GOP Platform 'Tech Friendly,' With Trump Likely 'Going to Follow,' Farenthold Says

Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, is unfazed by the prospect of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump taking the reins on tech policy. The GOP 2016 party "platform shows a tech-friendly direction, and I believe Mr. Trump’s going to follow in that,” Farenthold said in Cleveland at an event hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, pegged to the ongoing Republican National Convention this week. Delegates earlier adopted and formally released the platform (see 1607190053). Farenthold pointed to Trump’s emphasis on good trade deals and the importance of intellectual property to such deals. He cautioned against getting into “the weeds” too quickly when talking to other lawmakers about tech policy. “It’s got to be top-line messaging and it’s almost got to be marketing,” Farenthold said Wednesday. “You’ve got to have bite-size chunks that they can understand.” House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, touted his IoT working group. “We’ve had three working group meetings already,” he said, citing input from the automotive and tech sectors. “We have so much activity out there.” Among industry officials of all types, “they’ve all said the same thing: when you’re doing this on the legislative side, let’s have more of a light touch out there,” Latta said. Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan agreed there needs to be a better dialogue so people can understand tech policy and don’t feel left out, such as on topics like IoT. “For us though, connecting the world, data flows, globalization, all of that is critical to enable us to fulfill our mission,” Egan said. “And what we do see around the world and the challenge that we have is countries are going inward, they’re worried about technology, they’re worried about technology companies that are not home-grown. They’re reacting by looking at data localization measures…that would essentially balkanize the internet, that absolutely would affect us from achieving our mission of connecting the world.” She said Facebook sees a need for educating policymakers about these implications.