Sen. Josh Hawley recently introduced a bill “Bust up Big Tech Act” to target the practice of Big Tech and how they leverage their power and muscle out the competition in the online marketplace. He believes that it is unfair of tech giants to run an online marketplace and sell products, while still competing with everyone else.
Big Tech monopolies, such as Amazon and Google, have been accused of using the marketplace and search engine techniques to promote and favor their own goods and services. The bill would also prohibit search engine companies from offering “hosting and internet infrastructure services” for third parties, which gives them the authority to kick entire websites off the internet.
One of the most notable examples of Big Tech web hosting services is when Amazon made the decision to ban the conservative-friendly Parler from its web hosting services. Google and Apple also banned Parler from their app stores, which excluded the app from Android and iPhone smartphones. Parler CEO John Matze called this a “coordinated attack” by the tech giants in order to kill competition in the marketplace. Big Tech has already shown that they are willing to censor every conservative and suppress every story that kills the radical-left agenda. How much control do we give them of the Internet?
“Woke Big Tech companies like Google and Amazon have been coddled by Washington politicians for years. This treatment has allowed them to amass colossal amounts of power that they use to censor political opinions they don’t agree with and shut out competitors who offer consumers an alternative to the status quo. It’s past time to bust up Big Tech companies, restore competition, and give the power back to the American consumers,” Sen. Hawley said.
Hawley’s “Bust up Big Tech Act” would also ban companies such as Amazon from selling Amazon-branded products on the Amazon marketplace, adding that no company should control e-commerce and the cloud on the same platform.
You can read the full bill here.
It is unclear whether or not Congress will pass legislation based on that, but it would allow private citizens and state attorneys general to sue companies over violations of the Federal Trade commission law. Hawley said that he would work with “anybody of any party and any background” to achieve results in limiting Big Tech power and that monopoly and liberty never go together. Corruption should never become so powerful that it overrides the voice of the people.
Hawley shares that the legislation would restore accountability to Big Tech and break up their ability to market their own retail goods alongside those of other sellers. A new trust-busting agenda would also empower compliance and strength in the antitrust laws. It would ban marketplaces and search engine companies from expanding their power and creating anticompetitive conflicts of interest with third-party hosting services. This means that tech monopoly Amazon would not be able to continue operating a massive online e-commerce, as well as an enormous share of cloud computing technology.
“A small group of woke mega-corporations control the products Americans can buy, the information Americans can receive, and the speech Americans can engage in. These monopoly powers control our speech, our economy, our country, and their control has only grown because Washington has aided and abetted their quest for endless power,” Hawley said.
Hawley has pushed for data transparency and warned Americans about Big Tech power for quite some time now. Woke corporations want to run this country and the radical left is happy to let them. As long as they gobble up our freedom and competition along the way.
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