House committee approves bill that could break up Amazon, Apple, and Google

Democrats who opposed it were Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.); Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.); Lou Correa (D-Calif.); and Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.).The bill text says it seeks to "eliminat[e] the conflicts of interest that arise from a dominant online platform's concurrent ownership or control of an online platform and certain other businesses." Under the bill text, large platform operators have conflicts of interest when they own or control a separate line of business that creates the incentive and ability to "advantage the covered platform operator's own products, services, or lines of business on the covered platform over those of a competing business" or "exclude from, or disadvantage, the products, services, or lines of business on the covered platform of a competing business."That could describe Amazon's online marketplace, Apple's App Store, or Google search, as those companies use their platforms to pitch their own products in competition with third-party businesses that rely on the giants' platforms to reach users. The iOS platform is the one where users understand that they can't be tricked or duped into some dark alley or side road where they're going to end up with a sideloaded app, even if they didn't intend to."The committee yesterday also approved the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act. Cicilline's press release said this proposed law "prohibits acquisitions of competitive threats by dominant platforms, as well [as] acquisitions that expand or entrench the market power of online platforms." The House committee approved the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act, which bill sponsors say "promotes competition online by lowering barriers to entry and switching costs for businesses and consumers through interoperability and data portability requirements.""Facebook would appear to be the target [of the ACCESS ACT], given that social media profiles are basically impossible to port from one network to another," we wrote in previous coverage.The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act was approved and would raise filing fees to give the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission more resources "to aggressively enforce the antitrust laws." The committee also approved the Republican-sponsored State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act to ensure that "state attorneys general are able to remain in the court they select rather than having their cases moved to a court the defendant prefer." Democrats denied that Microsoft would be exempt.The American Choice and Innovation Online Act and other competition bills written by Democrats define "covered platform" as one that has at least 50 million US-based monthly active users and at least 100,000 US-based businesses using the platform, is owned or controlled by an entity with net annual sales or market capitalization greater than $600 billion, and "is a critical trading partner for the sale or provision of any product or service offered on or directly related to the online platform."Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said at the hearing "that she thinks Microsoft would count as a critical trading partner because of its cloud platform," according to Bloomberg.