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Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced a bill targeting Big Tech monopolies, especially those that favor their own products and services.
Amazon and Google are known for particularly advertising their own products on the search engines they own, an activity that Hawley believes should be banned.
The approval of this law would seriously affect the power of both companies, which have online marketplaces that they use to their advantage.
According to the senator’s cabinet, the bill would “also empower the Federal Trade Commission to monitor compliance with and strengthen enforcement of the antitrust laws.”
For Hawley, for years Big Tech like Google and Amazon have been coddled by Washington politicians. According to him, that has allowed them to amass troubling power that they use to censor political views they disagree with and exclude competitors that offer consumers an alternative to the status quo.
“It’s past time to bust up Big Tech companies, restore competition, and give power back the American consumers,” he said.
The bill itself would also seek to prohibit these Big Tech from providing online hosting and infrastructure services. This would prevent cases such as that of the social network Parler, which was blocked from these services.
To exemplify, Hawley states that, if the bill is approved, “Amazon cannot continue to operate an overwhelmingly dominant retail business and at the same time own a huge part of the cloud computing technology on which the internet is built.”
Finally, Hawley’s bill proposes to ensure that antitrust laws against Big Tech are actually enforced by authorizing state attorneys general and private citizens to bring civil actions to ensure their enforcement.
Hawley also recently announced his support for a proposal to ban the Tik Tok app on federal government devices, citing potential national security concerns.
Rafael Valera, Venezuelan, student of Political Science, political exile in São Paulo, Brazil since 2017 // Rafael Valera, venezolano, es estudiante de Ciencias Políticas y exiliado político en São Paulo, Brasil desde 2017