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58 Groups Urge Swift Passage of House Bills to Break Up Big Tech

WASHNGTON, D.C. – 58 organizations led by Public Citizen sent a letter today to the U.S. House leadership urging swift passage of six bipartisan bills that would rein in the runaway power of the biggest, wealthiest, and least accountable Big Tech companies. The bills are the culmination of a two-year investigation by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee into Big Tech abuses.

“America has a monopoly problem,” the letter reads. “Monopoly power lowers wages, reduces innovation and entrepreneurship, exacerbates income and regional inequality, undermines the free press, and perpetuates toxic systems of racialgender, and class dominance. Big Tech monopolies are at the center of many of these problems. Reining in these companies is an essential first step to reverse the damage of concentrated corporate power throughout our economy.”

Recent polling found that 57% of Democrats and Republicans and 61% percent of independents believe that Big Tech companies should be broken up, and nearly 90% voters strongly support rules to ensure Big Tech corporations do not abuse consumer data and civil rights.

The package of bills includes:

  • R. 3460, the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act, which would give state attorneys general the ability to stay in the court of their choosing when bringing a federal antitrust suit, rather than allow defendants to move a case to a more favorable venue;
  • R. 3816, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would prohibit anticompetitive discrimination, self-preferencing, and excluding competitors on the largest tech platforms;
  • R. 3825, the Ending Platform Monopolies Act, which would give government enforcers the ability to sue to break-up or separate parts of the businesses that create conflicts of interest and give big companies an unfair advantage against potential competitors and business users;
  • R. 3826, the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, which would prevent the most problematic mergers and acquisitions – including those that combine existing, potential, or nascent competitors, enhance, or maintain a company’s market power;
  • R. 3843, the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, which would update merger filing fees and authorize much-needed funding for antitrust enforcement agencies; and
  • R. 3849, the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act, which would allow users to take their data with them if they leave a platform and communicate across networks or platforms.