(Bloomberg) — A bipartisan group of senators is planning to introduce legislation to prevent the biggest U.S. technology giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. from giving an advantage to their own products over those of competitors.
The bill, announced on Thursday by Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, would prohibit the companies from using data to hurt competition, stacking search results in their favor or restricting the way other services use their platforms.
The measure matches a House proposal that tech groups have warned would risk user security and make it harder to use services that consumers enjoy.
“America has a monopoly problem, and we have these dominant tech companies that for too long have said ‘trust us,’” Klobuchar, who chairs the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “There has been a major assault on competition, and our country is built on open markets and fair competition.”
The legislation also bolsters the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement clout by giving the agency authority to levy civil penalties, impose injunctions and target executive pay.
A strong roster of co-sponsors, including the chair and top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would first consider the legislation, increases its chances of eventually getting a vote on the Senate floor. The proposal roughly mirrors a bill by Representative David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, which was advanced by the House Judiciary Committee in June but has not get gotten a vote in the full House.
The Senate bill reflects months of negotiations between Klobuchar, Grassley and their staffs to assuage concerns and build broader support in both parties. While the measure was in the works long before a Facebook whistle-blower raised allegations of misconduct by the company, Klobuchar said the past month’s revelations have served as a “catalyst for action” in Congress.
When it comes to tech-focused antitrust action, the companies “have been lobbying against this, and that’s why I was so pleased that my colleagues stood up to it,” Klobuchar said, adding that the companies’ lobbyists have a “take no prisoners” approach to opposing legislation they disagree with.
The Senate bill, like the House version, would apply to Apple, Amazon, Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. The Senate proposal has the same criteria for a platform’s monthly users but a slightly lower threshold for market capitalization — $550 billion instead of the $600 billion in the House bill — and small changes to the definition of a critical trading partner.
Klobuchar said her bill also eliminates a provision from the House version that would have allowed conduct that “increases consumer welfare,” because the senators believed that to be too big of a loophole for companies. The Senate version also streamlines some of the penalties and tweaks some language to “ensure that platforms can improve their products without fear of violating the law,” Klobuchar said.
Read More: Tech Giants Get New Chance to Weigh In on House Antitrust Bills
The bill from Cicilline, who chairs the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, and Representative Lance Gooden, a Texas Republican, was part of a package of six bipartisan bills put forth by the House Judiciary Committee. Two of those bills already have Senate companions, and Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, is working on another proposal similar to the House bill to limit mergers and acquisitions by covered platforms.
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