Sen. Amy Klobuchar recently held a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee titled “Reining in Dominant Digital Platforms: Restoring Competition to Our Digital Markets,” continuing her efforts last year to establish herself as a champion for antitrust reform. Klobuchar’s theories for reform single out designated tech platforms and focus on protecting competitors instead of competition. Reforming antitrust to focus on propping up competitors is impractical and would harm consumers.
In their opening remarks for the hearing, Klobuchar and Sen. Mike Lee focused on “dominant platforms,” a term used in previous legislation that usually refers to Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Amazon and possibly Microsoft.
The complaints outlined during the hearing encompassed children’s privacy concerns, artificial intelligence and self-preferencing. Through these diverse topics, Klobuchar continually emphasized the companies’ size and used it to justify her calls to protect consumers and small businesses.
Published in its entirety in Medium.