A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced four bills on Friday aimed at reining in the power of the tech giants,

Breaking up Big Tech in focus as new U.S. antitrust bills introduced

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2021-06-12 09:30:05

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced four bills on Friday aimed at reining in the power of the tech giants, with one potentially leading to their break-up.

Two of the bills address the issue of giant companies, such as Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google, creating a platform for other businesses and then competing against those same businesses.

One measure bans platforms from owning subsidiaries that operate on their platform if those subsidiaries compete with other businesses - potentially forcing the Big Tech firms to sell assets.

"From Amazon and Facebook (FB.O) to Google and Apple (AAPL.O), it is clear that these unregulated tech giants have become too big to care," said U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and sponsor of this measure.

The pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it "strongly opposes" the bills' approach. "Bills that target specific companies, instead of focusing on business practices, are simply bad policy ... and could be ruled unconstitutional," the Chamber's Neil Bradley said in a statement.