The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee took up several antitrust bills that essentially would require big tech platforms such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook to make a choice between running their given platform or competing on it.
The reason? An attempt to loosen the power and market control big tech companies have on online ecommerce. The bills have bipartisan support, aim to target the power that big tech companies, especially Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have. The legislation includes:
The American Innovation and Choice Online Act: This bill would prohibit discriminatory conduct by dominant platforms. This would include a ban on self-preferencing, and essentially would make it illegal for tech giants like Google to highlight their businesses over others in the online marketplace.
The Platform Competition and Opportunity Act: This bill prohibits acquisitions of competitive threats by dominant platforms that expand the power of online platforms; meaning big tech corporations would not be allowed to acquire competitors or potential competitors, like what Facebook did when they acquired Instagram in 2012.
The Ending Platform Monopolies Act: This bill eliminates the ability to leverage control across multiple lines of business that undermine free and fair competition. The bill makes it illegal for them to own lines of business that are a conflict of interest. Amazon makes a good example, if they were to promote their AmazonBasics line over that of a competitors’ products, that would be illegal.
The Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Services Switching Act: This bill aims to lower barriers of entry and switching costs for both businesses and customers. It would force platforms to make all user data portable and interoperable with other services.
Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act: This bill updates filing fees for all mergers to ensure that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission can enforce the proposed antitrust laws laid out in each bill.
Representative David Cicilline, chair of the antitrust subcommittee, said the bill was needed because the tech giants had not played fairly. "Google, Amazon and Apple each favor their own products in search results, giving themselves an unfair advantage over competitors," he added. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat echoed the same concerns, explaining there was concern in both parties about the tech giants, "This legislation attempts to address that in the interest of fairness, in the interest of competition, and the interest of meeting the needs of people whose privacy, whose data and all the rest is at the mercy of these tech companies.”
But not everyone is on board with such changes in the laws.
There has been major opposition to the antitrust bills from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, with Amazon releasing a statement stating that the proposed bills, “would have significant negative effects on the hundreds of thousands of American small- and medium-sized businesses that sell in our store.” Followed by Google stating they raise concerns around user privacy and, “damage the way small businesses connect with consumers.” And Facebook said the bills should, “not punish successful American companies.”
As far as next steps, the bills will be referred over to the House Judiciary Committee for review. Most would agree that these tech giants have a strong grip on the online tech market – but what do you think? Should the government attempt to rein in some of these monopolies?
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/24/tech-antitrust-bills-pass-house-committee/
https://www.govtech.com/policy/what-exactly-would-the-house-antitrust-bills-mean-for-big-tech
About the Author: Taylor Genter
Taylor is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them.