U.S. lawmakers, wary of Big Tech, propose antitrust overhaul
U.S. lawmakers have unveiled sweeping antitrust measures targeted at tempering the dominance of Big Tech companies including Apple and Facebook, in what may be the most ambitious effort in decades to break corporate monopolies.
A bipartisan band of House members on Friday introduced five separate bills that propose changes so comprehensive they could reshape the major U.S. technology and entertainment companies and force an overhaul of their business practices.
In a bid to defend against corporate consolidation, the measures would make it harder for mega-companies like Amazon and Google to buy out smaller competitors, and facilitate the breakup of firms that use their dominant position in their core business to make deep inroads into another.
"At this time, unregulated tech monopolies have an excessive amount of power over our economy," the House Judiciary's Antitrust Subcommittee chairman David Cicilline, a Democrat, said in introducing the measures.
"They are in a distinctive position to choose winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices on consumers, and put folks unemployed."
The goal, he said, is to "level the playing field" and ensure that powerful tech companies follow the same rules as other businesses.
The bills follow a 16-month investigation by the Antitrust Subcommittee in to the state of competition in the digital marketplace, and particularly the unregulated power wielded by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
Silicon Valley giants attended under increasing fire in Europe and the United States due to concerns about monopoly-like power.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other G7 countries are keen to create a global tax rate of at least 15 percent on multinational firms, in a bid to optimize tax earnings from tech behemoths.
The antitrust bills ought to be debated and voted favorably out of your Judiciary Committee before getting a vote by the entire House of Representatives.
They might also need approval from the Senate before they may be signed into law by Biden.
Among the bills escalates the fees for mergers in order that regulators have significantly more funds to police corporations and enforce antitrust laws.
"Big Tech has abused its dominance available on the market to crush competitors, censor speech, and control how we see and understand the world," said House Republican Ken Buck, who took direct aim at a few of the largest players.
"Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google have prioritized power over innovation and harmed American businesses and consumers along the way."
The reform effort comes amid heightened scrutiny of large tech platforms that have increased their dominance through the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. state and federal antitrust enforcers this past year filed suits targeting Facebook and Google alleging unlawful dominance of their respective markets.
And last month Amazon was hit with an antitrust suit from the administrative centre Washington, which claimed the tech giant abuses its dominant position in online retail sales, harming consumers.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which Google, Amazon and Facebook are members, warned that the latest legislation is too "interventionist" and may mark the biggest departure from US antitrust policy in a hundred years.
"At the same time when individuals are frustrated with higher prices and fewer options in other segments of the economy, it's perplexing that the Committee wouldn't normally prioritize broad reform" instead of narrow action against a few companies, CCIA President Matthew Schruers said in a statement.
"Writing regulations for a handful of businesses will skew competition and leave consumers worse off."
Source: japantoday.com
