Think about it, why are we targeting tech? If having tech mix with finance is bad, shouldn't we disallow finance companies from offering tech services?
If it's not bad, then why are we doing it at all?
This really sounds like these politicians are once again doing too much of something no one asked for, and nothing at all about what we did ask for, privacy protection.
All they need to do is make a HIPAA like law that criminalizes any sharing of personal data at all for commercial purposes. With mandatory prison sentences for offenders. That's it. Do that and you stop all kinds of egregious privacy invasions in their tracks.
That's a really simple ask, and yet they won't do it. It's starting to get a little infuriating. No one cares about whether paypal or ebay offer a prepaid debit card or whatever. Anymore than anyone cares about Walmart offering prepaid debit. We want to make it illegal for ANY of these companies to share information. Full stop.
Why can't these people do such a simple thing that makes a whole lot of sense? The EU has protections. Even the AU has started drafting the privacy protections regs for their new zone. Why can't we in the US do that same, very simple, thing?
Worst part is now instead of having to worry about what ebay, paypal, and amazon are doing with that data, I have to worry about what thousands of anonymous smaller vendors are doing with my data after they purchase it. In a very real way, these politicians are turning what was a 9mm round flying at me, into a shotgun blast...
The politicians wont do it and the populace won't like it because tech companies have become a significant part of the economy and are a significant driver of economic/retirement account growth and international political power in the USA for the past 20 years.
> The draft legislation, “Keep Big Tech Out Of Finance Act,” describes a large technology firm as a company mainly offering an online platform service with at least $25 billion in annual revenue.
This legislation is clearly aimed at Apple. Today Apple Pay and a Goldman Sachs credit service. Tomorrow a credit card offering if their own to compete with other Eurocard/Visa/MasterCard services.
Facebook is only establishing an alternative currency, which major banks will be participating in if it gets off the ground.
Libra is not a threat as long as Facebook plays well with regulators and various nations’ tax offices. In addition, Libra will be run by a spin-off company, not directly by Facebook.
Apple is potentially going to cut EMV out of the loop.
There isn't a definition provided for platform utility in this bills text, but the first mention I saw of the "platform utilities" term was from Warren, which was referring to select category of companies with this definition:
Companies with an annual global revenue of $25 billion or
more and that offer to the public an online marketplace, an
exchange, or a platform for connecting third parties would be
designated as "platform utilities."
It looks like PayPal is at around 13B in yearly revenue so they would 100% not be included for revenue bar alone, but not completely sure how I would read if they fit into the category based on the rest of the definition.
A limit of $25 billion in global revenue? This reads like legislation drafted by large banks to secure their moat against newcomers with enough heft to actually make a dent in their market share. I don’t think this will facilitate competition or protect the consumer in any meaningful way.
$25B is the point that Warren has been targeting for a few months now, not just for banking-related services. She says that at $25B, the company is sufficiently large that they control a significant portion of whatever industry they are as well as the economy and people's lives. The goal is to target companies with too much influence and reign them in with regulations and/or breakup. Again, this number is being used for any industry, not just banking and tech (though tech does seem to be the focus at the moment).
It's weird though, because something like ACH desperately needs to be replaced. It's slow, and compared to whatever they have in the EU, it's slow and embarrassing. Not saying it needs to be blockchain (I'd prefer it isn't), but taking lessons from it would be beneficial. In the past ~30 years, the American business ecosystem cares less and less about standards and more about pushing their own standards/formats and not giving a fuck about interoperability.
Think about it, why are we targeting tech? If having tech mix with finance is bad, shouldn't we disallow finance companies from offering tech services?
If it's not bad, then why are we doing it at all?
This really sounds like these politicians are once again doing too much of something no one asked for, and nothing at all about what we did ask for, privacy protection.
All they need to do is make a HIPAA like law that criminalizes any sharing of personal data at all for commercial purposes. With mandatory prison sentences for offenders. That's it. Do that and you stop all kinds of egregious privacy invasions in their tracks.
That's a really simple ask, and yet they won't do it. It's starting to get a little infuriating. No one cares about whether paypal or ebay offer a prepaid debit card or whatever. Anymore than anyone cares about Walmart offering prepaid debit. We want to make it illegal for ANY of these companies to share information. Full stop.
Why can't these people do such a simple thing that makes a whole lot of sense? The EU has protections. Even the AU has started drafting the privacy protections regs for their new zone. Why can't we in the US do that same, very simple, thing?
Worst part is now instead of having to worry about what ebay, paypal, and amazon are doing with that data, I have to worry about what thousands of anonymous smaller vendors are doing with my data after they purchase it. In a very real way, these politicians are turning what was a 9mm round flying at me, into a shotgun blast...
and then saying, "Hey don't thank us!!!"
Don't worry I won't.