Description
A bipartisan group of US senators on Thursday introduced a bill to reduce the influence of Google and Facebook in online advertising, a harbinger that lawmakers will continue efforts to rein in Big Tech in the new Congress. . The bill targets Alphabet's Google and Meta's Facebook, as well as Amazon.com and Apple, according to Sen. Mike Lee's office. The bill would prohibit large digital ad companies, Google being the largest, from owning more than one part of the service stack that connects advertisers with companies with ad space.
The bill would only affect companies that do more than $20 billion in digital advertising transactions. The companies involved are expected to do more than $20 billion in digital ad transactions.
"If enacted, this bill will most likely require Google and Facebook to divest significant portions of their advertising businesses, business units that account for or facilitate a large portion of their advertising revenue," Lee's office said in a statement. a press release.
"Amazon may also have to divest, and the bill will have an impact on accelerating Apple's entry into third-party advertising."
The companies did not immediately comment.
Major sponsors of the bill include antitrust experts, including Sens. Mike Lee, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat. It also includes Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican technoskeptics like Sens. Josh Hawley and John Kennedy.
In the last legislative session, Congress passed bills to give bigger budgets to law enforcement and strengthen state attorneys general, but legislation to curb big tech is dead.
