Mike Peterson
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has approved all six pieces of legislation in a sweeping antitrust package targeting Big Tech, advancing the bills to the full House of Representatives.
On Thursday, the committee narrowly advanced the sixth and final bill, the Ending Platform Monopolies Act, in a 21-20 vote. The proposal would bar technology companies from selling products on a platform they control, such as Amazon selling first-party goods on its own marketplace.
In the span of nearly 29 hours, the House Judiciary Committee debated and approved all six bills introduced in an antitrust package earlier in June. Support for the bills has been bipartisan, and votes were not along party lines.
Some of the other bills in the package include the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, which would ban tech giants from acquiring rising rivals, and the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition bill, which would make it easier for consumers to port their data from one platform to another.
Two other bills approved on Wednesday would increase the budget of the U.S.'s top antitrust enforcement agencies and allow antitrust cases brought by state attorneys general to be kept in a court of their choosing.
The approval of the bills by the panel now means that they're up for a vote before the full House of Representatives.
Apple has voiced opposition to the legislative package, claiming that they'd harm consumers and stifle innovation. Apple CEO Tim Cook also personally called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers in an attempt to sway opinion against the bills.
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19 Comments
I doubt the Ending Platform Monopolies Act will survive Constitutional judicial review if it ever became law. We have already seen the Courts push back on narrowly defining a particular product a monopoly in of itself without reference to the market and the judge in the Epic vs. Apple trial had the same sentiment.
Secondly, barring a tech company from selling wares on their own platform is incredibly silly and likely wouldn’t survive either. And I question whether the gov’t could prove a compelling public interest to force private companies to change their viable and otherwise legal business model.
Soon they’ll be telling Apple they can’t sell their products in their own retail stores. One of the most asinine things to come out of Congress.
We certainly need to reign in big companies that abuse their power, but we need laws that are targeted and nuanced. Maybe Apple should more actively lobby and interact with Congress to make this happen. Leaving it up to un/mis-informed, unsavvy lawmakers is a disaster waiting to happen.
Governments come and go. Politicians come and go. Stupidity remains.