Yahoo Finance reporter Jennifer Schonberger explains why the latest tech antitrust bill has been placed on the back burner until the end of the summer.
Video Transcript
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SEANA SMITH: A tech antitrust bill that’s expected to get passed in the Senate won’t get a vote before summer recess, according to the bill’s lead sponsor, Senator Amy Klobuchar. Now Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger has a closer look at this for us. Jen.
JENNIFER SCHONBERGER: Good afternoon, Seana. That’s right, an anti-tech trust bill that could totally reshape the technology industry is not expected to get a vote by the Senate before the Senate goes on summer recess next week. Senator Amy Klobuchar, the lead sponsor on the bill, said a vote isn’t happening before summer recess since the Senate will vote on the Inflation Reduction Act this week.
But Klobuchar spoke with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last week about having a vote on the bill in the fall. The bill’s advocates worry the more the bill is put off, the greater the chance lobbyists could water it down. In fact, Judd Smith, a senior Republican staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was instrumental in drafting this legislation, is leaving to take a job as an lobbyist for Amazon Web Services, according to Politico.
The legislation would ban major tech platforms, like Amazon, Apple, and Google, from giving preference to their own products and services over rivals to level the playing field and stop them from putting their own content at the top of search engines at the disadvantage to small businesses. So if passed, it could, for instance, stop Google from being able to place its own travel recommendations at the top of search results.
Now, advocates of the bill say reform is needed to rebalance power in the tech space and allow new competitors to enter. But tech companies and critics have argued the bill would hurt consumers’ experiences by weakening security standards. Now the bill could get a vote this fall. And while there’s concern about what a delay would mean for the bill in its current state, an aide close to the process tells me given strong bipartisan support, that augurs well for chances of passage, even during a time in which it could be difficult to pass legislation in the fall before the midterms. Seana.
SEANA SMITH: OK, Jennifer, thanks so much.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: I’ll take it, Seana, from there. All right, thanks so much.
