The antitrust law, to be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, would bar major online platforms such as Amazon.com Inc.’s e-commerce site and Alphabet Inc.’s Google search engine from prioritizing their own goods and services. other companies.
Proponents say the dominance of the Internet by a handful of large companies prevents smaller technology companies from gaining market share, stifling innovation. Big technology companies protest that the proposed law would prevent them from providing free or low-cost services to consumers and small businesses.
An ad campaign titled “Don’t Break What Works” starting Wednesday will target anti-tech efforts, including one sponsored by the computer and communications industry association Censor. Amy Klobuchar (d., Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (r., Iowa). The industry group represents companies including Amazon, Google, Facebook parent Meta Platform Inc., Apple Inc. and other tech firms.
The CCIA said on a website dedicated to repeal the law, “Americans turn to tech products to get delivery for their favorite products, find directions to local businesses, and connect with loved ones. These bill in Can all make things harder, more expensive.” less convenient, and less secure.”
Industry ads will run first in Washington and later on the Judiciary Committee and elsewhere in the senators’ home states, according to advisers involved, who said the trade group is prepared to spend several million dollars on the campaign, depending on whether How long does the legislative battle continue?
Dozens of small tech companies are urging Senate panels to pass the bill, including startup accelerators Y Combinator, Yelp Inc and Sonos Inc.
“The ability of major technology companies to grant themselves preferential treatment” prevents companies like ours from competing on merit, the companies said in a letter to the Senate panel on Tuesday.
He cited tactics, such as turning users away from competitors’ services or using non-public data to benefit the platform’s own services, that “deprive consumers of innovative offerings that would create a vibrant market.” “
Luther Lowe, Yelp’s senior vice president of public policy, said, “The part of the private sector that isn’t Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon is finally starting to — facing potential retaliation — boldly say, ‘Enough is enough. ” ,
Lawmakers backing the American Innovation and Choice Online Act say they are responding to concerns from both the public, businesses and small Internet companies, who say tech powerhouses such as Google and Amazon are trying to maintain their dominance in their markets. Wrongful abuse of power. They also say that as long as they compete fairly, the law will not force tech platforms to shut down popular services.
A new group also launched Tuesday to support the Klobuchar-Grassley bill as a starting point, which it expects will lead to widespread crackdown on the biggest tech companies. Called the Tech Oversight Project, its backers include an organization funded by eBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar and Meta co-founder Chris Hughes.
Outside the tech industry, a coalition called Small Business Rising, law in meetings with lawmakers and employees, according to Stacy Mitchell, who represents the Coalition and co-director of the non-profit organization Recruiting and training business owners to advance Local Self-Reliance Institute.
Tech companies are coping with these efforts on their own, often through third-party groups they fund.
Apple wrote to the committee on Tuesday that the bill would jeopardize a popular iPhone feature that would require apps to seek users’ consent to track their Internet activities.
The proposed law allows such services if they are “narrowly tailored” and necessary to meet goals including functionality, security or privacy, but Apple said meeting the bar would be difficult.
Google’s chief legal officer, Kent Walker, said in a blog post on Tuesday that “the vague and broad provisions of these bills would break popular products,” for example, by banning the company from displaying Google Maps directions in search results. .
The meta platform declined to comment. Amazon said the bill would jeopardize the ability of other businesses to sell in its marketplace, and cited a letter from three such businesses to other Amazon sellers that warned sellers of becoming “collateral damage” of lawmakers’ efforts.
The Connected Commerce Council, a non-profit representing small-business owners that also takes funding from Google and Amazon, according to its website, is making the case that antitrust laws targeting Big Tech should protect small businesses. who use the ancillary services of the Technology Platform.
Sens. The law by Klobuchar and Grassley would make it illegal for an Internet platform to take advantage of its products and services at the expense of other businesses that depend on the platform. Mr. Grassley is the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee and Ms. Klobuchar chairs the Judiciary Panel’s subcommittee on Antitrust Law.
The law is being debated in the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over antitrust matters, privacy rules and many Internet issues.
The Senate version of the bill has 12 co-sponsors—six Republicans and six Democrats. A similar bill approved by the House Judiciary Committee in June, along with other far-reaching measures, would force tech platforms to divest ancillary businesses altogether.
Some House Democrats have criticized those measures, including members from California, the home of Google, Facebook and Apple. House Democratic leadership did not bring him to vote in that chamber.
The Senate committee also plans to consider legislation that would create new rules governing how companies like Apple and Google operate their app stores, though a vote is not expected on Thursday. The bill seeks to cut fees when consumers spend money on other companies’ apps.
The Coalition for App Fairness, a group of companies with popular apps including Spotify Technology SA, Epic Games Inc., Match Group Inc. and others, say the bill will boost competition in markets dominated by the tech giant.
A version of that bill was introduced in the House in August, but it did not move forward.
The prospects for the bill are unclear. Although many lawmakers from both political parties believe that Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple have become too big and powerful, they disagree on possible solutions.
Republican lawmakers generally oppose the government’s efforts to impose new rules on American companies. A key player on antitrust issues, Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) has said that current US law already gives the Justice Department’s antitrust department enough power to rein in companies that have too much market power. Is.
The law also faces tremendous resistance from the tech industry’s powerful lobbying teams.
Over the past few years, Google, Facebook and Amazon have spent millions of dollars lobbying in Washington to oppose Congress’s efforts to implement stronger new industry rules.
No individual company in Washington spent more on lobbying than Amazon and Facebook during the first nine months of last year, according to recent lobbying-disclosure data. They each spent about $15 million, according to public lobbying records compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Industry is also a major source of campaign funding for leaders of both political parties. Employees of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple contributed a total of $12 million to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, according to an analysis of campaign-spend data from the Wall Street Journal. Microsoft Corp. In the U.S., employees at tech companies were the five biggest sources of donations to Biden’s campaign.
This story has been published without modification to the text from a wire agency feed
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