News

US Senator fed up of Big Tech, proposes to ban Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google & Microsoft

US Senator Josh Hawley, a staunch critic of Big Tech, unveiled an antitrust bill on Monday that would ban all mergers and acquisitions by companies with a market value greater than $100 billion, including Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, reports CNET.

“A small group of woke mega-corporations control the products Americans can buy, the information Americans can receive, and the speech Americans can engage in,” Hawley said in a statement Monday.” “These monopoly powers control our speech, our economy, our country, and their control has only grown because Washington has aided and abetted their quest for endless power. These platforms are determining elections, banning inconvenient political views, lining politicians’ pockets with hundreds of millions of dollars, and addicting our kids to screens”,  he added.

The bill would empower the Federal Trade Commission to label companies exercising dominant market power as “digital dominant firms” and prohibit them from acquiring potential competitors. Such companies would also be prohibited from prioritizing their own search results without explicitly disclosing that information.

Hawley’s bill would also require companies that lose antitrust cases to federal antitrust lawsuits to forfeit all their profits resulting from monopolistic conduct.

Google, Facebook, and other tech giants have come under increased scrutiny over their size and scale. Legislators and regulators are concerned about how their power might ultimately harm consumers, especially by choking off competition from smaller players in Silicon Valley. Google is facing three antitrust suits. In December, a pair of complaints were filed against Facebook seeking to break up Instagram and WhatsApp from the social networking giant.

Read More: Tech giants in serious trouble with mounting antitrust lawsuits

Sponsored
Ahsan Zafeer

A digital marketing professional specializing in content-based functional areas - Ahsan Zafeer is driven by a never-ending passion for developing, nurturing, and strategizing key content aspects. He writes extensively on tech, digital marketing, SEO, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies. He also serves as a digital marketing strategist and freelance consultant for globally oriented organizations. He tweets @AhsanZafeer

Share
Published by
Ahsan Zafeer

Recent Posts

Telecom Operators to Automatically Restore SIMs for Tax Filers

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has introduced a comprehensive mechanism for blocking and unblocking…

9 seconds ago

Trump’s Influence Fuels Bitcoin to Cross $100,000

Bitcoin broke the $100,000 mark for the first time on Thursday, driven by Trump's crypto-friendly…

32 mins ago

PSX Hits New Heights, Surges by 1,800 Points to Cross 97,000

On Thursday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) 100 Index surged by 1,781.94 points, or 1.86%,…

1 hour ago

Pakistan’s IT Minister Defends Internet Restrictions: Here’s All We Know!

Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Minister of State for IT and Telecom, made it clear on Thursday…

2 hours ago

PayPal Resolves Global Outage Impacting Thousands

PayPal, the global payment processing company, announced on Friday that it had successfully resolved a…

3 hours ago

7,300 Teaching Interns Hired Across Punjab

LAHORE: Punjab government colleges have completed the recruitment of 7,354 teaching interns. The Higher Education…

4 hours ago