House panel pushes legislation targeting Big Tech’s power
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House panel pushed ahead Wednesday with ambitious legislation that could curb the market power of tech giants Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple and force them to sever their dominant platforms from their other lines of business.
Conservative Republican lawmakers haggled over legislative language and pushed concerns of perceived anti-conservative bias in online platforms but couldn’t halt the bipartisan momentum behind the package.
The drafting session and votes by the House Judiciary Committee are initial steps in what promises to be a strenuous slog through Congress. Many Republican lawmakers denounce the market dominance of Big Tech but don’t support a wholesale revamp of the antitrust laws.
Work on the massive bipartisan legislation stretched into the night. The session pushed beyond the 12-hour mark as lengthy debate ensued over a complex bill that would require online platforms to allow users to communicate directly with users on rival services. Proponents said the measure also would give consumers more power to determine how and with whom their personal data is shared.
Earlier, the Democratic-majority committee made quick work of arguably the least controversial bills in the package, which were approved over Republican objections. A measure that would increase the budget of the Federal Trade Commission drew Republican conservatives’ ire as an avenue toward amplified power for the agency. The legislation, passed 29-12 and sent to the full U.S. House, would increase filing fees for proposed tech mergers worth more than $500 million and cut the fees for those under that level.
A second bill would give states greater powers over companies in determining the courts in which to prosecute tech antitrust cases. Many state attorneys general have pursued antitrust cases against big tech companies, and many states joined with the U.S. Justice Department and the FTC in their antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook, respectively, last year. The measure drew many Republican votes and was approved 34-7.
The advance of the legislation comes as the tech giants already are smarting under federal investigations, epic antitrust lawsuits, near-constant condemnation from politicians of both parties, and a newly installed head of the powerful FTC who is a fierce critic of the industry.
The legislative package, led by industry critic Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., targets the companies’ structure and could point toward breaking them up, a dramatic step for Congress to take against a powerful industry whose products are woven into everyday life. If such steps were mandated, they could bring the biggest changes to the industry since the federal government’s landmark case against Microsoft some 20 years ago.