Smaller tech companies, including Proton, DuckDuckGo, and Mozilla, which offer more privacy than Big Tech, want Congress to vote on an antitrust bill.
The companies sent a letter to the Senate and the House, asking lawmakers to vote on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act “as soon as possible.”
The companies believe that the bill would encourage more competition and more privacy options for internet users.
“Massive tech platforms can exert influence over society and the digital economy because they ultimately have the power to collect, analyze, and monetize exorbitant amounts of personal information. This is not by accident, as some of the tech giants have intentionally abused their gatekeeper positions to lock users into perpetual surveillance while simultaneously making it difficult to switch to privacy-protective alternatives,” the companies wrote in the letters.
The bill aims to limit Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple, from preferencing their own services and products over rivals.
The antitrust bill has bipartisan support. It is backed by Senators Chuck Grassley and Amy Klobuchar, as well as Reps. Ken Buck and David Cicilline. The bill also passed the Judiciary Committees of both chambers with bipartisan support. But it is yet to go to a vote on the floors.
During the Code Conference, held last week, Klobuchar said the bill was not dead.
“It is really hard to take on these subjects when you have the biggest companies the world has ever known, that control an inordinate part of the economy, opposed to it,” Klobuchar said in the interview. “It is an incredible amount of money I’m up against. I have two lawyers. They have 2,800 lawyers and lobbyists. So I’m not naive about the David versus Goliath.”
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