Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon will receive a belated chance to provide feedback on U.S. House antitrust bills that, if passed and signed into law, could force drastic changes to their business models, products, and services.
Anna Edgerton for Bloomberg News:
The House antitrust subcommittee last month asked Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. for more information on how the panel’s package of antitrust bills would affect the companies.
The request comes more than three months after the House Judiciary Committee approved the measures on bipartisan votes, despite complaints from the companies that the process was rushed and they hadn’t been given an opportunity to weigh in.
The bills are stalled amid a busy legislative calendar and several fiscal deadlines… Two of the people familiar with the House request for more information said it was odd for the query to come after the committee already debated the bills. Three of the four companies have responded with general complaints about the proposals, and one of those is working on more detailed feedback. One company still hasn’t responded.
A person familiar with the antitrust subcommittee’s work said the bills could still change as members have more opportunities to submit amendments that could help build broader support in the House. The legislation still has to go to the Rules Committee before getting a vote on the House floor.
The House proposals, which would apply to companies that meet certain thresholds for market capitalization and monthly users, are aimed at Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. It would ultimately be up to the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission to determine whether a company is covered.
MacDailyNews Take: We wonder, do companies that “play ball” — say by knuckling under and betraying their users to install backdoor surveillance schemes across their products, regardless of the trojan horse in which they’re initially contained — manage to escape being covered in part or in full in these bills that, of course, “could still change?”
It’s not the least bit difficult to imagine some congressvermin threatening, “Nice business you have there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”
See also: EFF: Apple must abandon, not just delay, its backdoor surveillance plans – September 28, 2021
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
MacDailyNews Take: We wonder, do companies that “play ball” — say by knuckling under and betraying their users to install backdoor surveillance schemes across their products, regardless of the trojan horse in which they’re initially contained — manage to escape being covered in part or in full in these bills that, of course, “could still change?”
It’s not the least bit difficult to imagine some congressvermin threatening, “Nice business you have there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Thank you, MDN, for being the one and only Apple news site to tell it like it is!
This MDN Take is the mic drops of mic drops.