Lawmakers seek solutions to major platforms’ market dominance

At a U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights hearing Tuesday, lawmakers sought insights from witnesses on how to address major tech platforms’ dominance in the marketplace, specifically focusing on the practice of “self-preferencing” behaviors.

Senators heard from industry, academics and advocates on what they believe should be done to police the practice, in which tech giants — Google and Amazon were primarily used as the examples — favor their own products in marketing to consumers, to the detriment of smaller enterprises competing on their platforms.

While antitrust and competition may seem like somewhat irrelevant topics to privacy professionals, there’s an increasing sense both in the EU and the U.S. that antitrust law could and should play a role in tackling monopolies. The idea is that the companies that own the most consumer data own the market dominance.

Full article: Lawmakers seek solutions to major platforms’ market dominance