The editorial notes that the American Choice and Innovation Online Act “could make a tangible difference for the small and mid-sized businesses that increasingly rely on Amazon, Google, and Facebook to reach customers”
WASHINGTON – The Boston Globe Editorial Board published a piece titled “A Chance for Congress to Turn Concern Over Big Tech’s Sway Into Action,” noting that the American Choice and Innovation Online Act “could make a tangible difference for the small and mid-sized businesses that increasingly rely on Amazon, Google, and Facebook to reach customers.”
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, introduced this legislation on Monday alongside a bipartisan set of cosponsors.
The American Choice and Innovation Online Act will restore competition online by establishing commonsense rules of the road for dominant digital platforms to prevent them from abusing their market power to harm competition, online businesses, and consumers.
From the editorial:
- “Lawmakers sound off on Big Tech plenty. But they have done precious little to restrain its often destructive power over our politics and economy. Now comes an opportunity to take targeted, but meaningful action.”
- “Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, announced last week that they will introduce legislation making it illegal for Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google to give their own products and services a leg up on the competition on their platforms.”
- “The measure would target a number of “self-preferencing” practices. It would block Google from prioritizing its services in search results — by, say, displaying its travel booking service ahead of Expedia’s and Kayak’s even if the data show that consumers prefer them. And it would prevent Amazon from scouring the information it collects on third-party sellers on its site in order to develop copy-cat products.”
- “If the largest platforms can’t be trusted to enforce even their own anticompetitive policies, then Washington has little choice but to act.”
- “...the measure could make a tangible difference for the small and mid-sized businesses that increasingly rely on Amazon, Google, and Facebook to reach customers.”
- “With evidence of the platforms’ corrosive effects mounting, statements of outrage are no longer enough.”
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