Pa. congresswoman is taking on Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google

Tech titans like Google and Facebook dominate the digital economy with vast troves of data gathered from consumers and businesses.But what if users could easily take that data — such as photos, friend lists, or customer reviews — and move them to a rival platform? Would that boost competition and curb the market power of America’s “Big Tech” giants?That’s the concept behind a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D., Pa.), one of the lawmakers leading an ambitious antitrust effort in Congress. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee advanced Scanlon’s bill and five others that target Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.The bills are the culmination of a 16-month congressional investigation that found the digital economy to be highly concentrated, with just a few firms controlling the markets for online search, social media, or advertising. The proposed laws would bar big tech companies from favoring their own products on their platforms, prevent them from buying businesses that are competitive threats, and increase filing fees for mergers to fund federal antitrust enforcement, among other things.“These new-age monopolies have grown quite rapidly and without regulation, but now we’re seeing serious impact on Americans and on small businesses,” Scanlon, a Democrat…
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