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Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced five bills in an attempt to tame the power of the world’s largest technology companies, the biggest legislative threat to Big Tech in recent years.
If approved, the proposals would together form the biggest shake-up of U.S. monopoly law in a generation, reducing controls over the technology industry, strengthening Facebook’s dominance on social media and limiting Apple, Amazon and Google’s ability to use their platforms. favor their products.
“Right now, monopolies of unregulated technology have too much power in our economy,” David Cicilline, the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives ’antitrust subcommittee on monopolies, said Friday.
Big tech companies are “in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices for consumers and get people out of work,” he said.
U.S. politicians have for years promised to adopt benchmark technology rules, such as the digital privacy bill, but it has been hampered by a lack of bilateral agreement on the issue.
Members of the House signed five bills to approve them, however, there are Democrats and Republicans, a sign of the anger both parties feel over global tech companies.
Ken Buck, the oldest Republican anti-monopoly subcommittee, said: “Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google have prioritized power over innovation and harmed American businesses and consumers in the process.”
Many of the recommendations contained in the 448-page report published by the Cicilline subcommittee would be set out in the invoices. in the first year, accused the four companies of abusing their market power and heard one of the top four executives. This report was signed only by Democrats, suggesting that Republican members of Congress changed their stance.
Details of five invoices
The first of five bills would stop companies from using their platforms to promote their products. Amazon has been particularly criticized for using a leading online store in the market to give prominence to products made by the company. In last year’s report, Amazon uses data from third-party vendors to help improve and sell regular products.
The latter would prevent large technology companies from buying potential competitors. This bill reflects Capitol Hill’s anger that Facebook has been allowed to buy WhatsApp and Instagram, helping to cement its power on social media.
The third is that companies would stop using their platforms and products to promote other products. Google, for example, has been accused of manipulating its search engine to highlight its own products such as Google Shopping, when these services were typically not ranked very well in Google search.
The fourth bill will make it easier for customers to take their data and online profiles and transfer them to another service.
The fifth would make it more costly to file a merger in an attempt to give the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission more money to carry out enforcement measures.
If approved by the House of Representatives, the main obstacle to turning bills into law would be in the Senate, where Republicans have enough votes to pass new legislation. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, is generally in favor of big business, but said little Big Tech.
Neil Bradley, head of policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement, “Invoices that target specific companies, rather than focusing on business practices, are bad policies and are fundamentally unfair and can be considered unconstitutional.”
Google and Facebook refused. Apple and Amazon have not responded to that request.
Additional news from Hannah Murphy, Richard Waters, Dave Lee and Patrick McGee
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