The US Congress has taken a new step to control the market dominance of big tech companies. Bipartisan legislation advanced by a Senate panel would prevent dominant online platforms from favoring their own goods and services over rivals. This could, for example, prevent Amazon from directing consumers towards its own brands and away from competitors’ products on its massive e-commerce platform.
The bill could also bring restrictions to Google’s search engine, which accounts for about 90% of web searches worldwide and routinely places its services at the top of search results.
The legislation won a 16-6 vote in the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and was sent to the Senate floor. The move marked a new turning point in Congress’ effort to rein in tech giants and anti-competitive practices that critics say have harmed consumers, small businesses and innovation.
Lobbying from Meta (formerly Facebook), Google, Amazon, Apple and other tech giants was intense before the US Senate panel action.
Twitter says two security team leaders are leaving the company