What the US Congress is doing to harness Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon
A bill is proposed in the US Congress that aims to curb the power of the technology giants. The provisions would have far-reaching consequences on the way Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon operate
The Justice Committee of the US House of Congress has approved six antitrust bills. The legislative proposal intends to curb the dominance of Big Tech, in particular of Google and Facebook.
Among the approved measures is one that will ask companies planning mergers or acquisitions to prove that the transactions are compliant with the law, and no longer that the antitrust authority must prove their illegality. In addition, it could force platforms to sell certain lines of business.
The debate will now move from the committee to the House, to then end up in the Senate. The process is still long but, if the bill were to pass, it would be a blow to the American tech giants, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple.
The legislation, if passed in its entirety, would limit the way online platforms operate. It could potentially place severe limits on the services offered on the market by the tech giants.
Meanwhile, opposition to anti-tech measures by the US Chamber of Commerce and Alphabet giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google is consolidating.
All the details.
THE AIM OF THE NEW LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE
The bills aim to limit future acquisitions by the four largest tech companies, prevent them from favoring their products on their platforms, and force them to make their services interoperable and portable user data.
The package, known as the American Choice and Innovation Online Act, requires users to be able to transfer their data to other platforms and communicate with users on other platforms, with greater agility.
BRAKING THE BIG TECH
At the heart of the legislative package is the measure that prevents large technology companies from favoring their products on their platforms to the detriment of other companies and users themselves.
Congressman David Cicilline, chair of the antitrust subcommittee, said the bill was necessary because the tech giants had not played fair. "Google, Amazon and Apple each favor their own products in search results, giving themselves an unfair advantage over their competitors," he said.
According to a letter signed by thirteen U.S. tech groups – including Chamber of Progress, Americans for Prosperity, Computer and Communications Industry Association, Competitive Enterprise Institute, TechFreedom and NetChoice – the new laws would ban Amazon Prime and Amazon Basics, prevent Apple from pre-installing iMessage. and FaceTime on iPhone and would prevent Google from including Google Maps in search results.
THE CONSEQUENCES FOR APPLE
The bill allows iPhone users to download apps to their devices without having to use the Apple App Store.
THE REACTION OF CUPERTINO
A measure that led Apple CEO Tim Cook to publish a report stressing that the rule would damage customers' privacy and expose their data to more violations.
In a document published on Wednesday , Apple argues that the App Store protects consumers from malicious or scam apps.
THE LOCATION OF FACEBOOK
It also stops opposition from Facebook.
The group led by Mark Zuckerberg argued in a statement before the hearing that antitrust laws should not punish successful companies.
Congress should "address the areas of greatest concern to people, such as content moderation, electoral integrity and privacy, not attempt to dismantle the products and services that people depend on," a Facebook spokesperson said.
RULES IN FAVOR OF FOREIGN COMPETITION ACCORDING TO MENLO PARK
"These bills underestimate the relentless competition within the technology sector, including competition from foreign companies such as TikTok, WeChat and Alibaba," said the Menlo Park group spokesman.
AMAZON'S CRITICS
Amazon also argued that the bills would hurt sellers and customers, and that the House committee was moving too quickly.
THE GOOGLE DECLARATION
According to Google, the House's new antitrust laws would harm US technology leadership, "harm the way small businesses connect with consumers and raise serious privacy and security concerns." It can be read in a statement from the Mountain View giant shared exclusively with Axios .
“We are not opposed to antitrust scrutiny or updated regulations on specific issues. But American consumers and small businesses would be shocked at how these bills would break many of their favorite services. As many groups and companies have observed, the new laws would require us to downgrade our services and prevent us from offering important functionality used by hundreds of millions of Americans, ”said Mark Isakowitz, Google's vice president of government affairs and public policy.
THE APPROVAL OF THE ANTITRUST BILL
But the four tech giants can rest easy, at least for now.
Any bill will still need to pass both the House and the Senate, as well as require the signature of the president.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/congresso-usa-antitrust-aziende-tecnologiche/ on Sat, 26 Jun 2021 06:00:35 +0000.