Radical antitrust bills would be disastrous for consumers and innovation – Daily News
Last week, Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s top competition commissioner, praised all of the antitrust action legislators have been taking. Do American consumers really want what European consumers have (or, more precisely, what they don’t have)?
In June, the House Judiciary Committee approved six radical bills meant to reign in the market power of large tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter. The bills were originally co-sponsored by Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, and Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colorado. Four are particularly troubling:
Alongside President Biden’s recent executive order, which lays out 72 actions government agencies should take to encourage competition in the U.S. economy, we’re taking the U.S. 3000 miles in the wrong direction.
These actions are a brazen government intrusion into a highly competitive marketplace full of disruptive innovation and they are bolstered by the Biden Administration plan to protect old time competitors rather than the traditional antitrust role of protecting consumers.
Consumers win when they can decide the winners and losers so that Uber and Lyft can challenge taxi monopolies, AirBnB can offer a hotel alternative and working parents can save time and get overnight shipping from Amazon.
Innovation builds on innovation. We have the iPhone because we once had the rotary phone. We have self-driving vehicles because we once had the Model T. (Note: all of these were invented in America).
The House antitrust bills claim to protect consumer welfare, but they’re really anti-consumer and anti-innovation. Initially, they would mean the end of Amazon Prime free shipping, preinstalled Find My iPhone apps, finding YouTube videos in Google search results and more.
Even putting aside the resounding and inevitable consumer backlash, who knows what other inventions they would stymie in the future? Why are our lawmakers trying to dismantle the products and services Americans love? Why don’t these policymakers instead enable companies to create more?
The bills are aimed at “Big Tech,” but they would actually hurt consumers, small businesses and startups. Arbitrary rules included in the bills as drafted, such as the merger and acquisition limits, will end opportunities for business growth. Right now, small companies that want to grow typically look at two options: be acquired by a larger company for a big payout, or pursue an IPO (which is far, far more difficult). With these bills, what incentive or avenues do businesses have to grow?
Similarly, venture capitalists and investors will be reluctant to invest in new and promising businesses. Our whole system of economic opportunity and challenging the status quo of old businesses will be throttled. What happens to the American Dream when you can’t get any bigger, hire more people, invest in more startups and put money back into the economy? The ripple effect will be catastrophic.
If signed into law, the bills would also put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage against China and other countries. The bills clobber U.S. companies with mandates and restrictions and give ammunition to the EU and other regulators who target American companies.
What does that mean for the average American? The loss of American jobs. Less investment in American companies. Higher prices for technology. Less transparency in the products we buy. If China becomes a tech superpower, it follows that it will quickly become a political superpower as well. As The Atlantic wrote in 2020, “China will not be a pacifist power.” It will “export its values” along with its products.
Finally, these bills are a threat to our cybersecurity. By requiring companies to open their platforms to all parties, the proposal would eliminate the ability of services to police their sites against hackers, terrorists, foreign governments and other bad actors.
These bills don’t take into consideration the input of those across the country who would be most affected by them – notably, consumers and small business owners. Worse, these bills are being fast-tracked through the process, without hearings and testimony.
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Coming out of the country’s most challenging year of the century, we don’t need any more punitive legislation. We need our lawmakers, instead, to prioritize growth and success.
Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) ®, the U.S. trade association representing more than 1,500 consumer technology companies, and a New York Times best-selling author. He is the author of the book, “Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the New World of Innovation.” His views are his own.