Hill Antitrust Push Threatens Cybersecurity Improvements

Townhall.com ^ | April 26, 2022 | Daniel Savickas

[Kaslin]

Last month, Google announced a massive planned acquisition of the cybersecurity firm, Mandiant. The $5.4 billion purchase comes as part of a concerted effort on Google’s part to better protect its customers. More specifically, the acquisition will be targeted at both growing and securing Google’s cloud services. Given the recent hacks of U.S. government agencies and critical infrastructure, it is more important for large companies like Google to strengthen their cybersecurity than ever before.

Unfortunately, new, aggressive antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice have already announced a probe into the merger. Further, a number of proposals currently in the U.S. Senate would nullify the beneficial impacts of such an acquisition. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), would“prevent self-preferencing and discriminatory conduct.” The language in that bill is so broad, that it would actually presume anti-competitive activity if Google were to defer to Mandiant to vet potential security threats in the Google Cloud.

This would completely defeat the purpose of the acquisition and leave both Google and its customers at the mercy of potentially malicious third parties. A big tech company – or any company for that matter – using its own in-house security systems to screen for threats and neutralize bad actors in the digital space is just a commonsense business practice. It is a system they can trust and they can set parameters that work best for their products and services. Doing so makes the process more efficient for them and allows them to dedicate more focus to serving their customers’ interests.

Last month, Google announced a massive planned acquisition of the cybersecurity firm, Mandiant. The $5.4 billion purchase comes as part of a concerted effort on Google’s part to better protect its customers. More specifically, the acquisition will be targeted at both growing and securing Google’s cloud services. Given the recent hacks of U.S. government agencies and critical infrastructure, it is more important for large companies like Google to strengthen their cybersecurity than ever before.

Unfortunately, new, aggressive antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice have already announced a probe into the merger. Further, a number of proposals currently in the U.S. Senate would nullify the beneficial impacts of such an acquisition. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), would“prevent self-preferencing and discriminatory conduct.” The language in that bill is so broad, that it would actually presume anti-competitive activity if Google were to defer to Mandiant to vet potential security threats in the Google Cloud.

This would completely defeat the purpose of the acquisition and leave both Google and its customers at the mercy of potentially malicious third parties. A big tech company – or any company for that matter – using its own in-house security systems to screen for threats and neutralize bad actors in the digital space is just a commonsense business practice. It is a system they can trust and they can set parameters that work best for their products and services. Doing so makes the process more efficient for them and allows them to dedicate more focus to serving their customers’ interests.

All of this cuts at the very heart of cybersecurity in an increasingly digital age. It is also not to mention the fact that Klobuchar has a third piece of legislation, the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, which would prevent America’s largest companies from acquiring any related businesses. This would not only put the brakes on innovative mergers – like Google’s with Mandiant – that would improve services and security, but would absolutely dry-up investment in cybersecurity start-ups who depend on mergers and acquisitions to entice initial investors.

While tech companies are doing whatever they can to secure their platforms and devices in the 21stCentury, lawmakers are settling political vendettas on Capitol Hill, unfairly and unnecessarily targeting these companies in the process. Legislation like this would make it nearly impossible for America’s tech companies to protect their users’data. They would also decrease the quality of the products themselves, leaving American consumers vulnerable to growing threats in cyberspace.

[jimtorr]

Most time I lean towards sympathy for this story, but this is Google, whose motto has morphed into “BE EVIL”. Here, they are buying up more of the tech universe.

Instead of buying Mandiant, they could just contract their services and avoid any antitrust complications.

[Boogieman]

“Given the recent hacks of U.S. government agencies and critical infrastructure, it is more important for large companies like Google to strengthen their cybersecurity than ever before.”

So Google can take some of that $5.4 billion and contract the firm to do the cybersecurity work while they are pending the government antitrust decision. Nobody’s stopping them from doing that.