WASHINGTON – Tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google could be forced to make sweeping changes to their businesses under a series of new bills.
According to CNN, the bipartisan legislation marks Congress’ most significant push to date to rein in Silicon Valley, and in some cases, take direct aim at the tech giants’ underlying business models.
If successful, the legislation could force Google to stop promoting Youtube in its search results, or prohibit Amazon from selling products on its marketplace that compete directly with third-party seller listings.
Meanwhile, Apple could be required to relax its restrictions on iOS app developers and Facebook could be banned from acquiring companies for the purpose of stifling future rivals.
The most aggressive of the five bills, which addresses concerns about tech giants using their control over multiple business lines to favor their own products or to suppress rivals, opens the door to breakups of the companies if they don’t comply.
The bills do not name specific companies but, virtually every legislative proposal seeks to respond to the findings of a 16-month investigation of the tech industry conducted by the house judiciary committee’s antitrust panel.