CNBC: 2022 will be the ‘do or die’ moment for Congress to take action against Big Tech
The new year could be a pivotal one for tech policy — if Congress can move to act before the 2022 midterm season kicks into high gear.
Proposals to update competition law, establish online privacy rights and protect kids from harm on the internet have broad bipartisan support. But persisting differences on the best way to craft those laws as well as the presence of many other pressing legislative priorities have so far kept many significant bills from advancing.
With dozens of bills drafted and renewed outrage from lawmakers over the potential harmful impacts of internet platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Google’s YouTube ignited by a former Facebook employee’s testimony and leaked documents, there could just be enough momentum to advance some of the proposals.
And in the meantime, government agencies are likely to forge ahead with renewed regulations.
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“The enforcement agencies will probably be taking the lead as Congress tries to sort out what is not possible,” said Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, which advocates for stronger antitrust measures.
The FTC and DOJ both continue to prosecute Facebook and Google, respectively, on antitrust grounds. The FTC recently filed an amended complaint against Facebook after a judge initially dismissed its claims but gave it another chance to make its case.
The FTC has also reportedly been probing Amazon while the DOJ has reportedly taken on Apple. Of the two, Gallant predicted an Apple lawsuit would be more likely to come in 2022, partially due to resource constraints at the FTC, though he believes it’s more likely than not that Amazon will eventually face an antitrust challenge as well. Gallant predicted a DOJ and state suit against Apple would look similar to Epic Games’ lawsuit against the company, though potentially it would be even more expansive.
The agencies will also determine how they will handle merger enforcement, with the FTC already giving early indications that it could view more deals as anticompetitive. Still, a historic merger surge has tested limited resources.
“Working against the FTC is the fact that they do have to proactively block mergers,” said Miller. With each decision about whether to block a merger or pursue a conduct case, Miller said, the agency has to ask, “Do we think that if we move forward that we’ll regret it later because we’ll get tied up?”