Big Tech’s staunchest critics have found some motivation for antitrust reform to curb the power of companies like Amazon and Google in the daily lives of millions of Americans.
The view that the tech giants are monopolies has united bipartisan detractors of Big Tech who think Congress is having a rare time dealing with an enduring problem, and the most viable option currently in the pipeline is the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.
Proponents of the legislation say it would make measurable and necessary changes to antitrust laws to combat Big Tech. Tech companies and their allies in Congress have warned it could destroy products Americans trust and love.
The law takes direct aim at Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook, which now operate as Meta, by requiring them not to choose their products on their own platforms to the detriment of competitors.
Under the law, online platforms with more than 50 million monthly active users or 100,000 US-based monthly active users are prohibited from prioritizing their products and services over another business if it would materially harm competition. They will have enforcement powers from the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and state antitrust enforcement agencies.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa. They revised the law in June in the hope of passing it in the summer.
Representative David Siciliani, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, sponsored companion legislation in the House.
Ms. Klobuchar said the bill was not designed to break up the companies or prevent mergers.
“All they have to do is treat people fairly,” Ms Klobuchar said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “The way our account works [if] They do that and stay out of trouble. They don’t, the Justice Department, the FTC, the state AGs may look to do something about it.
Ms. Klobuchar cited Amazon’s unfair behavior in displaying its products in search results over competitors’ products.
Amazon came out swinging at the law earlier this summer. Amazon Vice President Brian Huseman wrote that the bill would cause his company to cut prices and lose a wide selection of products.
“Sen. Klobuchar wrote on Amazon’s website that Amazon would force other logistics providers to fulfill Prime orders. “Such an order would make it difficult and practically impossible for Amazon and our retail partners to offer Prime’s free two-day shipping (let alone one-day) products.”
Ms. Klobuchar slammed Amazon for false claims and urged swift action to pass the bill amid major tech protests.
The prospect of Congress voting on major technology-focused antitrust legislation before the August recess has raised concerns about the Democratic leadership’s prioritization of other business interests and questions about the level of support for the antitrust bill in the Senate.
Mr. Buck pushed for a vote on the bill in June. Ms Klobuchar called for a vote before August. Mr. Grassley indicated this month in comments to the New York Post that he was open to waiting until the fall if necessary. Ms. Klobuchar’s office did not respond to the move to the fall schedule for the legislation and indicated that she was pushing for a vote now.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, told Punchbowl News in July that he would support the bill but intended to wait until it has the 60 votes needed to survive in the upper chamber. So far, the law doesn’t seem to have that much resonance.
Four Democratic senators raised concerns with Ms. Klobuchar in June. Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Ron Wyden of Oregon fear the bill will “further flood the internet with harmful content” by disrupting content moderation practices that monitor people’s speech.
Some Republicans have also cast doubt on the law, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who questioned the wisdom of the law when it passed through the judiciary in January.
A coalition of conservative advocacy groups led by the Internet Accountability Project urged swift passage of the law in July.
“Big tech companies have accumulated enough power to dominate the marketplace,” the coalition said in a letter to senators. “Few people in our country’s modern history have wielded such enormous power over the dissemination of information or had the power to silence their political or ideological opponents.”
The bill is held by rival tech companies in a power play.
For example, Yale General Counsel Aaron Schur wrote in July in the University of Chicago Press in support of the bill. Yale, a publicly traded business review site, is a competitor of Google and a witness in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google.
Mark Jamieson of the American Enterprise Institute countered that Mr. Shurn said Bill Hamtring would benefit tech titans like Yelp. Mr. Jamieson has previously consulted for Google.
If the U.S. government doesn’t crack down on big tech, Chinese competition could do deadly damage, especially on the popular video-based platform TikTok.
Facebook posted a year-over-year revenue decline in the second quarter of 2022, marking an unprecedented run of three consecutive quarters of declining profits, MarketWatts reported.
Facebook parent Meta fell out of the top S&P 500 companies in July, CNBC reported.
TikTok surpassed Facebook and Instagram in terms of time people spent scrolling through their platforms in 2020, according to market research firm Insider Intelligence. Facebook has recently announced plans to shut down or review several products, including its newsletter service Bulletin and how it pays publishers for Facebook News.
While Facebook is facing a Congressional crackdown on products that cater to TikTok’s creative audience, its shift from social media to a virtual reality ‘flexible’ business may not escape the government’s ire.
The FTC said in July it wanted to block Meta from acquiring a popular virtual reality fitness app because Meta has a “virtual reality empire.”
