scott Galloway. The changes Facebook announced to regain consumer trust were “a series of half measures — one part delay, one part obfuscation. They’ve effectively done nothing [and] it doesn’t look like anyone cares,” he said.

[Commentary] Americans should have rights to and control over their data. If we don’t like a service, we should be free to move our data to another. The same network effect that creates value for people on Facebook can also lock them into Facebook’s walled garden by creating barriers to competition. People who may want to leave Facebook are less likely to do so if they aren’t able to seamlessly rebuild their network of contacts, photos, and other social graph data on a competing service or communicate across services.

[Commentary] One phrase that keeps being tossed around: "Facebook should be treated like a utility." The idea is that the use of Facebook has become effectively essential to modern life, and therefore it should be regulated just like water or electricity. Let's get this right: Facebook is not a utility. It is an app. It may be a dominant app. It may even be exercising monopoly power unfairly. But it is not a utility, and muddying the definitional waters this way will only help the real utilities—like Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink—avoid genuine oversight.