It is well known that social media platforms operated by “Big Tech” companies play a vital role in advertising and allowing goods to reach the online market. In fact the market power held by these companies is so strong that they have been known to use their own platform to unfairly promote their products over their competitors. This unfair advatage given to Big Tech companies has promoted Senators Amy Klobuchar and Chuck Grassley will introduce a bill next week that will prevent tech firms from prioritizing their products or services on their own platforms.
How is it possible for Big Tech to prioritize their own goods over others one might ask? All it takes is to look at the structure of these platforms hold in the marketplace. Big Tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter are so large that advertisers are left with very few other realistic choices as to where they can advertise their products.
This is not a new phenomenon either. In September of 2019 The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon had been found to tweak the product-search algorithm to favor products that are more profitable for the company, as well as boost the reach of their own products over others. Apple has also found themselves in the center of a similar controversy over a report of tweaking their algorithm to favor their own products.
The bipartisan group of senators planning to introduce the bill titled, The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, is designed to prevent big tech platforms from using their position to disadvantage smaller rivals. Senator Klobuchar said in an interview that the bill reflects a growing realization in congress that competition laws, which prohibits anticompetitive agreements or monopolies from forming in the market place, need to be updated for the digital era.
From Amazon misusing data on their platform to Google tweaking their search results to divagate their rivals, it is clear that a bipartisan effort is being made to make big tech corporations more accountable to fair competition.
This blog post is part of the CIMA Law Group Blog. If you are in need of legal help, the CIMA Law Group is a law firm in Phoenix, Arizona which possesses expertise in Immigration Law, Criminal Defense, Personal Inquiry, and Government Relations.
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