"Tom Rubin, a former senior lawyer at Microsoft who is now a lecturer at Stanford University, sees many parallels between the government scrutiny of Microsoft and of Facebook, which he discussed with a class on tech policy at the school this past week.
“They both involve an allegation that a digital gatekeeper, with insufficient internal controls, drove for dominance by harming the ecosystem in which it operates,” said Mr. Rubin, who was an assistant United States attorney before joining Microsoft.
But the stakes now, he said, are higher than in the days when the public was still figuring out how to get onto the internet. “Competition in the marketplace for browsers pales in comparison to protecting personal privacy and a functioning democracy,” Mr. Rubin said. “It’s hard to conceive of a higher priority for legislators and regulators than that.”"