Lobbying ramps up as Congress prepares to vote on landmark legislation:
Amazon and Alphabet are spearheading what is shaping up to be the most intense political campaign by corporate America in recent history as part of a last-ditch attempt to stop Congress from passing laws to curb their market power.
The companies are targeting a "self-preferencing" bill which would prevent large online platforms from using their dominance in one field to give other products an unfair advantage — for example, Alphabet using its Google search engine to promote its travel or shopping products.
[...] Democrats and Republicans have found rare common cause in recent years in their attempts to rein in the corporate power enjoyed by Silicon Valley's largest companies. Members of Congress have proposed a range of legislation to do so, including measures to limit when large technology companies can buy smaller rivals and to stop them acting as both buyers and sellers in the lucrative digital advertising market.
[...] The bill, which has been championed in the Senate by the Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar and in the House by her party colleague David Cicilline, specifically targets Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook parent Meta. It has passed through committees in the House and the Senate, and its supporters are now waiting for Democratic leaders to move it to a floor vote.
If passed, the bill would stop Google placing its own products at the top of its search results and would bar Amazon from giving preferential treatment in its online store to sellers who can afford to pay for it.
Amazon would be prohibited from forcing sellers on its Prime subscription service to use the company's own delivery services. It would also force companies to share certain customer data with potential rivals.
[...] In an attempt to allay some of the industry concerns, Klobuchar last month released an updated version of the text, which, among other things, would make it easier for companies to argue that they are taking certain actions to protect customers' digital privacy, and says companies should not be penalized for offering encrypted messaging services, such as WhatsApp, or subscription services, such as Amazon Prime.
These changes have not been enough to placate the bill's opponents, however. Zoe Lofgren, the Democratic representative from California, said: "As a matter of principle we have never legislated on the basis of making rules for five companies that are different from everyone else. The way it is crafted is problematic."
Given the divisions within their own party, some think Democratic leadership in Congress may avoid votes on the "self-preferencing" bill, even if it attracts Republican support. Others think Democrats will want to seize the opportunity to pass landmark legislation.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2022, @12:27AM (3 children)
Senate and House introduce bills that are sure to generate a flurry of lobbying dollars just in time for mid-term fundraising season. Aren't these incumbents self-preferencing over their opponents who don't get to shake down deep-pocketed companies?
(Score: 5, Funny) by istartedi on Thursday June 09 2022, @12:44AM (2 children)
The problem with the search engines rating things, or anybody rating anything, is that the ratings can be bought. We need government to rate the raters.
The government can be bought though. We can rate the politicians via the media, and vote based on that, but the media is also bought.
Don't worry though. I've got a plan to rate the media that rates the politicians that rate the raters.
I'm happy tell you all about it, for a fee.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2022, @12:57AM
Wut? You mean like liberal Soros buying influence in the Spanish-speaking market? No way José.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/group-high-profile-latinos-makes-60m-cash-deal-buy-18-radio-stations-rcna31895 [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2022, @01:33AM
Distributed search engine.
Lists of nodes controlled by corporations.
Client ranks the rankers to calculate final page score.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday June 09 2022, @01:09AM (4 children)
I dimly remember something about a certain operating system and a certain webbrowser and how their maker somehow made a huge deal around them being inseparable and artificially crammed the browser atrocity into the OS to pretend it can't be cut out, until it had to be?
Or was that one of those "EU only" things again?
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Thursday June 09 2022, @01:19AM
No, no, I remember that too. It's horseshi, er, turtles, all the way down.
- D
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 09 2022, @04:19PM (1 child)
And I dimly remember that we elected a Republican to the highest office of the branch of government responsible for punishing that convicted monopolist. Take a wild guess at what happened next!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 09 2022, @04:47PM
You must be thinking of Regan, whose administration dropped the antitrust case against IBM due to "lack of merit."
Oh, wait, we were talking about Microsoft.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2022, @04:20PM
That so called required web browser software will die in one week. Count the days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2022, @01:27AM (1 child)
Can someone in congress aid/legal profession chip in?
These search engine/social media oligarchs need to be reigned in, but the devil is in the detail. I say this from a guy that spent the whole career (heh, for what that's worth) in IT/bay area tech scene.
P.S. Try the burritos in the Mission District in SF.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2022, @07:11AM
All you have to do is read the article to know it's garbage.
Since using Amazon's delivery services is literally what Prime means, it's pretty obvious that the purpose of the law is just to shake down companies and not to improve any kind of competitiveness.
Here's another one:
On what planet is this any kind of legitimate thing for government to demand? We want less customer information getting passed around, not more. And to the extent that companies gather customer information legitimately, it's not their job to subsidize their competitors.
And finally:
Reined. Not reigned. Reined.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday June 09 2022, @01:43PM
i dummo, keep granting billon dollar contracts to private companies to run pieces of government
maybe if government did less things, there would be less corruption? do we really need all of this government? are all of these government depts really serving our needs, or are most of them existing simply because government jobs are real votes?