Microsoft Corp. President and Vice Chair Brad Smith called for tech companies to collaborate with regulators, arguing it would be the best path forward to address ongoing global issues.
Speaking on April 13 at the International Association for Privacy Professionals 2022 Global Privacy Summit in Washington, D.C., Smith said tech companies should "lean in" to global tech legislative efforts.
Smith encouraged tech and privacy professionals to participate in regulation efforts and better coordinate with world governments. He pointed to the U.S. Future of Tech Commission as an example for creating improved tech policy agendas.
Smith also called for the creation of a U.S. Digital Regulatory Commission, saying it could address emerging technologies and their applications to mature sectors like telecommunications and energy.
His remarks come as legal authorities sit at the forefront of a multiyear effort to pass tech regulations around the world. Two bills, the Open App Markets Act and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, are designed to clamp down on the market power that Apple, Google LLC and other Big Tech companies have in their app stores and related sites. Both passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year with bipartisan support.
Across the pond, European regulators in March rolled out a finalized framework for the Digital Markets Act, or DMA, which contains measures to reduce the power of digital companies considered to hold too much market concentration.
Casper Klynge, Microsoft's vice president of European government affairs, previously told S&P Global Market Intelligence that Microsoft has been supportive of EU regulation efforts from the start. "Open platforms are important to innovate for the future," Klynge said in an emailed statement discussing the DMA.
Smith also reiterated his support for omnibus privacy legislation. Microsoft has been calling for a global privacy law since 2005.
While there has been some coalescence around concepts for a federal privacy bill — including a package of individual rights that would allow consumers to know what data is being collected about them and to correct that data if it is wrong — there has been little movement on such a bill. Meanwhile, states such as California, Virginia and Colorado have moved forward on their own privacy bills, raising concerns about a patchwork approach.
The U.S. government has long been one of Microsoft's largest clients, having used its Office suite of products and Azure cloud service. Azure and Amazon.com Inc.'s Amazon Web Services share a contract with the U.S. Defense Department.
Smith's comments came one day after Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook spoke out at the Global Privacy Summit against app store legislation.
In particular, Cook addressed sideloading, where users are given the option to install apps from third-party app stores. Cook said the practice could pose risks to user security.
Sideloading would be permitted for Apple app store users if the Open App Markets Act were to pass into law.