The House Judiciary Committee looks like it could hit Big Tech with an anti-trust effort some are calling a “grenade.” Two forthcoming bills aim to bust up Big Tech companies. Bloomberg reports:
The House Judiciary Committee approved an antitrust bill that would force large technology companies like Amazon.com Inc. to exit certain businesses, a signature proposal within a package of measures aimed at reining in the companies and spurring competition in digital markets.
The bill, which advanced Thursday on a bipartisan vote of 21-20, is one of six pieces of legislation moved forward by the committee over a marathon two-day session that would force Amazon, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to radically change their business models.
Taken together, the bills represent the beginnings of an effort in Congress to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement against tech platforms by giving competition officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission more tools to challenge conduct by the companies.
The most far-reaching proposal that advanced Thursday, HR 3825, would prohibit the tech firms from running a business that competes with others on their platform or one that offers a service that businesses must buy to get access to the platform. It would require Amazon, for example, to shed its valuable logistics business, Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, one of the sponsors, has said.
“This is a very extreme measure,” said Democrat Zoe Lofgren, who represents part of Silicon Valley and voted against the proposal. The bill “would take a grenade and just roll it into the tech economy and blow it up,” she said.
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