If apart from suppressing China, the two parties with huge differences on the policies of the two parties can reach a high degree of agreement, then it must include anti-monopoly supervision for technology giants.

Follow-up to promote antitrust

The Antitrust Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee held a three-hour hearing the day before yesterday. The topic was "Reviving Competition, Part 1: A Plan to Deal with the Power of Gatekeepers and Lower the Barriers to Network Entry" (Reviving Competition, Part 1: Proposals to Address Gatekeeper Power & Lower Barriers to Entry Online).

The focus of this hearing is to understand how technology giants play the role of gatekeeper, and what measures the legislative department should take to effectively avoid problems. As the name suggests, this hearing includes two meanings. The first one is how to dissolve Internet giants' control over online public opinion, and the second one is how to help more small companies enter the market and enhance market competition in the technology industry.

This is also the follow-up legislative discussion after the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee convened a hearing last summer with the CEOs of the four major Internet giants in the United States. At the end of July last year, Apple CEO Cook, Amazon CEO Bezos, Google CEO Pichai and Facebook CEO Zuckerberg accepted questions from the US House of Representatives through the Internet.

Although the Democrats and Republicans have clear positions on many policy issues and it is difficult to reach agreement, they are aware of the rapid expansion of the economic and political influence of the technology giants, and realize that the previous regulatory concepts must be changed and the technology giants must be restrained. Both the Trump administration and the Biden administration agree to continue antitrust investigations and lawsuits against technology giants.

Last year, the Trump Administration's Justice Department filed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook and Google. The Democratic-led House of Representatives released a 400-page antitrust investigation report "Digital Market Competition Investigation", which clearly proposed to change the previous regulatory concept. Internet giants are punished for their actions to suppress competition and control public opinion. This week’s hearing is also the first time that the Democratic Party has continued to discuss the legislative agenda after the Democratic Party fully controls the White House and the Senate and House of Representatives.

The positions of the two parties are basically the same

Although the two parties fought over the results of the general election last year, there was a wonderful harmony on the issue of anti-monopoly. At this week’s hearing, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Committee, Democrat David Cicilline, and committee member, Republican Ken Buck, successively expressed their antitrust regulatory stance on behalf of their respective parties. They all believe that the US antitrust regulatory system and specific laws need to be reformed.

At the beginning of the hearing, Sicilini warned in a straightforward manner, "Remember my words, change is coming, and legislation is coming." (Mark my words. Changing is coming, Laws are coming.) He listed the "bad behaviors" of these tech giants: buying new competitors (Facebook) on a large scale, and pressure other retailers (Amazon and Apple) through platform terms. , Suppress the news media (Google). At the end of his speech, Sicilini emphasized that he and Booker have reached many agreements.

Eric Gundersen, CEO of Mapbox, a geographic location data service company who testified at the hearing, bluntly criticized Google for using its dominant position in the search business to suppress competition in the map field, hoping that Google Maps can stop bullying Mapbox users .

It is worth noting that this call for regulatory reform has also been endorsed by the Judiciary Committee chairman, Democrat Jerrold Nadler and committee members, Republican Jim Jordan (Jim Jordan) and other two parties in power in the House of Representatives. This means that the current Congress will soon begin to draft new laws on the anti-monopoly supervision of technology giants, but the specific needs of the two parties will be different.

At the hearing, the two parties agreed on issues that also included increasing the budget and support for the two major antitrust regulators in the United States, namely, the antitrust department of the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The increase in budget is intended to promote the two major departments to accelerate the antitrust litigation work against technology giants (the lawsuits against Google and Facebook still require huge resources and energy, and the decision to sue Amazon and Apple has not yet been finalized), and strengthen the government's technology The review of giant M&A transactions.

In addition, the two parties also agreed that it is necessary to improve the interoperability of applications and devices in the current mobile Internet field, so that consumers can obtain a lot of data more portable and efficient. To this end, lawmakers from both parties proposed to form a new federal regulatory agency responsible for big data supervision and break the monopoly of Internet giants on big data. The spearhead of this organization is clearly directed at the four major Internet giants, all of which are currently facing related investigations and lawsuits in the United States or Europe.

