De Amerikaanse overheid maakt zich op via antitrustwetgeving de Big Tech – de leidende internetbedrijven – onder vuur te nemen.De antitrustwetgeving is binnen de USA uitermate belangrijk, maar wordt al jaren beschouwd als een juridische uithoek. Dat staat op het punt te veranderen, sinds er politieke consensus ontstond dat de wijze van opereren van de Big Tech ongezonde trekken begint te vertonen (ons vet, Red.):

Like Bloomberg’s Joshua Brustein pointed out in a column published earlier, as a general rule, FTC[1] appointments don’t attract much press interest. And yet the confirmation of Lina Khan as a member of the FTC, and subsequent announcement from the White House that she would be tapped to lead the Commission, has proved a notable exception.
More than four years have passed since Khan wrote her groundbreaking paper criticizing the present American anti-monopoly legal framework, arguing that policies and laws must change for the US to keep big tech from destroying jobs, cornering markets and hoovering up profits. It was that paper, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” that caught the Trump Administration’s attention, and set Khan on the path to lead the reform of the FTC, as support for breaking up Big Tech grows on both sides of the aisle.
Khan’s confirmation, as ZeroHedge explained the other day, suggests that we will likely see even more antitrust action against Big Tech, beyond the flurry of lawsuits filed by the DoJ in partnership with various states AG’s and the FTC.

Het is niet alleen de benoeming van Khan, maar ook de ondersteuning vanuit het Congres die de Big Tech zorgen zal baren

But as Businessweek’s economics editor Peter Coy pointed out in a recent column, Congress is already hard at work empowering Khan with a flurry of new bills that could dramatically reshape the legal landscape where antitrust law is concerned. As Khan once reportedly told Coy via email, “if the laws are misinterpreted by courts, Congress is the only actor that can fix their mistakes.”
History will likely characterize Khan’s confirmation to lead the FTC as a milestone for American anti-trust law, but as Coy points out, it’s only the second-most-important development on that front this past week.

Deze Congresbrede aanpak is waarvoor de Big Tech het meest vreesde. Diverse hearings in het afgelopen jaar waren een voorzichtige voorafschaduwing van wat nu van start lijkt te gaan:

Five bills were introduced on June 11 by a handful of House Democrats and Republicans. They vary in the extremes of what’s being promised, but some of them, should they become law, could force companies like Apple and Amazon to exit certain businesses.

Tot de gevolgen kan gaan behoren, dat een aantal bedrijven ernstig zal worden gekortwiekt in hun activiteiten:

According to Bloomberg’s story on the legislation, one of the House bills, the “Ending Platform Monopolies Act,” would prohibit tech platforms from owning a business that competes with other products or services offered on the platform. Such a provision, if passed, would bar Amazon from selling its own branded products, Amazon Basics, for example, or Apple from offering Apple Music, or Google from providing specialized search services in travel, local businesses, and shopping.

De frontlijn is bekend, en de strijd staat op losbarsten:

For more on the “Ending Platform Monopolies” Act, readers can find the text here. Suffice to say, the bill, which would redefine the limits of American anti-trust law, would leave Khan with tremendous powers. And Big Tech is already marshaling its army of lobbyists and dark money-backed NGOs to try and stop this from happening.

Net als eind 19e eeuw lijkt de antitrustwetgeving enige eenheid binnen het Congres te kunnen brengen:

Too bad antitrust has become one of maybe a handful of issues – this, and ensuring American remains competitive against a rising China – that will bring Democrats and the GOP together.

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1. Federal Trade Commission

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Meer over de invloed van Big Tech op de moderne maatschappij, die wij al enige jaren goed in het oog houden, vindt u hier.