Barry Diller: Tech Giants 'Inevitably' Will Face More Regulation

It is not a question of if, but when, tech giants such as Google and Facebook will come under federal regulation, media mogul Barry Diller said Tuesday.

"Inevitably it has to face regulation," Diller said in at interview at The Wall Street Journal's WSJ D.Live technology conference. "This is a different situation than the standard fear that down the street in a garage somewhere is your competitor . . . The dominant companies do not have fundamental competition."

The IAC/InterActive Corp. chairman did not specify which companies he meant, the Journal noted, though it pointed out the discussion comes amid concern over the influence of Facebook, Amazon, and Google parent Alphabet.

He also said, while "everyone and their mother" is trying to succeed with video on the Internet, only Netflix and Amazon are having success.

Netflix, with 109 million subscribers, is "so far ahead of everyone else," he said. "It's impossible on a mass communication scale to compete with them, and it's unlikely they're going to lose it."

Netflix, along with Amazon, have changed the old dynamic of entertainment companies, he said. Previously, such companies would be bought by larger conglomerates that would distribute their content, but there are not many major conglomerates now that could afford to buy Netflix or Amazon, he added.

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