For Web startups with big ambitions, regulation increasingly on the radar

By Alexei Oreskovic RANCHO PALOS VERDES Calif. (Reuters) – Internet startups are starting to see what could come between them and their ambitions: regulators. Now, Web companies developing services in everything from healthcare to transportation are crafting strategies for working with government agencies. That’s a marked change from a few years ago, when the mantra was, “Grow first, worry later.” “The issues of an Internet company 10 years ago were different because you weren’t affecting the real world,” Travis Kalanick, chief executive officer of car-ride service Uber, told Reuters at the Code technology conference in Southern California this week. “Once you get in the real world, you’ve got a whole other thing you’ve got to deal with, and that’s where regulations and regulatory bodies and politicians and campaigns and all this stuff come into play.” This month, 15 taxi companies in Connecticut sued Uber for skirting state and federal regulations.