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US Senators Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal on Friday proposed an antitrust law that, if pbaded, could give the full measure of the Justice Ministry's recent investigation into monopoly issues among large high-tech companies .
Both Democrats call it the "law of deterrence from monopolization," Reuters reported. This legislation would give the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission the power to impose civil penalties on companies that violate antitrust laws, representing up to 15% of their total revenue in the United States or 30% of their revenues. in the United States in the affected markets.
Some companies have become so powerful that the fear of getting an injunction for monopolization offense no longer constitutes an effective deterrent, hence the need for "serious financial consequences," said Klobuchar, who seeks to to be a Democratic candidate in the presidential election next year. a statement about the invoice on his website.
"Our legislation would provide our antitrust supervisory bodies with new tools to deter monopolizing market power and empowering bad actors," Blumenthal said in a statement sent to Gizmodo by email. "US consumers and workers are being crushed by corporate consolidation and our outdated laws have failed to keep pace with our modern economy."
Whether the bill specifically mentions Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple or any other company involved in the Justice Department's investigation, it seems that this bill is the target of this bill given its timetable. Klobuchar also led efforts in June to provide Congress with more details on these investigations before their launch, according to his office's statement.
As part of its review, the Department of Justice plans to badyze how these large technology companies have secured their market power and whether their practices have "reduced competition, hindered innovation or harmed according to a statement by the GM.
This decision comes just weeks after the FTC hit Facebook with a $ 5 billion fine following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which had violated the personal data of about 87 million Facebook users. . Considering the company had a turnover of $ 15.08 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, Democrats at the time said the commission had "failed miserably" in its decision. While privacy breaches and antitrust violations are two completely different things, the way in which this new bill specifies possible fines as a proportion of a company's revenues could very well be a response to its dissatisfaction with the way the FTC punished the big tech company before.
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