Big Tech to Congress: Forget About Antitrust, Pass a Privacy Law

(Bloomberg) -- Tech giants have a message for Congress: Stop pushing for antitrust laws, and pass privacy rules instead.

Lobbying to stop a package of bills designed to curb internet giants’ power reached a frenzy this week, as the window for major legislation before the midterms closes. Two industry groups representing companies such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc. held separate lobbying days to oppose the bills and promote a federal privacy law, among other industry goals. 

TechNet, one of the oldest tech interest groups, met virtually with 41 lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The group’s president, Linda Moore, said TechNet argued that voters care more about addressing privacy issues than antitrust issues.

“A lot of the interest around the competition bills is based on the collection and the use of data,” Moore said. “Let’s focus on that part.”

A federal privacy standard was proposed years ago, but has not been a focus for this Congress as lawmakers turned their attention to competition and content moderation issues. But as many states have passed their own privacy bills, companies and lawmakers have looked to codify a federal standard. A meeting of members on the House and Senate committees that deal with the topic last week shows that momentum is building, TechNet’s Carl Holshouser said. 

TechNet also argued that American internet companies give the country a geopolitical advantage which could be muted if the companies are regulated, Moore said. Myriad other tech industry priorities were also promoted, such as funding for manufacturing semiconductors and increasing high-skill visas. The top lawyer for Alphabet’s Google unit, Kent Walker, joined some of the sessions. Moderate Democrats who have publicly opposed antitrust bills, including California Representative Zoe Lofgren and Washington Representative Suzan DelBene, also attended.

NetChoice, which represents a similar roster of the largest tech firms, led an in-person coalition of conservative groups in a lobbying day Monday. They met with over a dozen Republican lawmakers to critique the competition bills and advocate for privacy legislation, said Carl Szabo, the group’s vice president.

The group focused its critiques on two pieces of legislation which enjoy strong support in Congress -- the Open App Markets Act and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. The first would open up app stores operated by Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, while the second is designed to prevent large internet platforms like Amazon.com Inc. from giving priority to their own products and services.

A coalition of left-leaning groups dueled for lawmaker attention on Monday, staging an “Antitrust Day,” in support of these same bills. Rather than meeting with lawmakers, coalition members like Yelp Inc., Match Group Inc., and Spotify Technology SA, encouraged users to write their representatives. About 60,000 messages were sent to lawmakers, said Evan Greer of Fight For the Future, which helped organize the action.

Greer said that tech giants are pushing for privacy legislation to distract from momentum on antitrust. “We need legislation that cracks down on anti-competitive business practices. We also need legislation that takes aim at surveillance capitalism,” she said. “It’s not one or the other.”

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