Do not want to force a spin-off

Booker put forward several major antitrust principles at the hearing. The first is data interoperability. He advocates breaking the big data monopoly of technology giants. Booker cited the 1996 Federal Communications Act (this law establishes the right of consumers to port to the Internet), arguing that data should belong to consumers, not technology giants, and technology giants must not impose restrictions on consumer data transfer. , Lock consumers on their own platform. Booker made it clear that competing platforms should also ensure consumer data exchange.

The second is to prohibit large platforms from suppressing them. Booker also advocates the enactment of stricter antitrust laws to ensure that small businesses and new companies can also compete with technology giants instead of being strongly suppressed by technology giants. The platforms of tech giants must not favor their own products and services. Obviously, Apple and Amazon are the main targets of this regulatory principle.

In this regard, Democrat Amy Klobuchar, chairman of the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has a more radical approach. She made it clear that more severe penalties should be imposed on technology giants that violate antitrust regulations, and the fines can reach up to 15% of their total US business revenue.

The third principle is structural adjustment. The difference between the two parties mainly lies in this aspect, that is, whether to split up the different business lines of the technology giants. The Democratic Party’s stance should be tougher, and some radical lawmakers have clearly advocated the separation of the technology giants. The Republican Party's position is more moderate.

Republican Booker emphasized at the hearing that “(the key to antitrust is) we need to ensure that we will not harm the overall economy, so we should use precise methods of scalpel (Scalpel) on technology giants.” This is also the current antitrust supervision. The main idea of ​​the committee is to strengthen anti-monopoly supervision without damaging the competitiveness of the technology industry.

Booker made it clear that he did not advocate setting the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 in the technology industry. His subtext is that he does not approve of the forced spin-off of Internet giants. Because this law prohibits bank holding companies from owning other financial companies, it clearly separates commercial banks from investment banks and resolves possible conflicts of interest. However, the 1999 US "Financial Service Law Modernization Act" essentially abolished the principle of separate operation and separate supervision of the financial industry, and also laid the groundwork for the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008.

Different feedback from the technology industry

Although several major technology giants have not yet commented on the hearing, industry institutions and think tanks representing their interests have already put forward their own positions. Their point of defense emphasized that the cornerstone of anti-monopoly is to safeguard the interests of consumers and that competition based on technological innovation should be protected.

However, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a mainstream think tank representing the interests of the technology industry, raised clear objections to this regulatory hearing. ITIF's antitrust policy director Aurelien Portuese wrote in a statement to Sina Technology that antitrust regulatory legislation should ensure that innovation is encouraged, and digital innovation has brought countless benefits to society. Google and Facebook are both important members of ITIF.

ITIF emphasizes that the antitrust legislation of Congress should avoid static regulation of dynamic markets, and should encourage and promote innovation as the ultimate goal of regulation. It should not ignore the competitive advantage (technology companies) achieved through technological innovation, and should not allow the United States to Consumers bear the cost of antitrust reforms.

Even small and medium-sized enterprises are afraid that the government's anti-monopoly sword will hurt the growth trend of the digital economy. The Connected Commerce Council, an industry organization that represents more than 1,600 small businesses, emphasized the importance of opening up data interchange on the one hand, and the importance of technology giant platforms to small businesses on the other.

They issued a statement saying that the COVID-19 pandemic in the past year has made small businesses in the United States more dependent on technology giants. The Connect Chamber of Commerce hopes that the U.S. federal and state legislatures can further support the cooperation interests of small businesses on digital platforms. Jake Ward, chairman of the Connect Chamber of Commerce, said that 2020 will be a painful year for small businesses. Many small businesses rely on (tech giants) large platforms to accept orders and serve customers. These giants allow millions of small businesses to Survive during the epidemic.

"Congress rather than continue to conduct antitrust investigations, it is better to empower and invest in small businesses, provide resources to help them use digital means, enhance their survivability, and deal with the next crisis." Ward said in a statement.