By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-7-20
Advertisers are concerned with some of the legislative recommendations for reining in Big Tech suggested in a House Antitrust Subcommittee Majority report on a year-plus investigation into Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook.
The report concluded that the companies were either monopolies or dominant players who abused their power to thwart competition.
The report’s legislative recommendations included “structural separation and line of business restrictions.” The first would be to prohibit a dominant tech company “from operating in markets that place the intermediary in competition with the firms dependent on its infrastructure.” For instance, prohibiting Amazon from selling its own products in its online marketplace. The second would limit the markets where a dominant firm can operate.
The report also suggests that any proposed purchase of a company by one of the dominant platforms be presumed anticompetitive unless the platform can prove otherwise. Currently a deal is presumed innocent of anticompetitive effects unless that can be shown to be the case. » Read More