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An Indiana Republican debates Senate passage of a new China bill in a bipartisan vote.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a raft of antitrust measures Friday, including one designed to break up big tech companies that run businesses with conflicts of interest.
Among a set of five bills, one was a proposal called the Ending Platform Monopolies Act that would potentially force large companies to split or separate businesses that have a conflict of interest. This action will prevent online platforms from owning companies that have incentivized the platform to favor their own products over other products offered on their platforms.
Lawmakers have raised an issue with Amazon, for example, for selling its own branded products on its website, raising questions about whether it is marketing competing products fairly.
The bill was sponsored by Representative Pramila Jayapal, Washington state, whose county includes Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle.
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Another bill in the package would prevent companies from exercising their self-preference for their products on their platform, while a third bill would increase scrutiny of mergers.
Lawmakers have also proposed increasing filing fees paid to antitrust agencies for merger reviews and allowing users to transfer information between major platforms.
The proposals, in general, are believed to target Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and only affect companies with a market capitalization of $600 billion and 500,000 or more monthly active users.
None of the companies responded to Fox News’ request for comment.
Promoting healthy competition within the tech sector is a focal point for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, although there is not always agreement on how to introduce regulation to achieve this goal. It is not clear whether the bills introduced on Friday could get the votes needed to pass both houses.
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Meanwhile, there are several efforts underway in court to try to ensure that companies do not engage in monopolistic behaviour.
As FOX Business previously reported, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit this week seeking to designate Google as a public utility in the state due to its dominance of internet search.
The complaint conflicts with the fact that the company is able to display its own products on its results pages.
This week, Google settled an antitrust lawsuit in France and agreed to pay $268 million. He also promised to make it easier for companies to advertise online.
A lawsuit was filed against Amazon late last month by the capital’s attorney general over anti-competitive practices.
A lawsuit was filed against Facebook in 2020 by federal officials.
The Department of Justice sued Google in October over antitrust concerns.
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