Big tech antitrust bill in danger after lobbyist spending spree
Apple, Google, and others have spent $95 million lobbying against a bill that would prevent them from favoring their own services, and between that and the schedule, a vote seems unlikely.
US Capitol. Credit: Alejandro Barba
Big Tech firms have been lobbying against the American Choice and Innovation Act since 2021. It's also been subject to delays as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been waiting to put the bill to a vote until there is sufficient support.
Now according to Bloomberg, it's a risk of failing because there is so little time left to pass major legislation before the midterms. This is the same problem that it faced before the August recess, but now the Senate is planning to be in session for just two weeks in October before the elections.
The bill would require 60 votes to pass and be sent to the House. It has 13 co-sponsors in the Senate. Since it is a bipartisan bill, some believe that if time were taken to put it to a vote, there would be sufficient support from the currently undecided.
"Once this bill comes to the floor for a vote, we are confident it will pass," said Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, who introduced the bill with Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley.
There are opponents of the bill within government, including Californian Republican Kevin McCarthy. But if the bill is not voted on in this session, it will have failed and will not return in its current form.
Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta reportedly spent almost $95 million in lobbying efforts against the bill. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) -- a group that has Amazon, Google, and Facebook as members -- says voters are not interested.
"I don't see it going to the floor," said Michael Petricone of the CTA. "With an election coming up, I expect senators to come back and focus on issues that are popular with voters. Tech regulation is not one of those issues."
Big Tech lobbyists argue that the bill's constraints would impact privacy.
However, Bloomberg reports that they are also concerned about how antitrust reform would work under a future GOP majority in the House. Such a majority would likely mean a focus on the allegation that online platforms limit conservative viewpoints.
Read on AppleInsider
US Capitol. Credit: Alejandro Barba
Big Tech firms have been lobbying against the American Choice and Innovation Act since 2021. It's also been subject to delays as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been waiting to put the bill to a vote until there is sufficient support.
Now according to Bloomberg, it's a risk of failing because there is so little time left to pass major legislation before the midterms. This is the same problem that it faced before the August recess, but now the Senate is planning to be in session for just two weeks in October before the elections.
The bill would require 60 votes to pass and be sent to the House. It has 13 co-sponsors in the Senate. Since it is a bipartisan bill, some believe that if time were taken to put it to a vote, there would be sufficient support from the currently undecided.
"Once this bill comes to the floor for a vote, we are confident it will pass," said Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, who introduced the bill with Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley.
There are opponents of the bill within government, including Californian Republican Kevin McCarthy. But if the bill is not voted on in this session, it will have failed and will not return in its current form.
Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta reportedly spent almost $95 million in lobbying efforts against the bill. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) -- a group that has Amazon, Google, and Facebook as members -- says voters are not interested.
"I don't see it going to the floor," said Michael Petricone of the CTA. "With an election coming up, I expect senators to come back and focus on issues that are popular with voters. Tech regulation is not one of those issues."
Big Tech lobbyists argue that the bill's constraints would impact privacy.
However, Bloomberg reports that they are also concerned about how antitrust reform would work under a future GOP majority in the House. Such a majority would likely mean a focus on the allegation that online platforms limit conservative viewpoints.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
It just shows how the entire political system is broken.
These include- monopoly control of your neighborhood internet ISP, the cost of cellular contracts and the poor service, the epidemic of online scams that especially target the elderly, the loss or privacy, misinformation etc etc.
I also think the proponents of the bill are responding to moneyed interests as well.
Nobody could lobby me to vote in favor of this bill, and you could give me a million dollars and I still wouldn't vote in favor of it.
The political system certainly is broken in many ways, and one way is these morons in Congress have no idea what a good law looks like and don't seem to care. The bill, like their campaigns, is a word salad.
Then there is a recent article in the NYT warning politicians they may want to take it slow on domestic tech lest they go too far and damage their ability to compete globally against the Chinese and Koreans. But the “Too big so break it up, kill it” Elizabeth Warren mentality persists.
"While the bill is narrow, what it does is important: it prevents the FCC from reclassifying broadband internet services again in the future. The bill stops the back and forth we’ve experienced, with one FCC instating net neutrality rules, only for another to strip away those protections. By deciding with a congressional mandate that broadband internet services fall firmly under Title II, the American public will have clarity on what the FCC can do, what users’ protections are, and who they can go to when ISPs cause harm."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/new-proposal-brings-us-step-closer-net-neutrality
Apple just announced today they will not raise IPhone 14 prices in this crazy stupid government policy induced 15 percent inflation!
Kudos to Apple! And Emergency satellite service for free for 2 years!? If you don’t appreciate this , just go look up how expensive it is to use a satellite phone!!
What has the stupid government done for us except increasing inflation and bashing great companies like Apple! Like Biden DOJ preparing a suit for Apple because these Chinese game companies like Epic complaining?
if DOJ brings that lawsuit vs Apple on behalf of Chinese owned Epic games. I will lose it!
stop this big government shit now!
sorry for the rant but just so sick of what is going on in our country!!
But more seriously, I don’t think it is JUST money that is making this bill falter. It’s that it appears to be a weak bill written mostly by people who have no real idea of how tech works.
Do Google, FB, and even Apple engage in some monopolistic abuse? Yes, they very likely do at least in some areas (Google and FB especially). What you need, however, is someone like Katie Porter to write the bill personally, not a bunch of technology-challenged doddering old men influenced by special interests. Porter seems to have a good handle on applying what she knows into specific questions and proposals. She does the research and seems to be able to focus on the core issues, unlike a lot of US legislators.
I am absolutely in favour of legislation that prevents technology providers from favouring their own products/services in search results, et al as has been part of this debate. But of far more importance to the general public, as badmonk noted, is security and privacy and the complete lack thereof from the non-Apple tech companies.
No body nor law ever granted FB, Google, et al the right to collect and sell intimate data about the users without explicit/informed consent, and because of that kind of widespread abuse it has become necessary to legislate that ability out of existence ASAP. If that happened, you’d be improving the internet for its users a thousand-fold, largely without harming existing advertising (which is still free to gather general information like age range, gender, location etc). Instead, Washington seems convinced that law enforcement needs to destroy encryption — something literally no internet user with a brain in their head actually wants, and that doing so would solve everything.
https://represent.us/action/5-facts-lobbyists/
https://www.uschamber.com/finance/antitrust/new-national-poll-voters-oppose-proposed-antitrust-regulations-for-technology-companies
https://www.uschamber.com/finance/antitrust/voters-to-congress-lower-prices-leave-tech-alone
Maybe not the most unbiased of poll but surely way more accurate in representing the sentiment of the general US population, than this heavily bias poll taken by the Coalition of App Fairness. Which was done only in "key" States. "Key" meaning States whose poll results would most likely support the positions of the CAF. All the other States whose results would most likely not support the positions of the CAF, were over looked for this poll.
https://appfairness.org/coalition-for-app-fairness-statement-on-new-polling-data/