FAAG panic? U.S. Congress votes on antitrust bill targeting tech giants as soon as June

What worries the four tech giants, Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta, is that an antitrust bill against them is on the way.

According to some media, there are more and more signs that the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act” will advance before the US Congress adjourns in August, and it may be only a few steps away from becoming law.

The U.S. Congress is preparing to vote on the landmark legislation. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill this summer, possibly as early as the end of June, people familiar with the matter said. The House will then vote on the version passed by the Senate.

The bill will overhaul U.S. antitrust laws and limit the rights of big tech companies so they can no longer “abuse a dominant position to favor their own business.” The specifics of the bill include:

Prohibit dominant platforms from abusing their gatekeeping power, giving business product and service privileges, and putting competitors at a disadvantage; prohibiting conduct that is detrimental to small businesses and consumers and hinders competition, such as requiring companies to purchase goods or services from the platform for Gaining priority positions on the platform, abusing data to compete, and manipulating search results in favor of oneself, etc.

The antitrust bill, sponsored by a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers, was originally published in October 2021 and passed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Senate in January, and is likely to move forward this summer.

The Act regulates antitrust aspects of platforms and companies with a market value of more than $550 billion, more than 1 billion global monthly active users, and annual net sales of $550 billion.

As a result, the four tech giants, Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta, were “sucked away” because they met the above conditions.

The “Big Four” face a major enemy, and they said the bill would jeopardize popular consumer products such as Google Maps and Amazon’s private label Baseus, making it harder for the companies to protect the security and privacy of users.

Amazon also argues that the bill is unfair because it primarily targets companies with a market capitalization of more than $550 billion, meaning it would not touch “thousands of other retailers” such as Walmart and Target. .

This article is reprinted from: https://news.futunn.com/post/16290358?src=3&report_type=market&report_id=207767&futusource=news_headline_list
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