President-elect Donald Trump could eviscerate some of the most significant tech policies of the 21st century, all but erasing President Barack Obama’s Internet agenda and undoing years of effort by lawmakers, tech companies and consumer advocates to limit the power of large, established corporations, analysts say.
In particular danger are key initiatives of the Obama years, including net neutrality and a pivotal series of Internet privacy regulations that came along with it.
Watch: Obama and Trump’s first White House meeting
“Net neutrality has a big target on its back,” said Robert Kaminski, a telecom analyst at Capital Alpha Partners.
During the campaign, Trump vowed to “eliminate our most intrusive regulations” and “reform the entire regulatory code.” He has singled out net neutrality as a “top down power grab,” predicting it would allow the government to censor websites.
Congressional Republicans have taken aim at net neutrality as well, setting the stage for a concerted effort by Trump and his House and Senate allies to undermine the policy. And because the government’s consumer privacy policies draw their power from net neutrality, they are likely to fall as well if conservatives successfully gut the rules.
