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The next six weeks before Congress’ summer recess are “vital,” said Bill Kovacic, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and now a professor at George Washington University School of Law.
“The danger is that you will come out of this year with nothing,” he said. the regulation of virtual platforms is decreasing considerably. “
All of this comes after nearly five years of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle vowing to curb Big Tech’s strength and influence with very little to show for their efforts so far. Increasingly alarmed by the force exerted by giants such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Twitter, they have focused on how those corporations harm consumers through supposedly suffocating festivals of smaller players, exploiting non-public knowledge for profit or controlling what is shared and fed online.
Here’s a brief review of congressional spending and what’s holding it back.
Two pieces of the antitrust law are ready to be voted on in the Senate. If passed and enacted, the law will mark the biggest replacement for antitrust law in decades.
The U. S. Online Innovation and Choice ActUu. , presented last October through the senses. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. , and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, would prohibit corporations from favoring their own products on their platforms over those of their competitors. This would put an end, for example, to Google’s practice of highlighting its own products in search effects compared to those of its competitors and services. It would also prohibit Amazon from cataloging its own products in its e-commerce at the most reasonable time. of your page before the products sold through third party competitors.
The Law of Open Markets of Applications, presented in February through the senses. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, would ban companies, namely Apple or Google, from requiring app developers to pay commissions at app retail outlets. when your consumers make in-app purchases. Currently, Apple and Google, which are necessarily the app marketplace, require all apps that allow in-app purchases to use their payment processors and pay a commission on sales.
Both bills passed the House on a bipartisan basis. The bill also passed the committee earlier this year with strong bipartisan support, but senators from both parties say they still have considerations to address before a full-fledged vote.
Despite Klobuchar’s assurances that spending counts on the votes, New York Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has yet to schedule a vote on the legislation, a fact comedian John Oliver pointed out earlier this month in a segment of his HBO show last week tonight. Oliver, who is known for drawing attention to complex issues, such as net neutrality, addressed Schumer and referred to media reports showing that 17 members of Congress have young people who are running lately or have worked at big tech companies. This includes Schumer’s daughters who work as a marketing manager at Meta and a registered lobbyist for Amazon.
Schumer has said he supports the law and is running with Klobuchar to get the votes needed to pass it.
Meanwhile, teams representing the biggest names in tech, in addition to Amazon, Facebook and Google, have spent at least $36. 4 million since January 2021 on an advertising crusade to oppose antitrust legislation, according to the Wall Street Journal.
CEOs of big tech corporations also reached out directly to members of Congress to urge them to oppose the legislation. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly spoke with Schumer last week on a layover in Washington. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also called Schumer and other lawmakers, Politico reported. Apple CEO Tim Cook also stopped in Washington in June.
“We regularly talk to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about a variety of issues, including economic growth, aid for small businesses, immigration reform and cybersecurity,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said in a statement to CNET ahead of Pichai’s stopover in Washington. “We will continue to interact on issues applicable to other people and companies using our products. “
An Amazon spokesperson also said its CEO “meets with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle regarding policy issues that may affect only our customers. “Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The law is the culmination of a bipartisan congressional investigation into the practices of America’s largest tech companies, culminating in the 2020 release of a 450-page report on antitrust through the House Judiciary Subcommittee. The report concluded that Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook (which has since been renamed Meta) is their monopoly force to stifle competition.
For decades, Congress has tried in vain to pass a comprehensive customer information privacy law. Then, in early June, there was a first breakthrough in the stalemate, when a bipartisan organization of House and Senate leaders released a bill for privacy and U. S. information coverage. UU. La bill would provide a national public opinion on the information companies can collect from Americans and how they can use it.
But the bill, which emerged from a House energy and commerce subcommittee last week, is expected to face a difficult upgrade to the Senate, where Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. , whose committee will have to approve any privacy bill the Senate considers. He has already said he would not, raising considerations that the bill has “significant enforcement holes” and is too weak because it would override state laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, the Washington Post reported.
The so-called state preference factor has been an obstacle in negotiations for years, as Republicans have argued that a patchwork of national legislation would make enforcement difficult. Democrats and Republicans have also argued over consumers’ right to sue businesses directly. Bill would allow consumers to sue companies for privacy, those legislative lawsuits can only be filed for four years.
Kovacic, the GWU law professor, acknowledges that antitrust and privacy laws are perfect, but said privacy inaction is frustrating.
“We want to do this with the will to give up perfection forever,” he said. “It is a transparent desire to identify a comprehensive national regime. And for much of the decade, the only thing we’ve done as a country to fix it is communicate it. “