As the “ techlash” widens against technology companies, markets are jittery that 2019 will be the year when the likes of Facebook and Google are finally curbed by regulators. The volatility of tech stock prices is in part a reaction to worries that the drumbeat of scandals around privacy, election manipulation and anti-competitive behaviour will prompt tougher rules from Washington or Brussels. But how likely is it that politicians, who in the US in particular depend on Big Tech for campaign finance, will crack down?

It depends on which area of regulation you are talking about. In the US, Democrats and Republicans are at odds over what really bothers them about Big Tech. Liberals are most concerned about the possibility for rightwing election manipulation. While some states have disclosure rules around political advertising, national efforts to regulate online ads more tightly have stalled. Meanwhile, conservatives say the tech platforms, whose employees tend to be progressive, have algorithms that discriminate against them. But there are no clear proposals for how to create more algorithmic transparency.

The two areas that are riper for action are privacy and antitrust. Both sides of the political spectrum agree that Big Tech rides roughshod over user privacy, as evidenced by almost weekly data breaches and allegations of misuse. There is tremendous opacity in how the largest platform tech companies define and collect data, and sell it to third parties. Provisions for what happens to users whose data are compromised, meanwhile, are not strict enough. At the moment, the burden of proof is on users themselves.