Financial Times: Letter: Time to fill lacuna in US Big Tech regulation

From Vijay Dandapani, President and Chief Executive, Hotel Association of New York City, New York, NY, US

February 21, 2022

Susan Holmberg’s op-ed on the bipartisan backlash against Big Tech companies makes excellent points about their monopolistic and oligopolistic practices that offer an illusion of short-run low prices to consumers while, in the long run, starving out less-endowed competitors.

However, the article (Opinion, February 16) does not mention another lacuna in US law that gives tech companies the ability to whitewash their pernicious behaviour through veiled content moderation, while engaging in regulatory arbitrage resulting in massive profits, some of which is even illegal.

The most prominent example is section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act (1996) which was meant to provide “good Samaritan” protection from civil liability. Independent studies point to a result that is a travesty of the good intentions behind the law, with housing stock seized for commercial use in major cities around the world.

The main offenders are short-term rental platforms who shield themselves from municipal oversight under the specious argument that they are passive platforms and, therefore not responsible for listings that often violate local laws with many of the offenders being commercial operators.

Regulatory attempts by municipalities from Miami to New York are further stymied by the platforms’ refusal to accept “registration numbers”, as they contend that it would be tantamount to a “policing” of content.

Cities such as Paris that are not burdened by Section 230 of the CDA have had considerably greater success in reining in the rampant subversion of housing for illegal commercial gain underscoring the need for the US to revamp the nearly two decades’ old law.