eric schmidt, you know, the executive chairman of kugel -- elizabeth wasserman -- google. this website. also has what i think is the premier tech conference in the country. all things digital. our tenth year. he spoke last year and talked about the gang of four companies that are dominant now he was tweaking microsoft. and the five are apple, amazon, google and microsoft. what makes those the principal competitors is that they all own platforms on which other companies are building products and services said that they control these big egos systems in which are racists and services and software and apps. also competing with each other, at least in certain ways. you might say, well, apple is a harbor company. amazon mostly sells products and digital content. google is mostly search and advertising. and that's true, but they all are kind of in each other's business. they sue each other regularly. and so that is the big battle right now between those. >> host: when those five companies started they had one thing in common which is the did not care much about washington d.c. t

. >> elizabeth wasserman is the editor of politico wants to know, will do not track features solve privacy problems? >> laws are needed. luckily, i am an opinion columnist, not a news reporter. i can have -- it is my opinion that we need a serious comprehensive federal level privacy law in the united states. i do not believe that the online advertising industry and other on-line businesses -- it is no different than other experiences we had over the long history of the united states. i do not mean to sound like i want to go crazy and regulate the internet. on the other hand, i do not believe the internet should exist as a place outside the law. here is an example of one thing that might happen. i know before i say this that the political climate in congress is never this simple. you could have a bill which simply said, we have an economy and a whole society built on private property with thousands of court cases. can we use your private property to fuel our business, which is doing an alleged six -- doing analytics? peter, can we use it, you can say no. i am being facetious because we are

. >> host: elizabeth wasserman who is the editor of tech pro at politico wants to know will do not track features in web browsers solve the privacy problem, or are laws neededsome. >> guest: laws are needed. luckily, i am an opinion column it, not -- columnist, not a news reporter at "the wall street journal" in all things d, so i can have opinions, and it is my opinion that we need a serious, comprehensive, federal-level privacy law in the united states, digital privacy law. i do not believe that the online advertising industry and other online businesses have been or will be successful at regulating themselves. and it's no different than other experiences we've had over the long history of the united states. i don't mean to sound like i want to go crazy and, quote, regulate the internet. on the other hand, i don't believe the internet should exist as a place outside the law. and, so, you know, here's an example of one thing that might happen. we know -- i know before i say this that the political climate in congress is never, ever this simple. but you could have a bill which simply sai