U.S. News: Tech Giants Fight Antitrust Measure

"WASHINGTON -- Big technology companies and their critics are ramping up lobbying efforts in Congress this week as a key Senate panel takes up legislation that seeks to blunt the market power of dominant tech platforms.

The antitrust legislation, set to be considered Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would bar dominant online platforms such as Amazon.com Inc.'s e-commerce site and Alphabet Inc.'s Google search engine from preferring their own goods and services over other companies.

Supporters say the internet dominance by a handful of big companies prevents smaller technology companies from gaining market share, stifling innovation.

Big technology companies counter that the proposed legislation would prevent them from providing free or low-cost services to consumers and small businesses.

In an ad campaign dubbed "Don't Break What Works," that began Wednesday, the Computer and Communications Industry Association targets the anti-tech efforts, including one sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa). The industry group represents companies including Amazon, Google, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., Apple Inc. and other tech firms.

"Americans turned to tech products to receive deliveries for their favorite products, find directions to local businesses and to connect with loved ones," CCIA says on a website dedicated to quashing the legislation. "These bills could make all these things harder, more expensive, less convenient and less secure."

The industry ads will run in Washington at first and later in the home states of the senators on the Judiciary Committee and elsewhere, according to consultants involved, who said the trade group is prepared to spend several million dollars on the campaign.

Dozens of smaller tech companies are urging the Senate panel to pass the bill, including the startup accelerator Y Combinator, Yelp Inc. and Sonos Inc. Dominant technologies companies' ability to give themselves preferential treatment "prevents companies like us from competing on the merits," the companies said in a letter to the Senate panel Tuesday.

They cited tactics, such as steering users away from competitors' services or using nonpublic data to benefit the platform's own services, that "deprive consumers of the innovative offerings a vibrant market would yield."

"The part of the private sector that is not Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon is finally starting to -- in the face of potential retaliation -- courageously say, 'Enough is enough,' " said Luther Lowe, Yelp's senior vice president for public policy.

Lawmakers supporting the American Innovation and Choice Online Act say they are responding to concerns by both the public, businesses and smaller internet companies that say tech powerhouses such as Google and Amazon are unfairly abusing their market power to maintain their dominance.

They also say the legislation won't force tech platforms to jettison popular services as long as they compete fairly.

A new group also launched Tuesday to back the Klobuchar-Grassley bill as a starting point in what it hopes will become a broader crackdown on the largest tech companies.

Called the Tech Oversight Project, its backers include organizations funded by eBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar and Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Meta." [1]

It is easy to see that China is also taking antitrust measures against China's tech giants.

1. U.S. News: Tech Giants Fight Antitrust Measure
Mullins, Brody; Ryan, Tracy. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 20 Jan 2022: A.6.