Should tech companies be more tightly regulated?

IN the wake of recent high-profile tech scares, such as a fatality involving an Uber self-driving car and Facebook's alleged mishandling of users' personal data, stricter regulation of the industry - along the lines of, say, the financial sector - has become the policy question du jour. Stock market values for leading tech companies are down - or perhaps just becoming more volatile - in the light of such concerns.

Obviously, rules regarding motor vehicles need to be examined carefully. In the United States, this is generally a state-level decision, though the federal National Transportation Safety Board has a very good reputation for its investigations and often changes how we think about best practices. The NTSB is investigating the Uber crash and previously assessed a fatality involving a Tesla vehicle.

As for Facebook, press reports suggest that the company may have made some egregious mistakes. One hopes we will learn more about the details of its decision-making on data privacy when its chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testifies before Congress, as he has agreed to do.