New York Attorney General investigates crypto lending platforms

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The measure, which currently has six co-sponsors, means growing bipartisan frustration with competitive practices from Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google has now produced proposals with the signature of key lawmakers from both houses of Congress.

“Our country faces a monopoly problem, and American consumers, workers and businesses are paying the price,” Klobuchar, who chairs the Senate competition panel, said in a statement. “We need to put in place policies to ensure that small businesses and entrepreneurs always have the opportunity to succeed in the digital market. “

The bill will prohibit “dominant platforms from abusing their custodial power by promoting their own products or services, disadvantaging their rivals, or discriminating between companies that use their platforms in a way that would materially harm competition on the platform ”.

It will also prevent platforms from “misusing” a company’s information to compete with it, “favoring search results in favor of the dominant company” and forcing other companies to buy. platform offers as a condition of good placement.

The bill echoes criticism from tech giants, including claims that Amazon is using proprietary data about its site’s small merchants to bolster its own brands or that Google is limiting the visibility of rivals like Yelp in its results.

The bill shares similarities with a bipartisan move by Representative David Cicillin, who chairs the House subcommittee on antitrust laws and conducted a months-long investigation of the companies that highlighted several concerns. Along with a package of reform proposals, Cicillin’s bill was withdrawn from committee in June, although opposition to the bills has grown and there has been little movement since then.

Rules of procedure in the Senate make it easy to block legislation that is only supported by a narrow majority. However, a bill with broad bipartisan support may signal that the priorities are moving closer to the law. In addition to Klobuchar, the senses. Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley signed the measure. They are respectively the first Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would oversee the bill.

A spokeswoman for Klobuchar said additional co-sponsors may join as well, and the group will present full text next week. Klobuchar also presented a set of major antitrust reform proposals in February, but this bill only counts Democrats among its co-sponsors.

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