“ Competition policy, that’s the thing they’re most scared of,” said Barry Lynn, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank. “If a Microsoft-style case was brought against any of these companies, it could totally change their business prospects. It could result in radical changes to the scale and structure of their corporations.”
Cases have been opened in Europe against Google and Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, said Lynn. He’s a Republican, showing that concern about the growing power of the tech giants isn’t confined to the political left.
Not that the left doesn’t share it. Clinton has talked about tougher antitrust laws aimed at ending the “abuse of economic power” by corporations.
‘Their Damn Computers’
She’s also taken aim at their shifting of profits overseas to avoid taxes. Hauser, who worked at the Justice Department’s antitrust division before joining the Revolving Door Project, said tech firms “are at the leading edge of tax avoidance because of the ways they’ve perfected moving their intellectual property overseas.”
He said Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew’s support for Apple, after the iPhone-maker was ordered to pay back-taxes in Europe, is an unprecedented stance for a Democratic administration. Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump proposed a tax cut for companies that repatriate profits, though it didn’t win him many converts in the tech industry.
Then there’s the labor market. Trump has taken aim at Apple among other companies that have shifted jobs overseas. “We’re going to get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country,” he said in January. But the iPhone-maker announced this month it’s setting up a second R&D center in China.
Big tech simply doesn’t hire on the same scale as its heavy-industry predecessors. And technology is reshaping the workforce in other ways too, with Silicon Valley favorites like Uber and Taskrabbit Inc. at the forefront. They’re central to the growth of a gig economy that’s spurred calls for rules on health-care and employment insurance to be updated.
Tech companies also typically back immigration rights for skilled labor that have become politically toxic, and they support trade accords that both presidential candidates oppose. They’ve clashed with the government over the balance between internet privacy and national security, notably when Apple boss Cook refused to help unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters.
Beyond the shopping-list of specifics, says Lynn, the industry has one overarching desire: light-touch regulation. “They want to be left alone,” he said. “They want to be allowed to do what they want to do.”