The Justice Department endorsed a bill Monday forbidding Big Tech platforms such as Apple and Google from self-preferencing, the Biden administration’s first gesture of full-throated support for one of the bipartisan antitrust bills moving through the House and Senate.
The Department of Justice sent a letter to leaders on the Senate Judiciary Committee on both sides of the aisle, expressing support for the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would prevent tech giants such as Amazon, Google, and Apple from unduly favoring their own products on their platforms and services or creating cheaper copycats of existing products using internal data.
The Senate bill, which has a counterpart in the House, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in January and is expected to head to the Senate floor in the coming months.
The Justice Department said that the bill would foster more dynamic digital markets by stopping dominant tech companies from impeding innovation and competition by clarifying the existing antitrust authority that the government has.
“By confirming the illegality of behaviors that reduce incentives for smaller or newer firms to innovate and compete, the legislation would supplement the existing antitrust laws in preventing the largest digital companies from abusing and exploiting their dominant positions to the detriment of competition and the competitive process,” wrote Peter Hyun, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department.
ANTI-BIG TECH ANTITRUST PUSH EXPECTED UNDER BIDEN
The bill would empower the federal government’s antitrust enforcers, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, to sue the tech giants for instances of self-preferencing behavior outlined in the bill. If they are found guilty in court, companies could be fined up to 15% of their total U.S. revenues earned during the period when the illegal conduct was occurring.
Only conduct that materially harms competition in the ways specified in the bill would be restricted, the bill’s supporters say. One example would be abusing a business’s data to compete against that business, which Amazon has been accused of doing. Another example would be forcing a business to buy the parent platform’s services in order to get preferred placement. Businesses would also be barred from ensuring that they benefit from search results on their own platforms, as well as restricting certain businesses’ products from functioning fully within the platform.
However, the Big Tech companies and consumer advocate groups say the bill would kill many popular tech offerings, such as Amazon’s Prime shipping and Basics product line, and significantly diminish Google’s search feature.
Despite having bipartisan support in the House and Senate, the bill faces opposition from some in both chambers who are concerned about government overreach.
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The Justice Department’s backing of the bill increases the chances of it being passed, but it’s not clear when or how the legislation will be advanced.
