WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President
Kamala Harris is potentially poised to become the Democratic
presidential nominee in the November election. Here are her
views and actions related to some key business topics.
TECH REGULATION
As California attorney general, Harris sued eBay ( EBAY ) in
2012, alleging anticompetitive hiring practices surrounding a
no-poaching agreement with Intuit that led to a nearly
$4 million settlement in 2014.
In 2015, she compelled startup Houzz to hire a chief privacy
officer after allegations that the home design app had recorded
sales calls without proper notification and consent.
One of her signature issues was curtailing the distribution
of pornography on social media, particularly "revenge porn," a
practice involving the posting of explicit photos without the
subject's consent. She took credit for a pressure campaign that
led to Facebook, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft ( MSFT )
and others taking measures to remove certain explicit
images.
"I cannot emphasize enough how leaders in technology have
stepped up," said Harris at a news conference then. "I'm not
suggesting any of them were happy to get a call from the AG
saying, 'Come in, we want to talk with you.' But they all did.
They did."
BIG TECH
As a candidate for California attorney general, Harris
reportedly assured potential donors that she was "a capitalist."
She has generally been seen as cozy with prominent tech
executives and investors, the local industry in her home Bay
Area. She attended the wedding of Sean Parker, an early Facebook
executive. Her brother-in-law, Tony West, is the chief legal
officer for Uber ( UBER ).
She also accepted donations from Reid Hoffman, a prominent
venture capitalist and co-founder of Linkedin, as well as
billionaire John Doerr and venture capitalist Ron Conway. Big
tech executives also supported her, including Sheryl Sandberg,
then chief operating officer of Facebook, and Marc Benioff, the
billionaire CEO of Salesforce ( CRM ).
CLIMATE AND ENERGY
Harris' climate and energy positions are similar to Biden's.
But throughout her career she has made clear that clean energy
and environmental justice are priorities.
When Biden announced Harris as his running mate in the 2020
race, he emphasized her tough stance against big oil when she
served in key roles in California, noting lawsuits she had
launched both as San Francisco's district attorney from 2004 to
2011 and then as the state's attorney general until January
2017, when she became a U.S. senator.
Last year, Harris made her debut at international climate
negotiations, announcing a $3 billion commitment to the Green
Climate Fund and making her first major international speech
focused on climate.
As vice president, Harris has also been involved in
Environmental Protection Agency policy rollouts that tackled
long-standing environmental justice issues, such as a
multibillion-dollar program to replace lead pipes and lead paint
around the country.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
As vice president, Harris has been particularly outspoken on
artificial intelligence. She warned against the "existential"
threat of AI and said it could "endanger the very existence of
humanity," in a November 2023 address.
In meeting with tech execs like Microsoft's ( MSFT ) Satya Nadella,
OpenAI's Sam Altman and Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, Harris warned
that they have a "moral" obligation to guard against AI's
possible dangers.
She backed an AI executive order from Biden that seeks
stronger protections for consumers, singling out AI-generated
scam calls and the impacts of unlabeled AI-generated content.