The biggest technology companies, including Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook and Apple Inc, have been under pressure in Congress because of allegations they abused their outsized market power. A long list of bills are aimed at reining them in, none of which have become law.
Lawmakers voted on an amended version of a bill introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, and Chuck Grassley, a Republican, that expanded the definition of companies covered by the bill to include firms like the popular video app TikTok and specified that companies were not required to share data with firms that the US government considers national security risks.
Klobuchar, chair of the panel’s antitrust panel, noted the deep-pocketed lobbying against the measure.
“We have a lot of support for this bill. We don’t have a lot of money to run TV ads in favour of it like those that oppose it, but we have a lot of support,” she said.
A second bill, led by US Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, was on the schedule but was held over. The Open App Markets Act would bar big app stores, like Apple, from requiring app providers to use their payment system and prohibit them from punishing apps that offer different prices through another app store or payment system.
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Both bills have a version in the US House of Representatives.
Both measures, and other bills aimed at Big Tech, have set off a firestorm of opposition from powerful business groups.
Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, criticized the Klobuchar/Grassley measure and predicted it would not pass the Senate.
“Antitrust policy should aim to promote consumer welfare – not punish specific companies,” he said in a statement.
The advocacy group Consumer Reports supported the Klobuchar/Grassley bill to “reset the power asymmetry between Big Tech, consumers and small businesses.”
