U.S. President Joe Biden has announced the signing of an executive order targeting the monopoly practices of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), and Google – Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
Looking to Increase Competition
The order will prompt regulators to enact reforms such as increasing scrutiny of technology mergers and crank pressure on potentially “killer acquisitions,” in which companies acquire smaller brands to take them off the market.
President Biden is set to sign the executive order at the White House at 1:30 p.m. ET, as informed by the White House.
According to CNBC’s Ylan Mui on “Squawk Box,” Biden’s administration will demonstrate that the biggest companies in the tech industry use their power to keep smaller competitors out and exploit consumers’ personal information.
“The impulse for this executive order is really around where can we encourage greater competition across the board,” White House chief economic advisor Brian Deese told Mui in an exclusive interview.
Further, the 72 actions and recommendations included in the order –and comprising a dozen federal agencies– will aim at re-shaping the concepts of corporate consolidation and antitrust laws.
Regulators Have Failed to Control Growth
As informed by The New York Times, Biden’s executive order prompts the FTC to issue a new set of rules on Big Tech’s user monitoring and data collection practices, while urging the agency to ban unfair competition in online marketplaces.
The order arrives as a lifesaver for small and medium-sized businesses that have complained of the alleged crippling control by the Big Five within digital markets.
Earlier this week, New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced a bipartisan offensive by 37 district and attorney generals against Google for requiring some apps to use its payment methods while retaining a 30% commission of their digital product sales on Play Store.
In late June, a judge dismissed monopoly charges brought against the company by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a group of 46 states on the grounds of a monopolistic acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram.
According to The New York Times, “a growing group of lawmakers, academics and rival companies say government regulators failed to check the growth of the companies for more than a decade.”
Google, Facebook, and Amazon are part of the Entrepreneur Index, which tracks 60 of the largest publicly traded companies managed by their founders or their founders’ families.
Note: This article originally appeared at ValueWalk on July 9, 2021.
