Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced legislation Monday to break up Big Tech companies such as Amazon and Google to ensure they can’t sell products on the same marketplaces that they control.
The Bust Up Big Tech Act would also prevent tech companies, such as Amazon, from providing online hosting or cloud services to other companies while operating a search engine, marketplace, or exchange.
“Woke Big Tech companies like Google and Amazon have been coddled by Washington politicians for years,” said Hawley in a statement regarding the bill Monday. “This treatment has allowed them to amass colossal amounts of power that they use to censor political opinions they don’t agree with and shut out competitors who offer consumers an alternative to the status quo.”
“It’s past time to bust up Big Tech companies, restore competition, and give the power back to the American consumers,” Hawley added.
CONSERVATIVE DAN GAINOR ATTEMPTS TO DOCUMENT BIAS AND CENSORSHIP ONLINE
Hawley is building upon another anti-tech bill he introduced last week, called the Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act, which would crack down on mergers and acquisitions by big corporations and strengthen antitrust enforcement to pursue the breakup of dominant, anti-competitive firms.
The ‘bust up’ bill would also beef up resources at the Federal Trade Commission to hire more staff to hold Big Tech companies accountable for the new statutes and would authorize state attorneys general and private citizens to bring lawsuits against them in case of antitrust violations.
The legislation does not have any other sponsors in the Senate yet, and there is no similar legislation in the House.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I’m willing to work with her and anybody of any party and any background,” Hawley told Reuters last week when asked about a Big Tech bill introduced by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota that is similar to the Trust-Busting Act.
