Facebook's court win could end up leading to big trouble for Big Tech

The “Ending Platform Monopolies Act” would make it illegal for a dominant platform (Amazon or Apple are the most obvious) from creating their own products or services to compete with competitors using their platforms. Amazon, for instance, has private-label products that compete with third parties within Amazon Marketplace.Another proposed bill would give consumers more control over the use and transportability of their data.The fate of the bills is uncertain. While both Democrats and Republicans are committed to crackdowns on Big Tech, it’s for very different reasons.China’s crackdown on its large tech companies appears partly driven by a desire to heading off the threat of their rapidly increasing power and influence to the Communist Party stranglehold on everything of significance that happens within China but also by concerns about their impact on financial stability and data privacy. Credit:APThe Democrats see Big Tech’s dominance in conventional competition policy terms – the companies are too big and use their market power to engage in anti-competitive conduct – while the Republicans want to punish the big social media companies for their alleged censorship of conservative speech.Nevertheless, while the eventual action might fall short of the Democrats’ ambitions, there is a bipartisan will in the US…
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