Klobuchar defends bill that would bar Big Tech from preferring their own services
At a Senate committee on Big Tech, Sen. Amy Klobuchar pushed back against claims that her legislation to bar companies from self-preferencing their own platforms will hurt consumers.
U.S. Capitol Building
Back in October, Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced the bipartisan "American Innovative and Choice Online Act." The proposed bill would limit the ability for major tech companies to feature and prefer its own services over those of rivals.
At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, Klobuchar shot down claims that the bill would harm consumer choice.
"It's just that our laws haven't caught up to a major, major part of our economy. And my view has always been that competition is good for innovation," she said. "We've heard a lot of claims that somehow doing something is going to undermine the tech companies, but in fact, they are doing just fine and what we want to make sure is we continue to foster competition."
Despite the defense of the new bill, the committee hearing on Thursday focused on algorithms -- and, more specifically, how social media platforms design their algorithms to drive user engagement.
This isn't the first time that Klobuchar has taken aim at Big Tech. Earlier in 2021, for example, she introduced new legislation that could bolster antitrust regulators with additional power.
She also heads up the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights.
Read on AppleInsider
U.S. Capitol Building
Back in October, Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced the bipartisan "American Innovative and Choice Online Act." The proposed bill would limit the ability for major tech companies to feature and prefer its own services over those of rivals.
At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, Klobuchar shot down claims that the bill would harm consumer choice.
"It's just that our laws haven't caught up to a major, major part of our economy. And my view has always been that competition is good for innovation," she said. "We've heard a lot of claims that somehow doing something is going to undermine the tech companies, but in fact, they are doing just fine and what we want to make sure is we continue to foster competition."
Despite the defense of the new bill, the committee hearing on Thursday focused on algorithms -- and, more specifically, how social media platforms design their algorithms to drive user engagement.
This isn't the first time that Klobuchar has taken aim at Big Tech. Earlier in 2021, for example, she introduced new legislation that could bolster antitrust regulators with additional power.
She also heads up the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
You don't tell Best Buy not to promote their protection plans, instead let someone else offer an insurance service in your store.
You don't tell Nintendo not to promote their first-party games on the console platform they created.
Why should you tell Apple they can't promote services to enrich the iPhone experience, on the platform they created?
25 years ago or so, Apple was in big trouble, on the balls of its ass as they say. Through leadership and innovation, its changes somewhat since then...
Don't bork what works well. That's unfortunately the typical government thought process. Go work on the border, China, Russia, the ever-growing welfare state, rampant and rising crime and social decay, the insane debt, social security on the brink... you know, little things like that...
Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola, IBM, Palm, Sony, Sun, SGI, Digital, Commodore Amiga, Be OS, Atari, and Wang, have one thing in common they just gave up.
Britain and Norway, both had North Sea oil and Holland had North Sea gas, of the three only Norway (also working on Thorium reactors too along with Israel) planned ahead with the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, it is not Apple problem nor Norway if the others were short sighted……
Apple is claiming, with justification, that because they make the whole widget and that is their unique selling point, forcing the company to allow others into the process as "equal" partners will damage their business. Apple works hard to integrate everything they do into a seamless, safe and secure experience for their customers, so they don't see what they provide as being able to be divided up into sets of functionality: Apple products are "more than the sum of their parts."
The legal system does not accept this concept as workable (hence the drama around the iPhone patents). Instead, everything is simply constructed from modular pieces, and these pieces eventually become commoditised. From the government's point of view, they are simply applying this concept to regulation because history shows that commoditisation of modular pieces results in purchase prices coming down, which is viewed as prima facie good for the consumer. Without a methodology for determining the price of the benefit gained by retaining an integrated system, there is no data to support that choice, which makes it more likely to be challenged, which means more effort to support it.
And it's a little murkier when you add in Apps and Services. These are clearly separate from the devices – extensions to the Apple ecosystem – so Apple's argument gets weaker here. But the App Store is a key part of the ecosystem, yet it is also separate from the devices. Who knows the full extent of the integration between Apple's devices, software, and systems? Who can therefore accurately predict the outcome of forcing a separation between them?
And the same applies to Microsoft, and Google: they claim to offer modular systems with interchangeable pieces, but isn't it funny how all the Office/Google Apps work so well together but aren't designed to work equally well with apps from other developers? And yet the Google Apps are "free" (big asterisk, mumble mumble data harvesting and analysis mumble advertising cough). Android is also "free" but, oh, guess what manufacturer, if you want it to be "real" Android then you have to have the Google Play Store and that costs money, plus you cannot then sell Android Open Source Project devices.
This is a nuanced issue, and governments have not, historically, dealt well with nuance - especially in the technology space.
In what market is Apple a monopoly?
All one has to do is to google ........ "Klobuchar and Coalition of App Fairness" to see how bribery works. Though I'm sure it's not the 'bribery" Darkvader was referring to.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/05/technology-202-state-legislatures-across-country-are-targeting-app-stores/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/technology/apple-google-coalition-epic-match-spotify.html
And if you think the "Coalition of App Fairness" is a consumer group lobbying for the good of the consumers, I think Darkvader is still the owner of a few bridges that he/she might want to sell you.
Since Citizens United (and even before) every U.S. politician has to accept bribes (urrr, I meant "campaign contributions") if they want to win and hold their seat. It's one of many things undermining our democracy.