Missouri’s Attorney General Will Expand His Scrutiny of Big Tech
Missouri’s Attorney General Will Expand His Scrutiny of Big Tech
(Bloomberg) -- Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley plans to announce Monday an investigation into a “major tech company” over privacy-related issues. “Missourians must be able to trust that tech companies are honest about what they do with private consumer data,” he said in a statement Thursday, adding that users should be able to trust that their data is not being “disseminated illegally.”
Hawley, a Republican, has already established himself a a potential thorn in Big Tech’s side. Last year, he launched an investigation into Google’s alleged violations of state antitrust and consumer protection laws. And in officially kicking off his bid for the U.S. Senate earlier this month, Hawley boasted about going after Silicon Valley companies. His campaign could be a test of how tech’s liabilities play out as an electoral issue.
In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek earlier this year, Hawley said that he was generally worried about the concentration of economic power, but that Silicon Valley presented unique challenges. “The sheer amount of personal information they have is just unprecedented,” he said. “Then the other thing that’s quite significant is their ability to control the information that flows to customers.”
It’s becoming increasingly difficult for tech companies to ignore such concerns, especially after details emerged that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica gained access to data from about 50 million Facebook users. Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is planning to testify before Congress in the coming weeks, and the Federal Trade Commission is investigating the social media giant for violating a 2011 agreement to safeguard users’ personal information.
On Wednesday, Amazon lost more than $50 billion in market value after a report in Axios said President Trump was “obsessed” with the company and had been asking about a ways to go after it with antitrust action. Axios also reported that Vice President Mike Pence is concerned about the influence Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook have over media coverage and the use of personal data.
Earlier this week, Hawley signed onto a letter demanding information from Facebook about its data-sharing procedures. His interest in potential misconduct is complicated by his relationship with Peter Thiel, who is both a major donor and a member of Facebook’s board of directors.
To contact the author of this story: Joshua Brustein in New York at jbrustein@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Molly Schuetz at mschuetz9@bloomberg.net.
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.